Gayathri Radhakrishnan, partner at Hitachi Ventures, shares profound insights from her journey and perspectives on venture capital and technology. Gayathri reflects on her early life in India and how her competitive spirit and supportive family shaped her path to challenging norms in male-dominated fields. She delves into her focus on impactful investments in AI, utilizing Hitachi Ventures' corporate strengths to strategically nurture startups. Gayathri values founder passion, problem understanding, and openness to feedback, and her advice to founders stresses preparation, boldness, and leveraging networks for lasting partnerships and growth.
Gayathri Radhakrishnan, partner at Hitachi Ventures, shares profound insights from her journey and perspectives on venture capital and technology. Gayathri reflects on her early life in India and how her competitive spirit and supportive family shaped her path to challenging norms in male-dominated fields. She delves into her focus on impactful investments in AI, utilizing Hitachi Ventures' corporate strengths to strategically nurture startups. Gayathri values founder passion, problem understanding, and openness to feedback, and her advice to founders stresses preparation, boldness, and leveraging networks for lasting partnerships and growth.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
[1:54] The making of Gayathri Radhakrishnan: Challenging norms and building a strong sense of confidence and competitiveness.
[10:32] The responsibility and impact that venture capital has on shaping future generations
[14:10] Impact of corporate venture capital, when done right: Hitachi Ventures’ commitment to patient capital with a 10-year fund cycle further underscores their long-term support for startups.
[18:21] Trends and opportunities: Entrepreneurs should explore opportunities where AI can revolutionize industrial processes, enhance safety and efficiency, and contribute to sustainable practices.
[23:37] Passionately understand your problem, stay open to feedback, and ensure your solution has real-world validation and market potential.
[28:20] Aim for follow-up meetings and leverage the investor's network for potential introductions.
[35:15] What’s the immediate threat posed by AI?
The non-profit organizations that Gayathri is passionate about: SV2
About Gayathri Radhakrishnan
Gayathri Radhakrishnan is currently Partner at Hitachi Ventures, focusing on AI investments in Manufacturing, Healthcare, and Automotive. With over 20 years in technology, she has held roles at Dell, Corning, and Micron Ventures, and served as a Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital. Gayathri holds an MS in EE from The Ohio State University, an MBA from INSEAD, and is a Kauffman Fellow. She has driven strategy at Dell’s Software Group and mentored startups at TechRanch Austin and Techstars Cloud.
About Hitachi Ventures
Hitachi Ventures is the global venture capital arm of Hitachi Group. Hitachi Ventures invests in innovative companies that address society’s key technological challenges in areas like IT, industrial automation (robotics, sensor technology and IoT), cloud services (data management, cybersecurity), mobility (autonomous driving, mobility services, smart infrastructure and security services), energy, smart medicine (AIfor digital imaging, smart diagnostics, remote care), smart city, smart infrastructure and more. It’s portfolio includes companies such as Samsara Eco, Trustwise AI, WEKA, StrikeReady, Archetype AI, WASE, Cure51, Proscia, Thea Energy, Captura among others.
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Automation in the industrial world is not as far along as I thought, because when you watch a lot of sci-fi movies, you look at everything being automated, everything happens. And I realized, okay, that's happening only in the movies, not in real life apparently. So it made me dig into the space. And it goes back to my earlier comment about when I get into a space, I like to learn a little bit more about not just the technology, but the why, how, and so on.
[00:00:32] Gopi Rangan: You are listening to the Sure Shot Entrepreneur - a podcast for founders with ambitious ideas, venture capital investors and other early believers tell you relatable, insightful and authentic stories to help you realize your vision. Welcome to The Sure Shot Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Gopi Rangan. My guest today is Gayathri Radhakrishnan. She goes by G or Gayathri.
She is a partner at Hitachi Ventures, the corporate venture division at Hitachi. She spent many years at Micron and a few other places. And earlier in her career, she was an engineer. She's also a Kauffman Fellow. We're going to talk to her about her journey as a venture capital investor. And at Hitachi Ventures, what does she focus on?
What kind of startups does she like to invest in? What questions does she ask founders when she meets them, especially in the first meeting or the second meeting? Why does she say yes? And why does she say no? We're going to learn from her experiences. G, welcome to The Sure Shot Entrepreneur.
[00:01:39] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: Thank you, Gopi. I'm excited to be here.
[00:01:41] Gopi Rangan: Let's start with you, where you grew up. You grew up in South India, and now you live in Silicon Valley. Walk us through that journey. How did life start in India? Where were you? And how did you get to the U.S.? And how did you become a VC?
[00:01:54] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: Life in India, I was the youngest of three kids, two older brothers, actually. And I have to say, I am very grateful for my parents and the way they raised me. For Indian culture, you know, it's all about respecting elders and so on. I broke all of those norms. I never took any question, any comment they said directly, always challenged them.
Why do we have to do this? Why do we have to do that? They finally gave up on me. I think they just realized that that's the way I am and let me get away with it for the most part. But that also instilled a sense of confidence and comfort growing up with two older brothers. I also didn't really care about the gender aspects of things too.
And I'm saying this because I'll get to it coming to the U.S. I feel the gender diversity much more, but I am equally comfortable in a room full of men if I'm the only female in the room or, you know, the other way around. But I thank my parents to a large part for that comfort in letting me be when I was growing up.
So I was very competitive, even as a kid. Of course I had to be better than my brothers. They both went to engineering. So I had to go and be an engineer as well. Gopi, you're from India as well. I don't know if you remember when you do your 12th grade exams, there's a time lag before you get the admission from the engineering colleges.
So everyone does a backup college just to be safe. Otherwise they lose a whole year. My brothers didn't do the backup college. So I decided I'm not going to do it too. It was not that I was confident I was getting into an engineering college, but as I said, I was super competitive. So I just had to, you know, do the same thing, right? So I did my undergrad in electronics and communication engineering. My two brothers came to the US so I followed their footsteps, came here for my master's as well. But to a large extent, the fact that they were here, I think, helped my parents make that call. I was the first female in my family to leave for the U.S. for education or go abroad for an education. It was kind of unheard of in my family setting. There were a lot of members who tried to convince my parents that that was not a good idea, but to send me off, again, thanks to my parents, they did send me to the U.S. And even when I came here, the fact that I had my two brothers to call on if I needed anything was super helpful and I got moral support or emotional support.
It was an interesting journey. I was at Ohio State. I was focused on AI, computer vision and then for the second half of my master's, I actually switched to optical interconnects and such. I was so dabbled in both the hot topic, you know, today, like 20 plus years ago. But yeah, it was interesting learning about it and during my time focusing on the optical space, I decided that I really wanted to get into that side of the world. This was back in 2000 and that's when a lot of the companies in the optical technology space were coming to bear from Agilent's of the world and so on.
So I ended up joining Corning in their multi-mode fiber optics division. It was an interesting journey seeing them grow from big powerhouse to almost during the 2000 era, their stock price went close to like a dollar. There was debates around if they'll get delisted or not. I had left Corning by then. I moved to Austin, Texas.
I ended up joining a startup there. Worked for the startup doing product marketing and product management again back in the day when we had these flip phone cameras, smart VGA camera phones. We were talking about a lot of things that we take for granted today, like barcode scanning and being able to, you know, take pictures and then turn that into a photo, send it to grandma from your vacation spot, things like that, you know, now seems so commonplace.
But if you remember those VGA images, they were pretty grainy and pretty much not useful for anything. But we had some founders from Kodak who were working on enhancing image processing technologies for that. But that was my first glimpse, I would say, more into the product world. Even my job at Corning was not in the hardcore technology side, but more on the product marketing kind of area.
And that's where I learned my first lesson of business, which is, it's not always about first market. So for instance, Corning's multimode fiber, the gigabit Ethernet fiber came, I think at least a year after Lucent or Alcatel, I think, I can't remember the exact competitor, but they still took good market share later.
When I ended up in the startup doing product management and product marketing, that was my first exposure to VC actually. When we sent out pitch decks to VCs for investment, they would ask questions like: How is this going to work with the broader sort of ecosystem, the telco players? And some of them felt like the hardware was going to improve to a point where, uh, this technology may not be needed.
It made me look at things a very different way. At one point I was like, "who are these guys? So the fortune tellers, how do they know what's going to happen in the future?" So that really piqued my curiosity. I had the opportunity to move to Europe. I decided that given my interest more and more in the business side of things, it made sense to pursue an MBA. Moved to Germany, did my MBA at INSEAD, interned at a venture fund and also joined a VC firm right after INSEAD in Germany called Early Bird Venture Capital. So those were my first real sort of exposure to VC. Totally fell in love with the profession because the idea that every day you come into the office to meet founders who are working on cutting edge stuff, the next generation of innovation, that's going to become a part of your life was exciting to me. I like the breadth of things as well, so the idea that one day you're looking at a climate startup, one day you're looking at a web 2.0, because back then that was the big deal. Was really fascinating. I mean, this was the time when Facebook was just starting, LinkedIn was just happening and so on. So really enjoyed that. I had to move back to the US. Came back again to Austin. I realized that I spent so much time in the startup ecosystem, but didn't really know how the exits happened.
So I decided this would be a good time to sit on the other side of the table and learn about startup acquisitions. So I joined Dell in their corporate development strategy and corporate development group and really learned about how Dell thought about acquisitions, at least at that time. I went from being in a public company that went private, almost came out.
I left right before they came out, but they had gone through the acquisition of EMC as well. We had multiple functions within that, even within the strategy role, we did a incubated new product launch called Dell Cloud marketplace, essentially. So learned a lot about also the large company, new product development. How do large companies think about startups?
Why do they acquire and so on? I think it gave me a different flavor as well. But it was time. The software division that I was part of was getting spun out. I didn't want to be part of a PE shop so I left, worked at two different startups as VP of product. And my first startup got acquired, not my, as in I was an employee there, but the first startup got acquired.
The second startup went under and I was thinking about what's next. I was like, it's really interesting to come back into venture. It's been a while. I've done the startup. I'd done the M&A side. That got me into Micron because compared to back in the day, I think corporate venture has now been a well-accepted norm.
And so that's what took me to Micron, but I joined Hitachi last year because I think Hitachi's model has the best of, from a CVC standpoint, has a very unique approach that I appreciated and that's what brought me to Hitachi. A very long answer to a short question.
[00:09:42] Gopi Rangan: That was amazing. It's great to see the variety of things that you experienced in your life, which has brought you to where you are today. I know that you recently opened your brand new offices in Silicon Valley.
Congratulations on that.
[00:09:54] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: Thank you
[00:09:55] Gopi Rangan: I noticed that very early in your life, you were bold and you were contrarian and you were willing to voice your opinion, doesn't matter what other people think of you. And you kept that spirit going throughout your career and you still do now as a VC.
You had a stellar career as an engineer. And then you switch to the business side and even on the business side, you were on the product side and M&A for quite a while. And eventually you found your roots back in VC and you're now building one of the best VC firms. As you mentioned, the way Hitachi is set up is different from most other CVCs. But I'm really curious.
Why do you like VC? What about VC makes you feel like this is the place to be and this is where you want to spend the next many years of your career?
[00:10:41] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: That's a great question.
And it's something that I think in my career, I always also question, is this the right thing? Should I be building something? But I have to say it's still the variety. But I also don't take this responsibility because you are investing in the next generation. This is, you know, companies that could, you know, influence the future generations as well, right?
I think about business models. This is an internal debate that I've been having of late is, you know, is technology actually helping people or hurting people or being a big divider, right? You saw about all the election related, not, I'm not talking about the current election, but the 2016 election news about how Facebook had a role to play back then and things like that. So it always makes me wonder in one end, you know, I can FaceTime my parents who are halfway across the globe. They can talk to my kids anytime. Technology brings us together so closely, but it also has the power to emotionally divide us and create a barrier.
I went off of certain social media platforms, as well, because I realized that the business model is not necessarily in favor of the consumer. At the end of the day, these are for profit institutions that are looking to make money. They are not necessarily here for social good. So it made me question a lot of those things.
So while I appreciate the variety that venture brings into my life, it has also made me a lot more thoughtful about where am I going to put my energy and effort into and what kind of founders and entrepreneurs do I want to support going forward as well. I do think that the challenge of learning something, I mean, you're talking to founders are working on a specific topic, right? Or a theme. And that is their life for the duration of that startup. That's what they breathe and live and eat almost a day in and day out. But when you are coming at it, it's so easy to be like a 'fly by' parent, right? It's what they call fly by parenting. Come in and like tell them what's wrong or what you think they should change and like walk away.
But I don't believe in that model, but if I want to give feedback, I want to be thoughtful about it. So I do my best to at least catch up or have some level of understanding. And I think having been in a startup gives me some sense of empathy. As you know, Gopi, I also have a founder in the house. So I also know firsthand what a founder's journey is.
In addition to being an early startup employee, I also have that founder perspective. So I think those are things that I bring to bear. So it's a combination of that breadth being challenged by new things to learn and trying to keep up, but also that sense of responsibility of: is this the right thing for my kids and for the future generation?
Am I investing in the right things, right? Sometimes you don't know, but hopeful that I'm thinking through them the right way.
[00:13:45] Gopi Rangan: Capital formation is an important part, probably one of the most impactful moments in the world of business. But in addition to capital, when you give advice, it definitely has a huge impact on small startups.
And as a VC, you get to choose who to invest in, which ideas to back, and how to help them get to the next stage and have the opportunity to build something big. I can see that that's very exciting for you. Talk about Hitachi Ventures. What is Hitachi Ventures? What's the firm about and how is it different from other VC firms?
[00:14:18] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: So Hitachi Ventures to me is a very exciting model because we're actually set up as a completely separate entity. Hitachi as a conglomerate is an $80 billion revenue company and has 700 businesses or so. We are set up completely independent. We're actually headquartered in Germany.
We have a proper fund admin structure. The way we are compensated and everything is very much like an institutional VC. So we are very much aligned to the founder that we invest in from that standpoint. We want their success. What I think about in the world of VC is especially having been in another CVC before I can see the value of corporate VC if done right.
And what at Hitachi we do is we look for companies that could be relevant for Hitachi either now or in the future. It doesn't have to be immediate. We don't need any BU sponsors. We don't need any commercial engagements in place or anything like that. We hope to drive that for the companies we invest in going forward.
There are so many VCs out there now and everybody brings money, but then when you start digging in the differentiator is very, it comes down to the person almost at that point. But as Hitachi Ventures, we have that unique value of this huge mothership and with the breadth. Hitachi plays in so many areas that the breadth is amazing. With employees globally, right?
Can we tap into that and provide that differentiated value? So having worked in large corporates, I know how hard it is to navigate. And when I joined Hitachi, I was like, "Oh, I've worked in corporates before. How different can it be?" It's a conglomerate. It's very different because it's like working across hundreds of independent companies and you're building those.
We work very hard to build those relationships with as many of these Hitachi entities as possible. And when we work with a company, we say, "Oh, this could be interesting to this business unit or this entity. Let me make the connection." And we can't obviously sell the products. We are not the salespeople, but at least making that connection and opening up the doors, I think is really important. And at the end of the day, if Hitachi can either be a customer or a distribution partner, we think the value to the portfolio company is immense. But we also let them know that things are not going to happen overnight, right?
There's always inbuilt inertia, but we do our best to try and open doors. And many of our founders actually have given credit to us for that. We're also patient. We have the 10-year fund cycle. So it's not like tomorrow, if there is a change in leadership, we drop you and we move on to the next cool thing.
Once you become a part of our portfolio company, then we are incentivized like, just like any other fund. So we want you to be successful and that's what we're looking to drive. So this mix of impact that we can drive for the portfolio from a go to market standpoint or a customer standpoint, plus the economics and the structure and the freedom. Our investment committee is the five partners of the fund. I don't know how many CVCs can say that.
[00:17:32] Gopi Rangan: I've always believed that when corporate venture is done right, it can be Far better, not just as good, but far better than institutional venture capital, because there's one side of it where you invest in companies with capital that is true for both institutional VCs and corporate VCs.
But the other side of it, it is clear that corporates can have a significant impact, especially when you create that win-win scenario with a business unit and the startup and introduce them at the right place at the right time and tell them this is something you should pay attention to. And broker that conversation between small company and one of the large business units of, in this case, Hitachi, which creates enormous amount of value for both sides.
And that is not something that's easy to do. And when it's done right, it can have a huge impact on your investments and the future of the company. What are some trends you're excited about? What areas do you like to invest in? Can you give some examples of companies you've invested in?
[00:18:29] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: Absolutely. So, in terms of the areas of focus for Hitachi Ventures, broadly, we look at industrial, we look at green and sustainability, we do parts of healthcare, like life science or healthcare IT. And then horizontally, we look at technologies that enable digital transformation.
That's a pretty broad bucket, the digital transformation bucket, but that's the area that I focus on. I'm looking at everything from the infrastructure layer all the way to the application layer right now. You asked me about areas that I'm interested in. I joined Hitachi last year, peak of the generative AI craze.
So, I have to plead guilty to falling into the same, but at the same time, with thought. Let me put it that way. So we did a full, we are also very thesis-driven. We do deep dives. We use it both to educate ourselves on what areas are exciting. Why should we invest in them? What do we want to see for these companies to be successful and so on?
So we had done a generative AI deep dive. We identified the sort of the stacks that we want to look at and so on. I think largely also coming from Micron where we were looking at memory and how the role of memory in sort of AI workloads. I started looking at the infrastructure layer. Hitachi already has an investment in the storage layer. When you talk about generative AI, compared to the previous iteration, now you're talking much larger volume of data than it was before.
So it's not just about data that will fit on a on chip memory, but it's using tons of training data and so on. So your GPU can be as efficient as how fast it can access the data. So that means we felt like storage and networking will have a big role to play. We had already invested in a company called WekaIO. So we looked at networking. We invested in a company called Arrcus in the networking layer. Moving up the stack, foundation models were already kind of ruling the roost by then, so we were not planning on making an investment, but we said with Hitachi being a strong industrial player, we wanted to look at the intersection of IT and OT.
So we said if there's anything unique or interesting happening in that area, we would definitely look at that. We made a seed investment, in a company called Archetype. That's essentially, for lack of better word or analogy, I'm going to say they're kind of like the OpenAI for the physical world.
What OpenAI did for everything that's in the digital realm, so text, images, video, Archetype is planning to do that for the physical world. They are a multi-modal foundation model company that can take into effect real-time sensor data as a part of input into their models as well. Of course, we looked at the application layer as well.
So we were very excited about code generation and things like that. Uh, but interestingly, we didn't pick a code generation company in the normal sense, but we did look at code generation as it pertains to the industrial segment. We invested in a company called Xaba that does cognitive robotics and have shown their ability to go beyond.
So they're auto generating code that can control the robot, give it cognition or the brain for the system, essentially. We've also invested in a company that focuses on ensuring that AI safety and alignment is equally important. So we invest in a company called TrustWise AI, which is focused on AI performance, but with AI safety and alignment as a foundation, right?
So these are a sample of companies that I've invested in since I joined. There are a few more in the pipeline.
We are very excited about what the role of data is going to be. What does generative AI mean from a data pipeline standpoint? So we've been looking very actively at that. That's one of the deep dive areas that we did to understand the data space. We've also been looking very heavily into the agent. If done right, we think that agents can be quite disruptive and we want to understand how that happens. We think it's early days, but we're excited about that. And finally, another topic that's close to my heart is I don't do climate investing personally.
There are other members in the team who do, but I know that AI models and AI, the way it's being done today is not sustainable or scalable for that matter. If you hear news about the kind of energy consumption of the data centers going forward, it's mind boggling. Literally. And so I've been also looking at, or the team and I have been looking at how can we drive energy efficiency?
What is next after transformers? Are there different algorithms or infrastructure from a chip perspective, anything happening there? So we're looking at that stack; the architecture of how these things come together to understand can we drive energy efficiency in different ways from it for AI.
So these are like a few themes that I'm focused on personally at Hitachi Ventures.
[00:23:27] Gopi Rangan: I see a breadth of topics. I can feel the energy. There's so many different topics that you are focused on. The entire stack of AI all the way from infrastructure to applications and many things. Can we pick one example?
Can you share the story of how you met the founder? What did you look for in that first meeting, second meeting? What questions did you ask? How did the conversation evolve?
[00:23:48] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: Sure. Uh, let me use an example of maybe Xaba because I think it's interesting. I'm not a robotics expert. There are other partners in the team who are probably better. But I would say I've focused on the problem statement a lot more and also customer feedback are two things that I do look for. I met the Xaba founder at a collision side event in Toronto last year. During the conversation, I was intrigued by the energy and passion that he had on the problem that he was looking to solve.
We were talking about high precision activities like welding or drilling and so on. I didn't even know how hard it was to do these things. So when I had a follow up conversation with him, lingered a lot more on the problem statement to understand what is this problem that they're trying to solve? Why is this critical? Why is this exciting? His passion made me realize that automation in the industrial world is not as far along as I thought, because when you watch a lot of sci-fi movies, you look at everything being automated, everything happens, and I realized, okay, that's happening only in the movies, not in real life apparently.
So, uh, made me dig into the space and it goes back to my earlier comment about, when I get into a space, I like to learn a little bit more about not just the technology, but why, how, and so on. I realized about the pain points on doing high precision things like welding, or I was talking to Lockheed, which is one of their customers, and they were talking about how hard it is to drill holes and align the two holes when they're making these aircrafts, right?
And it's all done by hand, apparently. And I thought all of that would be automated. So made me dig in some more. But to your question around what do I look for in that first conversation, especially in a company like Xaba, which is a seed stage company, I usually look at the founder.
I look at the passion. Why are they doing this? Living in Silicon Valley, you almost feel like everyone should be doing a startup, but it's a very hard job. It's a grind, to be honest. It's not as cool as you see on TV or whatever we may hear. I think it takes a lot of grit to go through that founder's journey.
And so I want to know, especially at the seed stage, I want to know why they're doing this and what makes them drive in this direction. Then of course, everything else is the standard, right? Is this problem big? Is this a market interesting? What is their business model? Things like that. But for me, the foundation has always been the founder themselves and what's motivating them.
And then how open are they to, as I said, I, I'm not going to tell them how to run their business, but I'm going to tell them what I see. I want to know at a minimum, if they listen. I'm not expecting them to implement everything I say, but I want to know if they're open for input, whether it's from me or anybody else.
Founders are successful because they have this vision and focus and they want to drive. But at the same time, do they have the awareness to listen to what's happening and may not change direction, but take that input and then come back to me and articulate in a way that says why they're going to stick to their plan.
Or why they're going to make modifications, right? That's something that I want to look for. And I'm not saying they're coachable. I don't think I'm ready to coach anybody. So I'm not looking for someone who's coachable and all of that stuff. I'm just looking for a good listener. I'm looking for people who are willing to ask for help when they hit a roadblock.
Because I think, especially as a startup founder, you're not going to be able to solve everything on your own. You need to know when to raise your hand and say, 'I need help' and tap into the broader ecosystem, right? So those are the things that I actually look for. Not easy to find in a diligence call, to be honest.
[00:27:40] Gopi Rangan: It's a subjective process. You're looking for a founder who's building something using advanced technology. And it's sometimes feels like sci fi. It has to be real. And at the same time, you want the founder to have a vision for the future, but not too stubborn that they don't listen to anybody else. So finding the right balance for what is a good fit for you and for you to head develop conviction and say, "yes, I want to invest in this company" it's a subjective process. And of course there's a method you use to follow your due diligence as well.
[00:28:15] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: You put it more succinctly than I did. Thank you.
[00:28:20] Gopi Rangan: What's your advice to founders? What can they do to make that first meeting or second meeting effective? Besides 'have your pitch deck ready' and all of that, what are one or two things that they can do to make this meeting productive both for them and for you?
[00:28:35] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: As I said, we are not strategic investors, but if they have done some diligence on Hitachi and they can identify: here are things that Hitachi has talked about broadly. You know, we think these could be interesting and this is how. Or even challenge us and say, "this is what Hitachi is doing, but we think we can disrupt your, we are going to disrupt your business.
You should talk to us." I think it catches your attention, right? You at least want to listen. "Okay. That's a big statement. I want to listen. Why?" Right. But you cannot make that statement if you've not done any sort of background work. Just like I'd say, whether it's a corporate VC or institutional VC, I said, look at what they've done before, right?
Look at their portfolio companies, look at why they're making certain investments. Try to at least get a sense of that. And that way, you know what's in store when you have that first meeting to be as productive as you can. Because sometimes let's be honest, that first meeting may not lead to a second meeting.
Right. And so you want to get the most out of that first meeting. So there is a second meeting. So I think the goal should be, what can I do to make sure there's a second meeting? Because we are definitely not the ones to write a check in the first meeting. So let's be honest. So with that said, that means the goal should be, how do I get them excited enough that I'm going to have follow on meetings and deep dive conversation?
[00:29:57] Gopi Rangan: Do your homework in this information age. There's a lot you can look up about the investor and the more informed you are, the more effective that conversation will be. Even if you don't invest, you might learn a thing or two from that meeting because you see so many different types of companies. That's a good way to make the meeting effective.
[00:30:15] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: And I'll add one more thing, Gopi. This is the benefit of us being a CVC with kind of a institutional mindset is even if we think it's not a fit for us from an investment standpoint, but if you have identified certain businesses that you think you can work with, we'll make the introduction regardless.
We have nothing to lose, but maybe Hitachi has something to gain. So it's in our benefit to say, you know what, there's actually a group within Hitachi that it's not part of the venture team, but it's part of the broader Hitachi team. They're called the corporate venturing office and their mandate is open innovation.
So if we find something that we think could be interesting for Hitachi, and if we don't know the stakeholders, we'll try to connect them directly to the stakeholder as well, or through the CVO team, the corporate venturing office team. So there's really no downside if you come prepared. But if you don't come prepared, you don't get the second meeting and you don't even get the intro, right?
So at least use us as a way to get an entry to broader Hitachi, if not anything.
[00:31:13] Gopi Rangan: That's very helpful. I want to ask you a more philosophical question because you focus so much on AI. Earlier you talked about how technology can be good and it can also be destructive and scary in some ways. Where do you fall in this line of what will AI do to us? Is it a threat or is it a good net positive?
[00:31:36] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: Interestingly, I think it's a threat more not from the AGI perspective, but in the fact that as I talked about the data center and the energy efficiency, we are going to make the place not so environmentally friendly if we continue consuming the kind of energy that these models require. So a lot more lame answer than probably what you were expecting. But I think having seen what's in the market today, I don't think we're anywhere close to AGI. And what is the business model for AGI? I'm sorry, as a VC, I have to think about that too.
And I can't identify one yet. And consumer is a very hard market to crack. So I'm looking at AI that can add fundamental value to a specific use case and enterprise. So I'm not worried about AI being a threat in the AGI sense yet. In the next few years, if technology is changing my leaps and bounds.
I will be on the lookout for it. And I will use my judgment, of course, because there'll always be somebody to invest in a company, right? But I just need to feel comfortable supporting and go to bed at night without feeling guilty about what I've done.
[00:32:44] Gopi Rangan: It's refreshing to hear your optimistic yet practical view on the future of AI.
We're coming towards the end of our conversation and I want to ask you about your community involvement. Is there a nonprofit organization you are passionate about? Which one?
[00:32:58] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: I have to say there are many, but I like the SV2 (Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund). As an organization, they have a impact investing group within SV2. It was a great way for me to, while I don't do climate investing or sustainable investing, I do think for future change, if the nonprofit model doesn't work for impact in my opinion. And so the idea of applying a VC type of model for creating change and learning through this nonprofit was a great way for me to participate in that ecosystem.
[00:33:32] Gopi Rangan: Gayathri, thank you so much for spending time with me and sharing your perspectives on so many aspects of venture capital, your observations on where technology is going and how it will have an impact on all of us, your investment thesis and how you are very thoughtful in approaching your investments and how to be useful to founders, and your advice to founders on how to be effective in the first few meetings with an investor.
I look forward to sharing your nuggets of wisdom with the world.
[00:34:00] Gayathri Radhakrishnan: Thank you, Gopi.
[00:34:01] Gopi Rangan: Thank you for listening to The Sure Shot Entrepreneur. I hope you enjoyed listening to real-life stories about early believers supporting ambitious entrepreneurs. Please subscribe to the podcast and post a review.
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