The best entrepreneurs choose their investors, not the other way around. We know this and work hard to gain their trust by backing their bold visions and offering enthusiastic support through our experience, relationships, and capital. It's a privilege to partner with these extraordinary innovators as they navigate their companies through hypergrowth and beyond.
Randy sees innovation as the flag bearer of progress, providing the ability to transform markets, economies, and, ultimately, lives. He has devoted his career to pursuing technological progress and helping bring new generations of innovative companies to life. Randy has been an entrepreneur, engineer, and operating executive, so he appreciates what it takes to build something from nothing.Randy co-founded DFJ Growth to partner with entrepreneurs who are building truly innovative companies that have achieved market validation and are scaling rapidly. He looks for visionary leaders who are shaping the future with bold ideas, hoping to help inspire them to chase their dreams and go for the big win. Randy loves working with companies that pursue aggressive growth strategies and applying his 35 years of experience to help navigate the inevitable challenges that emerge during the journey.
Current portfolio companies include emerging leaders like Alchemy, Anduril, Cohesity, Commonwealth Fusion, DataStax, Mapbox, Neocis, Neuralink, NotCo, OpenAI, Scale AI, Sisense, SpaceX, Splice, The Boring Company, Vannevar Labs, X, xAI, and Yellowbrick Data. Past investments include Anaplan (NYSE: PLAN), Box (NYSE: BOX), Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN), Innovium (Marvell), Performics (DoubleClick/Google), Planet (NYSE: PL), Ring (Amazon), Sumo Logic (NASDAQ: SUMO), Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA), TicketsNow (TicketMaster), Tumblr (Yahoo!), Twitter (NYSE: TWTR), Unity (NYSE: U), Yammer (Microsoft), and Yodle (Web.com).
Our team at DFJ Growth has deeply rooted experiences in common with the entrepreneurs we support — a distinguishing factor that helps us effectively evaluate and bring insights to our companies. Randy takes advantage of his background as a longtime venture investor with DFJ Growth, Tribune Ventures, and Hughes New Ventures, where he participated in the founding investments for DIRECTV, Motient, and XM Radio. He also leverages his experiences as CFO of FeedBurner (Google), a business development executive at DIRECTV during its startup and early growth, and a systems engineer at Hughes Space & Communications and Martin Marietta.
Randy earned an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, an MSEE from the University of Southern California, and a BSEE with high honors from the University of Florida. Randy was awarded the University of Florida Gator Engineering Innovation Award in 2013. Forbes has named Randy to its annual Midas List six times over the past decade, most recently in 2024. The NY Times / CB Insight also named him to their list of the world’s top venture capital investors five times. Randy is a million-mile flyer and has visited six continents.
His mantra: Prepare thoroughly. Listen carefully. Have empathy and compassion. Compete to win. Make your own luck. See the future and make it so. Do the right thing, even when it’s not the easy thing to do. These nuggets guide Randy through his career and his life. He believes success in venture capital requires having a vision for how technology and innovation will change the world and the ability to partner with entrepreneurs who are poised to make it happen. Randy and his partners help bring the future forward with their commitment to the entrepreneurial process, all while hurtling across land, air, and sea in search of the next big thing.