"Irene Au is Design Partner at Khosla Ventures, where she works with early-, mid-, and late-stage startup CEOs. She is dedicated to raising the value of design and user research within software companies through better methods, practices, processes, leadership, and talent. Through her mentorship of the next generation of designers, she helps companies build an empathetic understanding of user needs which inspires and informs product design and experiences. Irene has unprecedented experience elevating the strategic importance of design within technology companies, having built and led the entire User Experience and Design teams at Google, Yahoo!, and Udacity. She began her career as an interaction designer at Netscape Communications, where she worked on the design of the internet’s first commercial web browser."