EP 60: Scott Raney and Satish Dharmaraj (Investors, Redpoint) Breakdown Venture Capital and Why AI Will Be Bigger Than Mobile

**Logan Bartlett** (0:05)
Welcome to the 60th episode of The Logan Bartlett Show. I am your host, Logan Bartlett, and what you're gonna hear on this episode is something a little different. This is a conversation I've wanted to have for a long time with two of my partners, the senior most investors at our firm, Scott Raney, as well as Satish Dharmaraj. Scott been at Redpoint for a long time, making investments in notable companies like Twilio, HashiCorp and Stripe, among a number of others.
Satish is a former entrepreneur, having been backed by both Redpoint and Benchmark in his last business. He also has made investments in notable companies like Snowflake in the very, very early stages, as well as Zendesk, Sonos, Nextdoor, among a bunch of others. This was a really fun conversation to hear their perspectives on where everything's headed and the ecosystem as it stands, how our partnership works and all of that. So thanks to them for finally coming on. They're both fairly pressed shy and they haven't done any interviews in a long time. And so it took a lot of coaxing to get them on, but a really fun conversation. Before we get to that, please, whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on, give a five star review if you're enjoying what we're doing, as well as subscribing on YouTube. We're trying to get the accounts up on both of those. It helps other people discover the podcast. And so that is really appreciated. But without further ado, my partners, Satish and Scott. I want you to know that neither of you guys have much stuff.
Like out there, neither of you have videos or any. Satish, you have some from like a decade ago that I went back and watched last night. But like cumulative time that you guys have of things that I could prep, it was like maybe an hour and a half.

**Satish Dharmaraj** (1:40)
Hey, so before we start.

**Logan Bartlett** (1:44)
We've started.

**Satish Dharmaraj** (1:45)
So if we start with going down further, I'm really concerned here a little bit about your performance.

**Logan Bartlett** (1:58)
Is this this is actually a performance review?

**Satish Dharmaraj** (2:00)
Yeah, this is, you know, I mean, I see you on Twitter fucking 24 by 7
I see you with all this podcast. I see you all doing all kinds of stuff. When do you fucking do work?

**Scott Raney** (2:11)
Yeah, like, for instance, how many deals have you done in the last 12 months?

**Logan Bartlett** (2:14)
Zero.

**Scott Raney** (2:14)
Yeah.

**Logan Bartlett** (2:15)
Yeah.

**Scott Raney** (2:15)
Doesn't surprise us. Does not surprise us at all.

**Logan Bartlett** (2:18)
It depends on how you define deals.

**Satish Dharmaraj** (2:19)
I wouldn't be able to do any deals. Scottie, would you be able to? I wouldn't be able to do any deal either if I was doing all the things you do.

**Scott Raney** (2:24)
I would try to become a media celebrity.

**Satish Dharmaraj** (2:26)
A media celebrity, a rock star.

**Scott Raney** (2:27)
Instead of focusing on his job.

**Logan Bartlett** (2:29)
I the good news. The good news in that is I think any deal that I would have done over the last year would be marked down significantly. So that's the way I justify it.

**Satish Dharmaraj** (2:38)
Isn't that the case with all the other deals you've done as well?

**Logan Bartlett** (2:42)
That's not any different than two years prior. What's different about that?
Well, I appreciate you guys doing this. I think this is our new studio thing in our office.

**Satish Dharmaraj** (2:54)
I like it.

**Logan Bartlett** (2:55)
We were not using this space, so we actually turned it into something real. But I know I had to begrudgingly pull teeth to get you guys to do this.
Satish didn't even realize we were actually recording here today.

**Satish Dharmaraj** (3:07)
I did not. I thought it was a prep meeting and I was going to talk to you about how it's a terrible idea to have me on a podcast.

**Logan Bartlett** (3:14)
No, it's great.
All your stuff that I was listening to is super interesting. Satish, I want to start. I didn't know there was a bet among Zimbra employees that you weren't actually going to make it in venture.

**Satish Dharmaraj** (3:25)
That's correct.

**Logan Bartlett** (3:26)
Zimbra is your company you founded.

**Satish Dharmaraj** (3:28)
Yeah.

**Logan Bartlett** (3:29)
You founded the business when?

**Satish Dharmaraj** (3:30)
2003

**Logan Bartlett** (3:32)
2003, raised money from Redpoint and Benchmark.

**Satish Dharmaraj** (3:36)
And Excel.

**Logan Bartlett** (3:37)
And Excel. And ultimately sold it when?

**Satish Dharmaraj** (3:40)
2007

**Logan Bartlett** (3:41)