Paul Matteucci is a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, corporate executive, fly fisherman and home cook. He is passionate about building companies, creating jobs with opportunity, recreating the global food system, building the world’s first privately-funded national park, cooking, baseball, mystery novels and his family.

Current Work: Paul is an Operating Partner at U.S. Venture Partners, one of the true pioneers of venture capital, which have helped make Silicon Valley a leader in IT technology and health care innovation. At the same time, he is the Founder of Feeding 10 Billion (not affiliated with USVP), a non-profit initiative focused on building a robust eco-system of information and people to help entrepreneurs create their food-system businesses.

With a passion for creating jobs and mentoring startup teams, Paul has helped a generation of entrepreneurs learn how to execute during difficult times. In fact, he notes, the best of them learn to use challenges as a catalyst for innovation, and for creating cultures that are accountable, cash-efficient, resilient and focused.

At USVP, Paul has led or co-led investments in Livefyre, 3Ware (sold to AMCC), Total Beauty, Trovix (sold to Monster), PlaceIQ, Swoop, and others. He has also served on the boards of distillery, 4info, Homestead (sold to Intuit) and Jeda Networks. Paul’s current interests on the technology landscape include: Internet services, mobile computing, audience measurement and aggregation, data storage and data analytics.

At Feeding 10 Billion, Paul advises start-ups and works with public and private institutions to develop programs for entrepreneurs, who are creating what he calls Food System 6.0

Earlier Work: Paul began his professional career at Texas Instruments, Future Computing, and Tandem Computers. In 1996, he became CEO of HearMe, taking that company public in 1998. His two decades of operating experience included eight years with Adaptec, where he was Vice President and General Manager of the Storage Products Operation, leading the business to over a quarter billion in revenue, before turning it over to a team he hired and mentored.

Paul served as a Resident Entrepreneur for Institutional Venture Partners in 1995 and was an advisor to Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures in the 1990s. Paul earned an M.B.A. from Stanford University, an M.A. in International Studies from Johns Hopkins and a B.A. from the University of the Pacific.

A grandson of Italian immigrants, he followed his heritage from San Francisco to Florence, Italy, where he attended cooking school. He once blended his passions for cooking and the environment into a series of fundraising dinners for APR–“Lewis and Clark: Cooking of the Jeffersonian Era.” Checkout his website and blog at FoodCrunch.

Favorite Books: A River Runs Through It by Norman MacLean, because “it reminds me of growing up with my father and brother,” and The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, which describes how industrial food is destroying our health and the planet.