Hemant Taneja Biography and Net Worth

My primary investment thesis, known as “economies of unscale,” explores how 21st-century founders leverage AI-based mass personalization techniques to innovate and build platforms across all sectors of the economy. In my 2018 book Unscaled, we built on that thesis and articulate the need for accountability, transparency, and explainability in AI technologies as they permeate deeper into daily life. My publication in Harvard Business Review, “The Era of Move Fast and Break Things is Over,” advocates for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to adopt frameworks for responsible innovation and investing. This is core to my work.

My investments at General Catalyst include Anduril, Applied Intuition, ClassDojo, Coda, Color, Fundbox, Grammarly, Gusto, Livongo (NASDAQ: LVGO), Mindstrong, Nova Credit, Samsara, Snap (NYSE: SNAP), Spring Discovery, Stripe, and ThoughtSpot.

I am also a founder and executive chairman of Commure, which is building software infrastructure needed to transform the healthcare space. My upcoming book, Unhealthcare, lays out our thesis for how the healthcare system needs to transform into a health assurance system to bring consumerism, affordability, and rational economic behavior to this important sector.

I wound up with five degrees from MIT because I was hoping to pursue an academic career: M.Eng. EECS, S.M. Operations Research, S.B. Biology, S.B. Mathematics, and S.B. EECS. In hindsight, that was excellent training for being a venture capitalist because I am always curious about new areas of innovation.

Alongside my work here at General Catalyst, I founded Advanced Energy Economy (AEE), an organization focused on transforming energy policy in America. I also served on the board of Khan Academy and helped launch Khan Lab School, a new K-12 school designed for the 21st century. I currently teach “AI, Entrepreneurship and Society in the 21st Century” at Stanford University to inspire future engineers to build responsibly.