Shows
The Founder Initiative[VC Pitch] Foundation Capital's ($6B AUM), Partner Sid Trivedi <> Cofactory's, Founder Josiah SpartzListen to a real VC pitch in Silicon Valley and then go behind the scenes to hear what the VC actually thought...
Sid Trivedi is a Partner at Foundation Capital https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddhanttrivedi/, a $6B VC fund in Silicon Valley!
Josiah Spartz is the Founder of Cofactory.ai https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsjcs/, an agentic customer acquisition platform!
FORMAT
1. PERFECT PITCH - Sid - shares what the perfect pitch would look like for a company in this sector
2. PITCH DISCUSSION - Joey & Sid have a pitch discussion!
3. VC CLOSED DOOR REVIEW - Sid shares more details...2025-04-2311 min
Inside the NetworkDug Song: Values over valuation—reflections on building Duo Security and leading with purposeIn this episode of Inside the Network, we sit down with Dug Song, the legendary co-founder and former CEO of Duo Security. Dug's journey is nothing short of iconic—he turned a side project into a cybersecurity powerhouse with over 50,000 customers and a $2.35 billion exit to Cisco. In a world obsessed with unicorn status and funding hype, Dug stands out as a founder who stayed grounded in values, culture, and customer empathy.We explore Dug’s early years—from doing data entry in his father’s liquor store in West Baltimore to cutting his teeth at...2025-04-061h 25
Inside the NetworkJeetu Patel: Cisco’s AI-powered cybersecurity futureIn this episode of Inside the Network, we sit down with Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer. Jeetu previously led Cisco’s Security and Collaboration business units. Under his leadership, these divisions have become major growth engines fueled by AI-driven innovation, strategic acquisitions, and a renewed focus on user experience.With a market cap of $250 billion and a security business generating $10 billion in revenue, Cisco is evolving into a different kind of startup, one that moves with speed and urgency. Jeetu shares why he joined Cisco to spearhead this tran...2025-03-051h 02
Radio City Wrong StoryBunty Aur BabliRakesh Trivedi is from a small village named Fursatganj. His father is a ticket collector on a train and wants him to get into a similar occupation as well. However, Rakesh has big dreams; he is forever coming up with new business schemes and is convinced he will make it big one day. He adamantly refuses any notion that he will one day work in a 9-to-5 environment. Rakesh's father gives him an ultimatum: go on the job interview he has arranged or get out of the house. Connecting an other movie story with this story and changing the...2025-03-0205 min
Inside the NetworkShlomo Kramer: A playbook for building three multi billion-dollar cybersecurity companies - Cato Networks, Check Point, and ImpervaShlomo Kramer, CEO and co-founder of Cato Networks is a rare bird in the cybersecurity industry, having built three unicorns in his career. For many in the cybersecurity industry, Sholmo needs no introduction. One of the early pioneers in Israel’s cybersecurity startup ecosystem, what makes Shlomo remarkable is his ability to repeatedly build category-defining companies. He first co-founded Check Point, which pioneered the firewall category and today commands a $20 billion market cap. Then, seeing the shift to the cloud, he launched Imperva, focusing on web application security (WAF). That was his second IPO. Now with Cato Networks, he's cr...2025-02-0347 min
Inside the NetworkHamza Fodderwala: The future of cybersecurity — 2024 retrospective, 2025 predictions and what founders need to knowIn this holiday episode special, we’re joined by Hamza Fodderwala, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley, where he leads cybersecurity equity coverage. He joined Morgan Stanley's software research team in early 2016 and leads coverage for public cybersecurity companies like Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Fortinet, SentinelOne, Okta, Zscaler, Cloudflare, Rapid7, Check Point, Qualys, Varonis and Tenable. Before Morgan Stanley, Hamza was an equity research associate at Susquehanna International Group covering the financial technology sector. Hamza graduated from New York University, with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics.We dive into Hamza’s insights on the majo...2024-12-2957 min
Inside the NetworkKumar Saurabh: Building Sumo Logic, LogicHub, and AirMDR and why immigrants make great entrepreneursIn this episode, we sit down with Kumar Saurabh, CEO and co-founder of AirMDR, which provides a new approach to managed detection and response with an AI-powered virtual security analyst. A serial entrepreneur, Kumar has been at it for two decades. Before AirMDR, he co-founded Sumo Logic, the first cloud-based SIEM, and LogicHub, one of the pioneers of SOAR.Kumar’s journey as an immigrant founder offers a unique perspective on why immigrants often succeed as entrepreneurs and how institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) have produced some of the world’s most...2024-12-1252 min
Three Buddy ProblemSid Trivedi on the RSA Innovation Sandbox $5 million investment gambitEpisode sponsors:
Binarly (https://binarly.io)
Binary Risk Hunt (https://risk.binarly.io)
In this reboot of the Security Conversations interview series, Foundation Capital partner Sid Trivedi weighs in on major changes to the RSA Innovation Sandbox, the mandatory $5M uncapped SAFE investment for all 10 finalists, and red-flag concerns around discounts and pro-rata rights.
Also discussed: controversial pay-for-play dynamics involving CISOs and venture capital firms, ethical implications of CISOs taking advisory positions in startups, and the challenges of investing in seed-stage startups amidst a trend towards platformization. Links:RSA’s Innovation Sandbox: Cy...2024-11-281h 01
Inside the NetworkRick Snyder: How a Founder, VC and Governor is building a safer digital futureIn this special election episode, we sit down with Gov. Rick Snyder, an entrepreneur, a former VC, and a leader whose career is unique in depth and breadth, spanning both the public and private sectors. Rick Snyder initially made his mark as COO of Gateway, where he helped the company grow revenue from $600 million to $6 billion to IPO. He then co-founded venture firm Ardesta, which stands for “spark” in Greek. After two fund cycles, he transitioned from business to politics, serving two terms as Governor of Michigan. Post-governorship, Rick Snyder returned to the entrepreneurial world...2024-11-0248 min
Inside the NetworkSlavik Markovich: Building Descope & Demisto—brewing coffee and connections in the US-Israel tech sceneIn this episode, we sit down with Slavik Markovich, CEO and co-founder of Descope, a low-code/no-code Customer Identity Access Management (CIAM) platform. A serial entrepreneur, Slavik has been at it for two decades and over this time built three companies.Before Descope, he was co-founder and CEO at Demisto, a leader in the SOAR industry that was acquired by Palo Alto Networks for $560 million. Before co-founding Demisto, Slavik was VP & CTO of database technologies at McAfee (Intel Security). He joined McAfee via the acquisition of Sentrigo, a database security startup, where he was...2024-10-051h 01
Inside the NetworkDoug Merritt: Creating a decacorn in Splunk and identifying trendsIn this episode we have a special guest - Doug Merritt - who has shaped not a unicorn but a decacorn - a company valued at more than $10 billion. As the former CEO of Splunk, he steered this big data company to extraordinary heights. In just six years under Doug's leadership, Splunk's market cap soared past $25 billion, and its annual recurring revenue skyrocketed from $200 million to a staggering $3 billion. At its peak, over 50% of Splunk revenues came from security applications.Doug's journey began as a coder and developer before transitioning to sales leadership and...2024-08-3057 min
Inside the NetworkJon Gelsey: Building Auth0, the only PLG company in cybersecurity to achieve a multi-billion dollar exitOur guest in this episode is Jon Gelsey. Jon was the first CEO of Auth0, a leading identity-as-a-service platform, which grew from 5 to 300 employees during his four years at the helm. Auth0 was acquired by Okta in February 2021 for $6.5B. After Auth0, Jon served as CEO of Xnor, a computer vision and machine learning spinoff of the Allen Institute. The company was acquired by Apple for ~$200M in January 2020. When Auth0 first started in 2013, there were already several authentication vendors in the market. Okta, ForgeRock, and OneLogin had all built considerable scale by the t...2024-08-0157 min
Inside the NetworkMarty Roesch: Scaling Sourcefire and creating a new way to monetize open source security softwareIn this episode, we sit down with Marty Roesch, founder of Sourcefire. Sourcefire led the intrusion detection and protection (IDS/IPS) wave, raised four rounds of financing from leading VCs like NEA, Sierra Ventures, and Sequoia, and went public, later to be acquired by Cisco for $2.7 billion.Founders often believe that their first few customers cannot be large enterprises. Marty took the contrarian path. Sourcefire’s first few customers were all six-figure deals - PWC, Intel, SAIC, and International Paper. In addition to that, Sourcefire was incredibly successful in working with industry research firms li...2024-07-071h 07
Inside the NetworkRon Gula: Bootstrapping Tenable to $100M revenue and becoming an influencerFew cybersecurity companies have been able to bootstrap their way to success – Tenable stands above the rest in this category. The company raised its first round of funding after 10 years of operations. It had $90M of revenue at the time. In the venture world, “Tenable was the best cybersecurity business that nobody had ever heard of.” Today, it is the leading cyber exposure and vulnerability management company with $800M in revenue and over 44,000 customers globally.In our second episode of ‘Inside the Network’ we sit down with Ron Gula, co-founder and former CEO of Tenable. We learn abou...2024-06-031h 00
Inside the NetworkDmitri Alperovitch: Building CrowdStrike and defending against nation statesThere are plenty of great startups solving impactful problems in security. Very few, however, ever grow to achieve the scale of CrowdStrike - a company that has rightfully become a household name in the industry. Today, CrowdStrike has a market cap of over $70 billion, making it one of the world's 300 most valuable companies. In the inaugural episode of ‘Inside the Network,’ we sit down with Dmitri Alperovitch, Co-Founder and former CTO of CrowdStrike, to discuss his journey before, during, and after building this iconic company. Dmitri walks us through his childhood, immigrating from Russia to the US, a...2024-05-0358 min
Passion Play Profit#36 - Sid Trivedi: Partner at Foundation Capital and Founder of the Cornell Venture Capital ClubSiddhant Trivedi started on Wall Street at Barclays Capital, advising tech, media, and telecom companies and spending time on both the buy-side and sell-side of major deals, from mergers and takeovers to corporate debt and equity financings. He then worked as a PE professional at Symphony Technology Group, and investor at Omidyar Tech Ventures.2023-10-1244 min
Business of CyberBoC #63: Sid Trivedi | Foundation Capital | Investing at the Earliest StageSid Trivedi is a Partner at Foundation Capital. Sid leads the firm’s focus on cybersecurity and has participated in investments in Permiso, CloudKnox, & Attivo Networks.2023-04-1246 min
The New York Information Security MeetupDavid Raviv | Sid Trivedi | UnscriptedDavid had a chance to connect with Sid at the recent Blackhat event in Vegas
Sid is currently a Partner at Foundation Capital he works with entrepreneurs to build the next generation of leading enterprise software companies and leads the firm’s investing efforts in cybersecurity and IT. Sid’s experience has run the gamut from public to growth to early-stage, affording him a unique perspective on how brand leaders are built and sustained.
He started on Wall Street at Barclays Capital, advising on tech, media and telecom companies, spending time on both th...2022-12-0843 minThe New York Information Security MeetupDavid Raviv | Sid Trivedi | UnscriptedDavid Raviv had the opportunity to have an unscripted conversation with Sid Trivedi, partner at Foundation Capital.
Growing up across Asia, Sid enjoyed a front row seat as the mobile phone transformed the entire planet. His dad worked for Nokia during the early 2000’s when it was one of the most valuable brands in the world, and was able to bring home a new phone for Sid to test each week. The increasing speed and impact of each innovation was enough to get him hooked, and naturally Sid pursued a career in the tech sector.
Si...2022-10-1747 min
PattukkaaranPattukkaaran - Amit Trivedi Essentials feat., Divakar Revath KumarAlways wanted to talk about this man, Amit Trivedi & finally the time has arrived. In this episode of Pattukkaaran Podcast, we have Divakar Revath Kumar with us sharing his love for AT and his music. Hope you enjoy this episode! :)
Time-stamps
00:00:58 Guest Intro
00:02:22 How I got to know Amit Trivedi
00:04:45 Ishaqzaade
00:05:35 Coke Studio songs
00:06:11 Jazz love of AT
00:07:30 Signature of AT
00:09:28 Our Favorites
00:10:46 #Iktara - Wake Up Sid
00:11:42 Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu
00:12:05 Udaan...2022-05-1651 min
Tank Talks By Ripple VenturesHow Investors should think about investing in the Next Big Thing with Nikhil Basu TrivediToday’s incredible guest is Nikhil Basu Trivedi, an investor who has been on the leading edge of investing in dozens of startups just before they become the next big thing. His portfolio includes Canva, Hinge, DoctoronDemand and many more. We asked Nikhil about what sort of data points he looks for when analyzing markets, in order to time the next big thing perfectly for investment; and we dig into some of the biggest lessons he’s learned in the process.About Nikhil:Nikhil Basu Trivedi is Co-Founder and General Partner of Footwork, an early-stage VC firm focu...2021-09-0242 minThe Founder InitiativeFoundation Capital's Partner, Sid Trivedi: VC-Customer-NetworksTaking advantage of customer networks to better your product and find niches.2021-07-2114 min
Startup Success: A Podcast for Founders & InvestorsEvaluating Fit Between Entrepreneur and Investor: a Conversation with Jeff Burkland and Sid TrivediThe investment environment is tilted in favor of startups right now. And that means there’s a high likelihood you’ll be able to raise capital — in fact, it’s as high as it’s ever been before.In this episode, special guest host Jeff Burkland, Founder & CEO of Burkland, talks with his friend, Sid Trivedi, Partner at Foundation Capital, about the partnership between entrepreneurs and investors.Topics covered:How investors evaluate startupsBuilding culture in a remote environmentWhat sets apart the Bay area ecosystemAdvice for evaluating investor fitThis discussion with Sid Trivedi was taken...2021-06-0143 min
B2BaCEO (with Ashu Garg)How to Protect Your Perimeter (Doug Merritt and Mike DeCesare)Doug Merritt and Mike DeCesare both hold leadership roles at prominent cybersecurity companies. But before they made their way into the CEO seat, both spent many years in a variety of operational positions, gaining a 360-degree view of their respective businesses. Today, Doug leads the team at Splunk with empathy, ensuring all contributors feel valued. And Mike, now co-chairman at Forescout Technologies, explains how his holistic professional journey has made him a more thoughtful leader.
We’ll hear from both executives in this next installment from our FC BUILD series, this time moderated by my partner and resident cybersecurity expert, Si...2021-05-1242 min
Path to Profit: Lessons From Growth-Driven Business LeadersEP 14 | Sharpen Your Profit SuperpowersSid Trivedi, Partner at Foundation Capital, has a superpower. It’s his vast customer network matched with his high levels of cybersecurity. In this episode he shares his insight on how he uses his superpower to help B2B businesses navigate their path to profits. What we talked about:- The importance of your first 10 customers- Pattern mapping - Stages and levels of sales hires - Protecting your business against cybersecurity attacks - Smart money vs. dumb money - Focus on valuation- Lessons learned Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:- Sid Trivedi is Partner at Foundation Ca...2021-05-1141 min
The AFT podcast: At the Forefront of Transactions | Previously known as Fundraising Radio.B2B customer acquisition during pandemic and how to hire sales people, by Sid Trivedi.Partner at Foundation Capital, Sid Trivedi explains how he sees startups making B2B sales in the enterprise sectors. We also discussed hiring commission-only salesman and full time account executives. If you are an early stage startup in B2B field this episode is right for you.
Sid Trivedi's article on Cybersecurity being the next trillion dollar market: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cybersecurity-next-trillion-dollar-market-siddhant-sid-trivedi/
Sid Trivedi's article on Cybersecurity during pandemic: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stay-home-secure-productive-security-pandemic-sid-trivedi/
Foundation Capital: https://foundationcapital.com/
For those who want to see ideas turning into...2020-08-1133 min
Founder FundamentalsFoundation Capital: Sid TrivediRecorded (8/19): In this episode, hear Sid Trivedi, Partner at Foundation Capital, speak about his experience as a Venture Capitalist in Silicon Valley. Sid touches upon how to break into VC, what he’s looking for when making investments and areas of interest.
Read more below on what Sid thinks is the next trillion dollar market:
https://foundationcapital.com/cybersecurity-the-next-trillion-dollar-market/2019-10-3100 min
PsychEd: educational psychiatry podcastPsychEd Episode 2: Treatment of Depression with Dr. Sidney KennedyWelcome to PsychED, the educational psychiatry podcast for medical learners, by medical learners. This episode covers the approach to treating Major Depressive Disorder, as described by the CANMAT (Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments) Guidelines. We discuss with Dr. Sid Kennedy, the founding chair of CANMAT, the past president of International Society for Affective Disorders, as well as a staff psychiatrist and scientist at Toronto Western and St. Michael’s Hospitals in Toronto. In this episode, Dr. Kennedy discusses the origins of the CANMAT and how the guidelines are structured and constructed. We talk br...2017-03-121h 02