Diversity Drives Innovation

Well, you have two other co-founders, and together the founding team is racially diverse, which isn’t always the case in Silicon Valley especially, as you know. So, was that intentional? And how does that influence diversity company wide at SambaNova?

Yeah, no, I wouldn’t say intentional, per se. I have backgrounds that are very diverse. For example, Kunle and I have known each other for 20 plus years. Kunle is originally from Nigeria, and he was educated in England, in London, and then moved his way here, and he’s today a professor at Stanford. So, is Chris Re, brilliant, brilliant mind, a MacArthur Genius, just another fantastic technologist and innovator, another professor at Stanford, but they’ve known each other for a long, long time as well. And I’ve gotten to know Chris really well over the journey of SambaNova.

But even beyond that, I look at my board and our advisors, it’s just a wonderfully diverse set of people. And it does shape the culture of the company as far as who is attracted to come to this company, and who really feels at ease when they’re thinking about working in a place that’s innovative and being able to make an impact. I wouldn’t say necessarily initially that was the focus of the company, but it’s something that we all value a lot, primarily because our backgrounds have been so diverse, so we value a lot. And I think to some extent, we start seeing the benefits of that in the company in a lot of different ways, but we’re really proud of it.