Dad first. CFO at Substack. Former CFO at Underdog Sports, VC at Mayfield, Exec at Twitter, Square, MTV. Entrepreneur, Coach, jazz lover, kung fu enthusiast.

San Francisco, CA
Joined May 2008
I'm extremely bullish about @zcabrams and the Bridge.xyz team - they're building, capably, services to enable maybe the single best utility cryptocurrencies can provide today for everyday people: international transfer. Shout out to all my ex-Squares!
We've been building Bridge for 2.5 years. Very excited to finally share more about what we do and why we're doing it. Sean and I also spent time with @leomschwartz to tell our story. Our blog is below. And article is here --> xitter.cf/leomschwartz/status/18…
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Had such a great time talking Corp dev and M&A with my friend @sashaorloff on the @TurpentineMedia Finance podcast - check it out!
In this episode of Turpentine Finance with @sashaorloff, @rishigarg, former Head of Corporate Development at Twitter and Square, shares insider knowledge on tech acquisitions. He explains when companies should start considering M&A and the three key approaches: tops down, bottoms up, and strategy influence. Rishi reveals how he managed up to 15 deals in 12 months and why integration is crucial for M&A success. He debunks common M&A misconceptions and discusses the "sins of omission" - deals he regrets not making. The conversation shifts to his current role as a VC at Mayfield Fund, offering a unique perspective on both sides of acquisitions. -- TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Introduction (02:53) How companies should think about M&A and corp dev (06:58) Signs that a company is ready to consider M&A (11:37) Different approaches to M&A: tops down, bottoms up, and strategy influencing (16:52) How to start building an M&A team (18:16) Sponsors: Netsuite | Metaview (22:15) Misconceptions about M&A in Silicon Valley (26:53) Valuation considerations in M&A deals (34:31) Current state of M&A market and opportunities (38:24) Sponsors: Omneky | Brave (39:47) How M&A deals happen and relationship building (45:55) Reasons why M&A deals don't work out (51:50) Transition to Rishi's experience as a venture capitalist (57:50) Advice for founders considering M&A (1:02:09) Rishi's current interests in investing, particularly in AI and new platforms
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Love to see how Highbeam continues to make an impact for indie sellers of all kinds with innovative, targeted financial products! Great work @sshergill and @highbeamapp team!
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Ok I've been coding for 3 days now with #ChatGPT open next to VSCode, and I haven't opened StackOverflow once... I'm starting to believe
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Two months ago, people were saying that closed-source/proprietary models were dead because of stable diffusion. Today, people are saying that open-source models are dead because of chatgpt. Reality is that there will always be both, filling different needs just like in software!
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Rishi Garg retweeted
Put these things together, one developer will have the power of an entire network of AIs, people, and services at their fingertips. I believe a 100x productivity boost is the lower bound here.
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This is simple and prosaic but it's really nice to have the recipe problem solved
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Rishi Garg retweeted
I’m sorry, I simply cannot be cynical about a technology that can accomplish this.
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Rishi Garg retweeted
ChatGPT was dropped on us just bit over 24 hours. It's like you wake up to the news of first nuclear explosion and you don't know yet what to think about it but you know world will never be the same again. Here some interesting snapshots of this "explosion"🧵:
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New post: The Unbundling of Google? A Real Possibility rishigarg.substack.com/p/unb… Search is the most important application on the Internet and it's stagnant. Could we see a real challenger to Google? 🧵 👇 1/17
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I'm skeptical though. First non-founder CEOs are stewards, not disruptors, hired to steady the ship. Second-non-founder CEOs (@satyanadella, @elonmusk) rebuild the moral authority to take companies down a new path. 16/17 xitter.cf/rishigarg/status/15875…
We're witnessing a fascinating moment in tech history -- how the 2nd non-founder in a key company can change and evolve tech platforms to make them more valuable, essentially creating a second founding moment.🧵
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Hence -- the generative AI moment is a killer moment for founders! By the way this will be centered in the Bay Area, so ya'll gonna have to come back. 17/17 xitter.cf/naval/status/159343313…
As long as young startup founders keep choosing the SF Bay Area, the rest of the industry has no choice but to follow.
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