Greymatter

The audio version of Greylock general partner Jerry Chen's essay introducing Castles in the Cloud, which is Greylock’s interactive project to map multiple data points of the cloud computing ecosystem — and plots new opportunities for success. Greylock marketing partner Elisa Schreiber reads the essay. You can read the essay at https://greylock.com/greymatter/castles-in-the-cloud/, and find the entire project at greylock.com/castles.

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A re-broadcast of our episode featuring Ariel Investments president and co-CEO Mellody Hobson, who spoke with Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman as part of Greylock's Inconversations speaker series. Hobson is also the chair of the board of Starbucks Corporation as well as a director at JP Morgan Chase, and is an avid philanthropist and educator. Hobson, who is the only Black woman to chair a Fortune 500 company, is an ardent proponent of financial literacy and an outspoken champion for inclusivity. She shared her views on what it will take to significantly diversify the demographics of the business world; her experience as an investor and board member; and her goals for newly launched private asset management firm Ariel Alternatives, which will focus on scaling sustainable minority-owned businesses to serve as the suppliers to Fortune 500 companies. You can read a summary and transcript of the podcast here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/security-in-knowledge/

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Very few startups set out to compete with the biggest leaders in their industry - let alone those who are among the biggest companies in the world. But that doesn't mean it's not possible. In 2020, Greylock investor Sridhar Ramaswamy (who joined the firm following 15 years at Google) launched Neeva, a new kind of search company. The differentiator? Neeva is an ad-free, subscription-based search engine that doesn't track users across the internet. Ramaswamy, his fellow Greylock investor Reid Hoffman, and Chris Yeh discuss how startups have made audacious bets in the most competitive markets, and what makes it possible for them to thrive. You can read the essay version of this podcast here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/taking-on-tech-titans/

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PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada and Greylock general partner Sarah Guo discuss the importance of empathetic leadership, the value of automation in service of people, the effectiveness of trust and transparency as a means of corporate communication — and shares advice on how to build good relationships with your current and former employees, your executive peers, and your board of directors. This discussion was part of Greylock's Iconversations series. You can read a transcript of this podcast here. https://greylock.com/greymatter/jennifer-tejada-pagerduty-leadership-cross-training/

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Greylock investor Christine Kim shares the top five lessons she learned scaling product while working at Uber. Prior to joining Greylock in 2020, Christine spent five years at the ride-hailing business. where she led the product team that launched and scaled Uber Eats. The app started as a small pilot project that quickly caught on, and Uber Eats now generates $50 billion in revenue annually. Read the essay based on this podcast at https://greylock.com/greymatter/strategy-at-scale/

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Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman and his Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh pick up their conversation from last week on how philosophical study can have a great impact on an entrepreneur's career. This week, they focus on how a philosophy degree compares to a much more conventional business background: the MBA."There are two things that need to be explained away in order for me to invest in your startup," says Hoffman, who holds an advanced degree in philosophy. "An MBA or a background in management consulting." While there are many exceptions, Hoffman believes pursuing an MBA can generally be adverse signal for entrepreneurship. Instead, he encourages prospective entrepreneurs gain real-world experience by working at a startup and pursuing other courses of study that help form fundamental critical thinking skills.

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Greylock general partner and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman talks with his Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh about how a fundamental understanding of philosophy can be a powerful tool for entrepreneurship. Hoffman, who holds a master's degree in philosophy from Oxford University, outlines how studying philosophy helps people develop new frameworks for grappling with truth, humanity and decision-making, and how it has helped him succeed in his career as an entrepreneur and investor. This episode is the first of a two-part series.

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If AI is to serve the collective needs of humanity, how should machine intelligence be built and designed so that it can understand human language, feelings, intentions and behaviors, and interact with nuance and in multiple dimensions? Stanford University computer science professor Dr. Fei-Fei Li and Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman discuss the ethical considerations researchers, technologists and policymakers should make when developing and deploying AI. This episode was recorded as part of Greylock's Iconversations virtual speaker series.

https://greylock.com/greymatter/fei-fei-li-reid-hoffman-human-centered-ai/

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A rebroadcast of our episode featuring Coda CEO and co-founder Shishir Mehrotra. The company, which saw a surge in usage during the Covid-19 pandemic and the widespread shift to remote work, recently closed $100 million Series D round. In this episode, which was recorded last year as part of Greylock general partner Sarah Guo's Work From Anywhere podcast series, Shishir talks about the way collaboration and productivity tools have created a lasting impact on the workplace, and what the office (virtual, hybrid and physical) might look like in the future.

https://greylock.com/greymatter/powering-the-maker-generation/

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From dealing with the notorious cold start problem of insufficient data to train models, to identifying the right business model for the product and the crucial need for early partnerships, applied ML companies grapple with an additional set of challenges from the beginning. Cresta CTO and co-founder Tim Shi and Abnormal Security Head of Machine Learning Jeshua Bratman join Greylock partner Saam Motamedi to discuss strategies for building applied ML companies.

You can read a transcript from the interview here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/practical-innovation/

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