Grit Joubin Mirzadegan

Guests: Vipul Ved Prakash, CEO and co-founder of Together AI; and Bucky Moore, partner at Kleiner Perkins
No one knows for sure whether the future of AI will be driven more by research labs and AI-native companies, or by enterprises applying the technology to their own data sets. But one thing is for sure, says Together AI CEO and co-founder Vipul Ved Prakash: It’s going to be a lot bigger. “If you look at the next 10 years or the next 20 years, we are doing maybe 0.1 percent of [the] AI that we’ll be doing 10 years from now.” 
In this episode, Vipul, Bucky, and Joubin discuss startup table stakes, Tri Dao, tentpole features, open-source AI, non-financial investors, Meta Llama, deep learning researchers, WeWork, “Attention is All You Need,” create vs. capture, Databricks, Docker, scaling laws, Ilya Sutskever, IRC, and Jordan Ritter and Napster.
Chapters:

(00:53) - Executive hiring

(04:40) - How Vipul and Bucky met

(06:54) - Six years at Apple

(08:19) - Together and the AI landscape

(12:47) - Apple’s deal with OpenAI

(14:27) - Open vs. closed AI

(17:32) - Nvidia GPUs and capital expenditures

(22:48) - Fame and reputation

(24:17) - Planning for an uncertain future

(27:00) - Stress and attention

(30:18) - AI research

(34:58) - Challenges for AI businesses

(39:02) - Frequent disagreements

(43:05) - Vipul’s first startups, Cloudmark and Topsy

(47:55) - Taking time off

(50:09) - The crypto-AI connection

(53:20) - Who Together AI is hiring

(54:37) - What “grit” means to Vipul

Links:
Connect with Vipul
TwitterLinkedInConnect with Bucky
TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guest: Andrew Bialecki, CEO of Klaviyo
Whenever the marketing platform Klaviyo is hiring, says CEO Andrew Bialecki, “we sort of don't care so much what skills you have.” Instead, the company looks for “high slope” individuals who are curious and able to continually learn new things. “A big turnoff for me is [when] somebody says, ‘Oh, well, I was never good at that when I was growing up,’” Andrew explains. “You know, ‘I'm not a good writer’ or ‘I'm not good with numbers.’ And it's like, well, OK, but anybody can learn anything.”
In this episode, Andrew and Joubin discuss WeCrashed, Paul Graham, vertical integration, automating sales, Ed Hallen, The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle, child prodigies, interview questions, public speaking and decompression, taking ownership, hiring engineers, burnout, and productivity habits.

Chapters:

(00:51) - Klaviyo's office

(02:36) - Attention to detail

(06:32) - Big decisions

(12:23) - What Klaviyo does

(14:50) - Its 2023 IPO

(20:35) - The founding story

(25:06) - Nature or nurture?

(28:47) - Science and hockey

(31:02) - Hiring for slope

(33:57) - Extroversion

(37:00) - Culture as product

(39:53) - Owning your success

(46:24) - “The algorithms of humanity”

(50:55) - Why Andrew runs

(52:35) - Sports psychology for startups

(55:34) - Richard Feynman

(58:27) - Who Klaviyo is hiring

(59:20) - What “grit” means to Andrew

Links:
Connect with Andrew
TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guest: Niraj Shah, CEO and co-founder of Wayfair
Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah caught the entrepreneurship bug in his mid-20s, when he and his longtime co-founder Steve Conine sold their first company just a few years out of college. They left the acquirer and independently realized “we absolutely wanted to start something else,” Niraj recalls. “Once you’ve done that, if you enjoy that, it’s very hard to pursue something more traditional.” But the “if you enjoy that” bit really matters: Whenever he’s counseling younger people, Niraj tells them to pursue something they’re genuinely excited about. Otherwise, “it’s going to be very hard for you to do your best work.”
In this episode, Niraj and Joubin discuss shopping malls, employee discounts, working in Boston, family time, Jay Chaudhry, Cornell University, pursuing what you enjoy, fostering trust, family vacations, over-hiring corporate staff, taking market share, the power of ecommerce, ownership mentality, setting priorities, and rapid hiring.
Chapters:

(00:51) - Wayfair’s first retail stores

(05:35) - Buying from other stores

(08:59) - Immigrant entrepreneurship and Niraj’s dad

(12:57) - Building the flywheel

(15:32) - Structuring your calendar

(17:59) - Success and attention

(21:47) - Niraj’s first business

(25:54) - His co-founder, Steve Conine

(29:58) - Wayfair’s operations and the COVID surge

(33:52) - The home goods market

(37:50) - Optimizing SKUs

(41:21) - Specializing, focusing, and problem-solving

(44:42) - Sustainable work ethic

(48:05) - AI and personalization

(52:42) - Who Wayfair is hiring

(53:56) - What “grit” means to Niraj

Links:
Connect with Niraj
LinkedInWatch the Cornell talkConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guest: Jay Chaudhry, CEO, chairman, and founder of Zscaler
Much of the media coverage of Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudhry is quick to identify him as the wealthiest Indian-American person, with a net worth of $10.8 billion. But to hear Jay himself tell it, that number has never been very important to him: “My family had no money,” he says of his childhood in India. “I had no attachment for money. There was no feeling of ‘I must buy this, buy this.’ ... And it hasn’t changed a bit.” Perhaps surprisingly, he says not caring about money is one of the big reasons for his financial success: With no attachment to money, “I could take risks.”
In this episode, Jay and Joubin discuss startup “gambling,” Jay’s wife Jyoti, scarcity and risk, wasting time, “bonding walks,” family vacations, self-confidence and self-criticism, gardening, seven-minute aerobics, Marc Andreessen and Netscape, and IBM.
Chapters:

(01:54) - Selling SecureIT to Verisign

(06:49) - Jay’s humble beginnings

(09:12) - The worst way to describe him

(11:42) - Working harder than ever

(14:15) - Authenticity and selflessness

(16:36) - Family time

(18:53) - Happy childhood

(21:33) - Setting an example

(24:48) - Customer meetings

(27:30) - Conviction and execution

(31:07) - Do your best

(33:16) - Turning off your brain

(38:23) - Getting experience

(40:17) - Who Zscaler is hiring

(41:12) - What “grit” means to Jay

Links:
Connect with Jay
LinkedInConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guest: Bill Magnuson, CEO and co-founder of Braze
The deployment of smartphones around the world was more impactful than any other technology to date, says Braze CEO Bill Magnuson — and that has big implications for emerging fields like generative AI. “If we get to the point where they [LLMs] really can be useful, human-like companions ... they will be usable by everyone that has smartphone technology.” In other words, the question is not business opportunity or scale: It’s capability.
In this episode, Bill and Joubin discuss earnings days, Aaron Levie, MIT, customer churn, shower thoughts, technical co-founders, lacking context, AGI, “hands on keyboard,” the T-Mobile G1, app marketing, the 2008 financial crisis, Bob Iger, World War II, Peter Reinhardt, Watershed, and international offices.
Chapters:

(00:51) - Morning people

(05:09) - What Braze does

(06:59) - From CTO to CEO

(08:17) - Waking up and commuting

(10:49) - Leading vs. engineering

(12:35) - Cognizant of believability

(19:52) - LLMs and the human brain

(25:46) - The AI ceiling

(28:43) - The historic deployment of smartphones

(37:58) - The benefits of youth

(40:18) - Taking the leap

(43:35) - Read more sci-fi

(46:38) - Survivor bias

(48:55) - Big risks at scale

(52:30) - Who Braze is hiring around the world

(55:32) - What “grit” means to Bill

Links:
Connect with Bill
TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Guest: Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce AI
In 2020, Clara Shih quit Hearsay, the company she founded and ran for 11 years; in hindsight, she says “I probably should have quit a little bit sooner.” But at the time, she cared a lot — too much — about what everyone else thought. “There's a lot of guilt around leaving initially and feeling bad for feeling bad,” Clara says. But her worries subsided when her replacement and former COO, Mike Boese, guided the company with “class and grace” to an exit: A $125 million+ acquisition just this week by Yext.
In this episode, Clara meets Joubin on the top level of Salesforce Tower to discuss Sarah Friar, AI “frenemies,” practice and discipline, quantifying hard work, burnout, turning off, Intercom, elite operators, “Serviceforce,” ChatGPT, hiring for hunger, kids and achivement, Thomas “TK” Kurian, Slack, David Schmeier, Juan Perez, Nvidia GPUs, Silvio Savarese and Frontier AI, Starbucks, and Sheryl Sandberg.
Chapters:

(01:04) - Apple’s OpenAI partnership

(03:18) - Organizing your life

(04:45) - Working smarter

(07:49) - Hindsight

(08:58) - Hearsay’s acquisition by Yext

(11:23) - What everyone else thinks

(14:25) - Productive worry

(17:27) - Coming (back) to Salesforce

(20:47) - Paranoia and immigrant hustle

(25:42) - Quitting

(26:39) - Meetings and infusing AI

(29:38) - Internal time savings

(31:48) - The Matthew McConaughey ads

(33:48) - Different horizons

(37:35) - France and sovereign AI

(38:46) - How Clara uses AI to keep up

(40:33) - Dis-intermediating Netflix

(41:27) - Who Salesforce AI is hiring

(42:05) - Advice from Howard Schultz and Marc Benioff

Links:
Connect with ClaraTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm