Rajan Anandan on risk taking, angel investing, pushing 10x thinking [#17]

Best in Class with Harish Narayanan

Rajan Anandan is a legend in the Indian startup ecosystem. He was a McKinsey consultant, then he moved to leadership positions in Dell, Microsoft and Google (I had the pleasure of working with him in Google and observing his leadership from close quarters). He's now Managing Director at Sequoia Capital and he spearheads their Surge program (early stage incubation + rapid scale up). He's a prolific angel investor with 100+ investments, a 10x thinker in everything he does, and a go-to advisor for all topics in the startup ecosystem.

In our wide-ranging conversation, Rajan shares his life journey, investment frameworks, thoughts on the India growth story, achieving big goals and much more. Detailed timestamps can be found below.

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Timestamps:

• 1:03 Intro.
• 2:23 Risk taking, “The art of the possible”, life journey.
• 9:12 India’s startup ecosystem explosion, becoming the ‘most innovative nation’.
• 17:23 Celebrating startups, India’s digital ecosystem, structural and regulatory improvements.
• 26:20 Angel investing, learnings from his angel journey, building a portfolio.
• 38:34 Pushing 10x growth in a large organisation, building a team of believers.
• 44:24 Finding star talent (10x thinkers). Setting new best-in-class benchmarks.
• 48:04 Finding passion ("Passion with capability"). Being extraordinary at something.
• 53:19 Quick questions (books, message for the world - "Life is full of challenges, embrace it").

Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed during the series are solely personal and do not necessarily represent those of my company / employers.