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Welcome to The Luminary Network
Edition 0: Personal Intro and Purpose of The Luminary Network

Shining light on the people behind tech and innovation.
lu·mi·nar·y
/ˈlo͞oməˌnerē/
[definition]: a person of prominence or brilliant achievement
A Personal Introduction
Hi everyone, before we get into what this is, I’ll give a brief intro of who I am. I’m Jack Marks, a newly-minted university grad who is passionate about tech, innovation, and VC. I’m a marketer by trade, but the objective is to break into this space as a software investor in the coming years. I deeply enjoy meeting new people and learning about how they got to where they are (a key piece of this newsletter).
I have experience on the investing side of the table, having co-led a pre-seed / seed-stage fund at my university (RedHawk Ventures), and currently gaining experience analyzing growth stage technology companies at 1809 Capital.
I gravitate toward AI and enterprise software startups / investing. Why these two? From what other high-profile funds have emphasized, their combination unlocks rapidly scalable business models that previously were impossible to execute upon prior to the emergence of things like the internet and network systems (as discussed by Sequoia).
So in essence, I view venture investing as my opportunity to be apart of this great revolution, while engaging with passionate innovators and learning about all kinds of markets and business models.
That being said, there is so much I have to learn in this realm, which is where this newsletter comes in. It’s my goal to meet outstanding founders, operators and investors - and learn what makes them passionate about whatever it is they’re building / investing in. I’ll be learning about their backgrounds, how they got to where they are, and what revolutionary problems they’re solving across different industries.
What is The Luminary Network?

Bringing the boldest founders, operators, and investors in the tech and innovation economy, directly to your inbox. 🚀🏙️
The objective of The Luminary Network is to share insights from my conversations with founders, operators, and investors, about what it’s really like to build revolutionary companies from the inside, along with what paths those I speak with have taken to get to where they are today.
This platform is intended for those who are interested in the startup / innovation space, and want to learn about what careers actually look like within it, along with different ways to break in. I intend on chatting with individuals across the board, whether its the founder of a seed-stage tech company in Boston, a growth investor in the Bay Area, a marketing operator at a fintech startup, or a big tech executive. Again, the objective is to shed light on different careers in this realm, across the spectrum.
With that, here are some preliminary content buckets I have in mind:
Founder Chats + Insights: Interview startup founders to learn about what they’re building, where the idea came about, tips for founders or those aspiring to build their own thing, etc.
Investor Chats + Insights: Interview general partners (at institutional funds and SPVs), to learn more about their background, path to venture, advice for aspiring VCs, trends they see in the Chicago ecosystem, etc.
Operator Chats + Insights: Share insights from startup operators (non-founders). Learn about what its like building a company from its early stages, what the day-to-day looks like at the company, how things operate internally (if can be shared), what their career path has been, etc.
Private Company Deep Dives: In-depth memos + analyses on exciting companies that are bringing disruptive solutions to market.
Miscellaneous Items: Of course, I intend to write about things separate from my conversations with others. Things may include:
trends that emerge across my conversations
achieving success as a recent college-grad in the early years of your career
upcoming events in Chicago
notes from interesting articles I read on tech / innovation, etc.
Join the Community
If you’ve ever wondered about what a career in tech / innovation / vc looks like, The Luminary Network is the ideal platform to learn from some of the best in the industry. At its core, this newsletter is intended to prove that tech is not just the big names you see on TV, but there are thousands of fascinating stories of those who may not have direct spotlight.
However, at Luminary, this will all change. Lots of exciting things planned → subscribe and stay tuned. 🚀📈
meme of the day:
