Navin Chaddha’s Post

𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚’𝐬 𝐓𝟐𝟎 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐂𝐮𝐩 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐖𝐢𝐧 On June 29th, the Indian Men's Cricket Team delivered an electrifying performance, securing a nail-biting victory against South Africa in the T20 2024 World Cup final. This triumph brought the coveted trophy back to India after an 18-year wait. There were many lessons from the game, in collaboration with my colleague Shivani Gupta we have picked ten below: 𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐚 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐞𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐭 - Make it clear to everyone that you are here to win. 𝐄𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 - elect to bat first. 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭 - The entire series Rohit Sharma opened the batting for India, setting the pace and challenging the bowlers from the very first ball. 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬 - Kohli had been out of form the entire series, but to yet give him a chance to open, shows the belief in backing teammates going through a touch patch. King Kohli silenced his critics with a match winning innings. 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 - Masterclass Bumrah always delivers with his accuracy, variable pace, and tact. He is the man who makes all the difference with the ball and the team can always count on him. 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐲 - Even though Surya Kumar didn’t click with the bat, he took an unimaginable catch to dismiss David Miller on the first ball of the last over putting India in the driver’s seat. 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 - 22 runs from 18 balls and it was a tough decision for Rohit to bring in Bumrah in the 18th over. Bumrah delivered by taking an important wicket and giving away only 2 runs to bring the asking rate to 20 from 12 balls. 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 - The team's blend of experienced players and young talent proved to be a winning combination. 𝐅𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 - The win was a collective effort, with contributions from every player and there will be many unsung heroes. Axar played his best, supported by Kuldeep, Shivam and Arshdeep. And finally, who can forget Hardik Pandya for bowling the final over under pressure and delivering. 𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 - The team's exuberant celebrations after their victory underscored the significance of appreciating the collective effort, including contributions of their family members. Rohit Sharma's victory lap with his daughter and Bumrah's heartwarming interactions with his family were particularly touching moments. Above all, it's important to acknowledge the pivotal role of coach Rahul Dravid, who served as a pillar of strength for the Indian team through their highs and lows. Here is to the Indian team for winning more championships! What was your special moment or learning?

It has been a busy and productive 1H here at Mayfield. We went all-in on building the AI movement as a 100X Force for Good; I had the honor of making my 16th Appearance at #4 on the Forbes Midas List; We expanded our team with Guru Pangal as Venture Partner; We partnered with 6 new teams; We marked the debut of 2 additional companies; 5 of our companies raised $335 million in follow on funding; We continued to give back to the community. Link to newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/giSwWK7j Wishing everyone a productive and relaxing summer, including an AI-planned trip or two!

We partnered with Walter Thompson, former TechCrunch editor to create Fund/Build/Scale as a podcast to provide actionable advice to ideation stage AI founders. The final episode of our 10 part series features Manish Chandra and Dheeraj Pandey, two Mayfield serial entrepreneurs who have built iconic consumer and enterprise companies - Poshmark and Nutanix. Their evergreen learnings should be a great guide to founders who are starting their journey: 1. Prioritize reducing friction from every process. 2. Embrace a design-first mentality from Day Zero. 3.It’s tricky, but you need to find the right balance between confidence and humility. 4. You are the face of the company, so “keep it 💯.” 5. Idea-stage founders have more freedom than CEOs of public companies.  6. Building a strong personal network is part of your job. Listen to podcast here: https://lnkd.in/esgqH7y3

We are optimists who believe that AI is a 100X Force that is transforming our lives and that AI+Human=Human Squared . Here is a snapshot of our work in helping build AI into a Force for Good. Highlights include: - A spirited chat on the future of AI with Jensen Huang, NVIDIA CEO; - Our POV on Cognition-as-a-Service (CaaS); - Team Mates as our Future Workforce;  - Five Rules of the Road to Build Enduring AI Companies; - Startup Opportunities Across the CaaS Stack. Link to ebook here: https://lnkd.in/dqD5pk5Q

Recognition on lists is an honor but also an opportunity to reflect.  Being named #4 on the Forbes Midas list today marks my sixteenth appearance and my 4th in the top 5 since 2020. The list is a testament to the hard work of entrepreneurs building enduring companies, which in turn, elevates their venture investor.  Hat tip to Alex Konrad and the Forbes team for a great package. When I think about the guiding principles that have allowed me to earn this place, three words come to mind: Empathy: Only the bravest venture on the entrepreneurial journey, and as a three time founder myself, I have great respect for their fortitude.  That is why we have assembled a team with founder DNA at Mayfield, as we believe that empathy cannot be learned.  That is also why we partner with founders at the ideation stage, as we have found that if we follow exceptional founders, they lead us to climb great hills.  Here’s looking at you John Zimmer and Logan Green of Lyft, Manish Chandra and Tracy Sun of Poshmark, Armon Dadgar and Mitchell Hashimoto of HashiCorp, Guru Pangal of CloudSimple, Kumar Ramachandran of CLOUDGENIX INC., Manu Gulati of NUVIA Inc, Murli Thirumale Gou Rao, & Vinod Jayaraman of Portworx by Pure Storage, and Ankur Singla of Volterra, who have all had great exits over the last 5 years. And finally that is why we partner with founders for life, as it is a universal truth that company building is a marathon, not a sprint. Focus: Venture capitalists have been accused of having a follower mentality as it’s easy to be swept up in a wave. As the leader of our firm, I jokingly tell new team members that FOMO is for sheep.  We developed our founding principles 55 years ago, and have followed our conviction through industry booms and busts. We focus on leading rational early stage rounds of financing, lend our company building expertise to founders, and guide them to financial outcomes that deliver outlier returns to our limited partners. Hunger: Investors must match the zeal of the founder, and cannot simply call it in.  This means rapid immersion learning on paradigm shifts (here comes the nod to GenAI), having a beginner’s mind along with a prepared mind, and bringing a blue collar VC approach to working hard alongside founders. My anthem is Eye of the Tiger - and even after investing in 60+ companies including 18 IPOs and 27 M&As - I’m still inspired by the lyrics - It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight! https://lnkd.in/g4k5BUsi

Today's news of Frore Systems's $80 million Series C, led by Fidelity Investments, and the ability of its solid state, active cooling Airjet semiconductors which can now cool up to 100 TOPS of AI workload running on NVIDIA Jetson Orin platforms in thin, silent, dust proof and vibration free form factors, is a major milestone. This achievement was powered by three factors: - Founders who focus on their vision (congrats Seshu Madhavapeddy, Suryaprakash Ganti and Frore Systems team); - A line of differentiated deeptech products (GPU-adjacent semiconductors which replace the 50 year technology of the fan); - The critical role of heat dissipation in making Edge AI and Datacenter AI a reality. We partnered with the Frore team at the ideation stage, welcome them as a great example of an AI Cognition-as-a-Service (CaaS) company, and are excited for this latest milestone in their journey. Link to story in comments.

Today’s Corner Office take focuses on Mayfield Fund's People First approach, and ways in which we discover how founders think. To the entrepreneurs building enduring companies for the AI era and beyond, here's what we're looking for.

Watching the #OpenAI announcement yesterday reminded me that platform companies are created by thoughtful founders who have a long-term view. I want to salute Armon Dadgar Mitchell Hashimoto David McJannet and the HashiCorp team on the latest milestone in their journey - the proposed $6.4 billion acquisition to join forces with Arvind Krishna and the IBM team. We partnered with the team at the ideation stage a decade ago, and HashiCorp went on to build a generational company that leveraged the multi-cloud shift and elevated infrastructure practitioners. Most importantly, they always remembered that company building is a marathon, not a sprint. Here is a photo from their December 2021 IPO - it was cold in NYC! Looking forward to the next chapter. Read about our journey together in comments.

From Digital Twins to How Hard Can it Be - here is the video of my #TIECON chat with inspirational founder and legendary leader Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA. https://lnkd.in/eP4kgVZi Greg Estes Anita Manwani Mylene Mangalindan