DiscoverFrom Start-Up to Grown-Up#99 Naveen Verma — From Princeton Professor to Venture-Backed CEO, Fundraising Without a Network, and Leading Firmly and Empathetically
#99 Naveen Verma — From Princeton Professor  to Venture-Backed CEO, Fundraising Without a Network, and Leading Firmly and Empathetically

#99 Naveen Verma — From Princeton Professor to Venture-Backed CEO, Fundraising Without a Network, and Leading Firmly and Empathetically

Update: 2025-08-25
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Description

Naveen Verma is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton and the co-founder and CEO of EnCharge AI, a startup building radically energy-efficient computers for artificial intelligence. In this episode, Naveen shares how his academic research into in-memory computing evolved over six years into a venture-backed company that’s rethinking the physical limits of AI computers.

Naveen explains why traditional computing models can’t keep up with the energy demands of AI, how in-memory architectures unlock new efficiency, and what it means to transition from professor to startup CEO. He also opens up about how failure shaped his leadership style, why co-founder alignment is more important than titles, and what academia taught him about being an empathetic manager.

Whether you’re in deep tech, academia, or just curious how foundational innovation becomes a company, this episode offers a grounded and honest look at what it takes to build from the lab up.


Where to find Naveen:

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • How to turn academic research into a real-world company
  • How to find and align with the right co-founders
  • What good conflict looks like in early-stage teams
  • How to fundraise as a professor-turned-founder
  • Why being self-aware matters more than fitting a role
  • How to build culture through actions, not statements
  • What it means to lead with empathy in high-stakes environments


Timestamps:

(00:00 ) Why Naveen almost quit engineering
 (03:50 ) From PhD to professor to founder
 (07:04 ) What EnCharge actually builds
 (10:56 ) The six-year journey to a spinout
 (13:20 ) Why incubation matters in deep tech
 (15:53 ) Inspiration, practicality, and real-world impact
 (17:28 ) Choosing the right co-founders
 (20:33 ) Why Naveen became CEO
 (23:00 ) Conflict as a strength
 (24:21 ) Vision, perspective, and pushing back
 (25:49 ) Advice on co-founder relationships
 (27:59 ) Fundraising lessons from a first-time founder
 (34:19 ) Growing to 70+ people
 (35:51 ) Hiring for culture and long-term vision
 (37:01 ) Talking about culture without naming it
 (38:16 ) Letting go and empowering the team
 (41:41 ) Hiring non-technical leaders
 (43:17 ) What Naveen found easy and hard as a manager
 (45:56 ) How he learned to give difficult feedback
 (48:56 ) Managing stress through abstraction and presence
 (51:23 ) Academic mentors who shaped his thinking
 (53:08 ) Leadership as enabling others
 (55:08 ) Impostor syndrome and comfort with failure
 (58:00 ) Early rejections and how he bounced back
 (01:01:00 ) What everyone should know about AI
 (01:02:43 ) What Naveen wishes he knew earlier
 (01:04:27 ) Final advice to founders: normalize failure

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#99 Naveen Verma — From Princeton Professor  to Venture-Backed CEO, Fundraising Without a Network, and Leading Firmly and Empathetically

#99 Naveen Verma — From Princeton Professor to Venture-Backed CEO, Fundraising Without a Network, and Leading Firmly and Empathetically

Alisa Cohn