EP 146: Bipul Sinha (CEO, Rubrik) on The New Rules of Silicon Valley
Logan sits down with Bipul Sinha, CEO and co-founder of Rubrik and former VC at Lightspeed and Blumberg Capital. Bipul shares what he learned transitioning from investor to founder, why intuition beats expertise, and how he built Rubrik into a category-defining business by betting on uncool ideas. They talk product-market fit in the AI era, what most VCs get wrong today, and why the enterprise IT market is still just getting started. It’s a conversation packed with hard-earned wisdom and bold takes on building lasting companies.
(00:00) Intro
(01:42) Transitioning from VC to Founder
(02:27) The Genesis of Rubrik
(03:30) Navigating Uncertainty in Business
(06:57) Product Market Fit and Early Success
(08:56) Evolving with the Market
(13:14) AI and Data Security
(18:53) Leadership and Intuition
(28:34) Building a Transparent Culture
(31:52) Handling Tough Questions in Board Meetings
(33:28) Changing Perspectives Over Time
(34:57) Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs
(36:46) The Future of Venture Capital and Startups
(40:38) Balancing Forward and Lateral Motion in Business
(42:35) The Impact of AI on Various Industries
(01:00:28) The Evolution of Work and Technology
(01:02:52) Fostering a Collaborative Company Culture
(01:04:56) Looking Ahead: The Future of Rubrik
Executive Producer: Rashad Assir
Producer: Leah Clapper
Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky
Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA
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About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.
#146 Co-founder & CEO Rubrik, Bipul Sinha: Authenticity Reigns
Guest: Bipul Sinha, co-founder and CEO of Rubrik
When Bipul Sinha graduated from the Indian Insitute of Technology and came to America to work in tech, his mother told him: Don’t start a company. His ambitious father was a failed pharma entrepreneur, and Bipul was content for most of a decade to hold a steady job at Oracle. But in his early 30s, he began to shed his risk aversion, pursuing a part-time MBA and more difficult jobs, and by the time he co-founded the data security firm Rubrik in 2014, he had gone through an epiphany: “Only make decisions that you truly believe is the right thing to do,” he says. “If you are here, at the moment of truth, you want to succeed or lose based on your own terms, not what others feel.”
In this episode, Bipul and Joubin discuss how debate moves business forward, companies as living systems, growing up poor, refusing to compromise, risk aversion, finding your own potential, paying tuition, context matters, psychological safety, and smelling the roses.
In this episode, we cover:
Joubin’s interview with Ali Ghodsi (00:51)
The importance of authenticity (02:33)
Extreme voices (05:10)
Being yourself at work (08:14)
Reducing blind spots (11:08)
Tough feedback (13:09)
Learning entrepreneurship through osmosis (14:41)
IIT or bust (19:40)
Setbacks and reorienting (23:35)
Leaving India for America (26:53)
From Oracle to Blumberg Capital (30:21)
Prioritizing his own happiness (34:36)
“This is a career” (37:08)
Dissatisfaction and the next thing (40:37)
Creating an enduring institution (45:02)
No one knows what they’re doing (49:32)
Open board meetings (53:39)
Hiring and firing (55:37)
Good and bad startup advice (57:58)
Working forever (01:01:16)
Positive feedback and empathy (01:04:19)
Who Rubrik is hiring and what “grit” means to Bipul (01:08:55)
Links:
Connect with BipulTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
Rapid Response: “We have an all-out cyber war right now,” w/Bipul Sinha, Rubrik CEO
“We have to assume that cyberattacks will happen,” says Bipul Sinha, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Rubrik. He joins Rapid Response to discuss the dramatic escalation of cyberthreats in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Bipul explains how state-sponsored actors and cybercriminals are both heightened threats, and how traditional cybersecurity approaches are adjusting to counter them. He also shares what we can do to protect ourselves — from basic cyber hygiene to recovery strategies.
Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com
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