Meet the Woman Who Runs Founders Fund

Venture capital is a clubby industry and, as we know, full of men. So it’s all the more interesting when women do rise through the ranks, women like Lauren Gross, the energetic and very under-the-radar chief operating officer of Founders Fund.

Since late 2013, the 32-year-old Ms. Gross has been keeping Founders Fund—the high-profile firm founded by Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek and Ken Howery—running smoothly. That’s no small feat for a famously eccentric partnership that prides itself on bucking convention and investing in wild ideas, like sending people to Mars.

She joined the firm in 2010 to handle fundraising and maintain relationships with the firm’s limited partners; three years later, she was promoted to also run operations, including legal and finance across the 20-person-plus company. After raising the $1 billion Founders Fund V in early 2014, she’s been helping execute the firm’s plan to “concentrate more capital” in “winners” like SpaceX, Palantir and Airbnb.

In an industry very much about rubbing elbows, Ms. Gross keeps a low profile, preferring to pack in meetings with LPs from the U.S., Europe and Asia and learn as much as she can about portfolio companies. (She doesn’t have a vote in investment decisions but sometimes joins investment meetings to help manage the process.)

The Information sat down with Ms. Gross in Founders Fund’s office in San Francisco’s Presidio to discuss myriad ways investors are seeking more exposure to tech, her non-traditional role and advice for women who want to break into venture capital. Edited excerpts below.