Divya Gupta

My full name, Divyahans, means “divine swan” in Hindi. My uncle chose it because I looked terribly pale when I was born. As far as I know, I’m the only person in the world with that name. I wear it on my sleeve everyday. You can call me Divya.

I was born in a city near the heart of India called Bhopal. My father started his career there as a sales engineer for Cisco Systems, a Sequoia company. His 20-year career at Cisco steered my family from Bhopal to Cary, North Carolina, and from Cary to San Jose, California, where my mother started her small business on a Square card reader. I like to say that Sequoia helped bring me from the other side of the world and into their office.

My sister introduced me to computer science in eighth grade. I fell in love with building things and realized that it was the closest thing I had to a superpower. My time at Stanford was devoted to exploring every aspect of the field, from systems to machine learning, graphics and more. After graduation, I put my degree to use building infrastructure at Airbnb and machine learning products at Databricks.

Coming from sales and marketing, my father reminds me to never underestimate the power of storytelling in business. The simple reason being that companies are ultimately run by people, not technology. I think it’s my love for both that drew me to venture.

I look for founders with self-awareness and a growth mindset. No founder is fully prepared to start a company. The ones who recognize their blind spots and turn mistakes into learning opportunities put their companies in the best position to succeed.

My love for technology is the wind in my sails. It’s what led me to crypto and Ethereum in 2015. Crypto instilled in me a deep appreciation for the virtues of decentralization, permissionless innovation, and irrevocable ownership. I’m looking for kindred spirits who are excited to build a new layer on the internet, one that disintermediates rent-seekers, broadens financial inclusion, and empowers stakeholders in communities.

At Stanford, I was lucky to be a firsthand witness to the Cambrian explosion of deep learning. Today’s AI models behave in a way that is indistinguishable from magic. I’m looking for founders who want to harness this magic to help enterprises work smarter, understand the past, predict the future and improve their products.

Given my background, I have an obvious affinity for software that makes the lives of software engineers easier and more productive. I’m excited to meet founders building the next generation of developer tools and infrastructure I wish I had in my prior engineering roles.

Get in touch with Divya