Chloe Steinberg, 34, is a venture capital investor who was a seed investor in Canva and led Equinox Ventures, the VC arm of the Equinox Group of brands. Steinberg is a mother of four and lives in Connecticut. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I left my firm about four years ago after I had my second child. I was raised as a chronic overachiever. You go to an Ivy League school. You go to an investment bank.
Power to my parents for raising me to have that kind of ambition, but when I had my daughter, I had this anxiety over, “I don’t want her to have my nervous system.” I’m proud of everything I’ve accomplished, but I really just want her to chase joy.
While I was in the delivery room, I inked a life-changing exit from an investment in a tech company, where I was an early-stage investor. I wrote that check when I was in my early 20s. Ten years later, I had the opportunity to exit a portion of my holdings. It’s a crazy realization that one investment can change your entire life.
It afforded me the opportunity to leave my job and think about who I wanted to be for the next evolution. I knew I didn’t want to raise my kids from an airplane. Having breakfast with them on a Tuesday matters more than any deal I would close.
The same brain I always had
My identity crisis started after I left because I moved to Connecticut, where I didn’t know anyone. When I met people, the first thing they asked was, “What do you do?” In the beginning, I said, “I was a VC.”
I was suddenly a stay-at-home mom. Nobody knew I had accomplishments. I don’t know why that matters, but after I quit my job, I was still trying to prove myself. Stepping back from a title, you want the room to know you’ve still got it. The hardest part of leaving my career was my ego.
Part of the identity crisis of becoming a mom is that I didn’t want my kids to view being a mother as not being ambitious. I didn’t stop working; I took the same brain I’ve always had — I just shifted what I was using it for. The fact that it doesn’t count, because I don’t have a fancy title, is stupid.
How do you show that you can be a mom and be ambitious, or you can be anything and be ambitious? At the same time, ambition doesn’t define a person. It’s a tool for navigating life. It shouldn’t be about how hard you can grind. It’s about how effectively you can live.
Where did that brava go?
At one point, a good friend of mine, who is the CEO of a well-known consumer company, said, “I know you’re not working right now, but why did you go quiet? You used to publish articles. You’re such a thought leader.” My answer was, “I’m quiet because I don’t know what to say.”
It had started before I left my job. The more senior I got, the more I let people talk me down from my own certainty. We’re born certain. Kids are pure instinct, no apology. They know what they want, and they don’t check it against the room. By the time we’re called experienced, we have been trained to distrust what was loudest in us when we were young.
Part of what makes a great investor is having that intuition. You don’t have groupthink when you go with what you feel. The best investments are the ones 99% of people thought were wrong.
I’m Puerto Rican, and my mom always says, “My daughter is so brava.” Where did that bravery go after years of being beaten down in a boardroom, years of learning the reasons not to do something, of over-diligencing, of not trusting my gut?
That’s when it clicked. I was thinking about how badly I would never want my daughter to be quieted. How ashamed would I be as a mother if I let that happen to her?
What’s worth my time?
I recently invested in a Silicon Valley startup after reaching out to the founder. I had lunch with him to explain my interest in the company. Sitting across the table, talking about why I love the product, what I envision for the future — it reminded me that I did that. The firm didn’t do that. It was validating to believe in something enough to chase it down.
Why do we have to talk about who we used to be? People will say, “What’s your plan when your kids are all in school again?” I’m like, “I don’t know. I’m going to do something meaningful.” If nothing is more meaningful than raising these little people, why is it worth my time? I understand that’s coming from a position of privilege. I’m so fortunate to be here because of my hard work, but ambition for the sake of ambition feels stupid now.
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