Menlo does not back competing companies once it takes a board seat and writes a big check, which is why among the AI labs it stayed only with Anthropic. Listen
Ganesan described this as a cultural choice shared by his partners. A large commitment to a founder should be a two-way street, he said, while small passive seed checks are a different matter. He acknowledged that other firms back several players in the same space and said each firm must act on its own values.
“when we make a big commitment to the founder, we think of as a two-way street. They come into us, we come into them.”
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