Sujoy Golan

Startups, tech and human behavior, history, maps, religion. Entrepreneur, girl dad

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

Recently spoke to more than one growth-stage startup founder. Startups will move engineering jobs from Bangalore to the US. One said that - With AI, I need far fewer engineers, all in our Palo Alto office.

[Kaz Nejatian @nejatian]

I shared this note earlier today with the entire team at Opendoor.

Today we began to say goodbye to our colleagues in India as we wind down our India operations.

Our customers are in America, and that's where our operational work belongs.

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

My rejection story on Sand Hill Road.

My co-founder and I were called in to meet a Partner at a tier-1 VC, at a day's notice. We flew in from Austin on a red eye, took a Uber from SFO to the Rosewood Hotel, which is a short walk from the VC offices on Sand Hill Road.

We met the doorman at the hotel and asked him where we could get coffee. Two Indian dudes, disheveled and sleep deprived. He gave us a judging look and told us that the coffees at the restaurant there were expensive, and that maybe we could go inside and ask for water :)

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

I was once pitching in a board room at a top 3 VC firm for a $15M Series A.

12 people in the meeting. One of the GPs fully fell asleep. Out cold for 30+ minutes. Nobody acknowledged it. Everyone just kept going.

I kept presenting my Series A slides to an unconscious man in a Herman Miller chair and somehow that was considered normal. That's venture capital.

You might fly across the country to perform for people who may or may not be conscious.

It's a dance.

And sometimes you lead and sometimes you follow and sometimes your partner is unconscious.

If you're raising right now, just know: every founder has a story like this. The process is weird. The power dynamic is weird. You're not crazy for thinking it's weird.

No one talks about it because they want to continue raising. But I'm happy to stick my neck out there.

It is weird.

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

My rejection story on Sand Hill Road.

My co-founder and I were called in to meet a Partner at a tier-1 VC, at a day's notice. We flew in from Austin on a red eye, took a Uber from SFO to the Rosewood Hotel, which is a short walk from the VC offices on Sand Hill Road.

We met the doorman at the hotel and asked him where we could get coffee. Two Indian dudes, disheveled and sleep deprived. He gave us a judging look and told us that the coffees at the restaurant there were expensive, and that maybe we could go inside and ask for water :)

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

Great anecdote. As in sales - get to know your customer really well as a person.

[Akshay Kothari @akothari]

We're finally shedding the .so (thank you Somalia!), and using the .com for @NotionHQ. And for this beautiful moment, I want to share a fun story:

Back in 2018, I had just joined Notion, and one of the first things @ivan asked me to do was figure out how we could own https://t.co/BxoFvc83VG. I had never done a big domain purchase before, so I reached out to a few domain brokers to understand the landscape. We tried different brokers, kept things anonymous, and attempted to surface a price the seller might consider.

A year went by… nothing. Meanwhile, it was pretty clear this was only going to get more expensive as we grew. We needed a different approach. A fellow founder connected me to a broker who took a very different tack. Less transactional, more long-term relationship builder. He spent months getting to know the domain owner. Turns out owner was a fellow entrepreneur in the west coast… and a huge Grateful Dead fan.

So we figured, why not get creative? Something beyond just price. So I called up our investor Ronny Conway and asked if there was any way he could help set up a private meeting between the domain owner and the Grateful Dead. Ronny is one of those people who somehow makes impossible things possible. A week later he calls me back: “New York City. Halloween. 15 minutes after the concert. Done.”

The broker went back to the owner with an offer: some cash, some equity, and a private meeting with the Grateful Dead. That got his attention. He didn’t take the band meeting in the end, but he did lean into the equity (great call, in hindsight). We shook hands, and a few weeks later, the deal was done.

I’ve been waiting years for the day we move our product to https://t.co/BxoFvc83VG. Looks like 2026 is finally the year. Safe to say I’m unreasonably excited about this update!

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

@akothari @BillSweetman is a great guy!

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

@akothari @NotionHQ @ivan Awesome story about grit. But didn’t paying for it with equity turn out to be more expensive than paying the asking price with cash?

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

Bay Area WhatsApp groups are buzzing with requests for supply and contacts of dealers

[Jen Abel @jjen_abel]

write your cold emails like you would write a text message

you’re welcome …

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

Brilliant marketing, whether the owner is serious about the stock deal or not!

[Rya Jetha @ryajetha]

The seller of a $2.9 million San Francisco home is accepting payment in Anthropic or OpenAI stock.
The listing went live <24 hrs ago, and the agent's phone has been blowing up since, per @thebenbergman

[Tara Deshpande @Tara_Deshpande]

I’ve put some items into storage and every month I get this bill. I don’t know how to tell him🙃🤣

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

BOOM! Building a 0 - 1 startup has completely changed with AI. I'm not only talking about how fast we can build the website or product.

Being in the critical path, Claude's got all the context from the start to take effective decisions. Our call transcripts, market research, emails, product telemetry. And the fun parts are all the decision traces - what I did and what the outcomes (in the near term for now) were. It's almost like I'm building a second brain.

The cat pic only because I love it.

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

would be infinitely more interesting to live 300 mil years ago in the Carboniferous period among giant insects 🦗. the concentration of oxygen on earth was much higher then, and so the creatures got very big.

[Hernan Cortes @CyberPunkCortes]

This is how big lobsters used to be off the American east coast, 1916. Overfishing has made specimens of this size very rare. These ones are between 75-100 years old.

[Steve Giordano @SteveNomadic]

To the spirit pilots I’ve met recently, Thank YOU for helping us tackle this nightmare of a week with skill and precision, and a sense of humor even.

I sincerely wish you the best, and if we happen to cross paths again, which we most certainly will, remind me of your city-pair and Tail Number. 🫡

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

The ball keeps on rolling...

[Matthew Prince 🌥 @eastdakota]

An update regarding the future at @Cloudflare. I’ve shared my full message to the team and details on the support we're providing those departing here: https://t.co/8djT55aVSP

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

Genuinely confused. What kind of investor would allow this and for what kind of company?

[Alex Kehr @alexkehr]

@nickabouzeid i met a yesterday founder basically living solo in a $25k/mo investor-funded “office house.” I don’t think they realize how much potential taxable comp they may have created for themselves…

also crazy bad use of investor funds 😂

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

@jnpayne "thinking in decades". hmmm...

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

Imagine if Vijay and Stalin had joined hands before the elections. TN would have got Joseph Stalin.

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

My daughter was made fun of at her high school yesterday for carrying a tote bag that had AI something written on it. One of those tote bags that I’d brought back from a conference.

Another friend’s kid in University is doing a science research program but is anti-AI.

Part of a growing trend I’ve noticed of Gen Zers actively hating on and resisting AI. These are all young adults setting themselves up for a lot of pain in the future.

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

@nikunj Also need this service for founders who are fresh off the boat and don't have a credit score yet

[Sujoy Golan @sujoygolan]

This is a good framework. I'm also interested in seeing how the behemoths, especially those who are public, turn around their pricing plans. There is a clear downward pressure on the # of licenses. Someone like @salesforce seems to be moving faster down that path by launching headless and preparing their sales teams.