Delphi

Great to be on Library of Minds with Dara Ladjevardian. The questions pushed me to revisit a part of my journey that I don’t get to reflect on often. I started Forerunner with no venture experience. What I did have was a decade of observing how consumer behavior was shifting — quietly at first, often without the courage to act on it myself. I saw people discovering differently, trusting differently. And I believed there was room for a firm built entirely around those evolving behaviors. Starting Forerunner was a stark example of going with your gut over the data. That tension between belief and proof is an ongoing theme in the work of consumer investing. It's led to something I call personal equations: a series of frameworks I regularly use to weigh my intuition against the numbers. These early experiences and frameworks feel all the more relevant today, when so much is unknown and up for grabs. Our 13 years in business at Forerunner is an edge, but if over-indexed on, the experience (and discernment) can also be an Achilles heel. It's never been more important to be eyes-wide-open, and to have the genuine bravery to invest time, capital, and reputation into ideas that seem foreign or undefined. I’m grateful to the Delphi team for the opportunity to reflect on it!

Culture is how people make decisions when you’re not in the room. HubSpot’s co-founder Brian Halligan learned that the hard way. He built a $20B company, coined inbound marketing - and later realized culture, not code, is what truly scales. He also drew inspiration from an unlikely source: The Grateful Dead. They made every concert unique, gave superfans front-row seats, and even invited people to pirate their shows. Brian built HubSpot with the same playbook. In this week’s episode of The Library of Minds, we talk about: • Why culture beats strategy in the long run • Succeeding (and failing) to create new categories • What AI means for the next generation of “inbound”

Every wave of technology creates categories we couldn’t have imagined. Dot-Com -> e-commerce, saas, search engines, social media AI -> agents, personal assistants, mcp, recommendations, digital minds Delphi often gets mistaken for “companions,” “video clones,” or enterprise digital twins. So I finally wrote it out: what Delphi actually is - and what it’s not

Baseball has the 5-tool player. Hit. Hit for power. Run. Field. Throw. Now tech has the 5-tool CEO. Vision. Code. Design. Recruit. Sell. HubSpot Co-Founder Brian Halligan shares who he thinks is a 5-tool CEO: 1. Parker Conrad (Rippling) 2. Bret Taylor (Sierra) 3. Gabriel Stengel (Rogo) 4. Mati Staniszewski (ElevenLabs) 5. Kareem Amin (Clay) 6. Dara Ladjevardian (Delphi)

What if you never had to answer the same question twice? With Delphi, you can now create a digital version of yourself just by being interviewed. It picks up on how you think and what you know - so people can learn from you, ask questions, or connect in your voice, 24/7. Previously, Delphi was limited to people who already had content - podcasts, blogs, videos. Now, anyone can create a digital mind - a living profile that allows you to be everywhere, for everyone, all at once. Just answer a few questions, and you’re ready to go. You can also define your own custom areas that you want to be interviewed on - for example, I got interviewed on “Life Lessons” so that my Delphi carries the things I’d want to pass down to my kids one day. Delphi Interviewer is now available on all paid plans. We’re slowly opening the free tier - if you want early access, comment below and let me know.

Don’t tell me the future is already written. Because Dara built one before the world 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅. His grandfather’s voice 𝚐̲𝚘̲𝚗̲𝚎̲ ̲𝚜̲𝚒̲𝚕̲𝚎̲𝚗̲𝚝̲ after a stroke. The wisdom locked in memory, not conversation. So Dara built Delphi to talk back. So if you’re sitting there thinking you’re too early too niche too “just an engineer” to change things—remember this: The future isn’t about better tech. It’s about new translation. Turning one-to-one into one-to-many. Human insight into global impact. Dara didn’t climb the ladder. He built a new platform. And when the world catches up, he'll already be building the next one.

Sequoia's Chief Product Officer Jess Lee doesn’t hire “well-rounded” people. She looks for individuals with pronounced spikes in one of four traits she believes predict long-term success: EQ – the ability to connect deeply one-on-one IQ – raw intellectual problem-solving ability PQ – skill in navigating systems, influence, and politics JQ – judgment when decisions carry real weight In our conversation on The Library of Minds, Jess discussed how this framework shaped her path from Google PM to Polyvore CEO and eventually to Chief Product Officer and Partner at Sequoia Capital. She also shared: - why velocity is one of the strongest early indicators of product-market fit - how choosing the wrong business model became her biggest lesson as a founder - why she believes AI will catalyze a new era of consumer media For founders, builders, and product leaders, this conversation is a deep dive into how one of Sequoia’s key product minds evaluates people, markets, and emerging opportunities.