Lessons from Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst

On Innovation and Technology

"If there are two things that have been foundational to my journey, it's been learning, and it's been the importance of taking risk." [1][2]
"We're in the golden age of venture capital, and we're probably a decade into a 30 year secular shift, as opposed to being in another cycle." [3]
"The old Silicon Valley tenets of ‘move fast and break things,’ minimum viable products, and hyper engagement at any cost must be replaced with new principles for an era of responsible innovation." [4]
"I want us to think about what's good for our businesses and how well it aligns with what's good for society. Build with this notion of responsible innovation." [3]
"We can no longer manage businesses solely for growth. With innovation comes responsibility: to generate returns beyond profits and to recenter technology as a force for good in the world." [4]
"Size and scale have become a liability. A new generation of upstarts is using artificial intelligence to automate tasks that once required expensive investment, and “renting” technology platforms to build businesses for hyper-focused markets, enabling them to grow big without the bloat of giant organizations." [5]
" In the unscaled economy, size and scale have become a liability." [6]
"To succeed in business today, companies, CEOs and leaders everywhere must unlearn what they have been taught - they must embrace an unscaled mindset." [6]
"The economies of unscale are turning into a Competitive Edge." [7]
"I think what you have to fight in this space really is inertia." [1]

On Artificial Intelligence

"We are in a perilous moment with AI." [1]
"If we can use AI to enhance human potential, we can create a much more prosperous Society it's got to be done carefully." [8]
"Rather than regulating the technology itself we should regulate at the application layer how it's adopted in industries like healthcare." [9]
"You don't want to slow down that progress, so I think I think it's a balance of um uh you know not regulating too fast not overregulating regulating at the right layers of overall sort of innovation stack if you will." [9]
"The opportunity to help various businesses, especially the ones that are low margin businesses today, to become more profitable and innovative in scale is great with AI." [1]
"My AI thesis in my 2018 book Unscaled, which explored how the economy of the future will be won by upstarts leveraging AI for hyper-focused markets." [10]
"He equally shows the need for transparency and clear values in deploying these powerful new technologies." [11]
"AI is central to the firm's strategy of doing rollup mergers in sectors long considered too stodgy for Silicon Valley, like IT services and human resources." [12]

On Healthcare

"One critical industry I've set a goal to transform is healthcare." [10]
"My 2020 book, UnHealthcare: A Manifesto for Health Assurance, co-authored with Dr. Stephen Klasko, CEO of Jefferson Health, details our thesis for how the healthcare system needs to transform a “sick care” system into a Health Assurance system that is proactive, accessible and affordable." [10]
" Most people go into healthcare. They think it's a way to serve society. It's not their fault that the way the system got developed was fundamentally misaligned with the peer provider system where who pays and who decides, or two different people. So it's just an irrational system the way it's set up." [1]
"We have to go buy one and do it ourselves. And live it." [12]
"The unscaled economy is remaking massive, deeply-rooted industries and opening up fantastic possibilities for entrepreneurs, imaginative companies and resourceful individuals. Beyond that, it can be the model for solving some of the world's greatest problems, including climate change and soaring healthcare costs, potentially reversing many of the ills brought on by mass industrialization." [6]
"Unscaling can drive down the costs of Health Care while increasing effectiveness." [7]

On Business and Investment

"I think what would be incredible is if in the future the most valuable businesses that we have are the ones that are known for both profit and purpose." [1]
"Unprofitable growth is a bad idea it doesn't matter if it's upcycle or down cycle." [8]
"This is the time that separates the great entrepreneurs from the undisciplined ones because they they are going to be careful with the cash that they have and they're going to be building these businesses with whatever the right growth rates are for their companies based on the physics of their business." [8]
"Talk is cheap. We've talked a lot about we want to build businesses that are doing well and doing good, but at the end of the day, the implementation of that is going to come if it actually gets embedded in our processes in the way we run our firm." [1]
"A company's mindset—its intent to do good, avoid harmful consequences, and innovate responsibly—is not enough. That mindset must be supported by a business model, a mechanism that leaders must intentionally and proactively build along with the company from the ground up, one that incentivizes and rewards the organization for fulfilling its intentions." [4]
"Companies need a new set of KCIs, or key consequence indicators, that measure factors such as its impact on customers' energy consumption, whether its product is being used equally across socioeconomic groups, or if it is actually solving the social problem it is addressing." [4]
"My vision for General Catalyst is to be the world's foremost investment and transformation company, supporting global resilience through applied AI." [10]
"I found my passion as an entrepreneur serving entrepreneurs and have been with GC investing and building companies ever since." [10]
"It feeds my ADD to no end because you get to think about all kinds of different ideas. And one of the unique things at our firm is the partnership encourages each other to get excited about starting companies from scratch with great founders as well." [3]

On Society and Governance

"It's about creating radical collaboration between technology and DC so that we can uphold the spirit of regulation and build companies that have a framework of responsible innovation that they're they are building with." [9]
"It's less about regulation and how do we regulate tech to me it's much more about governance self-regulation and reestablishing trust." [9]
"If we just focus on the top of the pyramid and think of that as a dressable market uh because the budgets are higher there then I I think we're not going to end up creating a a digital framework for the country that uplifts everybody." [8]
"We think of ourselves as an investment firm. I wouldn't even say just a venture capital firm, but as an investment firm that truly is focused on the democratic nations." [1]
"There's a reglobalization happening but in certain critical industries each country is going to want to think about how do we become self-sufficient as much as possible." [9]
"We have to accelerate, we have to move fast in in letting our ecosystem be be what it always does it does build global companies uh as market leaders." [9]
"We have risked our democracy we've created you know more more amplification of bias in society and and all issues that we've gone through with social media." [9]

On Entrepreneurship and Leadership

"I left graduate school because I got enamored with the whole first phase of mobile data revolution, which was in, I would say, the late nineties. And I left with a few friends from grad school and we started a company. And when we started the company, we said, oh gosh, we need money. And then that's how I learned about venture capital." [3]
"We always think about, and listen, these are not all traits you have when you're very young, but you have the raw material. Do you have the drive? Do you have the desire to be that kind of a person? And that's the kind of founder we want to invest in building a relationship with." [1]
"I'm always trying to do too many things at the same time. I push myself to the max." [12]
"Thoughtful innovation can help us take on some of the biggest challenges facing society." [11]

Learn more:

Lessons from Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst

On Innovation and Technology

On Artificial Intelligence

On Healthcare

On Business and Investment

On Society and Governance

On Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Written by Antoine Buteau

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