Jan 2, 2019 · 35m · a16z
a16z Podcast | Building the Right Technical Advisory Board
Arnie Goldberg · 9m spoken Purnima Padmanaban · 8m spoken Alex Roeder · 6m spoken Peter Levine · 6m spoken Michael Copeland · 57s spoken
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In this episode of the a16z Podcast, technology executives and investors discuss how startup founders and enterprise leaders can strategically build, manage, and leverage Technical Advisory Boards (TABs) to navigate complex engineering decisions, accelerate executive hiring, and scale technical culture.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 2.1 Guest teaching 3.3 Guest disagreement 1.1 The host pushing back 1.0
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 12:28 Critique of performative engineering presentations
Alex Roeder forcefully criticizes companies that force productive engineers off their core work to give fluff presentations to fancy-titled advisors, calling it a waste of everyone's time.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 1:07 Enforcing structural definitionsPeter Levine insists on stopping to establish a firm distinction between formal board advisors and advisory boards before allowing the discussion to move forward.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 6:48 Real-world architectural arbitration lessonArnie Goldberg provides a masterclass on how Box utilized a TAB to break internal deadlocks between Neo4j graph databases and traditional LAMP stack models during rapid scaling.
The host holds their own ▶ 1:07 Establishing venture governance expertisePeter Levine displays his venture capital background by laying out the precise governance and fiduciary differences between direct board members and advisory panels.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Differentiating Technical, Customer, and Board Advisors | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Host Peter Levine opens by clearly defining board advisors versus advisory boards and asks the guests to contrast customer and technical advisory boards. Arnie Goldberg and Purnima Padmanaban explain how customer advisory boards inform product roadmaps while TABs solve specific technical choices. | |
| Practical Value and Architectural Decision-Making | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Peter prompts Arnie for real-world examples from Box's early scaling phase. Arnie details using a TAB to arbitrate deep architectural choices between Neo4j graph persistence and LAMP stack modeling for waterfall permissioning. | |
| TAB Structure, Ideal Size, and Term Lengths | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Peter inquires about optimal board structure and term lengths. Purnima outlines why six to eight members on two-year terms work best, which Alex and Arnie reinforce with practical meeting size rules. | |
| Avoiding Advisor Overhead and Engineering Taxes | 2 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Peter asks about meeting frequency, prompting Alex to share a strong anti-pattern warning. Alex describes how pulling engineers away from work to deliver fluff presentations to fancy-titled advisors acts as a wasteful engineering tax. | |
| Structuring Actionable TAB Meetings and Sunsetting Boards | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Peter asks how to structure impactful meetings and when to end them. Arnie explains that TABs should be centered on explicit debate topics and disbands once internal engineering maturity renders external advisors redundant. | |
| The Ten-Minute Rule and Fostering Productive Debate | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Peter asks how meeting agendas are chosen. Purnima introduces her strict ten-minute presentation rule, emphasizing that longer presentations waste advisor expertise that should be spent on discussion. | |
| Selecting and Recruiting the Right Board Members | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Peter asks how to select the right advisors and balance group dynamics. The guests detail vetting candidates via casual coffee chats on real problems and ensuring domain diversity across sectors like healthcare and finance. | |
| Unexpected Benefits: Mentorship and Recruiting Support | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Peter asks for unexpected TAB benefits. Arnie and Purnima share how advisors provided executive mentorship on organizational scaling and unexpectedly assisted with high-level candidate recruitment. | |
| Aligning Executive Roles: CEO, Product, and Engineering | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Peter asks how CEO and VP of Engineering perspectives align and what makes an exceptional advisor. Purnima notes TABs add major value to Product Management, while Arnie highlights pattern recognition as the key advisor trait. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Box formed customer advisory boards using target CIOs to drive roadmaps
“So at Box, we had both, and they're very, very different. So the audience or the population of your customer advisory board are really what you would expect to sell to, right? So in, in Box's case, it would be the CIOs of big companies across different vertica…”
Goldberg: Technical advisory boards provide unvested outside perspectives on engineering choices
“I needed smart people from the outside that didn't have a lot of vested interest in the solution or weren't going to be there necessarily to deal with the consequences, to just bring some informed opinions from their experience into some tough technical choice…”
Padmanaban: Early-stage customer advisory boards should consist of non-customers
“When you're starting out, even though it's a customer, you call it a customer advisory board, ah, none of them are your customers, and actually turns out to be great because you're getting a lot of feedback from the customers, as you said, on the use case, on …”
Goldberg: Box resolved a six-month engineering debate with one advisory meeting
“Six months went by, and this debate raged within our engineering team, and even as we hired, you know, more senior people to come in, and the debate wouldn't go away. All it took was one formal conversation with, you know, some of the, as I created this archit…”
Goldberg joined Box because its co-founding CTO stopped wanting to manage
“While in my role as VP of engineering for Box trying to scale the company, I had a co-founding CTO that didn't want to manage anymore. That's basically how I got into Box at the very beginning.”
Padmanaban: Six to eight members is optimal for technical advisory boards
“With startups and smaller companies, things move very fast, and so you need constant feedback. And so you have this from a structure perspective, six to eight members is actually works out well.”
Padmanaban: Technical advisory boards should use renewable two-year terms
“So instead of having a four-year term, usually we have done a two-year term for the advisors, and then you can always renew if the advisor is still relevant to, and is providing a lot of input for another two years.”
Roeder: Unfocused technical advisory board meetings impose productivity taxes on engineers
“So, if you're gonna invite other people in, be really sure that they know why they're there, and I mean, I sit on these things to help. There's really no other reason. Like, it's fun and interesting, and you meet smart people, and you're there to help. So when…”
Goldberg: Technical advisory boards should debate decisions, not grant approvals
“It's not to present something and get approval, but it's to debate a point and to debate something that, that is worthwhile enough to, you know, get all these people, high power people from, you know, across the Valley or whatever, into a room together and mak…”
Goldberg: Disband technical advisory boards when actionable problems are lacking
“It's okay to disband these things if they become, it's actually, if people appreciate it, even though the, you know, the people in a room have fun hanging out with each other If there's not real actionable things that have to come out of it, you're wasting eve…”
Padmanaban: Spending over ten minutes presenting at advisory meetings wastes time
“My rule has been, if you are spent, spending more than 10 minutes presenting, you're wasting the advisor's time.”
Goldberg: Box failed to cycle off unproductive advisors due to missing clauses
“And so, you know, what happens if you have vocal advisors, and so this is also where it goes back to the point about refreshing the board every couple of years, because I got advisors on that seemed great on paper, but didn't contribute and so I would have lov…”
Roeder: Evaluate potential technical advisors by presenting real company problems
“Giving, you know, giving real problems that you're working on is, is one of the better ways to understand, get real signal from people, so I would just talk about where the company is, why you're putting it together, some of the things you're grappling with, a…”
Padmanaban: Technical advisory boards yield unexpected deal referrals and key hires
“Many of them ended up getting, getting, giving referrals to other deals, as well as really helped in some of the hiring decisions. I didn't, I, that was not my stated goal at all, but we were looking for some technical experts, and they had access to the pool,…”
Padmanaban: Customer advisory boards primarily serve to validate problem statements
“From a CEO perspective, The customer advisory board, the biggest one is validation of the problem statement.”
Padmanaban: Technical advisory boards are critical for product management teams
“But on the technical side, it's not just for engineering. I found it was very valuable for the product management folks.”
Roeder: Technical advisory boards work best with informal, real-time problem solving
“I think the best arrangements are when The company's just super, not too formal about it, just really honest about what they're, instead of, oh, I have a technical advisory board meeting next week, oh shoot, like I have to think of an agenda, and now it's a to…”
Goldberg: Box gave technical advisors equity equivalent to senior engineer packages
“I just gave a stock option package that was equivalent to a seasoned engineer. And, you know, I put my board together pretty early on in Box's life, so it was a, it ended up being a pretty reasonable package at the end of it all. But it was I think a three-yea…”
Padmanaban: Intel strictly prohibits employees from accepting equity for board advice
“Intel has a very strict policy that you cannot accept anything. So after a lot of back and forth, she still wanted to be on the board and provide advice, but had to sign an agreement with Intel, and we had to sign an agreement with Intel that in no shape or fo…”
Padmanaban: Close sales deals before appointing customer contacts to advisory boards
“When I wanted some of the advice, them as advisors, some folks I had as informal advisors, still I sold the deal. Once I sold the deal, then I brought them off on as a formal advisor, because having gone through that.”