This November, we gathered our global founders and CEOs in San Francisco for our Accel Connect event. For part of the day, we discussed the current environment, independent of founders’ stage, as well as the changing requirements for building great, enduring companies. It’s a day we look forward to each year.

It’s also where we (Accel) attempted to synthesize a year’s worth of our own thinking: what’s happened in the markets, what trends caught our attention, and how have our own theses evolved. If successful, we ground our founders in the current state of affairs, while keeping an eye on what’s to come in 2017.

We’ve been talking to folks around our community about the discussion at Connect. Based on feedback, we wanted to share some of the presentation. Though it’s slightly “dated” (the material was built pre-election) and curated (for Accel’s global CEOs), we hope there are some nuggets of wisdom that can be useful in your own thinking — whether as a founder, employee, investor, or just an interested observer.

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