Latest from Navin Chaddha
We have customized our ‘people-first’ framework to apply to AI companies and are using it to guide our investment decisions.
5 questions investors should be asking inception-stage generative AI founders
As we meet with many AI-native founders, here are the top five pieces of company-building advice we’re sharing with them.
While it might seem daunting to question potential investors, remember that you need to build a mutual zone of trust for the long journey.
Featured Article
Mayfield’s Navin Chaddha: I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
My third startup had been in the market only a year when the internet bubble burst and had not yet found product-market fit.
Survival tips for startup founders living through their first market correction
For founders, the gyrations of the stock market, the resulting correction in public market tech stocks, and the inevitable impact on private company fundraising might seem disheartening.
The irony is that there’s never been a better time to be an inception investor given lower capital needs of getting from idea to Series A milestones.
Biology as technology will reinvent trillion-dollar industries
We face two major threats today: one to the health of our planet and the other to our own. Fortunately, biology and technology are creating fixes for the planet as…
The renaissance of silicon will create industry giants
With the end of Moore’s Law, new semiconductors are required for a cloud-native, data-dominated, AI-powered, IoT world. The rise of new players will put silicon back into Silicon Valley.
A people-first view of investing in innovation or entrepreneurs who take people for granted will fail
I have long been fascinated by the promise of the world of autonomous transport. However, as the conversation at a recent event turned to the complexities that autonomous cars might…
Jason Kilar on founding Vessel and the wonderful world of customer service
Jason Kilar’s interest in customer service was sparked by a visit to Disney World when he was 10 years old. The wonder he felt as he walked underneath the train…
NFX Guild’s James Currier’s journey from baiting hooks to baiting big deals
James Currier focuses on building businesses with network effects, and he builds those businesses by choosing the right people first. Currier started as a schoolboy entrepreneur, selling worms to fishermen…
Journeying from entrepreneur to investor and back again
Jonah Goodhart started his entrepreneurial journey while still in college at Cornell University. What started out a bit haphazardly with an email list turned into solid learning opportunities that have…
Elastica’s chief executive Rehan Jalil on being an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley
Serial entrepreneur discusses his journey starting up and exiting two tech companies in Silicon Valley.
Poshmark CEO Manish Chandra on moving from enterprise businesses to social shopping
Manish Chandra is founder and CEO of Poshmark. As a serial entrepreneur, he also founded Kaboodle in 2005, one of the industry’s first social shopping sites, that was acquired by…
Jake Winebaum explains how cutting his teeth as a serial entrepreneur led him to launch Brighter
Serial entrepreneur Jake Winebaum discusses the road to launch Brighter, his dental benefits startup.
Nutanix CEO & Serial Entrepreneur Dheeraj Pandey On “Letting Go” As A Leader
Dheeraj Pandey, is co-founder & CEO of Nutanix, one of the most disruptive software infrastructure companies today. He has held leadership positions with Aster Data & Oracle. He is a…
Serial Entrepreneur Max Levchin On Leaving A Legacy
In this podcast, Max talks about having true passion for an area of business, on the difficulty of building network effects businesses, the happiest day of an entrepreneur’s life, and…
Ex-MySQL CEO Marten Mickos On Leadership And The Open Source Revolution
Marten Mickos discusses leadership lessons, the evolution of open source and the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Europe.
From The North Pole To Northern Californian Startups: A Conversation With Chris Michel
Chris Michel talks about the similarity between photographing the North Pole and being an entrepreneur, his learnings from being fired as CEO of his first company, similarities and differences between…
Venky Harinarayan, is an e-commerce veteran who co-founded comparison shopping engine Junglee (acquired by Amazon in 1998), worked closely with Jeff Bezos to create Amazon Marketplace, created topical guide to…
Serial Entrepreneur B.V. Jagadeesh Talks Bootstrapping And Mentoring
In this podcast, B.V. Jagadeesh, a Silicon Valley veteran who co-founded and led iconic companies such as Exodus Communications, talks with Mayfield’s Navin Chaddha about bootstrapping Exodus in its early…
From Plaxo To Docker, Ben Golub Talks Innovation And Mentorship
In this podcast, Golub talks with Mayfield Fund’s Navin Chaddha about picking apricots in Silicon Valley, learnings from the challenging Plaxo journey, his excitement around leading Docker, the current climate…
The DockerCon user conference recently concluded in San Francisco, and the evidence of the container movement gaining momentum was clear — 2,000+ attendees, 70 sponsors and more than 40 exhibitors.…
The Dawn Of The Age Of The Software ‘Infrapreneur’
The software-defined data center should be a call to all entrepreneurs focused on enterprise infrastructure that the past does not predict the future, but it can be undone by it.…
Five Factors In Building Giants Of The Big Data Era
As we enter the second half of 2014, it would be fair to say that big data has gone mainstream, attracting coffee table books, multiple industry landscapes, consumer applications, and…