Going back to the foundation of Kleiner Perkins with Mamoon Hamid through clear busines model focus and culture

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.

We are excited to bring you our latest episode with Mamoon Hamid, Partner at Kleiner Perkins. As many know, Kleiner Perkins, founded over 50 years ago is one of the most storied franchises in the history of venture capital, having backed companies companies such as Genentech, Sun Microsystems, Amazon, Google, and Uber. 

After stints at USVP and Social Capital (which he co-founded), Mamoon joined Kleiner in 2017 as part of a generational succession process. As part of this, Mamoon has focused heavily on returning Kleiner to the roots of it’s history as a premier boutique venture capital fund focused on early-stage investing. Since then, they’ve backed companies such as Rippling and Figma. 

Mamoon and I spoke about how he and the team have executed the mission of bringing Kleiner to what they have coined as going back to the future. We covered a number of topics but dug deep into the importance of culture and focus.

About Mamoon Hamid:Mamoon Hamid is a Partner at Kleiner Perkins. He has been an early investor in and served on the boards of some of the most innovative software companies of recent times including Slack, Figma, Box and Rippling.

Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, Mamoon was a co-founder of Social Capital. He started his venture career in 2005 at U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) where he eventually became Partner. Mamoon came to Silicon Valley in 1997 to join Xilinx, a Kleiner Perkins company, where he spent six years, initially as an engineer and later in product and marketing roles.

He has a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University, an M.S. from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

In this episode, we discuss:

(02:14) Mamoon’s journey to Kleiner Perkins(04:18) Jumping over from being an engineer to investor(09:26) What was interesting about joining Kleiner in 2017(14:18) What going back to the future meant to Mamoon(17:06) Balancing between the past and building for the future(21:26) Mapping core values to bringing on new team members to help execute(25:59) Traits he looks for when hiring(28:36) How he has picked so many breakout companies(31:35) OKRs that Kleiner Perkins tracks(37:15) What it means to be an entreprenuer’s first call(40:08) What does venture look like over the next ten years(44:07) Biggest learning in Mamoon’s career

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Mamoon. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee