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Shabih Rizvi

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2018-09-10
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2018-09-10
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  1. “Yeah, so one of the ones we recently announced as a company called Scotty Labs, they're essentially a teleoperations company focused primarily on safety for the autonomous sector. It's similar to the UDET story. We met the team quite early. We had some areas that we weren't all the way there on, but we stayed in touch with them and they stayed in touch with us and we were really, really pleased to help lead their seed round of financing. It's an incredibly thoughtful, hard-working, and brilliant team. Thank you so much, Harry. Really, really happy to be on the show with you.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Yeah, so I would say going back to John, we had a chance to spend obviously a number of years with him and seeing him really step up when things may not be working out and seeing how much passion and energy and work he put in to help make sure that that founder was taken care of and that the company that he invested in and the team that he had been involved with were able to get to a good place, even if things didn't ultimately end up working out. I think it was just like a reminder that folks in this industry that have been doing this for far longer than I have still had the stamina energy passion and care to try and help ensure that they actually saw things all the way through even when things may have gone sideways.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “It's going to sound a little bit cheeky, but I would say we are a startup of our own, right? So when I started on the team, it was myself, Anna Patterson, Anka Jane. We were sort of the three that came together to help get things going. And now we're a team of nearly 12 folks. Just like startups grow, our own team has been growing. And as a byproduct of that, obviously our portfolio has been growing. And so in a combination of growing our team as well as helping to support our founders in as many ways possible, I would say those have been the things that have been keeping us up at night”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Country is really investing, like Canada has into the startup ecosystem, I think it's going to have a long term impact on where we see companies coming about throughout the world Yeah, I think it does vary by region, and I think a lot of that is a byproduct of the micro or the ecosystem on the capital side within those regions. So investors within a region really, I think, are setting the price for what may be the norm there. And so we will see disparities between the Bay Area versus LA versus New York versus London versus Toronto. That's just the market reality. And I think, again, the local investors are really setting the precedent for what is considered appropriate by those regions.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Yeah, you know, I think, as I said before, Harry, I've been fortunate enough to be more of a global citizen of the world, and I do see more and more pockets of both investing as well as early stage startup communities and ecosystems forming throughout the globe. Even at Kleiner, I would say we were seeing the beginnings of this. We made a concerted effort to be spending time in the LA startup ecosystem. We went from having four companies down there to nearly a dozen. I would say a gradient as we look through different parts of the world where AI activity is starting to brew, we're starting to make concerted efforts in particular regions, whether that be Seattle or Toronto. And likely, you're in Ecker the Woods, Harry, London, where we just think there's a really interesting combination of both phenomenal talent, access to capital, and then more importantly, educational institutions that are helping support those ecosystems, as well as now financial institutions supporting those ecosystems. And so I think we're going to become more and more global. I think access to capital is going to become more global. And things like Angelist as well as governments and”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “So I'll mention too the main one being measure what matters by John Door. I think having worked with him over the years and seen him give the overview of the LKR program, why he believes in it, I'm so happy he finally put it in a book because I think so many lessons can be learned for anyone, regardless of whether you're building a small company or a startup, an independent company. I think there's lots of lessons and it can be applied across private companies, public companies, nonprofits. So some really, really excited that he put it out. And then the second one for me is a book called When Breath Becomes There, which I think is, it really just helps you focus on how do you spend your time? There's only a fine amount of time we have on this planet and it really forces you to think about that long and hard.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Yeah, I would say it's very similar to what folks may experience at other funds. We get together as a group twice a week. We meet companies on those days. We also do our partner discussions those days. And so we have a pretty nimble and velocity-oriented process. There's obviously a number of firms that have existed over the years that have had these Monday morning partner meetings and pitch meetings. I think one of the things that we cared a lot about at Gradient, it was just always trying to make sure that we can optimize for velocity and speed sometimes deals are very fast moving and to be able to make decisions and get a group together is critical. And so as a result of that, we get together twice a week at the beginning of the week as well as at the end of the week. And so that way we don't end up missing a weekend in the middle of a deal. But as far as the process itself goes, it's very straightforward, very similar to how most folks do it.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “The founders have really educated us on why this time around things will work and why this time around things are different and how the market dynamics have changed. Yeah. No, I couldn't agree with you more on kind of that catalyzing moment of why. And the final element though of that is kind of the subsequent after that filtering and you go to meet them and you have that kind of first meeting. How do you think about kind of optimizing time around that? Do you do the cool, the face-to-face at your office? Do you go to their office? What's the thinking around that and really how to leverage your time most effectively? Absolutely. Great question, Harry. So I think I usually try and start off with either a call or hang out of some kind.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Are a little bit more story to have had a longer longevity, then they may have experienced companies and built a set of beliefs around a market or an opportunity. And maybe because they made an investment that went sideways. But I try and make sure that I don't use that same preconceived notion as a way to outright discount a company. And I think the best way to do that is in those conversations with those founders, if you are skeptical, is to sort of try and understand that, you know, try and understand the lessons that maybe they've learned from seeing these other experiences, whether it was on the periphery or maybe they have a direct line into those companies or have some real understandings of what may have happened. I found that the best founders that are going after some of these categories where maybe there have been companies that haven't worked out have actually made an effort to connect with either people on those teams or try and understand the story intimately well so they can actually help you learn what were the mistakes that those companies may have made. And so in my experience, I would say that happened a couple different times now where”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “We may have felt ourselves. And for those, I would say it's really quick, right? Like it's like I spend a decent amount of years working in the mobile industry. So there's a set of areas that I know something about. And so if it's in any one of those areas and I can usually pretty quickly get to the core and very quickly either say yes or no. But yeah, I would say I index heavily on team and backgrounds and try and understand the narrative and story relatively quickly. Super interesting though you mentioned the element of kind of the space there and being excited about that on the flip side. If you maybe lost money or not had great experiences in spaces before, it can lead to kind of cognitive biases against the space for future financings in the space. How do you think about that? Is that a fair assumption to have? And do you try and prevent those cognitive biases? I would start by saying here, I think the thing is, like, market timing is so important. And many companies either benefit from that or most actually can suffer from that. So there is a certain time in the market for companies to exist. And I would say, yes, I think if you work at funds that may”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “How he filters and rejects slides when there may be just faces for teams or they don't explain their kind of value prop well enough in the first slide. How do you look to filter at scale when you have such brand like KP or gradient behind you and you do see so much, how do you filter at scale and what are your kind of quick nose? Yeah, so for me, I would say I focus heavily and index heavily on team just because we do anywhere from C to series B. And so sometimes we're looking at the earliest stages. And so for me, team matters a lot. So I try and look at the team's backgrounds and get a sense of what have they done in the past, why are they working on this problem? Like for me, that's really, really important. Like, what's the story? And so if they can't explain those two things relatively quickly, if that's not clear in a slide or in an email, then I would say it can be usually a quick no, but a very polite no. And then beyond that, I would say there's certainly areas that I would say we may have spent time working before, right? So we may have a visceral reaction to something when we see someone trying to attack a pain point that”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “You just never know where it may come from. So, a couple years ago, got an introduction through actually a lawyer just out of the blue got an intro to a founder that was going to be in town from Los Angeles and a little bit of a primer on the company. And I was intrigued, so I responded and ultimately ended up meeting this founder. His name is George Aron. He was the founder of a company called Honey. And so it took the meeting. And then over the subsequent years really got to know George intimately well. To this day, that email and that introduction that came out of the blue from someone I didn't know directly from a place that I wouldn't have ordinarily considered a place to source from is a constant reminder for me and potentially for others that always look through your emails, always look through who the source of the introduction is and just realize that it's on you to do the filtering, right? Like it's not on the person sending the intro to do it, it's on you as the investor to take a look at what the company might be, what the founders may be working on, and then decide if it's interesting or relevant for what you're spending your time doing. I have to ask, I read Samuel Shah's post the other day.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “They decided to go start their subsequent companies. In fact, Ali and Chung actually had gone to Sequoia after Admob and were incubating some ideas there. And with Rich Wang and Excel, I mean, he took the firsthand look at Jim and the Peaces Company and led their initial round of financing. And so I think there is a certain set of deals that do get done. Again, I think sometimes as relationships, it sometimes may be knowing either peer funds or seed funds that maybe you have a stronger relationship with. So this can't happen. I wouldn't say it's rampant, but I would say there are certainly a set of deals that get done that are probably a bit more undernound. You mentioned that the element of kind of where you don't expect them to come from, though, particularly in your case. I'd love to hear them. What is this alternative source? How can I tap into it? And what's your subsequent learning from that source? It was a little bit of anomaly, to be honest, Harry, but it's one of those things that was probably a life lesson. It just reminded me that make sure you go through all your intro emails and read through them.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Public doesn't see. Do you still think that's very prominent in the valley? Or do you think actually with the lights of angel list and kind of the inherent transparency, dark deal flow doesn't exist so much today? Yeah, so it's interesting, Harry. I think calling it dark deal flow is an interesting way to talk about it. I think it puts a little bit of a potentially a negative connotation on it. But I would say there's underground deal flow. I think there's certainly deals that take place that maybe folks more broadly don't find out about until after the fact. And I think that actually goes back to either proprietary networks or just relationships that go back further. I think a simple example here is, you know, again, as I talked about Admob and sort of that alumni network of folks that came out of there, there's obviously some phenomenal founders that came out of that group. And there was a particular set of investors that made investment into Admob and a Sequoi Capital being one of them, Excel being the other. And as a byproduct of that, I would say, you know, I think they got a first look at a number of those founders.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Yeah, so in my experience, I think there's really generally three buckets that most investors are sourcing from. I think fundamental one is either founders they've worked with or backed in the past. Again, just having experience with them, it's probably just easier to make decisions on that. And again, you sort of know what relationship you're going into when you're hopefully going to be backing someone there. The second is peer funds, seed funds, or incubators. And again, I would say that adjusts up or down depending on what stage you're investing in. And then the third I would say is I like to call it proprietary networks, but it may not be proprietary per se. It could be places you've worked, industries you may be involved with, groups, organizations. So I think historically, my sense is those first two buckets where most people probably spend their time, especially earlier in their careers investing. And then the third may just depend on your either domain or work experience. You said about proprietary networks there. I'm super intrigued. We had Hunter Walk from Homebrew on the show, and he said about the presence of dark deal flow, the deals kind of beneath the surface that the”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “And I think that typically happens in situations where maybe you've been spending a lot more time together or the relationships, like I said before, go further back. Maybe you've been someone that has been a friend of yours or someone you've worked with or a former colleague that you've invested in or worked with over a longer period.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Great question, Harry. I think it's actually the hardest part of the job because ultimately, as we touched on before, this is a services industry. And when founders come in, pitch us, they're sharing their life vision, life dream. They've probably spent countless hours, ridiculous sacrifices, to go and build what they're building. And so saying no as graciously as possible is the most important thing. And obviously, sometimes things get personal, right? People will take it personally. But what I always try and do is articulate at a minimum in an email what the decision was and still be as encouraging as possible in terms of, hey, while it may not have made sense for us and our team, maybe there's others out there that it will make sense for. And so that's usually step one. I think step two, if there's more to be discussed or if there's something that some details that could be really helpful or that could potentially help them with their financing, even if it didn't work out with me or the fund that I'm involved with, I always try and communicate that over a call. And then in extreme cases, which does happen periodically, it may require also a face-to-face to just try and help the”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yes, I think that's totally fair, Harry. I think there's a certain set of companies, and I think the crowning moment may happen at different points in time that can always fundraise. There is always available capital there for them. And I think there's probably metrics and numbers that probably further warrant and justify this. But once you sort of hit this special rocket ship status, I would say there's always suitors waiting to come invest in your company, which of course can be somewhat jarring sometimes for the founders because many of them want nothing but to build their companies. every few months there's financing that comes about but i could not agree with you more i think the hard part is saying like when or how does that essentially happen for these companies but when it does i would say there's just capital that's always available and then it's obviously it's on them to make the prudent decision to decide when and how and how does it make sense and when does it make sense to take on that following capital”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “And it was great. And I think they've been really pleased with what we had said and how we said we would stay in touch and we did stay in touch and things really very serendipitously came together and they subsequently went on to raise another round of financing a few months later. And Anad's just incredible and passionate founder that's built something really special.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “And so ultimately, I shared this feedback with them and I told him we love what you're doing, we love your business. We just think that there's certain things that are still a little bit on the early side. And we'd love to find a way to partner with you in the future. And our recommendation to you would be to potentially wait a little bit and then raise because you had the luxury of still having this amount of capital in the bank. And to our fortune, he ended up agreeing with us and went heads down. And over the subsequent months, Harry, I would say, you know, it's one thing to say, hey, we will stay in touch and people go their separate ways, but we really meant it. And so over the subsequent, I would say probably five months, you know, there was always some sort of a touch point with the founder, whether it was an email or a phone call or meeting up or introducing him to more folks on the team. And so fast forward a few months when the founder was out and they felt they'd sort of hit the metrics that we'd outlined and also some areas that they were hoping to hit, it was really easy. They came in and they came and pitched us and relatively quickly we ended up leading the round of financing and touchline ended up joining the board there.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Yeah, so the UJIT story is an interesting one. Got introduced to the founder Anand actually through a buddy of mine at Kleiner who was actually focused a bit more on both investing as well as operating side of our business. And he actually had met the founder because Anand had come in to ask if we could help introduce him to some of our portfolio companies as a customer. But he was so intrigued by the idea. He's like, hey, Shabi, I would love for you to take a look. And so I think within two, three days, I met Anand, heard the story of the company, so at a high level, they want to help make customer service great. So they've built a really slick STK and platform that allows a user to kind of go through a customer flow on their mobile device. But we met him, and it turns out that he was thinking about raising around. And so started to spend some time with him. And ultimately, you know, as you know, Adventure is as much as it's a individual sport. It's also a team sport. And so we met the team and he met the full partnership. And there were some areas that we still had some reservations on and some concerns on. And so we couldn't get all the way there. The founder had other options for financing at the time.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Which one of those areas are critical for you and maybe be areas that are interesting to you and ensure you're able to kind of maintain these relationships over a long period of time? Because you just never know when a founder may decide to go start something or when an employee at an early stage company may have been thinking long and hard about wanting to start a company. And so I've just been very fortunate that I got to meet some of these folks very early in their own life cycles as companies, as well as get a chance to work with some of these folks before they started their first companies. And now I would say it's incredibly powerful because these are folks that have been fortunate enough to know for a longer period of time and they can be incredibly helpful. Hopefully that answers the question I know was a very long one.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “The folks from Snapchat and WhatsApp and Tinder and Instagram and many other companies which may have had slightly different paths. And because I met these folks at a time earlier in their careers, I met these teams when they were relatively young. So I remember when I first met the Snapchat team, it was only about 13 people at the time. And so had a chance to really build relationships with folks over a longer period of time. Secondly, I would say the ad mob group was incredibly entrepreneurial. There was at least six or seven different companies and founders that kind of came out of there. And I think that number is probably lower than what it actually is. So we had Ali Diab who ended up founding collective health. We had Jim and Nafiz who went and started Mop, Shuwei Makani went and started Keep Trucking. Kamakshi started Drawbridge. And I can just keep naming more and more folks. And so the only reason I mentioned the founder of Longevity thing is I think as an investor, you will meet people from different aspects of lives, whether it's prior jobs you've had, industries you've been a part of, groups you're affiliated with, and it's just really important to figure out”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Yeah, absolutely, Harry. So as I said before, I was very fortunate to have one been a part of an early stage startup and just met entrepreneurs that are really at the forefront. So at AdMob, it was the beginning of the mobile ecosystem. You know, people were going from WAP-enable devices to the beginnings of app stores. And I just started to meet these entrepreneurs on mobile that were tinkering with things very, very early. You were ahead of a market essentially becoming as large as it now has become. And now we look back and we're like, wow, like, of course, like, of course, there's smartphones in your pocket, right? Like, but before this wasn't the case, there were no app stores. Like if we remember back in time, the original iPhone did not have an app store. People were jailbreaking these things. And that's all of a sudden where the app store was created and subsequently Android Marketplace eventually Google Play. But I only mention this because of the being on the forefront of some of these startups and then at Google on the Android and Google Play teams, I had a chance to meet some incredible founders very, very early on. And so folks like.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Ask the questions that are probably most pertinent and most important. And it's just this uncanny ability that when you see it in real life, it's just something to be respected, to be very honest.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Yeah, that's a great point. I think there's a lot of learnings from John, and maybe we'll get a chance to touch on his recent book later. But I think the biggest thing I learned from John was just how cerebral he is. So he's got an incredibly sharp memory. He has a way of working with founders that I think is incredibly genuine because it truly is, and he cares. And so it was just amazing to see him in the boardroom, how he interacted with his CEOs, with the other board members. And it was this combination of both being simultaneously gentle as well as asking the tough hard questions. But in the most polite way possible. And I saw that just time and again. And for me, I would say it was probably one of the greatest learnings was just understanding the different styles at different investors have. And it was one of the remarkable things about John is just he lights up a room when he walks in and he's got this incredibly humble personality, but he can really quickly get to the core of a problem or an issue and very quickly start to”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Never had really been involved with. And here, all of a sudden, I was fortunate enough to have a couple of folks wanting to take a flyer on me. And so I ended up at Kleiner Perkins. Spent about three years there. I was on the consumer and enterprise investment team early stage. So really looking at Series A, Series B, and some amount of seed investing. And it was an incredible experience. I had a chance to work with some of the most storied people in the industry. So my first year I was pretty much tied to John Door by the hip and got to meet a lot of founders and companies and also helped with portfolio companies. And then my second two years I spent a lot of time with Mike Abbott as well as Randy Comazar. And then my last year I spent a lot of time with Eric Fang and Ted Schlein.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Eventually got acquired by Google in 2010, and then I spent about four and a half years at Google across a number of different organizations, but primarily working with startups and really mobile entrepreneurs. And my last two years, two and a half years at Google, I was on the Google Play Team. And my job was really to actually help find mobile entrepreneurs, help them get their apps into the Google Play Store, and get distribution. It was just this incredible opportunity to really meet tons and tons of entrepreneurs in an ecosystem that was growing rapidly and evolving rapidly. As a byproduct of that, Amendment a number of investors and got to build a relationship with them, some of which had started even in the Admob days. And then a couple of them were kind enough to say, hey, you keep introducing us to these great founders and you seem to have some instincts on companies. Would you be interested in spending some time in venture capital? And I was a little taken aback, to be very honest, Harry. The VC industry had been something I'd always been intrigued by from a distance.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Sounds good, Harry. So I guess I had a slightly atypical path to the world adventure. I was born and raised between the Bay Area and the Middle East. So always had roots in Silicon Valley. But my dad was an engineer, so we actually spent several years in Riyadh Arabia. But came back to the states, finished up college, and ultimately ended up graduating and going into biotech of all places. So ended up at a company called Genentech. So I spent my formative three years out of college working there. But nights and weekends and evenings were all spent following the startup ecosystem. And a friend of mine or a mentor I had had for years kind of pulled me aside and said, hey, you know, if you're so interested on the tech side, then maybe that's an area you should go spend some time and was very, very fortunate, had a couple of friends that were at this startup called Admob. And so continue to reach out to them periodically anytime I thought there might be a role there. And I ended up finding an opportunity to join this company called Admob, which is a mobile advertising company. And the rest is sort of history, Harry. I ended up joining the team and then later on the company.”

    2018-09-10 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source