Aditi Misra

💪💡Wisdom is learning from past mistakes from others but also oneself. Retrospection with action is powerful. An insightful weekend read from the WSJ… Christopher Mims shares his list, from 10 years of covering consumer tech for the The Wall Street Journal: ( link here: https://lnkd.in/eKj2wX_t ) 1. Disruption is overrated. 2. Human factors are everything in tech adoption. 3. People lie to themselves… and to you. 4. Tech bubbles are productive, even if wasteful. 5. We’ve got more power to shape how tech impacts us. Some of my list, from 25 years of early stage consumer internet investing and operating: 1. Tech disruption is overestimated in the short run, underestimated in the long run. (Amara’s Law) 2. Social proof is powerful in tech adoption. 3. Hope kills. Execution is everything. 4. Run towards tech bubbles. 5. Tech optimism empowers positive change.

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What led Han Shen to invest in Weee!? In Episode 464 of The Full Ratchet, Han Shen of iFly.vc shares how he identified the massive, underserved market of immigrant consumers in the U.S. and why vertical integration made Weee! a standout opportunity. His insights reveal how understanding nuanced consumer needs and leveraging efficient models can drive billion-dollar outcomes. In the full episode, Han dives deeper into his contrarian investment strategy, why Gen Z’s behaviors are reshaping markets, and how concentrated portfolios create long-term success. Link to the full episode is in the comment section below!

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One of my favorite things is to have a conversation with builders & founders about the personal experience and complexity of working to bring new deep tech to the point where it makes a real difference in our world. So looking forward to this!

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Instacart is a market leader when it comes to leveraging AI tools to boost productivity at work. I had an amazing conversation with JJ Zhuang, Instacart’s Chief Architect, who has shepherded over 50 AI-driven initiatives to market across the org. We explored what catapulted Instacart to the forefront of AI integration, supporting radically diverse use cases across various functional areas. One striking insight (echoed by Ethan Mollick and others elsewhere) is that you often don't need specialized tools for specialized work. Frontier models like GPT-4 can seamlessly adapt to a wide range of functions and use cases. They're not just for engineers; they're incredibly versatile tools used by marketing, comms, and legal teams. From generating code to proofreading and ideation, GPT-4 empowers every department to leverage AI for enhanced productivity and innovation. By integrating LLM’s like GPT-4 into their workflows, teams can streamline processes, automate repetitive tasks, and unlock bandwidth for new creative possibilities. How can you harness the power of AI in your own work to boost productivity? Share your thoughts below 👇 Want to hear more insights from JJ? Check out the full podcast episode by clicking the link in the comments.

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I just had the opportunity to present my topic proposal for my Doctor of Business Administration at Golden Gate University. Exploring Nature’s Impact on Leadership and Team Cohesion in Early-Stage Technology Startup Co-founder Teams Primary Research Question: How do nature-based team-building experiences influence the resilience and cohesion of early-stage co-founder leadership teams? More to come as I continue on my journey through the dissertation phase of my DBA. If, however, nature has had a personal impact on your life or profession, or if you just want to chat (because I think my husband is getting sick of hearing me talk about it) please pm me. #DBA #DoctorofBusinessAdministration #NaturesImpact #SharedLeadership #Startups #CoFounders #LeadershipTeams

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In the latest article, "Bridging Boardroom Divides: Conflict to Consensus," the intricacies of boardroom conflict resolution processes and their significant impact on corporate governance are explored. This piece provides insights into effective boardroom management and how strategic conflict resolution can enhance decision-making and governance. It discusses how transforming inevitable conflicts into constructive dialogue can strengthen board dynamics. Discover more about navigating boardroom challenges and fostering a conducive environment for organizational growth. #CorporateGovernance #BoardroomDynamics #BoardConflict #ConflictResolution

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If we want to see more diverse top companies like NVIDIA, we need to pave the way at the earliest stages—venture capital is that on-ramp. It was a pleasure to join Emerging Manager Office Hours hosted by Venture Forward earlier this week. Thank you to Rhianon Anderson and Maryam Haque for organizing such a value add event! A few (other) big takeaways to share: 👉 Distinguish the Curious from the Serious: Focus your time on LPs who are truly engaged. There are many LPs out there still excited about and committed to the VC asset class. 👉 Showcase Portfolio Performance: With liquidity tight, highlight KPIs, revenue growth, and the value your companies are building now to position for success when markets rebound. 👉 Clearly Differentiate: Provide concrete examples of how your approach stands out and drives unique outcomes, i.e., case studies. It was a pleasure connecting with friends and meeting inspiring next-gen GPs shaping the future of venture capital: William Crowder (Aperture® Venture Capital), Joshua Weed (Veteran Ventures Capital), Sonam Velani (Streetlife Ventures), Marcos Gonzalez (VamosVentures), Erica Duignan Minnihan (Reign Ventures), and Jenny Xiao (Leonis Capital). Here’s to collaboration, innovation, and creating lasting impact together.

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Watch this space. There are more amazing things to come from Cohere, a JC Venture Capital portfolio company. I was there when the Internet was just starting out and I tell anyone who will listen that AI is to Gen-Z what the Internet was to Gen-X. #ai #venturecapital #artificialintelligence.

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Looking forward to discussing how changing demographics and culture norms are affecting investment opportunities in longevity, health and well-being at The Care Summit today Alongside Cake Ventures' Monique Woodard, Ziegler's Dan Hermann, Oak HC/FT's Billy Deitch and JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Jennifer Edwards, we’ll dive into the trends shaping how we are investing in the space: - Last year marked one of the most significant social and economic moments in modern times: The number of older adults—those aged 50 and over- surpassed the number of children under the age of 15 for the first time. - In 2020 the 50 plus population contributed $45 trillion to global GDP, or 34% of the total. That equates to about 3x the revenue of the world’s 100 highest- earning companies in 2020. - The U.S. population grew by 24.5 million from 2010 to 2022, and Hispanics accounted for 53% of this increase – a greater share than any other racial or ethnic group. - Women around the world and across all ages drive 64% of consumer spending

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"Editors note: Welcome to issue #2 of Transcriptions. Today, we’d like to present a conversation between Qasar Younis of Applied Intuition, and Bilal Zuberi of Lux Capital. We discovered Qasar recently, and find his focus and clarity of thinking to be admirable. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their talk, first held at the Paklaunch forum." Link to transcipt: https://lnkd.in/gH4uBmPE

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https://lnkd.in/guKyDZsf "And then you’d say, why is it that so called lack of focus strategy seems to be working for Amazon? And I think the fundamental underlying principle that he’s guiding his whole discussion of strategy is, he’s changed the rules of strategy. So the old rules of strategy were, the way you gained competitive advantage is by being better or cheaper. So if I am selling you a car, my car is better of cheaper. But the inherent assumption in that strategy statement is, I’m selling one product to one customer. And what Amazon is basically arguing is, the digital economy is all about connection. We have got to connect products and connect customers." "So connecting products, here the idea is, I can sell you, this is a classic razor and blade strategy. I can sell you a razor cheap in order to make money on the blade. So I can sell you Kindle cheap in order to make money on the ebooks. Now, at some level you might say, hey, razor and blade have been around forever. What’s so unique today? I think unique today is razor could be in one industry and blades could be in completely different industrys. So for example, if you look at Amazon’s portfolio of businesses, you sort of say, not only Amazon is an e-commerce player, but also is making movies and TV shows, its own studio. Well, why does it make sense for an e-commerce player, an online retailer to compete with Hollywood. Well, Walmart doesn’t make movies. Macy’s doesn’t make movies? So why does it make sense for Amazon to make movies?" And I think once you dig into it, the answer becomes clear that the purpose of the movies is to keep and gain the Prime customers. Two day free shipping is fine, but if you ask me to pay $99 or $119 for two day free shipping, I might start doing the math in my head, and say, OK, how many packages do I expect to get next year? And is the Prime membership worth it or not? But once you throw in, in addition to the two-day free shipping, you throw in some TV shows and movies that are uniquely found only on Amazon, I can’t do this math. And why is Prime customers important to Amazon? Because Prime customers are more loyal. They buy three or four times more than the non-Prime customers, and they’re also less price sensitive. And in fact, Jeff Bezos has said publicly that every time we win a Golden Globe Award for one of our shows, we sell more shoes."

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Fascinating conversation with James Joaquin + Vinod Khosla on venture, founders and investing with intention for returns and a positive future. With a fun bit on the “shoes of AI”.

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Two weeks ago I spent 3 days with brilliant human beings discussing the state of AI investment with other angel syndicate leads, angel investors and VCs at Hustle Fund's #camphustle in Los Gatos. It was brilliant. Truly awesome to learn so much from insanely accomplished investors. But was so clear to me again is that the US and the UK are two countries divided by separate languages of ambition. Aspiration and ambition underlined by the cluster effect of successful exits, incredible talent and venture capital driven by operators and founders rather than accountants. But one reason why the US often trumps (pun not intended) the UK is they learn from failure. Run a startup that didn't reach the dizzying heights of venture-scale returns? Learn, reset and go again. What they certainly do not do is look at failure with glee and an "I told you so" attitude. Which is what I sense when I read most of the narrative around the failure of Cazoo. Alex Chesterman swung and missed. The business was flawed, unit economics didn't add up and in reality - there was very little innovation outside the vertical alignment of a well-understood business. But when we look down upon what he tried to do and 💩 💩 it all we're doing is making it harder for someone else to be equally as ambitious. Focus on what went wrong. Focus on the fundamental underlying business models that drive efficient use of capital and the push for profitability. But let's celebrate people shooting their shot and not celebrate the failures.

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🚀Stanford Alumni Angel Investor Opportunity Fair & Networking Mixer🚀 The Bay Area Founders Club is excited to co-host "Stanford Alumni Angel Investor Opportunity Fair & Networking Mixer" with Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs (SA&E) at Stanford University on August 23rd from 4:30 PM to 8 PM. Please join us on campus for an evening of networking with other supporters of the entrepreneurial community and exploring ways to get plugged into Stanford innovation and entrepreneurship. ​This event will draw a diverse group of influential angel investors, industry leaders, and dedicated supporters of the startup ecosystem. Please register here: https://lu.ma/BFCStanford ​Here’s a lineup of our esteemed speakers. ​The AI Dilemma: Growth Versus Existential Risk (Prof. Charles Jones) ​Stanford Graduate School of Business STANCO 25 Professor of Economics Dr. Charles "Chad" Jones's influencial paper explores the dual nature of AI, which offers significant economic growth potential but also poses existential risks. Dr Jones will summarize the paper in the context of the startup world. ​Stanford High Value Healthcare Incubator (Prof. Craig Lindquist) ​Inadequate access to the right medical care over time results in high-cost, sub-optimal care at crucial times, a major problem in rural communities. These access problems are at the heart of much of the inequity in healthcare throughout the United States. Learn how Stanford's Clinical Excellence Research Center (CERC) is addressing these access problems through the High Value Healthcare Incubator, an entrepreneurial organization using the design thinking method to uncover the root causes of inadequate access, evaluate healthcare system data, and define solution concepts to increase participation in programs. ​Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs (Alec Walker, Founder and Co-President, Texas Chapter) ​Learn about Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs (SA&E) and how it serves the alumni network and beyond: how the organization is organized as a non-profit to not take carry, how we provide deal flow through pitch sessions and curated blind introductions for our angel members, how we assemble and deliver educational content on timely startup-related topics, and insight into our strategies for how we choose which startups we support. ​Bay Area Founders Club (Paul Fang, Ph.D.) ​The Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 4,000 members, including more than 120 startups and over 80 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality. Dr. Fang will discuss the BFC and how to get involved.

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Random Sunday Thoughts #117 1. In March 2023, I oversaw the sale of Chat*com to Hubspot Founder Dharmesh Shah, for a now known $15.5m. Dharmesh is one of the savviest tech entrepreneurs of our generation and he has been known to acquire strategic, ultra-premium domain names such as Chat*com. Last week, he rolled out phase 1 of an experimental, ai driven domain name appraisal agent on his Agent*ai platform. When I first tested it, I texted Dharmesh some concerns about the results and he replied immediately that he was working on enhancing it and it was just underway. I have tested it several times since and it is much improved already. Here is my issue with this, which Dharmesh acknowledged. The most valuable exact match and category domains that we invest in and advise on, such as Chat*com, are, well, the most valuable, and since almost every transaction involving them since the Internet started is confidential, even the all powerful OZ (AI) is limited, at least until it can see behind confidentiality agreements. With that said, I love seeing the most innovative people investing in the domain name space. We are the lead investor in Atom, and they are on the cutting edge of deploying AI in the domain name industry. 2. Our team at Hilco Digital Assets advises on many of the most significant domain name asset sales and acquisitions that transact. I myself, have also been a 2X founder of market leading, category domain branded companies, as well as an investor in many more ultra-premium domains, which does carry weight with those we are negotiating a purchase or sale for/with. However, there is nothing more valuable than the CEO/Founders/Investors who are peers to those we are advising, discussing the different reasons why their exact match, category domain acquisition has been the most important strategic business decision they have made. To that end, we have added a page to our website, https://lnkd.in/eFS_NYXp, that features some of these CEO/Founders. These are articles, tweets, and videos, to go along with the end user guests I have on my Random Thoughts podcast. If you are senior management, an investor, or an aspiring entrepreneur, these stories from Gold*com, Home*com, Extend*com, Gravity*com, Teamwork*com, Public*com, to name a few, are very important. 3. As my weekly readers know, my passions are Family #1, domain names, business deals, food, sports and with that, daily fantasy sports. I regularly post about Draftkings lineups and my obsession with winning a Millionaire Maker ($1m to first place) contest on DK. I have been to the NBA Live Final (the 2nd most exciting DK opportunity), won several large dollar tourneys, and come oh so close in the Milly but it has eluded me as it does most. It is not meant to be easy. Last week, I won a ticket to the British Open $4,444 entry fee Milly. Only 750 people vs the usual 100,000+ playing for the win. I am so excited! Until Next Week #domainnames #digitalassets #usecases #theOpen

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Urgency is the heartbeat of high-performing teams and companies. Without it, even the most talented teams risk falling into a plateau of low-level productivity. Leaders must consistently drive tempo and intensity to avoid this trap—aligning everyone towards ambitious goals and maintaining focus on what matters most. At the No Priors podcast, Frank Slootman of Snowflake says it best: urgency isn’t just about speed. It’s about setting higher standards, fostering alignment, and ensuring the team thrives under a shared mission. It’s the fuel that powers extraordinary outcomes and defines a company’s culture. At Magento, this mindset wasn’t just a guiding principle—it was an expectation. We fostered momentum and drive—setting ambitious milestones and encouraging the team to move fast and deliver results. Complacency wasn’t an option, and we worked hard to avoid it. The result? A team that consistently delivered exceptional outcomes by staying focused. Each milestone wasn’t just a win—it reinforced our culture of high performance and collaboration. For leaders, the plateau is a choice. ➡️ What strategies do you use to avoid the productivity plateau? https://lnkd.in/gmEFnWCw

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We at Prosperity7 Ventures are excited to announce our investment in Enfabrica. We are looking forward to our partnership with the fantastic team led by Rochan Sankar and our fellow investors Spark Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, Cisco Investments, NVIDIA, Samsung Catalyst Fund, Venturetech Alliance LLC, Maverick Capital, Arm, IAG Capital Partners, Atreides Management, LP, and Valor Equity Partners! Today's accelerated compute clusters face critical I/O scaling challenges in providing a unified, high-performance networking fabric - Enfabrica enables composable fabrics of compute, memory, and network resources from scratch, scaling from a single system to tens of thousands of nodes. Enfabrica's ACF SuperNIC is specifically tailored for the demands of modern AI and machine learning, optimized for large-scale training and inference but also future-proofed for evolving AI workloads. Onwards and upwards! CC: MAHDI ALADEL, Aysar Tayeb, Abhishek Shukla, Daisy G., Raed Twaily, Kasem T. Kharbat, Omar Alnammary, Brandon Donnelly, CFA, Hanan Al-Ali, and Christopher P. #innovation #tech #techinnovation #ai #general #networking #techinvesting #venture #venturecapital #venturefunding #vc #fundraising #investors #vcfunding #enterprise #enterprisesoftware #b2b #startup #cybersecurity #investment #ml #deeplearning #genai #aiiinfra #aiinfrastructure #tapeout #chips #semis #chipsact #hpc #growth #investments #silicon #aisilicon #aiaccelerator

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All of us at BCV would like to congratulate Rubrik’s founding CEO Bipul Sinha, founding CTO Arvind Nithrakashyap, and their two other original co-founders, Arvind Jain and Soham Mazumdar, along with the rest of the Rubrik team on their initial public offering today. Rubrik has significantly transformed the landscape of digital resilience, expertly transitioning the concept of data protection into a broader, more critical framework of data security. This shift has not only captivated the interest of customers worldwide but has also positioned their solutions as indispensable tools for modern businesses. Transitions are never easy, but as a board member for the past five years, I have seen Rubrik seamlessly navigate this complex process under the visionary leadership of Bipul and Nitro. Today marks another milestone in Rubrik's journey, a testament to the team's hard work, innovation, and the strong direction provided by its leaders. The emphasis on securing data not just from loss, but as a proactive measure against threats, shows Rubrik's commitment to redefining the industry's standards for data security. cc: Bain Capital Ventures Rubrik

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