Hi, everyone, welcome back to another episode of shift happens. I'm your host, Alana Brunel, and I'm joined here today by the wonderful scar Ghosh, Bg. Thank you so much for joining the podcast.
It's a pleasure, Alana. And we've been working on it with you for so long. I'm sorry. It's been late. But I'm so excited. No, don't apologize, I think our listeners are going to be able to gain some really valuable insights from you. Let's start a little bit with your background. Can you give us some of your engineering background? And and take us through what brought you to the journey to eventually ended up at a VC? Alright, how far back should I go? Many years ago, I came to the US to do a PhD in computer science, back on the east coast at Yale, had a lot of fun initially was thinking of going to academia, but based on my advisors.
1:06 Advice, he said, You'll be better suited for industry. So I went west, and then ended up spending about 20 years in industry from the mid 90s, to the mid 2000 10s. And was very, very, very lucky to be in absolutely amazing. Build slash engineering software companies like Oracle, like Informix had a lot of fun after that at Yahoo, where I ended up running a large display ads exchange doing like ads infrastructure. And that was amazing. And then a bunch of us went to LinkedIn fairly early on to rebuild large parts of LinkedIn. So when I became the founding head of data infrastructure,
1:52 we did a lot of lot of creative work, open source work, so much so that a lot of the projects we did, are being used in companies worldwide. And after the LinkedIn experience, which was truly outstanding, you know, going from 50 million users to five 50 million users is not something that most people get to experience, ended up going and running engineering in a tiny company called nerd wallet, which is a financial marketplace for consumers. And we took it IPO a couple of years ago, after we should I was fairly burnt out are doing to hyper growth startups is not something I would recommend to everybody. And also looking back, you know, I was a change agent and at least a couple of them both on LinkedIn as well as not wallet.
And we should talk about that. I was actually going to go to DC after my LinkedIn and not what it stands to join the Hillary Clinton administration to do something useful around data, data privacy, but you know, that didn't work out. So I, quote, unquote, retired for a couple of years, became a fairly prolific angel investor advisor, and started a couple of nonprofits and just stayed busy. And luckily, I had gotten to meet my you know, our current GP, founder of ABC Joe Lonsdale, just before that, and he had been trying to recruit me, I came into ABC, not as an investor, but to start companies with Joe.
3:19 I did start at least one company with job later, but, you know, I accidentally wrote a check. And, you know, now the whole investment side has taken off. We do a lot in at ABC in the areas of infrastructure software, all the way from networking to data and AI. So and as part of our incubation program, which we call build, I've been lucky to co found a couple of companies. So it's been an amazing journey. And I would say my 20 years in Silicon Valley, as an engineer, as you know, as a leader, as a product builder, a team builder, was kind of the part that I look back as absolutely foundational. And I think those experiences are still playing out.
While I, you know, enjoy and keep on building as a as a venture capital investor. Yeah, you have so many impressive accomplishments. And I think that one of the best accomplishments that you're actually not the most public about is your nonprofit work. So I'd love if you could go a little bit into that. What nonprofit work do you do you do and what organizations do you work with? Oh, boy,
4:29 I generally don't talk about this in public, but, you know, nonprofit, I would say nonprofit is a way to phrase how some of us, hopefully many of us, like to engage in society. So you know, I come from Calcutta, India, where, you know, you you're not surrounded by affluence, right? We were lucky to be in great schools and a great family. So when society is right around you, you have to decide how do you engage with people who are different, less fortunate than you? So a lot of the more
5:00 Other than social groundings of how I live came from my family, from my parents, about how I saw them, share what little they had with, you know, that our entire extended family or with people who didn't have much, I would say, serious structure, nonprofit work I did when I was at Yale, actually, it's really funny because I actually worked in a soup kitchen, a Catholic soup kitchen at Yale for my five years there. And that in at that time, you heaven was a tough place where there was yield and there was the logical side. So I'd say those, those habits stuck with me. And even during the yield time, I got to spend, I went, I went back to Calcutta, I got to spend a bunch of time with, you know, my mentor, and somebody who became my friend, Mother Teresa, who is from my hometown, I worked with her fairly, fairly intensively. So I would say that grounding during my student days, is what has continued.
5:57 Even after I moved here, you know, something that my wife and I started is, we started off working in the soup kitchen in Menlo Park, in Redwood City, actually, she still does, she's been doing it for 25 years, I stopped after five years. So I think, and then, you know, I did a bunch of stuff around Latin American groups, so on and so forth, I think we try to, we're very fortunate to be in Silicon Valley, we're fortunate to have a built staff made money, we're in the right place at the right time. And as somebody who is an immigrant, who has this country has given me the opportunity to succeed, to establish, establish myself to learn judo, to support my family, and my extended, you know, people around me, it's really important for me to stay engaged in as many spheres as I can, and not make a big, big deal a big deal about it.
So we, you know, I have been, you know, we I've been, it's one thing to donate, you know, we've been donating, you know, we have a few family foundations. But all of that is kind of it goes on, I think that part I enjoy the most is during my retirement in 2016 17, I started a nonprofit, just family run nonprofit, which is about about, you know, women's and children's issues in India about progressive art in India of more than the India us corridor. And we still run that i We are fortunate to sponsor a large Music Festival in New York City every year called robbers live. Anyway, we also had a music band on the side. So music was always part of it. I would say a lot of the nonprofit stuff I have gotten into has to do with agricultural practices, about women's health, children's health, education,
7:45 climate change, and, and kind of we try try to look at it holistically around how do you do civic stuff, and influence government to have better policies, but while also going deep into people's internal lives, you know, I am very curious, I spend a lot of time in the Catholic Church. And you know, I'm from a Hindu family. But the spiritual bedrock of what we do, is very, very important to me, I'm not a religious person, but I'm spiritually extremely curious. And I like to be close to people who are always trying to find
8:23 kind of odd linearity in their lives, between their professional lives, between their academic lives, between their family lives, and their social and spiritual lives. And I found that spirit of service, you know, working in soup kitchens, to working in, you know, working in cleaning up the beach, working, cleaning up the zoo, my son, and I would do that when he was young, all the way to being with people who are spiritual seekers. And I would say the state of California is amazing. That way, it affords us all this huge canvas in which to almost reinvent yourself and expand yourself. And all of that you must be so fairly involved in many nonprofits in the US and India as a donor. The other point I want to call out is other than the fact that, you know, I would say I'm half Indian, half, half American. So I want to make sure that as a legacy, both sides of my past and present, get to benefit from what you know, what little resources that I gather in this life and a one very important cause to me are historically black colleges, in the southern states, and how,
9:31 in the next 20 years, I can support a lot of the causes are underground social entrepreneurship, and tech entrepreneurship. And that I find very, very important and inspiring, while also doing this whole India us corridor thing around both nonprofits but also in backing tech entrepreneurs in India but also in the deep south here. Anyway, I think I covered a lot of ground here. And I don't don't know if this is useful, but happy to take any
10:00 Questions about that? That was such a great setup. I mean, there's so much to unpack there, I kind of want to go back a little bit and just tap on the Mother Teresa part, because I think that's so interesting for a lot of people. Yeah, I feel like what are some lessons that you learned with like working with Mother Teresa, and then you're going through this engineering journey, leading these huge teams, eventually ending up as this accidental venture capitalist, I mean, maybe describe some takeaways or listeners can have, from your experience there. I would say two things that I see coming in my life.
And I'm sure I've done both of them extremely poorly. But there are two themes that I almost feel like destiny because, bring them back. One is what I'd call a spirit of service, like, you know, how can you do? How can you serve causes beyond yourself, in the least nonce in the most non selfish way without injuring yourself? So I think there's a theme that I think pervades a lot of what many of us do. And I think it's very strange that when you and I were preparing for this talk, it just came to me that we see life is actually about that also. So we should talk about it also. But I would say the spirit of service, and how do you serve, while staying engaged, while staying outside and not expecting stuff for yourself is very important. And number two, that is very strange, that I think is more specific to way either my life is structured, or my brain is structured is being a change agent, right? I think
11:28 it just so happens when I took on the right media engineering role at Yahoo, or I took on the head of kind of the founding kind of data infrastructure role at LinkedIn, or I took on the head of engineering role at NerdWallet. Or I accidentally, you know, kind of started the focus on enterprise infrastructure software at ABC, it's those are all what I call in startup lingo, those are all zero to one gigs, where you coming into a very, very, very smart, high bar environment, but something new has to be started. Right? So you're you're trying to influence a change in that in that ecosystem, getting buy in while trying to create more value, that the in that the members of that ecosystem start believing in. And you know, that at LinkedIn was a huge experience. There was no official data infrastructure group there. And you know, now as you look back, one of the great prides of LinkedIn is the work that they did on data infrastructure that a few of us were lucky to be there, when it was all started.
12:35 And same thing I would say, not wallet, a to a certain extent, and etc, you know, because of Joe's support. I've been kind of allowed to start the practice of enterprise infrastructure software and, and I would say Nigel, and Pankaj, are, you know, one of our crowning glories of investing in it. So, I would say those are the two strange things that keep coming back to me one is the spirit of service as selfless service as possible. And let me get back to the trees in a second and the other is being a change agent. In the mother trees aside, it was more about learning how to do a spirit of service, few anecdotes, you know, we became good friends, we would argue a lot about things. I was not a very religious person, I still am not.
13:18 I mean, Mother Teresa, who was originally Albanian, but moved to Calcutta very, very, very young. When she became a nun had many sides to her, right, she was the institution leader, running a huge budget organization, so much money coming in from Rome. So there was this very strong,
13:38 very sudden, and you can a woman of action, who was leading a massive worldwide organization, and she was like a CEO, you know, you don't you don't mess with her. You know, she's like, very action oriented. So that part, once you get close to her, you get to see and she's balancing it with this spiritual compassion journey, and which is manifesting in kind of local life of how she's still serving poor people. And how, how we she gets into like a prayer and meditation session, I found both sides to be extremely important, right she had and there's a lot of things you could agree with her you could a lot of things you could disagree with her.
But the sheer force of nature, about both action and compassion in these two sides, I found absolutely very influential in my life, and I keep coming, going, going back to her, I remember she wrote five small cards for me by by hand one evening after after a prayer session. And you know, sadly, I gave four of them away and I don't remember I think I gave one of them to her mom who has since passed arm. I don't remember I will give give the other four away but I still have one left in this room where I'm sitting. And in her writing. I still remember she wrote those five things when I just after a break.
15:00 I'll do one session with me. And she, you know, gave them to me sign. So here's your fun, fun memories. And for all of our differences, I think very fondly back to our she was suddenly planted seeds of change in my heart. I feel like so much of what you just talked about requires these leaders and people that have big expectations on them in their organizations to kind of take a step outside of themselves and take the focus off themselves. Do you have any advice for how people can start to do that? That's a Zen question, man. I mean, ultimately, if you look at, if you look at Silicon Valley, which has become, I mean, in human history, one of the biggest economic flywheels ever I mean, if you look at it from,
15:42 from the chip, hardware days, all the way to the internet 9095 days, which is where I came to, from, from here to Silicon Valley, and now, Silicon Valley keeps, you know, to the social network days to the web three days, and now to the AI days, again, you know, we are all part of this gigantic experiment, almost where so little of the planet, which is Silicon Valley's essentially influencing the entire planet, I will say, we are, I would say, just the sense of influence and power you can have. And by default, I would say all of us in Silicon Valley are leaders. Some of us are managing large teams office or not, but we're all influencers. So I would say, while you focus on your immediate job at hand, which could be to build a product, which could be to build a team, which could be to invest in entrepreneurs, which could be in my case, you know, occasionally co found companies,
16:35 what you find is, as you go through life, this build cycle, destroy cycle reinvent cycle, it's almost like the triumvirate in in kind of spiritual thought, it's important to recognize there are patterns, and that these patterns are playing out. And sometimes you feel that the action and the outcome that is happening to you, is kind of happening for a higher cause. So I think it's important to recognize that getting work done finishing stuff,
17:05 what it means to you. And you know, I've gone through too many of these cycles to kind of understand that a lot of action and reaction is often not under my control, but intentionality is, you know, what intention do you come from? Do you have a spirit of service? Do you have genuine empathy and compassion for the people you're working with? I would say, keeping that part of your spirit, soul and brain alive, as you work like crazy, which most of us do is very important. And, you know, keeping being, the ability to detach yourself, as you dive in and come back is kind of important, but I don't have a magic formula to give you about how,
17:48 one but I think you'll everybody who is fortunate to be in Silicon Valley, I would just say we should be curious about why we are here. And what is the outcome we are here for because the best part of life is to find your own journey, find find the the reason why you are here. That's about it. And you know, it took me a while to understand that. While so much of VC life is about hustling about networking, finding the right entrepreneurs, finding the amazing people who really want to work with you, in a very competitive environment, it's important to see that you're enjoying the spirit of service, and not taking success or failure to, you know, to, personally, because ultimately, the one hard thing about venture capital, which is different from my past life, in our past live, they're fairly controlled environments have you got to go build this software, it's complicated, but you have two years, three years, you have to build a team, you have to make sure you're kind of managing your budget, you're managing your superiors, managing down the car, the golf, the feedback loops are fairly quick.
You knew if you were failing and succeeding, venture capital is different feedback loops are 1012 years. And we're going through a lot of secular changes in venture capital. So the spirit in which you come across the spirit of curiosity and support of how you support entrepreneurs, how you come across, how you put your time on the line for them how you're always available. Enjoying that by not taking short term failure, or success too seriously, is I think, the fun part of being a VC. Anyway, that was a long answer. I hope some of it made sense. No, definitely. I mean, I just feel like every time that, you know, you answer these questions, I have 15 More questions to ask you. But I guess just staying on the part about change agents and addressing that a little bit more.
19:41 I think you did a great job of explaining why it's needed in an organization but talk about like the value of being a disruptive person, like not just disrupting, for the sake of disrupting but disrupting to actually bring this change that you're talking about and to change agents. That's a very difficult question, you know, um, Every people who are change agents can be of many different kinds. I would say earlier in my life, I was more a disruption based change agent, more Alpha more aggressive, abrasive.
20:13 You're, you know, my way or the or the highway and I would say, I surely paid a price for it through through my career. But I would say later in my career and where I am now, hopefully, it's a little bit more listening based. Entrepreneurs that we deal with have multiple facets which make them great. One is, you know, glass half full, optimistic. The other is they really want to solve a problem, but ultimately, the really great ones who have noticed something to be fixed are disruptors. So the question is disruptors also have to be evangelizers. So good change agents have disruption. It's like Mount Fuji Yama, you know, the old Japanese poem about Mount Fuji.
21:01 You know, which is you know, if you if you if you go read the great books about warriors in Japan, you know, the really Zen warriors would be like Mount Fuji, which is fire within and come without, right. So we should be no, I was still aspiring, I think in my life, I may never get there. But being an influencer change agent, I mean, being very clear about what you're trying to disrupt. But understanding that the environment you're working in, may not be ready for that change. And understanding how to communicate that and influence people slowly, and bring them around to align with you is an art. And I think a lot of us go through life and just like working on it. And I don't think there's anything called perceptual perfection.
But if you have an inward looking sight to you, after every conversation, in being a zero to one change environment, one should ask, ask oneself, did I do the right thing in getting that other person closer to did I listen while also trying to get the two of us closer to meet in the middle so that there is real change happening? So I would say there's at the evangelization aspect to it and the style in which you do it is as important as the disruption itself. Anyway, I said some very oblique things. I hope this is interesting. But you know, all of these thoughts play out in my head on a on a daily basis even now. I'm so glad you're using our platform to share it honestly, I think this is such great insights. And, and staying on this disruption theme. I would love to shift gears and talk about our favorite disrupter. Niall, and I know you talked a little bit about
22:40 what the now team is doing. But I guess give us your perspective. From an engineering perspective. Why does enterprise networking need Niall and then also from a venture capitalist perspective? Why invested Nilel? Can I say a few words about my favorite person and mentor Pankaj? Of course, of course. Well, I was retired when I was quote, unquote, retired in 2016 and 17.
23:05 It was really funny. Joe brought me in as an advisor to a company called Open Gov that he had founded many years ago. And the same day in the CEOs, exec staff, this tall gentleman walked in as the advisor that John Chambers had brought in and you know, obviously, I knew who he was because he's he's a very famous man. Turned out it was Pankaj, it was August of 2015.
23:32 No August of 2016. So,I remember thinking what am I doing here, Pankaj will be like only 100x Better advisor for them. Anyway, we became friends and you know, he became my mentor and really encouraged me and almost taught me how to be a change agent in as I did advisory for Joe. And I would say, those walks with Pankaj kind of cemented our friendship and he's a man of so much accomplishment yet so humble, very, very, very good listener, great sense of humor, but actually has very clear ideas about judging talent and judging people. He is not somebody to mess with. And I could see why so many people in Cisco really absolutely adored him, admired him, and why so many people have followed him. And he has come and anyway, so I can't you know, we were lucky. He was lucky. I was lucky that he chose to co invest with me. Join a bunch of boards with me. So all of this played out. And in terms of networking.
24:37 On it, he talked to me fairly early when he was waiting, raising a seed. And then I brought Joe in to meet with him. I still remember we had lunch in Menlo Park. Firstly, you know, Pankaj and John together know this industry better than anybody else because they built all the products at built. They were the disruptors the last 20 years. But the but the inner thread running to Pankaj, is that
25:00 He was observing very, very deeply about what could be improved in a Cisco journey about what could be made better. So there is this change agent thing playing out inside Pankaj also as to why that this is broken Why can't be fixing. So that's one part of Pankaj. Second part is, he doesn't need to work. As I said in my LinkedIn post, he could easily, you know, retire to Napa winery, by the way, Pankaj chuckled when he sondland post, I mean, the fact that he has emotional spiritual energy to do this again, and risk failure, and put his name his body and Stein on the line is, how could one not want to be part of that journey with him?
So that's the human relationship part. Coming to the specifics, networking, enterprise networking, has has not yet embraced a cloud first SAS first software first approach is just a revolution waiting to happen. That's one part and full, but Pankaj and his team to really go go after that. Number two is I think, enterprise networking, right from the sales cycle to the configuration cycle has too many parties involved and the products are much too complicated. So one of the core thesis is in enterprise software, ABC is the fragmentation and simplification. How do you simplify things inside the enterprise? So at a core level,
26:28 Nigel's value add is to make everything dramatically simple, from the installation to the configuration, to the configuration management, to the monitoring, to the bug fixing, and, you know, feedback loops for enterprise networking, and the product, the Tech Tech architecture that Pankaj and his co founders had in mind, kind of resonated with us, we thought it was the right way to go about building this product. And that was, what, two years ago, three years ago that Joe and I were lucky to lead the series B and you know, join join the board. And since then, I think you know, we have been Touchwood fingers crossed proven right? That the product is resonating. And not only that a lot of the old resellers integrators, who had worked with legacy networking companies are coming out of the woodwork and wanting to work with NYGH to actually take this to a much larger footprint of customers. So two to three years ago, we felt this whole idea of cloud and SaaS based networking was important. It was Pankaj is visual that we subscribe to the ADC thesis around, I'm just repeating myself around simplification and defragmentation played out in the way polygynous co founders, you know,
27:43 viewed how the product should be built an extraordinarily complex product below the surface, but on the surface in the way the users should use it. It's about elegant simplicity, simplicity at all levels, and you know, observability at all levels. So that was the core part of ABCs enterprise thesis and we were just lucky to be there at that lunch. To hear that. That's how privileged I thought about it also. So anyhow, yeah, we are so we are so excited. We just can't wait to keep working with Pankaj and his team and his co founders. It's been a great journey. And we have we really look forward to deepening the relationship and helping helping in any way we can. Eg thank you so much for addressing why Nile and why now? I think that was such a great summary, especially from the investor perspective. I have a final question for you. It's actually not a question for me. It's a question from Jack Chad GBT. I asked Chad GBT, what is a question that I can ask? Ask BG I inputted some of your background to clarify that he knew exactly who you were, they knew exactly who you were. And it gave me a very interesting question. The question is, what is an insult that you have received once that you're actually very proud of and why?
29:04 How many insults anybody who even dares to be a change agent and a disrupter will always be will always be will always be insulted? Um, I mean, look, I don't I would say I've been very fortunate. If I look at my work. There is insult about, you know, the whole my way or the or the highway, you know that when you are, you're leading, and you're certain you're leading in the right direction. I've already mentioned some of the companies so I won't mention which one in specific. Yeah, I mean,
29:42 there would be lots of pushback. I don't know if there were there were insults, but I did I did hear it in the early phase of one of the gigs I had for which I'm probably the best known. It was like, why are you Why do you think you're always right about building all this stuff? And, you know, God, that was a pushback and insult that I am fortunate to have received because it tests you, you go back home and you think about, am I thinking in the right way? And you know i That's why that pushback and so that stays with stayed with me. And look, I'll be honest with you I had the other insult. I wouldn't call it insult but I'd call it feedback from my leadership coaches and from my extended family. As you know, during summer Yahoo and LinkedIn and on holidays, I think like a lot of Silicon Valley leaders I was not present for my family.
30:37 You know, the work life balance that we talk about, when you're really immersed in stuff, it is very hard to actually get Emilion work, balance family health and work the three things and your spiritual life right. And I think I was terrible at it. I mean, I think only as I became a VC, and when will my son grow and to COVID is when that feedback, hard feedback came back to me. And I was so fortunate people told me that my family told me that my friends told me that and I would say that feedback is that insult, quote, unquote, is the most important insult that I could have received. It's not an insult. But you know, you know what I'm saying? It's hard feedback. How did you go back after that feedback and try to I guess, again, you're in this huge role.
And now having to take a step back and be like, Well, I do actually have to be there for the people I care about too. So did you do anything, any advice for people maybe going through something similar? I think the thing I realized, something I tell a lot of my younger friends is who are earlier in their family lives, I was just telling this last weekend to somebody is I realized through my failures, that there is nothing called quality time with loved ones, there's only quantity, time, quantity, time is all that matters. So I think really, really creating sacred time for your friends and family. And, and, you know, being there, even if you're sitting at the dinner table, or you're there sitting at home working in the garden, but being present, and actually booking that timeout and never missing that
32:12 is really, really, really important. That's number one. Number two, if you have your own, you know, meditation life, quiet life, it could be through music, could be through running, could be through exercise, could be through gardening, that those things you have to take seriously. Because ultimately people who tend to those parts of the heart will actually be productive longer, and they will actually have a much more meaningful life. Ultimately, after you go build a lot of stuff in life, you end up looking for meaning. And you'll find that human relationships is all that you take with you. For all the stuff we built at Oracle or Yahoo or LinkedIn, or NerdWallet. What has stayed, the trust and relationship has stayed, the memories of being in the trenches did exactly what we did and did not stay with us. We can talk about it in interviews, but the genuine trust and and you know, love you build by being with each other for long periods of time is what you really take forward. So I would say the seconds quote unquote, insult and feedback is still something I bear in my heart, man. And I don't think I'm still good at it. Darlene knows, you know, my very trusted colleague. And I would say it's still work in progress. But that's a trade off people in Silicon Valley and venture capital and builders like us make all the time. And I would say everybody has to work that script out in their lives.
So I have zero advice to give. I will just say I am trying to learn from harsh feedback from near and dear ones all the time. Eg I appreciate such a human interview. I think people are really going to resonate with so much of what you said they're going to be able to take away a lot of wisdom from this. So thank you so much for being on our podcast today. It's been an absolute pleasure. And Allah Allah thank you for your positive energy and for helping you prepare and being so open and kind of bringing out some of my thoughts. And it's very I feel very shy talking about this on record, but you did it. So kudos to you. And I again want to call out that it's a pleasure and a huge learning experience to be with my mentor, Pankaj and Niall and you know, we can't wait to keep on supporting Virgin Island. We really want to get to like greatness. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you
