Every argument clarity score on this site is built from rows on this page. Each
question and answer was assessed with names hidden, the host's own answers included, on
four things from 1 to 5:
directness (does it answer the question asked), coherence (do the ideas follow),
precision (concrete details and clear references), compression (says a lot per word). The weighted
mix (30/30/25/15) is the exchange score. A person's published score averages their exchange
scores on raw tape only, at least 8 of them, shrunk toward the cohort mean.
Full method →
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q What, what did you like about that journey?
A I think number one, so two things, um, very deep expertise in pharma. Background, uh, one of the founders was earlier at McKinsey, had worked with pharma clients for almost 10 years. The other two, uh, have been, you know, kickass engineers from Amazon. Uh, but I think that combination of tech plus Pharma experience was very evident, and I would say we see teams with that pharma expertise, but oftentimes they're very stuck in their ideas. I think this team was just incredible at also their, you know, mental flexibility. So over that four years, I actually saw them pivoting and trying out three to four different ideas, um, and, you know, really breaking into large pharma. A lot of those conversations started happening. Uh, they hadn't landed anybody as a real customer as yet, but we could see that momentum building up. So I think a lot of it just broke down to that experience with pharma, that domain expertise, but also the shipping velocity and ability to move very fast, which is not very common with these vertical teams.
AI assessment note: “I think number one, so two things, um, very deep expertise in pharma.”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q And how do you evaluate product market fit now? Has it changed from the SaaS wave?
A So evaluation of the product market fit hasn't changed. I do think that what has changed in the AI way is a wave is PMF is a lot more ephemeral. So even when, let's say we look at Portkey, they initially started with model routing, but they quickly expanded into observability, into, um, you know, guardrails management, into various other things, but they expanded significantly into FinOps. And managing budgeting, cost control, key distribution, things like that. Uh, and they had launched this MCP gateway because MCP was growing, agent gateway, because people wanted one place to govern all of their agents as well. So you could see how quickly the space is moving and the market leader has to be willing to move with it. Uh, the other part again was, um, I think the articulation of the founders on How they're going to build the business was also very clear. So, uh, for instance, most of the revenue came from their managed offering, but I think, uh, Rohit and Ayush were very clear that they actually want to open source even larger portions. Like if you look at a traditional business, you would say, okay, let's try to extract value. But these guys were like, we want to actually open source everything here. We believe the value will be captured more at that governance and security lab.
AI assessment note: “evaluation of the product market fit hasn't changed. I do think that what has changed”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 4 · Cm 4 4.60
Q Got it. But it's, it's amazing time to be a builder. Wasn't you tempted again to, to become a builder again?
A Um, so see, I think part of the thinking was when, I mean, I had done two companies before, uh, then one of the reasons to go to Big Tech was I realized I've only done zero to one. I haven't seen any scale, so I wanted to see scale, and that's how I landed in Big Tech. Uh, got to see that scale, got to, got that learning. Uh, and then I think again, it's that itch of like, I want to do something new and I want to be learning all the time. Which I think drove me to, okay, I want to do again something different now. And I think venture was both exciting from that perspective, because one, I'd been actively angel investing. So it was always a lot of fun working with other founders. So from that perspective, plus I also get to learn a lot. I mean, I'm starting from scratch. Uh, so it's again a zero to one journey for me. So it's been, it's been fascinating.
AI assessment note: “I want to do again something different now. And I think venture was both exciting”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 4 · Cm 4 4.60
Q And what is your learning on not dos? Because now you have, you are a through elevation investor in many companies, but previously been an angel across 45 plus companies.
A Yeah. I mean, I think for founders, um, you know, it's, it's hard to say because everything changes every few years, but I still believe that, hey, don't pick up a problem that you're not, you don't think you'll solve for 10 years. Uh, because you're gonna have to give 10 years to an idea. Uh, so if you're half-assing something, I don't think it's worth it. Uh, especially if you get some early success in terms of getting funding and things like that. Sometimes that is actually much worse than the counterfactual. Because if I, let's say I start with an idea I'm not passionate about. Yeah. And I don't think it's gonna work. But maybe like a big name VC comes and invests in that. Then there are two problems. One, I start believing in that idea, which I originally didn't believe as much in.
AI assessment note: “don't pick up a problem that you're not, you don't think you'll solve”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 4 · P 4 · Cm 4 4.30
Q And because monetization happens very late, let's say, uh, uh, in, in case, let's say you would have evaluated port key at, at seed stage at earlier stages, right? Monetization very, very late and hard. So what are the other signals that you are looking at?
A So I think, um, I would say that, uh, we like, obviously monetization is going to be very early. We want to understand willingness to pay. But not as much actual monetization, but more from a buyer's perspective, what is the willingness to pay? How critical is this piece of infrastructure? Can they, is it a nice to have or is a must have? Can they live without it? So all those questions are what we want to answer. Uh, how will the pricing scale? So we try to answer those questions, but don't need real proof points. I think we'll also do a lot of work around it. Hopefully also help the founders. Uh, but I would say the important part is Hey, what is that unique IP we are building? Why is it differentiated? Um, what does the rest of the ecosystem look like? Um, what are the hard problems you are solving? So I think having a good understanding of all of those things is important.
AI assessment note: “we want to understand willingness to pay... How critical is this piece of infrastructure?”
Answered raw tape
D 4 · C 4 · P 3 · Cm 3 3.60
Q Incorporated. And, uh, uh, right now, let's say when, when you were starting capillary, like you, as you mentioned, the GTM and everything that you had to learn from day zero, what are the tools that the founder can tap on day zero today that that were not there 10 years ago?
A No, I mean, I don't think we have to teach GTM to founders anymore. I remember, uh, at that time we would do all these, uh, sessions where founders would get together and do playbooks on how to do GTM and things like that. I mean, younger founders I meet, I think the challenge was there wasn't any talent you could go and ask. There weren't advisors. There weren't people who had done it before in the ecosystem. Now it is very richer. I don't think founders are like going into a group session talking about playbooks, how to get to the US. They just take a plane, they come here, and they just go figure it out. So it is Like whether a kid is moving from, uh, uh, you know, New Jersey or, or, uh, Georgia or Bangalore, I mean, they have the scale skill set and they are coming here with the same network. So from that perspective, I don't think, uh, founders are at a disadvantage of any kind.
AI assessment note: “There wasn't any talent you could go and ask. There weren't advisors.”
