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Hi! I'm Hari Raghavan.

👋 About me

I love moving atoms and pennies with bits.

I'm a loyalist to some people, some causes, and all dogs.

I love unblocking bottlenecks, anything that makes the world more efficient or less annoying. I love talking about / working on / investing in anything that can be described as an “API for X”.

What sparks joy at work

Optimizing strategy at the intersection of Product x GTM, especially for complex businesses (data companies, marketplaces, fintech, or new categories)

Compensation approach (especially for tricky roles like founding team / execs)

Fundraising strategy — as both a founder at AbstractOps and active investor (out of Operator Fund), we see a lot of data on both sides of the table

How to value and invest in companies with alpha

What sparks joy in life

How government / politics in the US is broken, and how one might fix it

Hanging out with my family, friends, and dog

Great wine or cocktail bars

Fantasy novels (huge Brandon Sanderson dork)

Good TV (I think I’ve seen ~150 shows)

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Reads that have had a profound impact on my thinking

Modestly long article (under an hour). Every person who has an opinion on how companies work should read this:

Long-form multi-part article (few hours). Far from a settled matter, but this long breakdown was thought-provoking in getting me to question assumptions about our biology. What if we’ve been “looking under the street lamp” on obesity?

Moderately short but easy to read book (few hours). The seminal work on how human psychology and persuasion works:

Short article (under an hour). A great breakdown on how inequality has been the norm, not the exception; and how we have been living in a period of unique prosperity in the second half of the 19th century. This is not saying how it should be — instead, just pointing out historical norms so we can make more educated decisions about socioeconomic policy.

Moderately long multi-part article (couple of hours). I didn’t understand how seismic a shift Artificial Superintelligence could be until I read this:

Short article (five - fifteen minutes). Honorary mention for an excellent summary, even if the individual points weren’t perspective-shifting (summarization is an art form):

Short blog (five - fifteen minutes). A list of things that have been built fast, across the world, over the last couple of centuries… contrasted by more recent, sclerotic development in today’s society. Calls into question whether we simply have political will to build great things anymore.

Long-form multi-part article (a few hours to digest properly). A brilliant, deeply detailed breakdown of of “rhyming” themes in Star Wars.

Tweetstorm (five - fifteen minutes). I’ve never thought of freedom of transactions as a concept, but this lays out a brilliant argument for why you can’t have freedom of anything without freedom of transaction.

My digital exhaust

AngelList: hari-raghavan

LinkedIn: hraghavan

On Deck: hariraghavan

My doggo's Instagram: @puptimusprime

Digressions