Ram Shriram

Ram Shriram started Sherpalo in January, 2000, with the goal of applying his wealth of operating and company building experience to promising early stage ventures. As a technology industry insider for over 30 years he has worked in companies large and small across all functional areas and through fluctuating business cycles. He is always eager to roll up his sleeves and work closely with founding teams on the challenging issues that confront and sometimes confound early stage ventures.

Ram's knowledge of and advice on issues ranging from raising venture capital, key management hiring, making the right product choices and defining and adapting the business model to changing market conditions can help you to secure early customer wins, build momentum from a standing start, and generate international growth.

A hallmark of Ram's success is the ability to create the right DNA for a young growth company with a focus on rational growth, revenue and profitability, by establishing a virtuous cycle of talented employees/owners and happy customers/users. Ram enjoys the process of turning founders' dreams into successful businesses and takes a long term view that serves as a guidepost for decision making. Ram is thoughtful, cerebral, easy to communicate with, deeply committed to the tasks he undertakes, and has a keen intuitive sense for what works in the marketplace.

Ram's unique blend of mentor capital is frequently in partnership with many members of the venture capital community in silicon valley and beyond. Ram's depth of strategic and operating expertise brings a special value to select companies where he invests his energy and time, as they seek to scale up, build out their management teams, resolve challenges of growth and realize durable successful outcomes.

In 2008 and 2009 Ram was ranked number three on the Forbes list of top tech dealmakers, and in 2007, number six on top ten kingmakers in tech by Business 2.0 magazine.

Immediately prior to founding Sherpalo, Ram served as an officer of Amazon.com working for Jeff Bezos, founder & CEO. Ram came to Amazon.com in August, 1998, when Amazon acquired Junglee, an online comparison shopping firm of which Ram was president. While at Amazon, Ram helped grow the customer base during its early high growth phase in 1998/1999. Before Junglee and Amazon, Ram was a member of the Netscape executive team, joining them in 1994, before they shipped products or posted revenue. He drove the many partnerships and channels that Netscape employed to get massive distribution for its browser and server products during those now legendary early days of the Internet.

Ram is a founding board member of Google Inc. (now Alphabet) and [24]7.ai. He also serves on the boards of PaperlessPost.com and Yubico. Ram is a board member on the Stanford Health Care Board of Trustees, as well as a member of the council on Foreign Relations. He was until recently Vice Chair of the Stanford Board of Trustees. He is also an early supporter of MagicBus.org and Gooru.org, as well as a Charter Member of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs).

In 2020, Ram was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.