Sahil Sahni

🎙️ From Square to Mercury: How Rohini Pandhi became one of fintech’s top product leaders—and how velocity of learning at high slope companies shaped everything. Rohini dropped so many gems in our first episode of First Builders: 💎 Generalist → Specialist: In her early career, she was a generalist and tried everything. This led her to critical discoveries. She specialized in product and fintech when the “time was right” 💎 Follow the Engineers and Designers: Square was a high slope environment for Rohini, packed with talent density and learnings. She finds high slope environments by studying where smart engineers and designers are going. 💎 Fake News about PMs: PMs don’t just “move fast and break things.” Her team runs 30-50 customer interviews per quarter, providing rigor behind every decision. 💎 It’s Usually Too Early to Hire a PM: A top question she gets from founders is whether they should hire a PM. She usually says: “it’s too early.” 💎 Hiring a World Class Team is Like Tennis: When finding a tennis partner, you want someone a little better than you who can challenge you to improve your game. Give us a listen and leave a review on your favorite podcast location (see comments for links)! #FirstBuilders #StartupPodcast #ProductLeadership #TechCareers #Leadership

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On the latest episode of Embracing Erosion I sat down with Suyog Deshpande, Co-Founder & CEO of Webless (a Fluvio Ventures portfolio company). Before starting Webless, Suyog spent years at Amplitude, Salesforce, and Samsara - shaping products and GTM strategy at scale as a product marketing leader. That perspective is now fueling one of the boldest bets in tech: 🏗️ rebuilding the web for LLMs. Instead of optimizing for clicks and SEO, Webless imagines an agentic web -where sites are designed to interact directly with AI models and agents. We dug into: - What an LLM-native web could actually look like - How companies can prepare to be LLM-ready - What metrics will matter beyond pageviews and clicks - Why safety and trust are core to agent-driven experiences - Lessons Suyog brings from “big tech” into this transformation If you’re curious about how discovery, trust, and value exchange will evolve online, this one’s worth your time. Link to the full episode in the comments 👇

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Conventional wisdom holds that startups function as a safety net in times of layoffs. As large companies shed workers, fast-growing newcomers are expected to absorb displaced talent, whether immediately or over time. That narrative resurfaced as Big Tech layoffs extended into early 2026, with more than 26,000 employees affected across 59 companies in January. Data from an Ascend survey of startups suggests the picture is more complicated. Among the VC-backed startups in our survey, nearly nine in 10 CEOs report actively using AI in the operation or building of their companies. Many say they are planning to hire smaller teams than they would’ve needed just a few years ago. To understand how those choices are being made, Ascend surveyed ~70 CEOs of VC-funded startups that are small and overwhelmingly early stage. The average company was founded in 2022, most are pre-seed or seed, and they are typically building their first 10 to 15 roles. These companies have always represented a small share of the labor market, but they are often where new roles are created first. Amazon was once a startup, too, which is why shifts at this stage matter. Opportunities certainly still exist, even in this economy! Later-stage startups continue to hire, new companies are being formed, and early-stage founders are looking for strong talent. Many people affected by layoffs will find a great landing, and some will start companies of their own, as has happened after nearly every downturn. But at the same time, hiring dynamics are changing in quieter ways. At large companies, AI-driven efficiency gains tend to surface through layoffs that make headlines. At early-stage startups, they appear to surface earlier, through hiring plans that never materialize and roles that may never be filled. Founders remain builders and job creators, while also operating under intense pressure to extend runway and move quickly with lean teams. In many cases, they are navigating the same forces as their larger peers, just earlier in the company’s life. *Layoffs and tight job markets still suck!* I’ve seen the impact firsthand, especially on people with families, visas, and very little margin. None of this should undermine the skills and humanity of those impacted. What this survey is intended to capture is a shift in how startups are being built from the beginning. AI is shaping team design long before those changes show up in headline job numbers, influencing when new roles appear and how many emerge. Startups may still create the next wave of jobs, as they always have. The path looks different this time, though, and it’s worth being clear-eyed about that, especially for the people living through the transition. If you’re a founder who is hiring, feel free to link your job board in the comments. 👉 Swipe through the carousel for the data and breakdown.

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Today marks a milestone for Salesforce Ventures, and a defining moment for enterprise security. Alphabet’s acquisition of Wiz has officially closed. Wiz has been a cornerstone of our portfolio since May 2021, when Nowi Kallen, Kartik Gupta, and team first invested in their Series B at a $1.5B valuation. We saw the potential early and invested deeply, backing the team through their Series C, D, and E rounds. From a $1.5B Series B to a $32B acquisition, one of the largest in enterprise tech history, the Wiz team’s execution has been nothing short of extraordinary. This outcome reflects our mission at Salesforce Ventures: identifying the companies that define the next era of technology and staying behind them for the long haul. But the real credit belongs to the entire Wiz team on the ground. Beyond the technology, it was the relentless grit and day one mentality of Assaf Rappaport and the team that turned a vision into a $32B reality. Huge congratulations to the entire Wiz team on this historic achievement.

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Cloaked has raised a $375M Series B led by General Catalyst with participation from HUMAN CAPITAL and Lux Capital. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to work alongside Arjun Bhatnagar, Abhijay Bhatnagar, and the team at Cloaked to fight against surveillance, spam, & identity theft.

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Series B founders face a perfect storm: - Growth outpaces org design - Early hires hit ceilings - Culture frays across time zones - Ops lag behind momentum Bhavani Raman, co-founder of Element5 (a Series B startup) and Pionyr founding member, overcame scaling challenges by treating growth like an engineering problem. Here’s how and how you can too: 👉 Build culture and structure before growth Element5 hired seasoned execs early, used OKRs for alignment, and prioritized cross-cultural integration from day one 👉Solve scaling with repeatable systems When Mexico ops hit roadblocks, they templated support, redistributed roles, and built global playbooks. 👉 Focus narrowly to win big Doubling down on post-acute healthcare automation helped them land 9 of the top 10 providers 👉Make process your operating system of growth OKRs became their backbone; and scalable operational tools turned chaos into cadence managing complexity at scale 👉 Don’t scale alone After nearly burning out at her first startup, she turned to domain experts, complementary partners, and candid support from investors and advisors Read the full story for deeper insights. Link in comments. What’s been your biggest post-Series B challenge? 👇 Follow Pionyr for actionable founder insights.

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What a joy to speak with this brilliant cohort of innovators in the The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) ENTICE (Energy Transitions Innovation Challenge) 2.0 program and taking on their sharp questions at the investor bootcamp. 80% of global GHG emission reduction goals for 2050 can be met through energy system decarbonization, efficiency and electrification. This represents a US $100 trillion opportunity according to the IEA.     A stronger, more stable grid is at the heart of building a #resilient #energy future. This year’s program challenges innovators to tackle:  1) Behind-the-meter digital twins: #AI tools to analyse consumption and create appliance-level insights  2) Industrial flexibility at scale: AI solutions using smart meter data to identify flexible assets and operational inefficiencies    Kudos to the entrepreneurs and the GEAPP team for curating and executing such a thoughtful program.     Looking forward to seeing how these #innovations scale #impact.  Synapses Dalberg Media Vaishali (Vish) Mishra Anukul Tripathi (He/Him) Jayant Sinha Saurabh Kumar

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One of my favorite moments from Vidya Srinivasan’s talk at The Rise of the AI-Native PM was her framework on the four categories of AI PMs — and how every PM can find where they fit. Here’s her breakdown: 4️⃣ Multiplier PMs — use AI to make yourself better. Mock up UIs faster, brainstorm with AI as a thought partner — but don’t outsource your job. You still matter. 3️⃣ Application Layer PMs — use AI to power features within your product. Few PMs are doing this yet — but this is the next wave. (It’s also exactly what we’re empowering teams to do at Voker.) 2️⃣ Integrator PMs — focus on combining models, infrastructure, and techniques like RAG or voice. This is where teams like ours at Voker live. 1️⃣ Foundational PMs — work on the core models themselves (think OpenAI, Anthropic). Very few PMs operate here — and that’s okay. Vidya’s advice? Most PMs should focus on the Application Layer — building great user-facing AI experiences, not reinventing infrastructure. The way you build products doesn’t change: Start with the problem. Solve for the customer. Then decide how AI fits in — not the other way around.

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When I started as a #PM, a large part of the role was writing #PRDs and iterating with stakeholders before handing off to engineering. That process is rapidly changing and PRD's as we know it are dying. Here’s what will replace it. 📋 FROM: Traditional PRD process 📋 ■ Spending hours interviewing customers and manually synthesizing insights ■ Drafts that miss standard language and cross-stakeholder expectations ■ Low-fidelity or no visuals in early drafts ■ Lengthy, repetitive review cycles with multiple stakeholders ■ Manual updates after every meeting ■ Manual breakdown of PRDs into features and user stories ■ Manual creation of QA test cases and UAT scripts ■ Static, outdated documentation post-launch ⚡ TO: GenAI-enabled PRD process ⚡ ■ AI-augmented synthesis with interrogation and summarization capabilities ■ GPT-powered co-creation that aligns across stakeholders and domains ■ Instant generation of interactive prototypes for each feature or improvement ■ Real-time prompt refinement during working sessions to shape ideas ■ Automated artifact updates from meeting transcripts and decisions ■ Auto-generation of features, user stories, and acceptance criteria ■ Automated creation of QA test cases and UAT scripts ■ Continuously evolving, real-time documentation synced with changes 🧠 What it means for PMs 🧠 1️⃣ You’re no longer measured by specs, but by how fast you validate and ship ideas 2️⃣ Documentation isn’t dead, it’s now a dynamic, AI-supported asset 3️⃣ The best PMs don’t “own the doc”, they orchestrate the system Shai Dinnar Diana Cordova Shivani Rathi Emily Gao Dane Greisiger Justine Wang Kushal T. Anne Schmitt Bradley Antcliff Dimitrios Lippe

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Just when you thought you’d heard every possible buzzword for the future of work, HumanX 2025 speaker Surojit Chatterjee, CEO of Ema, is out making news for “redefining the next wave of work.” But this time, the buzz actually seems legit - and he's partnering with Hitachi. While the rest of us are still trying to figure out how to unmute ourselves on Zoom, these two are already building the enterprise of tomorrow. It’s a good reminder that the future is happening now, and it’s probably powered by an AI you haven’t even heard of yet...

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