Cry Like an Angel — Boulder Ventures Ltd.

*Sporting a classic look and fresh hip, the author finds salvation on VPG’s Vail Pass terrain, January 2023. Photo by Topher Donahue.*

I don’t have much time left in the mountains. I’ve skied and climbed more than 150 days each year since I moved to Colorado in 1985. After forty years here, there’s another 1,000 days for me if I’m lucky, hundreds if I’m not.

Each time I touch rock now is a gift, each powder day a blessing. You’d think after all this time I’d get bored and tired of this stuff. Instead, I’m filled with the same burning desire to climb each morning the sun shines in Boulder. I wake up vibrating in Vail on a powder day. The joy of movement in my terrain, my connection to these places, my confidence in guiding clients – there’s no turning down the volume of this music and I’ll keep dancing as long as I can.

Peter once told me that he wanted to become a venture capitalist because it’s a job he could do his whole life. There was a beginning – we both started out as VCs as soon as we graduated business school – but there’s no end to our careers. We’re as motivated and focused now as we’ve ever been. What we know about investing in startups is priceless and cannot be duplicated. The wheels of ambition won’t stop grinding and there’s always a crop of youngsters willing to try their hand at the game, but few of them will succeed and they will all learn the same expensive lessons we did.

*Roshko and Lefkoff send a lap on the new Cloud Tower Via Ferrata in Estes Park, Colorado, July 2023.*

Looking back now, the things I’m most proud of are the ones that moved the dial:

I don’t want to raise awareness about climate change.
I want to put a solar panel on the flat rooftop of every industrial building in America.
(Black Bear Energy)

I don’t want to raise awareness about the risks of avalanches.
I want to teach people how not to die in an avalanche.
(AIARE)

I don’t want to raise awareness about cancer.
I want to cure fucking cancer.
(Array Biopharma)

Cindy and I love Shawn Colvin and her words resonate across my career:

So look homeward baby. Keep your eyes on the sky.
They will never forgive you so don't ask them to try.
This is your party. I know it's not your ideal.
May we all find salvation in professions that heal.
- from Cry Like an Angel