Though Shernaz Daver may be petite, her impact is substantial. Throughout her thirty years in Silicon Valley, she’s become adept at connecting with anyone by sending a brief message like “Can you call me?” or “Let’s talk tomorrow.” And people always respond.
Now, as she gets ready to depart Khosla Ventures (KV) after serving nearly five years as the firm’s inaugural CMO, Daver’s next move could signal the direction of the tech industry. Her career has consistently mirrored the industry’s major shifts. She was at Inktomi during the fierce search engine competition of the late 1990s (the company soared to a $37 billion valuation before crashing). She joined Netflix when the idea of ordering DVDs online was met with skepticism. She aided Walmart in its tech rivalry with Amazon. She worked with Guardant Health to promote liquid biopsies before Theranos made blood testing notorious. She even once received criticism from Steve Jobs over the marketing of a Motorola microprocessor—a story in itself.
Vinod Khosla, KV’s founder, reflects on working with Daver: “Shernaz made a significant difference at KV, helping me shape our brand and serving as a trusted partner to our founders. I appreciate her contributions and am confident we’ll remain close.”
When asked about her decision to leave, Daver was characteristically direct. “I came here with a mission: to establish the KV brand, elevate Vinod’s profile, and build a marketing team so our companies would have dedicated support. I’ve accomplished those goals.”
It’s undeniable that when founders consider leading AI investors, KV is among the top two or three firms that come to mind. This is a remarkable shift for a firm that was once more recognized for Khosla’s legal disputes over beach access than for its investments.
The Daver effect
Daver attributes her achievements at KV to identifying the firm’s core identity and emphasizing it consistently. “Ultimately, a VC firm doesn’t offer a product,” she says. “Unlike companies like Stripe, Rippling, or OpenAI, which have tangible products, VCs are defined by their people. The team is the product.”
Before Daver joined, KV had already branded itself as “bold, early, and impactful.” She took these words and made them omnipresent, then found companies that exemplified each trait.
The real breakthrough, she says, was focusing on “early.” “What does early mean?” she asks. “It’s either creating a new category or being the first to invest.” When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, Daver checked with Sam Altman about publicizing KV as the first VC backer. He agreed.
“Owning the narrative of being the first investor is powerful,” she notes, “because in venture capital, it can take over a decade for a company to reach a liquidity event, and people’s memories fade. If you establish that from the outset, it sticks.”
She applied this approach repeatedly. KV was the initial investor in Square and DoorDash. According to Daver, it took two and a half years of persistent messaging for this idea to take hold. “That’s actually quick, considering how fast the industry moves.” Now, whenever Khosla is introduced, he’s almost always described as OpenAI’s first investor.
This leads to what Daver considers her most vital lesson for colleagues: To make your message resonate, you must repeat it far more often than feels necessary.
She advises founders who tire of repeating their story, “You’re at mile 23, but everyone else is only at mile five. You have to keep repeating yourself and stick to the same message.”
It’s more challenging than it appears, especially when founders are caught up in urgent daily matters. “Founders are usually so driven and move so quickly that mentally, they’re already onto the next thing. But the rest of the world is still catching up,” she says.
Daver also has every company she works with do what she calls the “equals exercise.” She draws an equal sign and tests how clearly they define themselves. “If I say ‘search,’ you think ‘Google.’ If I say ‘shopping,’ you think ‘Amazon.’ If I say ‘toothpaste,’ you probably say ‘Crest’ or ‘Colgate.’” She asks her clients, “What’s the word or phrase that immediately brings your company to mind?”
She’s achieved this with some KV portfolio companies, such as Commonwealth Fusion Systems (nuclear fusion) and Replit (vibe coding). “It’s about owning that word—when someone says it, they think of you,” she says. “For streaming, the first name that comes up is Netflix, not Disney or Hulu.”
Why ‘going direct’ doesn’t work
Recently, some startup advisors on social media have suggested that startups should skip traditional media and communicate directly with customers. Daver disagrees, especially for young companies.
“If you’re a seed-stage startup and no one knows you, ‘going direct’ won’t work. Who will listen if they don’t even know you exist?” She compares it to moving into a new neighborhood: “You’re not invited to the block party because no one knows you’re there.” The way to become known, she argues, is to have others talk about you.
Daver believes the media isn’t going anywhere—and she wouldn’t want it to. Her strategy involves combining traditional media with video, podcasts, social media, and events. “I see each of these tactics as different units—infantry, cavalry—and if you can coordinate them well, you can dominate,” she says.
The “X” question
Daver also has strong opinions about the increasingly divisive and performative nature of social media, and how much founders and VCs should share publicly.
She views X as “a platform that encourages people to be louder and more provocative than they would be face-to-face.” She likens it to a bumper sticker—a quick, bold statement that fits in a small space.
She believes that posting controversial content is mostly about staying in the spotlight. “If you’re not selling a product and it’s just you, you need to stay relevant.”
At KV, she manages the firm’s account but doesn’t control what Khosla posts personally. “There needs to be room for free expression,” Daver says. “Ultimately, it’s his name on the firm.”
Her rule is simple: “If you want to post about your child’s soccer game or the PTA, go ahead. But if you share something that could harm the company or our chances of forming partnerships, that’s not acceptable. As long as it’s not hate speech, you’re free to post what you like.”
The path to Khosla
Daver’s professional journey is a lesson in being ahead of the curve. Born at Stanford while her father was a PhD student, she grew up in India and later returned to Stanford on a Pell Grant. She attended Harvard to study interactive technology, hoping to work for Sesame Street and make education widely accessible.
That plan didn’t pan out: she sent out 100 resumes and received 100 rejections. Her closest opportunity was at Electronic Arts (EA) under founder Trip Hawkins, but “at the last moment, Hawkins withdrew the offer.”
A woman at EA suggested she try public relations instead. This led her to marketing semiconductors used by EA, including a memorable encounter with Jobs, who was then running NeXT. Daver was the most junior person in a meeting about Motorola’s 68040 chip. Jobs arrived 45 minutes late and said, “You did a terrible job marketing the 68040.”
She stood up for her team (“But we accomplished so much,” she remembers saying), “and he just replied, ‘No, you don’t understand what you did.’ No one backed me up.” (Despite his tough reputation, she says she would have loved to work with Jobs.)
After that, she moved to Sun Microsystems in Paris, collaborating with Scott McNealy and Eric Schmidt on Solaris and Java. She later reunited with Trip Hawkins at his next gaming venture, 3DO, and then joined Inktomi as its first and only CMO. “We were ahead of Google in search,” she says. But soon after, the dot-com bubble burst and Inktomi was eventually sold off.
She went on to consulting and full-time roles at companies like Netflix during its DVD mail service era, Walmart, Khan Academy, Guardant Health, Udacity, 10x Genomics, GV, and Kitty Hawk.
Then, Khosla called. She didn’t recognize the number and waited a week before listening to his voicemail. “I called him back, and that began the process of him persuading me to join him, while I listed all the reasons it might not work out.”
After nine months, “despite most people advising against it” (Khosla is known for being demanding), “just like the rest of my career, I accepted the challenge.”
The real deal
Daver points out a common issue in Silicon Valley: everyone sounds alike. “Corporate communications and CEOs are so rehearsed,” she says. “That’s why Sam [Altman] stands out to so many people.”
She recounts a recent event where Khosla spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt and then attended another gathering. “The organizer said, ‘Wow, I heard what Vinod said on stage. You must have been nervous.’ And I thought, ‘No, that was fantastic.’”
So, what’s next for Daver? She’s keeping her plans vague, referring only to “new opportunities.”
But given her history of arriving just before the next big trend, she’s someone to watch. She was ahead of the curve in search, streaming, genomics, and AI. She has a talent for spotting what’s coming—and for telling that story until the rest of us catch on.
