Steve Anderson left roles at Microsoft, eBay, and Starbucks to found Baseline Ventures in 2006, running it ever since as a genuine one-person operation - sourcing, deciding, and closing every deal himself, often within 30 minutes of meeting a founder. His defining bet came in 2010, when he became the very first investor in a photo-sharing app called Instagram, backing founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger before the company had much more than an idea. Anderson turned roughly $70 million raised across his first three funds into $700 million, and was the largest shareholder in Stitch Fix at its 2017 IPO.
Instagram's 2012 acquisition by Facebook for roughly $1 billion - founder Steve Anderson was Instagram's very first investor