In this episode, Vaibhav Nadgauda, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of App Orchid, Inc., shares an operator to venture capital journey, how they built a founder friendly investing approach, and what changed when they stepped in as CEO after a founder’s passing. You will learn how VC fundraising works at the fund level, how to think about pivots and team quality, and why the enterprise AI wave is forcing a rethink of the data stack.

Episode Description What does founder friendly venture capital actually look like in practice, especially when the investor has lived the operator journey?

In this conversation, we break down the shift from building and exiting companies to raising a first fund, evolving the LP base over time, and learning the mental model change from operator problem solving to investor portfolio focus.

We also go deep on enterprise AI and data strategy, including why semantic layers, ontologies, and knowledge graphs are becoming critical for interacting with siloed enterprise data. If you are navigating venture capital fundraising, B2B software, product market fit, or go to market focus, this episode offers concrete lessons that translate.

We cover • Why teams beat the original pitch, and why pivots are normal • How LP trust is built, and what changes from fund one to fund three • The investor mindset shift, backing winners and allocating attention • Conviction vs delusion, and how to process customer feedback • Enterprise AI readiness, semantic layers, ontologies, and knowledge graphs • Seeing around the corner, why experience changes pattern recognition

Who this is for Founders, operators, and investors who want a sharper framework for VC fundraising, B2B investing, and the enterprise AI data shift.

Links and Resources Spotify: https://bit.ly/spotify-itsm Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/apple-itsm Amazon Music: https://bit.ly/amazon-itsm Website: https://insidethesiliconmind.com/ Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inside-the-silicon-mind/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidethesiliconmind/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@insidethesiliconmind X: https://x.com/InSiliconMind

Mentioned in This Episode • Until the End of Time, Brian Greene • Our Mathematical Universe, Max Tegmark • Only the Paranoid Survive • The Innovator’s Dilemma • ChatGPT • Knowledge graphs • Ontologies and semantic layers • Salesforce • SAP • Snowflake

About the Show Inside the Silicon Mind is your masterclass in high stakes innovation, business strategy, and the Silicon Valley mindset. Hosted by Firas Sozan, we interview Founders, CEOs, and Venture Capitalists shaping the future of technology.

Hassan Khajeh-Hosseini, the founder of Infracost, joins Firas Sozan to break down shift left FinOps, cloud cost prevention, and how engineers can understand cloud spend before code reaches production.

Episode Description Cloud cost optimization is still a mess, not because teams do not care, but because most tools start from the bill. By the time you see spend in a dashboard, the code is already in production and the waste is already happening.

In this episode, Hassan Khajeh-Hosseini, the founder of Infracost, explains shift left FinOps, a practical approach that runs cost simulations inside engineering workflows so teams can predict cloud costs before shipping. You will hear why cloud pricing exploded into millions of price points across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, how enterprise cloud spend can reach hundreds of millions per year, and where cost waste hides in day to day infrastructure decisions.

We also cover the founder side, fundraising signals, why inbound distribution matters, how a failed startup taught a hard lesson about hiring rare talent, and why product market fit is a moving target that can feel scary when it hits.

We cover • Why traditional FinOps starts too late, after spend is incurred • How to simulate cloud costs from infrastructure as code before deploys • The $550,000 per month change that got stopped in review • ICP personas, engineers, platform teams, FinOps, and engineering leadership • Distribution pull vs push, and why it changes GTM economics • Fundraising, story, network, and early usage metrics that matter

Who this is for: Founders, operators, and tech leaders who want practical ways to prevent cloud waste and build stronger FinOps and platform engineering practices.

Links and Resources Spotify: https://bit.ly/spotify-itsm Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/apple-itsm Amazon Music: https://bit.ly/amazon-itsm Website: https://insidethesiliconmind.com/ Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inside-the-silicon-mind/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidethesiliconmind/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@insidethesiliconmind X: https://x.com/InSiliconMind

Book Recommendations from this episode: • Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson • The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas • Acquired podcast • Heavyweight podcast • Secrets of Sand Hill Road, by Scott Kupor

About the Show Inside the Silicon Mind is your masterclass in high-stakes innovation, business strategy, and the Silicon Valley mindset. Hosted by Firas Sozan, we interview Founders, CEOs, and Venture Capitalists shaping the future of technology.

Jonathan Claybaugh, Former Principal Infrastructure Engineer at Snowflake, shares how to evaluate a startup before joining, including equity math, market size, and the mindset required to stay through the grind.

Episode Description: What does it actually take to join the right startup early, and build enough upside to work by choice, not necessity?

In this episode, Jonathan walks through his journey as an early employee at Snowflake, joining as the 13th hire before any customers existed. He explains the signals that made the opportunity feel real, including repeatable revenue growth, retention, and a team culture built on responsibility, humility, and customer obsession.

You will also get a practical framework for evaluating startup risk, how to think about TAM, why doing the equity dilution math matters, and why derivative ideas usually lose. If you are a founder, operator, or engineer deciding between Big Tech comfort and startup adventure, this conversation gives you a clear lens to make the call.

We cover: • How to evaluate a startup using market size, originality, and culture • What to look for in leadership transitions as a company scales • Why retention and customer feedback loops drive compounding growth • How early employees should think about equity, dilution, and taxes • The difference between wanting startup life and enduring it

Who this is for: Founders, operators, and engineers who want a real framework for choosing an early stage startup with conviction.

Links and Resources: Spotify: https://bit.ly/spotify-itsm Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/apple-itsm Amazon Music: https://bit.ly/amazon-itsm Website: https://insidethesiliconmind.com/ Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inside-the-silicon-mind/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidethesiliconmind/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@insidethesiliconmind X: https://x.com/InSiliconMind

Mentioned in This Episode: • Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink

About the Show: Inside the Silicon Mind is your masterclass in high-stakes innovation, business strategy, and the Silicon Valley mindset. Hosted by Firas Sozan, we interview Founders, CEOs, and Venture Capitalists shaping the future of technology.

Firas Sozan sits down with Leonid Igolnik, Chief Technology Officer at Clari, to unpack what AI agents are, and how AI is changing software engineering, hiring, and the fundamentals of building reliable systems. You will learn why intent expression matters, why testing is becoming the guardrail for non-deterministic outputs, and how agents will depend on context, not just data.

Episode Description: AI is a new level of abstraction, but the hype is running ahead of clarity. In this conversation, we break down what that means for engineers, leaders, and founders trying to build and operate real software in a world where AI writes more code faster, without automatically improving quality or security.

We explore how interview loops need to evolve when candidates have full access to AI tools, and why mastery of fundamentals still matters. The key shift is intent, the ability to clearly express what you want, validate results, and operationalize systems reliably, especially in enterprise environments where determinism and trust are non-negotiable.

We also dig into the agent wave, why everyone wants an agent, why definitions are still blurry, and why context is the unlock for real value. Finally, we zoom out to the business side, and discuss how AI could amplify revenue teams without replacing the human function entirely.

We cover: • How AI changes the definition of engineering skill and evaluation • Why testing and code coverage become practical guardrails • What “intent” means when AI generates the first draft of code • Python default behavior in modern AI coding tools and what it signals • Why runtime maturity and operations matter beyond language choice • What agents can automate in revenue workflows, and what cannot • Why one engineer startups fail at scale, even with AI leverage

Who this is for: Founders, operators, and engineering leaders who want a practical model for using AI tools without losing quality, security, or execution discipline.

Links and Resources: Spotify: https://bit.ly/spotify-itsm Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/apple-itsm Amazon Music: https://bit.ly/amazon-itsm Website: https://insidethesiliconmind.com/ Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inside-the-silicon-mind/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidethesiliconmind/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@insidethesiliconmind X: https://x.com/InSiliconMind

Mentioned in This Episode: Made to Stick Thinking, Fast and Slow

About the Show: Inside the Silicon Mind is your masterclass in high-stakes innovation, business strategy, and the Silicon Valley mindset. Hosted by Firas Sozan, we interview Founders, CEOs, and Venture Capitalists shaping the future of technology.

Clark Golestani, Founding Managing Director at K2 Access Fund joins Firas Sozan to unpack venture capital vs private equity, and how founders can manage cash runway, spot bubbles, and think clearly inside the AI hype cycle. You will learn how investors weigh EBITDA vs enterprise value, why time is leverage in fundraising, and how to avoid the hidden failure modes of hypergrowth.

Episode Description: Clark Golestani has lived through market cycles that reshape capital, and in this conversation he turns those lessons into a clear framework founders can use.

You will hear how venture capital vs private equity differs in vocabulary and incentives, why EBITDA discipline matters in private equity, and how enterprise value drives venture decisions. Clark also shares how market bubbles form, why hype and evolution often overlap, and why AI still feels like the earliest era of mobile.

For operators and founders, the practical core is cash. Clark explains runway benchmarks, why you should avoid waiting until the last minute to raise, and how negotiating from a position of time changes your outcomes. He also shares why hypergrowth can damage quality, when saying no to customers is the right move, and what he thinks founders should read before making the hardest decisions.

We cover: • Venture capital vs private equity, what each side optimizes for • EBITDA vs enterprise value, why the metrics change behavior • Cash runway targets, and why time becomes fundraising leverage • Spotting bubbles, and avoiding the hype trap • AI hype cycle realities, and what may unlock bigger breakthroughs • Hypergrowth risk, quality breakdowns, and strategic pacing • Go to market discipline, when saying no is the best strategy

Who this is for: Founders, operators, investors, and tech leaders who want a practical model for funding strategy, cash management, and risk across market cycles.

Links and Resources: Spotify: https://bit.ly/spotify-itsm Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/apple-itsm Amazon Music: https://bit.ly/amazon-itsm Website: https://insidethesiliconmind.com/ Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inside-the-silicon-mind/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidethesiliconmind/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@insidethesiliconmind X: https://x.com/InSiliconMind

Follow Clark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clarkgolestani/

Book Recommendations: The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz

Mentioned in This Episode: The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz Gartner hype cycle Apple papers on AI, plus Medium summaries McKinsey productivity studies

About the Show: Inside the Silicon Mind is your masterclass in high stakes innovation, business strategy, and the Silicon Valley mindset. Hosted by Firas Sozan, we interview Founders, CEOs, and Venture Capitalists shaping the future of technology.

Joseph Doyle breaks down how AI is changing recruiting and tech hiring, and what to optimize for when resumes and applications are getting noisier. You will learn how to improve candidate experience, screen for growth mindset, and design a hiring process that actually predicts performance.

Episode Description AI recruiting is moving fast, but most interview processes have not caught up. In this episode, Joseph Doyle shares what he is seeing in the market and how hiring teams can adapt without lowering the bar or burning candidates out.

We talk about building a sharper value proposition for engineers, why candidates are now asking deeper questions about your AI strategy, and how to hire for first principles and growth mindset instead of a narrow checklist. We also get into candidate experience as a competitive advantage, including how to use exercises responsibly, how to timebox take home work, and why emotional intelligence matters even more as AI increases volume.

If you are a founder, operator, or investor hiring technical talent, this is a practical look at what works now, and what is quietly costing teams great hires.

We cover: • How to use AI for efficiency without losing the human edge • What a credible value proposition looks like for engineers today • How to screen for growth mindset and first principles • How to tighten your interview process while improving candidate experience • When take home assignments help, and how to timebox them • Why EQ is a real hiring filter in high pressure environments

Who this is for: Founders, operators, and hiring leaders who want a higher signal hiring process in an AI driven talent market.

Book Recommendations: Raving Fans, by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles

Follow Joseph on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdoyleta/

Links and Resources Spotify: https://bit.ly/spotify-itsm Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/apple-itsm Amazon Music: https://bit.ly/amazon-itsm Website: https://insidethesiliconmind.com/ Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inside-the-silicon-mind/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidethesiliconmind/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@insidethesiliconmind X: https://x.com/InSiliconMind

Mentioned in This Episode • Raving Fans • Lou Adler • Coding assistants in the IDE • AppDynamics

About the Show Inside the Silicon Mind is your masterclass in high stakes innovation, business strategy, and the Silicon Valley mindset. Hosted by Firas Sozan, we interview Founders, CEOs, and Venture Capitalists shaping the future of technology.

In this episode of Inside the Silicon Mind, Arvind Sodhani, former President of Intel Capital, shares insights from decades at the center of Silicon Valley venture capital and global technology innovation. Arvind discusses how Intel Capital helped fuel entrepreneurship, how investors assess risk, and what it takes to build companies that last.

He explores the mindset of successful founders, the importance of strong startup teams, and the lessons learned from some of the world’s most impactful entrepreneurs. Arvind also dives into how AI is reshaping future business models and what that means for founders building in today’s market.

Throughout the conversation, Arvind offers practical advice for aspiring entrepreneurs navigating Silicon Valley, emphasizing long-term thinking, leadership, and innovation in an ever-evolving tech landscape.

Episode Highlights:

00:00 Embracing Fearless Entrepreneurship

04:49 Understanding Risk in Innovation

09:52 The Founder's Mindset and Team Dynamics

15:06 The Birth of Intel Capital

19:48 Navigating Market Changes and Cloud Investments

25:01 The AI Revolution: Opportunities and Challenges

29:58 The Future of Inference Models

34:45 Lessons from Successful Founders

39:53 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

44:46 The Impact of Silicon Valley on Innovation

Book Recommendations:

Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, by Joseph A. Schumpeter

Follow Arvind on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/arvind-sodhani-4774b011b/

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Inside The Silicon Mind

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Podcast Links:

Spotify: https://bit.ly/spotify-itsm

Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/apple-itsm

Amazon Music: https://bit.ly/amazon-itsm

Social Links:

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/inside-the-silicon-mind

Instagram: https://instagram.com/insidethesiliconmind

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@insidethesiliconmind

X: https://x.com/InSiliconMind

Website Links:

https://insidethesiliconmind.com/

https://www.harrisonclarke.com/

https://www.harrisonclarkeventures.com/

https://www.ceranalabs.com/

https://thepmfplaybook.com/

In this episode of Inside the Silicon Mind, Justin Fitzhugh, former VP of Engineering at Snowflake, shares an inside look at what it takes to lead engineering teams through hypergrowth at one of the most successful data companies of the decade. Justin reflects on Snowflake’s explosive rise, the hard lessons from Instart Logic, and why great companies win by staying relentlessly focused on customer needs, product excellence, and scalable engineering.

Justin breaks down the cultural principles that helped Snowflake grow fast without breaking, the crucial role of security in a rapidly expanding organization, and what engineering leaders must prioritize when building teams at scale. He also dives into the realities of remote work, the importance of direct communication, and the challenges of maintaining alignment as companies grow.

The conversation explores why Silicon Valley remains a uniquely powerful ecosystem for innovation, the rapid success of Wiz, and how AI is transforming the startup landscape and reshaping what technical leadership looks like today. Justin closes by sharing the book that has most influenced his leadership style, offering actionable advice for founders and engineering leaders navigating today’s fast-moving tech world.

Episode Highlights:

00:00 Navigating Valuations and Investor Relationships

03:00 Lessons from IPOs and Market Dynamics

06:04 Understanding Customer Needs and Product Fit

09:12 The Importance of Leadership and Direct Communication

18:00 Building Trust and Cohesion in Leadership

20:33 Cultural Shifts and Team Dynamics

22:48 The Unique Advantage of Silicon Valley

23:25 The Importance of In-Person Collaboration

26:35 The Role of Social Interactions in Engineering

28:26 The Impact of AI on Startup Growth

30:50 Customer-Centric Approach to Product Development

32:41 Work-Life Balance and Personal Well-Being

36:28 Passions Outside of Work and Personal Growth

37:18 Key Takeaways from Leadership Literature

Book Recommendation:

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni

Follow Justin on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinfitzhugh/

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Inside The Silicon Mind

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Podcast Links:

Spotify: https://bit.ly/spotify-itsm

Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/apple-itsm

Amazon Music: https://bit.ly/amazon-itsm

Social Links:

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/inside-the-silicon-mind

Instagram: https://instagram.com/insidethesiliconmind

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@insidethesiliconmind

X: https://x.com/InSiliconMind

Website Links:

https://insidethesiliconmind.com/

https://www.harrisonclarke.com/

https://www.harrisonclarkeventures.com/

https://www.ceranalabs.com/

https://thepmfplaybook.com/