Irene Au

Image

Irene Au is Design Partner at Khosla Ventures, where she works with early-, mid-, and late-stage startup CEOs. Irene has unprecedented experience elevating the strategic importance of design within internet companies, having built and led the entire User Experience and Design teams at Google (2006-2012), Yahoo! (1998-2006), and Udacity (2012-2014). She began her career as an interaction designer at Netscape Communications, where she worked on the design of the internet’s first commercial web browser. Irene graduated summa cum laude from the Honors College at the University of South Carolina in Electrical and Computer Engineering and received her Master's Degree from the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering with a focus on Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Irene also teaches yoga at Avalon Yoga Center in Palo Alto where she is part of the teacher training program faculty and is a frequent author and speaker on the relationship between mindfulness practices, design, and creativity.