Andrew developed his passion for building businesses and technology at a young age. He started working at his family restaurant at age 5 and saw first-hand the entrepreneurial virtues of perseverance, hiring and motivating great teams, and putting customers first. One loyal customer, a local scientist from Princeton, visited every weekend and taught Andrew advanced math and physics, encouraging him to dream about how science and technology could change the world.
While studying mathematics at Harvard, Andrew started his first company at age 19 to build some of the first Flash-based, database-driven web sites for local businesses in the HTML 1.0 era. Upon graduation, his love for technology led him to join Trilogy, an enterprise software company based in Austin. There, he co-founded and incubated UberWorks, an e-commerce platform that aggregated user purchasing data across 100’s of vendors. Andrew built a strong team and led the start-up through a successful acquisition by a public company.
Andrew next returned to his roots in Greater China and joined Bain & Co.. While helping a global power equipment maker develop a China market entry strategy, he first studied the scope and size of the global energy problem. The project seeded in Andrew the notion that disruptive technologies would be needed to keep pace with the relentless growth in energy demand. A desire to be closer to his family brought Andrew home to Philadelphia to attend Wharton’s MBA program. He was encouraged to consider a career in investing, and worked at Bain Capital and TL Ventures, where he supported buyout and venture investments in healthcare, software and semiconductors.
Andrew later joined Lightspeed Venture Partners, where he helped build the firm’s cleantech practice. During his five-year tenure, Andrew helped drive and manage the firm’s investments in Solazyme (NASDAQ: SZYM, biofuel), Stion (solar), LS9 (biofuel), Coaltek (clean coal), Leyden Energy (storage), Orbis Education (nursing), and Personalis (genome interpretation). Vinod Khosla and Samir Kaul were early investors in Stion and LS9, and it was there that a relationship between Khosla Ventures and Andrew began. Now as a Partner at Khosla Ventures, Andrew seeks to work with exceptional entrepreneurs in building the world’s most innovative companies and changing the world for the better.
In addition to assisting his portfolio companies, Andrew is a frequent speaker at industry events, was Founding Chair of the Cleantech Board for The Indus Entrepreneurs Group (TiE), and has been a long-time advisor to the Cleantech Open (CTO). Andrew delivered the keynote address at the CTO’s National Finals Gala and will be the opening keynote speaker at Cleantech Investment World Asia 2012, the largest conference of its kind in Asia. Andrew has also advised various government officials on cleantech-related policy issues.
Andrew is an avid musician and nearly pursued a singing career several times in his life, after winning a national Chinese contest in the U.S. and becoming a finalist in Hong Kong’s version of American Idol. He has performed as a vocalist and conductor at the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Shanghai Conservatory and an off-Broadway musical theatre. In his free time, Andrew enjoys photography, cycling, skiing, traveling, and watching baseball. He lives with his beautiful wife in Menlo Park and can be reached at