Palak joined Madrona in 2022. He focuses on sourcing and evaluating new investment opportunities across Madrona’s investment themes and supports the growth and strategy of current portfolio companies. Palak is particularly interested in working with technical founders building AI/ML-powered applications, open-source projects, and cloud and data infrastructure.
Journey to Madrona
Before joining Madrona, Palak was as a product manager at Microsoft. He worked on a variety of products, including Outlook, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Teams, Windows, Visual Studio, and Bing. Most recently, Palak worked on Microsoft Turing, an initiative to build foundation models and productize them across the Microsoft product family.
Lessons learned
- Before starting a business, it is important to ask yourself why — Why us? Why this? And why now?
- Always have an asymmetric angle of attack. Double down on the things that make your product and company special.
When he’s not in the office…
Palak can be found on a squash or pickleball court (depending on the weather), listening to an audiobook, trying out a new recipe, or learning to ski.
Noteworthy
Palak graduated from Brown University with a dual concentration in computer science and economics. At Brown, Palak captained the Varsity Squash team.
