Running Through Walls: From Genentech to Facebook to Startup: Part One

David Ebersman, CEO of Lyra Health, has seen the inner workings of Silicon Valley leadership from the perspective of both startups and global giants. As CFO of Facebook from 2009 to 2014, Ebersman lived through the challenge of navigating a high-profile IPO — and at Lyra Health, the struggles of getting a new company off the ground. As he tells Venrock partner Bryan Roberts in part one of their conversation, both experiences have their highlights and lowlights.

Solving a tough healthcare problem, as he’s focusing on at Lyra Health, is a definite highlight. The company helps employers match employees to mental health providers who can address problems like depression and anxiety. “I was hoping I would find a problem that I was so passionate about I would want to work on it for a really long time,” Ebersman says. Learning how confusing it was to seek mental health care, and the life-changing impact of finding that support, sparked the idea for the technology behind Lyra Health.

Going from a mega-company like Facebook to a startup was a dramatic shift, Ebersman says. “One of the things I didn’t really understand until I began this journey is just how intense a startup and an early-stage company can be,” he explains. “In the early days of a company, almost every day you have highs that are more positive than you would experience at a bigger company, and you’re feeling great, and nothing can stop you. And two hours later you’re at the bottom of the barrel, faced with a problem you’re never going to resolve, and feeling completely incompetent for having let it happen.”

While at Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg were stalwart supporters, he says — and were good sources of advice about solving tough problems. Zuckerberg told him, “You’ll hit some moments where you feel like you are faced with an impenetrable brick wall that’s as tall as you can see and as wide as you can see, and there’s no way under it, above it, or around it.” Those moments, Zuckerberg said to Ebersman, are when you’re being tested and you have decide to give up, or bang your head on the wall until you figure out a way around that obstacle.

“I definitely can relate to this more, now that I’ve tried to do something like start a company,” Ebersman says. “There are moments where you feel like you’ve hit something that you just can’t see your way through. And you just have to keep working on it.”