About 15 Seattle Seahawks players met with a similar number of startup and tech company CEOs Wednesday night at Madrona Venture Group’s offices.
Madrona managing director Matt McIlwain describes it as an “informal gathering” of NFL pros and CEOs from the firm’s portfolio companies. There are “many great entrepreneurial thinkers and doers on the Seahawks team,” McIlwain tells Xconomy via e-mail. “And they all understand the meaning of dedication, persistence and teamwork! Michael Bennett and Russell Okung were especially fun for me to visit with on ideas and on what the entrepreneur experience is all about. Our CEOs were great, and many fun connections were made!”
(That’s McIlwain in the picture with Seahawks Okung, Justin Britt, and Will Pericak.)
We’ve reached out to the Seahawks organization—owned by tech billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen—for comment and will update this post if it has anything to add.
Tweets from Madrona suggest Algorithmia CEO Diego Oppenheimer and Smartsheet CEO Mark Mader were among those in attendance.
Several Seahawks have shown their entrepreneurial chops, and they’ve had the brightest stage on which to do so with back-to-back Super Bowl appearances.
Richard Sherman, for example, is active on social media, marketing his own line of branded merchandise, as well as promotions with other companies, such as a 20 percent savings offered to his fans who order flowers for Mother’s Day from ProFlowers.com.
