I’m honored and humbled to make the Forbes Midas List for the 18th time. The recognition I value most is the privilege of doing what I do every day – helping founders from inception to iconic.
Three reflections come to mind as I look back on my journey:
1. A Safety Net, Then and Now
I arrived in Silicon Valley in 1992 with $500 in my pocket and a Stanford University fellowship. What I found was an abundance of people willing to bet on me. Stanford gave me a one-year leave of absence to start my first company, VXtreme, and promised to be my safety net if it didn’t work. Mentors like Anoop Gupta, John Hennessy, and Gary Rieschel showed me what was possible for an immigrant founder.
That’s the business I’m in today. Someone was my safety net once, and now I get to be that for founders. In the ups and downs, from the whiteboard sketch to the bell ringing – paying it forward is everything.
2. Five Waves, One Bet: People First, From Inception
I’ve been fortunate to build and invest in startups across five technology waves – PC, web, mobile, cloud, and now AI, a 100x era of Collaborative Intelligence. Architecture shifts every decade, markets come and go, and technologies get rewritten. But my bet has been the same – people first.
Markets don’t build companies. People do. That’s why I bet on founders first, and markets second, lean in hardest when risk is highest, and stay for the marathon. It’s also why some of our most rewarding partnerships are with founders we’re now backing for the second, third, and fourth time.
Here’s looking at the founders I have partnered with from inception to iconic who have had IPOs and M&As – John Zimmer, Logan Green, Manish Chandra, Tracy Sun, Armon Dadgar, Mitchell Hashimoto, Rehan Jalil, Ankur Singla, Lyndon Rive, Anand Deshpande, Guru Pangal, Kumar Ramachandran, Manu Gulati, and Gou Rao – and now the founders building the future of AI – Jagdeep Singh, Rajiv K., Seshu Madhavapeddy, Dheeraj Pandey, Rodrigo Liang, Faraj Aalaei, Bill Gross, Tom Chavez, Vivek Vaidya, Tarun Raisoni, Barun Kar, and Stefano Ermon.
3. What Drives You? What Defines You?
It’s the first question I ask every founder I meet – and one I’ve sat with myself. The honest answer has evolved. I used to be driven by curiosity and impact, and I still am. But what defines me now is different: helping elevate the people I work with to their highest potential. Helping a founder, investor, or colleague operate at the peak of their Maslow’s hierarchy and become the best version of themselves.
That’s the work, the privilege, and the most satisfying win of all.
Thank you to Iain Martin and Forbes for the recognition. To our founders – thank you for choosing Mayfield. To my Mayfield family, you make this a team sport and make coming to work fun every day. And to my family – you are the foundation for all of it.
We’re not shooting for the roof. We’re shooting for the moon.
Upwards and onwards!
