Strategy is amongst the most ill-used terms in business. Its ill-use is, if anything, even more pronounced in the startup world. There are multiple reasons for that. This essay won’t cover those reasons; that is for another time. Instead, this essay will suggest a universal definition for strategy, and relate it to the startup landscape. I will also share how strategy interacts with the concept of culture, another ill-used term. …
Podcast Notes + Transcript: Mamoon Hamid, Kleiner Perkins, on Venture Unlocked, w Samir Kaji
Link to podcast. Link to transcript (organised by me). 1st November 2023.
Sajith: Mamoon Hamid covers the turnaround at Kleiner Perkins which drifted off course from the mid-2000s to the latter part of last decade, as it bloated into a multi-geography, multistage firm. He came in early 2018, and along with Ilya Fushman, reworked the firm into a smaller, focused firm, recalling its roots and origins, and its past …
Interview Thoughts & Notes: Ben Sun, Primary Venture Partners, by Mario Gabriele, Generalist
March ‘24 | Link to the interview is here.
Sajith: Very interesting interview of Primary’s Ben Sun by Mario Gabriele. NYC has such a lot of interesting venture funds (Thrive, USV, Firstmark etc.) and clearly Primary is one of them. All of these evolved and developed their secret sauce to compete with Bay Area funds, and hence you see some interesting differentiators with each. With Primary, it is clearly …
Podcast Notes + Transcript: Chris Farmer, SignalFire, on Venture Unlocked, w Samir Kaji
Link to podcast. Link to transcript (organised by me). 27th September 2023
Sajith: Fascinating glimpse into an unusually-designed venture firm, structured like a company more than a fund, and one that is designed to look at sourcing and support not like the traditional venture fund, but more via analysing datasets and extracting signals from them, to both find (source), and then mind (support) these companies. Think Bridgewater but …
Podcast Notes + Transcript: Pejman Nozad, Pear Ventures, on Venture Unlocked w Samir Kaji
Link to podcast page, with audio + rough transcript. Link to transcript (organised by me; not finely edited). 22nd December 2023.
Sajith: Fun, fascinating episode giving a glimpse of one of the most unusual and inspiring GP (General Partner) journeys, immigrating near penniless from Iran to Germany to USA, and then moving from a rug salesman to starting a leading preseed / seed fund in Pear Ventures. The anecdote …
Podcast Notes + Transcript: Alexis Ohanian, 776, on the Turpentine VC podcast w Erik Torenburg
Link to podcast page and audio. Link to transcript (organised by me; not finely edited). 9th January 2024.
Sajith Pai: 776 is a differentiated VC fund in that it approaches venture from the perspective of a tech company, building and deploying tools that are usually found more in the portfolio companies of VCs than VC funds themselves. They have a platform they call Cerebro, which is the operating software …
What I enjoyed reading, listening, and watching in 2023
There are 3 parts to this essay, a longer one on what I enjoyed reading (across books and podcast transcripts) this year, as well two shorter ones on what I enjoyed listening (music) and watching (web series).
Reading
Book reading is a competitive sport for some. Some want to read 52 books, one for every week. Some are more ambitious, going for 100 books. There was a time when I …
Breaking into Venture: The Rough Guide
A question I get asked all the time, in emails or social DMs or in person sometimes, is about how to break into VC or Venture Capital. After all it is seen as a desirable, glamorous job (this isn’t strictly true), and given the few slots, intense demand, and limited public information (though this is changing fast, especially if you know where to look), aspiring candidates do not have too …
PMF Convo #16 – Shubham Goel, Affinity
Shubham cofounded Affinity along with his Stanford collegemate (and roommate), Ray Zhou, in ‘15 when they were still students. Since then they have built it into a ‘late eight figures’ ($ m) revenue business in the crowded CRM category. They have a strong foothold in the investor community, or indeed any sector where relationships are the key source of revenue. In our convo, Shubham speaks about Affinity hit product market …
Podcast Notes + Excerpts: Charlie Munger on the Colossus podcast w John Collison
Link to podcast + transcript | 5 December 2023
Enjoyable rambling podcast covering a range of Charlie Munger’s interests including architecture, politics, why having more kids at a younger age makes you happier, and of course finance and business models.
A few themes which stood out to me with my thoughts on them, and excerpts from the podcast episode below.
Good returns in a good way
It is not easy …