Karan Mehandru built his career across engineering, product, marketing, sales, operations, and both growth and early-stage investing before joining Madrona, and his path from growing up in India to a decade in Canada and then the U.S. shaped the hands-on, personal support he gives founders, including backing companies like Auth0, Outreach, Cohesity, Zapier, Klaviyo, JumpCloud, and Algolia well before joining the firm. When he joined Madrona in 2022, the firm had him open its first office outside the Pacific Northwest in Palo Alto, and he has kept strong ties to that region while also writing about how he believes AI is changing the tools of startup building without changing the basic principles of what makes a company succeed.