https://fortune.com/2024/05/14/jyoti-bansal-triple-duty-startup-founder-ceo-harness-traceable-unusual-venturesal-ventures/
Jyoti Bansal has gone on to launch a venture firm and two new high-value startups.
Sometime in 2017, Jyoti Bansal was on his couch watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
In the first three minutes of the documentary, a masterpiece about excellence and obsession, sushi chef Jiro Ono speaks right into the camera:
“Once you decide on your occupation… you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That’s the secret of success… and is the key to being regarded honorably.”
Ono was a steely 85 at the time of the movie, and his philosophy struck Bansal, then at his own crossroads. Bansal had recently sold AppDynamics for $3.7 billion in a dramatic pre-IPO deal. The day before the company went public, Cisco had upped the ante enough to get to a yes. It was a triumph, and a kind of loss.
“I remember being at the party after, celebrating, we’d sold the company for a pretty good price, and that was a high point,” said Bansal. “Then I came home, and I was depressed, thinking ‘this is the end.’”
After working through his bucket list (Himalayas hiking and Norwegian fjords, for example), he was back on his couch, and not actually sure what he was supposed to be doing. As in, with his life.
“I was really doing some soul-searching at the time, after selling AppDynamics,” Bansal told me. “And if you look at the movie, it really isn’t just about the outcome, it’s about the process of getting better and better.”
He tells me the sale of AppDynamics was both a high and low point of his career. On one hand, the sale helped mint 400 millionaires out of AppDynamics employees and delivered killer returns for investors. On the other hand, he felt like he hadn’t finished the job.
And, for many entrepreneurs, this is about where the story would end. But not for Bansal. He went on to co-found software delivery company Harness in 2017. And, for many entrepreneurs, it would stop there. But in 2018 Bansal went on to cofound Unusual Ventures, and then, in 2019, he cofounded API security startup Traceable AI.
As if on cue, Harness and Traceable (Bansal is the CEO of both) have each reached new milestones in recent weeks. Fortune has exclusively learned that Harness has raised $150 million in financing from First Citizens-owned Silicon Valley Bank and Hercules Capital. Harness, which has more than $100 million in ARR, is valued at $3.7 billion, and Traceable (last valued at $500 million) this month announced that it had raised a $30 million funding round.
And, lest you forget, this guy does have three jobs—as cofounder and entrepreneur partner of a VC firm, Bansal is also advising founders and the firm has done a few deals this year, including Traceable, Theia Insights, Navro, and Qdrant.
This sounds atypical, sure. But how anomalous is Bansal? Very, said Menlo Ventures partner Matt Murphy, an investor in both Harness and AppDynamics.
“You could count the entrepreneurs on two hands that have been able to do something like this, maybe one,” Murphy told Fortune. “Jack Dorsey is the best example. I know Jobs started multiple companies, but it was Apple that was successful… You have a guy like Andy Bechtolsheim who’s founded multiple successful companies, but he’s done that over a very long period of time, and Jyoti’s done it in a relatively short period of time.”
Bechtolsheim recently settled an insider trading case, without admitting or denying the allegations, so he’s not necessarily an ideal role model. Another famous (and controversial) name comes up, twice.
“I look at him as the Elon Musk for B2B businesses,” said Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable cofounder and Harness investor. “A lot more integrity and humility, that’s the biggest difference.”