I’ve been lucky to host many great founders here on “Founder Stories” to date, but this particular video discussion with Andrew Feldman, a cofounder and CEO of SeaMicro (which was eventually acquired by AMD) struck a different tone than those past.
Feldman, who attended university here in the Valley, has quietly developed a remarkable career working on complex businesses. As he began to noodle on the initial idea for SeaMicro, he noticed that many large companies were growing concerned about power management in their data centers, how to keep those systems both efficient and cool. This is the “thread” he references, and he kept “pulling” the thread to unravel more and more of what struck him as a business opportunity. One connection led to another, and despite raising financing before and after the 2008 financial crisis, Feldman guided his team to an acquisition by AMD.
In this short discussion, Felman sits down with me to discuss the entrepreneurial arc in his career, the loneliness of being a CEO, how much time it takes to build enterprise-grade products from scratch, and how it’s not just founders and CEOs who take risk, but all early-stage employees who believe in creating something new which does not exist. Feldman’s steely resolve is subtly infectious, and showcases the quiet intensity he brings to his work and companies, where he helps everyone pull on the thread of entrepreneurship.
Editor’s Note: Michael Abbott is a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, previously Twitter’s VP of Engineering, and a founder himself. Mike also writes a blog called uncapitalized. You can follow him on Twitter @mabb0tt.