According to Business Insider, Menlo Ventures, one of Silicon Valley’s oldest investment firms with $6.8 billion in assets, has promoted its general counsel, Deborah Carrillo, to partner. Carrillo, the firm’s only in-house lawyer, has been with Menlo for nearly six years after a decade as a partner at the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. She manages everything from compliance and fund structuring to risk assessment, and she now sits in on weekly partner meetings where investment deals are pitched. Her promotion is a rare move in venture capital, where top lawyers are seldom on a path to ownership and the financial upside that comes with it. Menlo, an early backer of Anthropic, joins a short list of firms like Lightspeed and Bessemer that have given the partner title to their general counsel.
Why this isn’t just a title
Here’s the thing: this isn’t just a nice promotion. It’s a signal. Carrillo isn’t just there to dot i’s and cross t’s after the big decisions are made. She’s “at the table,” as she puts it, when those decisions are being batted around. That changes everything. When your lawyer has a vote—or at least, a voice with equal partner weight—risk assessment isn’t a final hurdle. It’s a foundational part of the strategy from minute one.
And the risks she’s assessing have gotten way more complex. It’s not just about cap tables anymore. Now, it’s about geopolitics. She’s digging into whether a startup’s ownership traces back to Chinese nationals amid new federal restrictions. She’s translating global tensions into go or no-go calls. That’s a far cry from the old stereotype of the back-office lawyer. That’s a core investment function.
The broader shift in VC
So, is this the start of a trend? I think it probably is, at least for the bigger, more established firms. The game has changed. The money is bigger, the regulatory scrutiny is intense, and the stakes of a bad bet are astronomical. Having top-tier legal insight woven into your investment thesis isn’t a luxury; it’s a competitive necessity. Making your GC a partner formalizes that necessity and, frankly, incentivizes them properly. You want someone with that much influence to be fully aligned with the fund’s success, not just on a salary.
Look, for years, going in-house was seen as trading prestige for better hours. This flips that script. Now, the pinnacle of influence for a lawyer in the startup ecosystem might just be inside the venture firm itself, with a real seat at the partners’ table. Carrillo’s advice to “follow people and follow joy” is great, but her career path now shows there’s a new destination for that journey. One with equity.
