Ramtin Naimi

And I'm like, this actually just seems like a perfect name for a C-stage venture capital firm.

I think the number one thing that's changed is in the early days, I just wanted to be accepted as an outsider.

And I think that's happened because I actually think Silicon Valley is a very special place.

If you prove that to earn your seat at the table,

No one actually cares about anything else.

You're at this seat for a reason and we'll leave it at that.

So I think that's no longer a chip.

At any instance of the firm's history, it was the early days were like, they don't know what they're doing.

They're just following other people.

I'll start leading deals.

And then we started leading deals and it's like, okay.

They only know what to do at seed.

They have no idea what to do at later stage.

And they might be right.

We're still early in doing some early side later stage things.

But at any point in any type of business, when there's other people who have a right to be there and they see you as someone who doesn't have a right to be there, you're going to get a lot of shade thrown your way.

I encourage my founders not to focus on competition.

I try not to focus on competition.

I just try to focus on doing what we can as best as we possibly can.

And I think everything we have done historically has proven that we can do what we think we can do, what we said we can do, what we said we will do.