Rob Stavis made an unusual transition from running a $100+ billion global arbitrage trading book at Salomon Brothers to early-stage venture capital, validated by his career-defining 150x return as lead investor in Skype's first round in 2003. He has built a reputation as one of Bessemer's core architects of its fintech roadmap, focusing on financial infrastructure across wealth management, banking, and payments, while also being an early mainstream VC to recognize education's Internet moment with significant bets in edtech. Rob Stavis made an unusual transition from running a $100+ billion global arbitrage trading book at Salomon Brothers to early-stage venture capital, validated by his career-defining 150x return as lead investor in Skype's first round in 2003. He has built a reputation as one of Bessemer's core architects of its fintech roadmap, focusing on financial infrastructure across wealth management, banking, and payments, while also being an early mainstream VC to recognize education's Internet moment with significant bets in edtech.