David Orfao, a managing director at General Catalyst Partners, discusses his role at GCP and his investment focus on deployment infrastructure, tools, application development and packaged applications within the enterprise software sector.

Halley welcomes David, a venture capitalist who does not come from the engineering side of the business but rather began as an entrepreneur with solid experience in sales and operations.

Their conversation begins with David's early days in start-ups on the East and West coasts, his career at Frame Technology Corporation, Claris Corporation, and SQA Corporation, and his leadership as CEO of Allaire Corporation and continues with a discussion on the private equity firm he founded with three other high school friends -- long after their school days at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols in Cambridge.

David has solid advice for entrepreneurs in this start-up environment; a climate which is less about IPOs and more about networking and partnering with companies that may offer opportunities to merge with or have the desire to acquire their partners.

This program is part of the Memory Lane series featuring Halley Suitt.