Episode 109: Developer Productivity, Real-Time Data Infrastructure, and The Fat-Tailed Nature of Enterprise Software with Nnamdi Iregbulem

Show Notes

• (01:32) Nnamdi shared formative experiences of his upbringing, where he spent countless hours building computers, coding up websites, and finding ways to game Google search.
• (04:54) Nnamdi described his undergraduate experience studying Economics at Yale University and interning at McKinsey and J.P. Morgan.
• (08:10) Nnamdi reflected on the decline of the investment banking industry - given his one year working for the technology, media, and telecommunications group at J.P. Morgan in New York.
• (12:52) Nnamdi discussed his career transition into venture investing at ICONIQ Capital, where he deployed over $500 million into high-growth technology companies.
• (15:00) Nnamdi reflected on his proudest accomplishments during his four formative years at ICONIQ.
• (17:35) Nnamdi talked about his excitement for GitLab, one of his investments.
• (21:27) Nnamdi touched on his time getting an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
• (24:21) Nnamdi also completed coursework in Stanford's Computer Science department (such as CS 231N and CS 224N) during his MBA.
• (26:37) Nnamdi explained the venture ecosystem at Stanford, given his experience serving as the Co-President and Vice President of the Venture Capital and Tech Clubs, respectively.
• (28:57) Nnamdi unpacked his experience working at Confluent as a product manager and conducting independent research on trends in developer productivity.
• (32:23) Nnamdi reflected on his decision to join Lightspeed Venture in mid-2020, investing in early-stage software startups to enhance the productivity of technical knowledge workers.
• (34:17) Nnamdi shared how he proved his value upfront in potential deals and started forming his investment theses as a new investor at Lightspeed.
• (36:24) Nnamdi dissected the key factors that triggered him to make investments in the seed rounds of Ponder and Voltron Data (in the domain of developer tools).
• (40:36) Nnamdi explained his Series A investment in Redpanda and Materialize (in the domain of real-time data infrastructure).
• (45:45) Nnamdi shared advice he had been giving his portfolio companies in hiring decisions and navigating growth strategy.
• (49:07) Nnamdi walked through his 3-part series on major industry trends, top strategic priorities, and biggest challenges for software and infrastructure startups pushing the developer productivity frontier.
• (52:37) Nnamdi shared advice to startups thinking about scaling their developer relations, given the challenge of hiring developer advocates for dev-focused startups.
• (56:27) Nnamdi unpacked his 3-part series on the developer productivity manifesto that introduces the developer productivity flywheel, explains how more developers lead to lower productivity, and argues that