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Meet Satya

Everything you need to know about working with me!

Satya Patel

About Me

⁠

I’m currently a partner at

Homebrew⁠

, a seed stage venture fund that invests in mission-driven founders who embrace big – big ideas, big impact, big risk. Previously, I was VP Product at Twitter, leading both product management and user support. Prior to that, I co-led seed and early stage Internet and digital media investing as a Partner at Battery Ventures. I joined Google in 2003, working as Senior Product Manager on various product management and partnership initiatives for AdSense. Earlier, I was a Senior Product Manager at DoubleClick, a VC with two NY-based venture capital firms and a strategy consultant. Penn educated and Vegas raised. Optimizing for happiness.

Follow me⁠

on Twitter if you like tech, food or the NY Giants.

Here’s a fireside chat I did back in 2015 to learn a bit about me and my background:

⁠

And here’s a conversation about our work at Homebrew that I had with Jason Calcanis on his Angel podcast in 2018:

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My blueprint - three tips for working with me

1. No surprises.

The good, the bad and the ugly. All news is acceptable. But surprises are not. Nothing destroys trust like hiding the truth, especially when challenges of all kinds are expected during a company’s journey. I ask for transparency, aim to over-communicate myself and hate giving and receiving surprises.

2. Learn from failure.

No one gets things right all the time. But not learning from failure is the true mistake. The best people, companies and cultures value experimenting, learning and then quickly iterating. They appreciate that there’s no reward without risk and there’s no risk without failure. I expect and accept failure, but not failing to learning from it.

3. Decide and commit.

Nothing kills companies, culture and individual motivation like indecision. But making decisions is difficult if you want perfect information or total agreement. Instead, make them quickly unless the decision is completely irreversible. And be clear who has the information and authority to make the decision. Once the decision’s been made, everyone needs to get on board and work together. That can only happen when leadership establishes the right norms around decision-making. I thrive with teams that make informed decisions quickly and then act collectively.

About this Doc

Last updated:

2/10/2023

⁠

Through my various blog posts and interviews, I hope to give people a sense of what it’s like to work with me. I’ve noted a trend towards others doing the same (e.g. Luc Levesque calls this a

“Blueprint⁠

”, First Round calls this a “

User Guide⁠

”). I hope to update this frequently to give you an idea of what I value at work.

⁠

Copy a version of this doc

⁠

About Me

My blueprint - three tips for working with me

1. No surprises.

2. Learn from failure.

3. Decide and commit.

About this Doc

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