Grit

Guests: Victor Riparbelli, CEO and co-founder of Synthesia; and Josh Coyne, partner at Kleiner Perkins When Victor Riparbelli wants to learn something, he’ll start with a YouTube video or a podcast: “I maybe buy the book on Amazon as like the fifth step,” the Synthesia CEO says. His company is trying to change the text-first (or text-only) way information is conveyed at work, making AI avatar-narrated videos to replace documents like customer profiles and HR manuals. Victor says that as the technology improves over many years, it could replace text entirely. “I think for most people, if they had a choice, they would probably prefer to watch video and listen to audio.” In this episode, Victor, Josh, and Joubin discuss Seedcamp, Annie Case, Rubik’s Cubes, AI video dubbing, Instagram filters, emotive avatars, Ilya Fushman, Atlassian, Grammarly, the Gutenberg Parenthesis, European startups, email responsiveness, acqui-hires, and being “lonely at the top.” Chapters: Links: TwitterLinkedInTwitterLinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Kat Cole, COO of Athletic Greens You can’t make smart decisions if you don’t know the truth — the “true truth,” as Athletic Greens COO Kat Cole puts it. “As you get bigger and you have success, innovator’s dilemma, you end up talking to yourself instead of really being rooted in what’s going on.” That’s why she has embraced the anxiety of the unknown, channeling what she doesn’t know about the market into productive questions for her team and her customers. Anxiety can be harmful, she concedes, but “there’s a healthy version of believing you never really know what’s going on, and you never really know the true truth, because things change so quickly.” In this episode, Kat and Joubin discuss Huberman Lab, ultra-endurance athletes, Chris Ashenden, founder-owned businesses, “fancy jobs,” international trips, unplanned succession, private equity, the Atkins diet, inheriting a bad situation, omni-channel marketing, working with franchisees, fully remote companies, “if not for...,” and why Athletic Greens has only one SKU. Chapters: Links:TwitterLinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Anne Raimondi, COO and Head of Business at Asana Asana COO Anne Raimondi feels pressure to perform in her job “every day, all the time.” But that pressure doesn’t come from her fellow executives; she imposes it on herself, trying to think carefully about how much each of her decisions will impact her team. “I have a lot of privilege and choice,” Anne says, “of how I spend my time, the resources available to me, and am I doing enough? ... Am I doing the most with the opportunities I have, and making as positive an impact as I can?” In this episode, Anne and Joubin discuss returning to the office, Scott McNealy, the dotcom bust, Myers-Briggs, Star Trek: The Next Generation, empowering leaders, Blue Nile, Robert, Chatwani, tech leaders with children, Bain Capital, time management, being “in the moment,” Dave Goldberg, Dustin Moskovitz, staying curious, and being prescriptive. Chapters: Links: LinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Sanjay Beri, CEO and Founder of Netskope “You can be waiting your whole life to do something, and then your life’s over,” says Sanjay Beri. After nine years at Juniper Networks, he left his comfortable job, moved his family to a house with a pricier mortgage, and launched the cloud security firm Netskope. His entrepreneurial story would make anyone stressed, he acknowledges, but “at some level, you have to be wired to enjoy it… that's why I tell everybody who joins, ‘It's not for the faint of heart.’” In this episode, Sanjay and Joubin discuss Reddit, banker friends, professional legacies, the wrong way to raise capital, authenticity, Ponzi schemes, “fool’s gold,” high-risk hiring, hitting pause, your “other family,” and changing roles. Chapters: Links:LinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Scott McNealy, former CEO and co-founder of Sun Microsystems & co-founder of Curriki Scott McNealy never wanted to be CEO of Sun, and in his 22-year tenure before selling to Oracle, he knows there were times he failed to execute, or to rein in the once-iconic Silicon Valley firm’s worst impulses. But like his pro golfer son, Maverick, Scott doesn’t like to look back: “Golfers will always look back and blame the wind, a divot that wasn't repaired, a bad rake job, a mower cut that wasn't done properly, a gust of wind,” he explains. “If you blame yourself for all of the mistakes you make. You will hate yourself ... I look forward.” In this episode, Scott and Joubin discuss Scott Cook, Maverick McNealy, why big companies are riskier than startups, Al Gore, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Kodak, Dick Kleinhans, Harvard University, “bozo invasions,” Myers-Briggs, making an example, Motorola car phones, the Moscone Center, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, NVIDIA’s valuation, farewell letters, “you have no privacy,” open-source education, and toothpaste.com. In this episode, we cover: Links: TwitterLinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Jyoti Bansal, CEO and co-founder of Harness Cisco bought Jyoti Bansal’s first company AppDynamics for $3.7 billion, making him a very wealthy man. But after two African safaris, a week of Michelin-starred meals in Tokyo, and more adventures all around the world, he realized that spending his money didn’t truly make him happy. After some soul-searching, he realized what he really enjoyed: “I liked to build companies. That is my craft ... If someone enjoys playing gold for six hours, I would enjoy working on a startup for six hours.” In this episode, Jyoti and Joubin discuss the evolution of Grit, Carlos Delatorre, Tom Mendoza, Glean, growing up in India, traveling the world, three-star restaurants, soul-searching, automating gruntwork, paying for nice hotels, red-eye flights, product-market fit, Jeff Bezos, the “three-layered cake,” Frank Slootman, raising the bar for distribution, technical debt, structural efficiency, and taking pride in your work. In this episode, we cover: Links: LinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Clint Sharp, CEO and co-founder of Cribl New employees are joining the remote data platform Cribl every week, and as the staff grows, CEO Clint Sharp has noticed a problem: He can’t file a bug report without a lot of caveats. When there were a handful of users, no one would bat an eye at the CEO posting a bug on Slack, but now he has had to learn how to phrase things because people assume he’s “irate and we should change everything we’re doing,” Clint says. “I’ll post something and there’s a flurry of DMs that are happening in the background, like ‘Oh my God.’” Unless the tone of his bug report is clear, workers with more experience at Cribl then have to reassure the newbies: “Calm down. When he does this, he’s not upset. He’s one of the power users of the product.” In this episode, Clint and Joubin discuss being on the road, niche audiences, top-of-funnel problems, “come to Jesus” meetings, moving the goalposts, building for building’s sake, “down and to the right,” mediating re-orgs, flat organizations, filing bugs as the CEO, setting the example, Henry Schuck, Baldur’s Gate III, legal narratives, Hacker News, Cisco, Doug Merritt, Gary Steele, Rippling, and dead trends. In this episode, we cover: Links:TwitterLinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Glen Tullman, CEO of Transcarent Before he was CEO of Transcarent, Glen Tullman presided over the biggest digital health merger of all time: His previous company Livongo was acquired in 2020 by Teledoc for $18.5 billion. Over his decades of experience in health tech, he has developed saying: Hire low, fire high. When one of his friends was offered a job and said he wanted to consider another offer, Glen withdrew Transcarent’s offer because he didn’t want to be the highest bidder — in other words, hire low. But whenever he has to let someone go, he sees it as his responsibility to “help them go off and do something else that’s great, and be successful.” Firing and replacing executives, he said, is “just part of growing ... it doesn’t have to be ugly.” In this episode, Glen and Joubin discuss conservative values, John Doerr, Teledoc, failures of leadership, Steve Case, Bill Gates, changing expectations, Travis Kalanick, incentive bonuses, Bucknell University, massive layoffs, criticizing in public, anonymous charity, cycling events, Michael Jordan, Bill McDermott, Barack Obama, private jets, and hiring without titles. In this episode, we cover: Links: LinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Filip Kaliszan, CEO and co-founder of Verkada Great founders try to grow personally at least as fast as their companies do — but sometimes, says Verkada CEO Filip Kaliszan, that’s just not possible. By the time the company had about 200 employees, he says, “the scale of the business and the rate of the growth of the business ... outpaced my rate of learning, or my ability to consult the right people.” But over time, he has worked to fix past errors and earn everyone’s trust: “I can be only as good as the rate at which I fix my mistakes,” Filip says. In this episode, Filip and Joubin discuss “the good old days,” first principle thinking, the business impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bay Area bubble, going public, Aaron Levie, going down rabbit holes, power dynamics, idea validation, Brian Long, Hans Robertson, DIY entrepreneurship, commercial kitchens, cash efficiency, VR headsets, zeitgeist-y platform shifts, Mark Zuckerberg, and John Doerr. In this episode, we cover: Links:LinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Wade Foster, CEO and co-founder of Zapier When Wade Foster and his co-founders launched Zapier, he was 24, and doubted himself constantly. He consulted mentors like Paul Graham and Jay Simons, studied entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs, and also took inspiration from an unlikely source: Actor and martial artist Bruce Lee. “[He] had this fighting style, ‘The Way of No Way,’” Wade says. “He would study all the different fighting styles, and he would say, ‘None of them is the best or the worst ... My job was to take the best of each and then discard the rest, and make it my own.’” In this episode, Wade and Joubin discuss fully remote companies, long-term thinking, hyperscaling, product-market fit, broken products, secondary offerings, “delocation packages,” interview questions, mind-breaking growth, doubting yourself, LLMs, hackathons, and adding a sales team (eventually). In this episode, we cover: Links:TwitterLinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity and Radical Respect: How To Work Together Better After her first management book Radical Candor became a worldwide bestseller, Kim Scott found herself giving talks to all kinds of companies about how they could apply her advice and build a stronger, kinder culture. But then, after one such talk, the CEO — a longtime friend and former coworker — came up to Kim with an asterisk. As a Black woman, she explained, “as soon as I offer anyone even the most compassionate, gentle criticism, I get assigned the ‘angry Black woman’ stereotype.” Kim realized in that moment that her book needed a prequel of sorts, explaining what you need to have before you can create radical candor: “You're not going to care about people who you don't respect,” she says. In this episode, Kim and Joubin discuss regret minimization, Juice Software, Sheryl Sandberg, saying “um,” moments of connection, Dick Costolo, negative truths, James March, snobbery, Charles Ferguson, Shona Brown, Fred Kofman, Christa Quarles, Jason Rosoff, Andy Grove, founders as outliers, Jack Dorsey, Steve Jobs, glows and grows, the Post Ranch Inn, failing your colleagues, sexual harassment, DEI, and intellectual honesty. In this episode, we cover: Links: Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your HumanityRadical Respect: How To Work Together BetterTwitterLinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Daniela Amodei, President and co-founder of Anthropic With a reported valuation of as much as $18 billion, Anthropic has the resources to be one of the dominant AI companies in Silicon Valley; however, it was conceived as a public benefit corporation and always tries to strike a balance between hypergrowth and responsibility. Anthropic’s flagship LLM, Claude, must adhere to a “constitution” of values that prioritize the good of humanity. And even though every company wants to “do AI” right now, President Daniela Amodei says some of them should slow down. “I keep coming back to this idea of, ‘How much are you buying the hype?’” she says. “’How grounded are you in the reality of what's actually happening?’ And sometimes in business conversations, we tell a potential customer, ‘We don't think we're right for you.’” In this episode, Daniela and Joubin discuss her brother Dario, staying grounded, hypergrowth startups, Claire Hughes Johnson, mechanistic interpretability, Paul Graham, AI training, what AI companies can learn from social media, Stripe, the pool of venture capital in the Bay Area, leading people, giving feedback to all your coworkers, interview questions, and Sheryl Sandberg. In this episode, we cover: shouldn’t Links: LinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Dev Ittycheria, CEO and President of MongoDB When you think about who you were and the decisions you made two, or four, or eight years ago ... how do you feel? Dev Ittycheria, the President and CEO of MongoDB, says he’s embarrassed about certain things he did — and that’s a good thing. “If you’re not [embarrassed], that means you’re not really growing that fast,” he says. He recalled one of his mentors, former BladeLogic chairman Steve Walske, explaining that everyone has an overinflated opinion of themselves, and the great leaders keep the gap between that opinion and reality narrow. One of the hallmarks of such a leader, Dev says, is that they have the intellectually honesty to recognize their own strengths and weaknesses, which others perceive. In this episode, Dev and Joubin discuss looking for bad news, chips on your shoulder, Ivy League schools, being an outsider, highly educated parents, “aging out,” Bruce Springsteen, Chief People Officers, Frank Slootman and John McMahon, passive aggression, vulnerability as strength, imposter syndrome, open-source licenses, introverts, and time management. In this episode, we cover: Links: TwitterLinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Frank Slootman, CEO and Chairman of Snowflake and author of Amp It Up Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman doesn’t recall a time in his childhood where new achievements were celebrated — because, according to his father, putting everything into your work and “leaving it all on the field” was the only choice. “The problem with it,” Frank says, is that “it becomes a ‘never enough’ dynamic, because when is it enough?” To this day, he comes home on Friday night and asks himself, “Did it mater that I was there? ... If I’m just a passenger on the ship, that’s my nightmare.” In this episode, Frank and Joubin discuss acting with urgency, Shlomo Kramer, negative role models, Elon Musk, Teddy Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech, aptitudes and weaknesses, ServiceNow, and the life spark of business. In this episode, we cover: Links: LinkedInAmp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating IntensityTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Ginkgo Bioworks Almost everyone in the second generation of biotechnology entrepreneurs, says Ginkgo Bioworks CEO Jason Kelly, works in that field because of one thing: Jurassic Park. The Michael Crichton novel-turned-Steven Spielberg movie captured both the wonder and beauty of bioengineering, and the challenges of bending DNA to your own ends. “You didn’t invent biology,” Jason says. “You need to have humility in the face of it ... because life will find a way. It will do things you don’t expect. It’s not a computer.” In this episode, Jason and Joubin discuss the Wall Street rollercoaster, designer cells, the history of biotech, Herbert Boyer and Genentech, ChatGPT, extinct flowers, Sam Altman and YCombinator, first principles thinking, compounding risk, Patrick Collison, super-voting shares, capital intensive businesses, Pets.com, and why biology is like “freakishly powerful alien technology.” In this episode, we cover: Jurassic Park Links: TwitterLinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: John McMahon, author of The Qualified Sales Leader: Proven Lessons from a Five Time CRO A hell of a lot of people work in sales. But until recently, says five-time CRO and The Qualified Sales Leader author John McMahon, it was rare for colleges and universities to offer a sales degree. Salespeople had to learn on the job from experienced coaches, and adapt. And their bosses, John explains, had to themselves as agents of transformation. “If somebody’s really smart, they’re going to pick up the knowledge,” he says. “If they have what I call a PHD — persistence, heart, and desire — they’re going to learn the skills ... You’re going to have to do thousands and thousands of repetitions before you’re going to get good.” In this episode, John and Joubin discuss lazy LinkedIn cold calls, Tom Brady’s retirement, being “married to your job,” Carl Eschenbach, crying, sales as a calling, corporate culture vs. coaching culture, adaptable workers, opportunity vs. title, Bob Muglia, transactional leaders, sad rich people, cookie-cutter advice, handshake evaluations, and David Cancel. In this episode, we cover: Links: LinkedInThe Qualified Sales Leader: Proven Lessons from a Five Time CROTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Angela Duckworth, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance “There’s got to be a cost” when you pursue your passions, says University of Pennsylvania professor Angela Duckworth; in fact, the word “passion” comes from the Latin word for “suffering.” But that doesn’t mean that gritty people are unhappy. After the time needed for sleep, daily exercise, friends, and family, Dr. Duckworth explains, “what’s left is more than 40 hours.” Informed by her research and her own happiness, she tries to discourage her students from settling for a 9 to 5 life: “There’s so many people that exemplify a life of dedication, and hard work, and of happiness, and humor, and friends, and family, that I think we should tell young people, ‘Look, don't assume that's not possible.’” In this episode, Angela and Joubin discuss being punctual, Danny Kahneman, AP Calculus, moving the finish line, teaching grit to children, Arthur Ashe, Diana Nyad, passion and sacrifice, hiring gritty people, “change your situation,” Marc Leder and Rodger Krouse, Invictus, ChatGPT, neural autopilot, and Steve Jobs. In this episode, we cover: The Devil Wears Prada Links: TwitterLinkedInRedefining Success: Adopt the Journey Mindset to Move ForwardGrit: The Power of Passion and PerseveranceTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: David Cancel, founder and former CEO of Drift; founder of Rey After HubSpot acquired his company Performable in 2011, David Cancel became his acquirer’s Chief Product Officer — and didn’t give any thought to how long he’d be in that role. When he started eyeing the exit a few years later, he was told that wasn’t an option: HubSpot had already filed to go public, and an officer of the company leaving in the first 18 months would raise major red flags. “Maybe this is what’s led me to be an entrepreneur,” David recalls. “I can never feel trapped … Someone telling me, ‘you can’t leave,’ I was like, boom. Switch went off in my head … and I was like, ‘I’m out.’” The filing was ultimately delayed and David was able to quit just before the IPO; one day later, he started his next company, Drift. In this episode, David and Joubin discuss the accountability of doing something, creating constraints, the Whitney Museum, imposter syndrome, Tony Hawk, John Romero, wandering without a map, conservative spending, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, Phil Jackson, the voices in your head, Shlomo Kramer, righteous independence, cancel culture and diversity, gut vs. data, and killing ideas with discipline. In this episode, we cover: Links: TwitterLinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: John Doerr, chairman of Kleiner Perkins After Kleiner Perkins chairman John Doerr first invested in Google — $12.8 million for 13 percent of the company — he told co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin that they needed to hire a CEO to help them build the business. After they took meetings with a variety of successful tech execs, they came back to Doerr and told him “We’ve got some good news and some bad news.” The good news was that they agreed on the need for a CEO; the bad news, Doerr recalls, is that they believed there was only one person qualified for the role: The then-CEO of Pixar and interim CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs. In this encore presentation of the 100th episode of Grit, John and Joubin discuss the urgent need to act on the climate crisis, getting turned down by Kleiner Perkins, CEOs as sales leaders, the microprocessor revolution, balancing between work and family, the opportunity of AI and sustainability, what makes Jeff Bezos special, Bing Gordon and the invention of Amazon Prime, the Google CEO search, how the iPhone nearly killed Apple, Steve Jobs’ greatest gift, Bill Gates’ philanthropy, and how Doerr divides his time. In this episode, we cover: Measure What MattersSpeed & Scale$100 million iFundLinks: TwitterLinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm

Guest: Shlomo Kramer, founder and CEO of Cato Networks Shlomo Kramer has founded three companies to date — Check Point, Imperva, and most recently Cato Networks — and taken the first two public, with plans to do the same with Cato. By any measure, he is a successful entrepreneur, but he defines “success” as “a burden you need to shake off every day.” And the easiest way to do that he’s found is to keep moving, keep failing, and keep creating. The material wealth he’s created, he explains, was never the goal: “It was never about things. It was about ideas and making them real.” In this episode, Shlomo and Joubin discuss the contexts of our actions, the IDF, taking three companies public, ideas vs. things, kibbutzes, Gong, Sumo Logic, serial entrepreneurs, leading by example, consumer cybersecurity, trusting others, Albert Einstein, “making it to the pass before winter,” and Israeli directness. In this episode, we cover: Links: LinkedInTwitterLinkedIngrit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner PerkinsLightningPod.fm