Mar Hershenson

Founding Managing Partner

To make a company succeed, you should think in terms of and not or. Team and market and execution. Hard work and smart work. Tough times and good times.

Mar is Pear’s Founding Managing Partner. After earning a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, Mar developed a groundbreaking technique of optimizing the design of analog semiconductors. Since then, she has accrued over 13 years of founder experience, co-founding three startups in mobile/ecommerce, enterprise software and semiconductor industries and has registered 14 separate patents.

As Pear’s co-founder and managing partner, Mar brings operational and technical expertise to the Investment Team.

Mar is passionate about teaching. She is currently a Lecturer for Stanford University, teaching Lean Launchpad, one of the premier entrepreneurship classes at Stanford. Prior to that, she was a Consulting Professor at Stanford teaching the introductory course in Analog Circuit Design for nearly a decade.

Mar serves on the board of trustees of Harvey Mudd College and the Advisory Board of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University. She is a founder of Equity Summit, the premier conference for connecting URM Venture Capital GPs to LPs, and an initial founding member of All Raise.

Mar is based in the Bay Area with her husband Matt and has three children. She has been recognized by MIT Technology Review as a Top Innovator Under 35, named a Champion of Innovation by Fast Company, awarded the Digital Automation Conference’s Marie R. Pistil Achievement Award, and recognized on the Forbes Midas List in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

What is your most used emoji?

💪🍐 - which means “Go Pear!”

What’s your favorite book?

Perhaps the most influential book I read as a founder was The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steven Blank.

What career path did you want to pursue when you were a kid?

A professor of some kind. My dad was a professor, and I was lucky to sit in the first row of these giant auditoriums when he was giving lectures. He was a rock star!

What are your favorite sports teams?

FC Barcelona without a doubt. I was born in Barcelona and I went to soccer games in Camp Nou every other weekend.

What are your hobbies outside of work?

Running. I run every day at 6:00 a.m., anywhere from four to six miles. It is my meditation time and sacred, so I don’t let the Zooms creep in at that time.

I love swimming in the ocean. I don’t get to do it much - the water is too cold in the Bay Area but I plan my vacations to be able to swim in the ocean. I can go for a long time, which my kids find really impressive!

Hiking with friends, enjoying nature is also one of my favorite hobbies. Show me a great, new hike and I am there.