Shernaz Daver is small in stature but big in influence. Over three decades in Silicon Valley, she’s mastered the art of getting anyone on the phone with a simple text: “Can you call me?” or “Let’s talk tomorrow.” And they do.
Now, as she prepares to leave Khosla Ventures (KV) after nearly five years as the firm’s first-ever CMO, Daver could be an indicator of where the tech world is headed. Her career has been a remarkably accurate barometer of the industry’s next big thing to date. She was at Inktomi during the search wars of the late ’90s (the dot.com high-flier hit a $37 billion valuation before spiraling back to earth). She joined Netflix when people laughed at the idea of ordering DVDs online. She helped Walmart compete with Amazon on technology. She worked with Guardant Health to explain liquid biopsies before Theranos made blood testing infamous. She was even dressed down once by Steve Jobs over the marketing of a Motorola microprocessor (which could be its own short story).
KV’s founder Vinod Khosla portrays his work with Daver thus: “Shernaz had a strong impact at KV as she helped me build our KV brand and was a valuable partner to our founders. I’m grateful for her time here and know we’ll stay close.”
Asked about why she is leaving the firm, Daver was typically matter-of-fact. “I came to do a job, and the job was to build out the KV brand and to build out Vinod’s brand, and to help set up a marketing organization such that our …