‍He backed Rubrik early, long before the company was a clear winner. In quarterly reviews, he rarely stayed within the boundaries of the business as it existed. He kept pushing the team toward new markets, bigger opportunities and a much broader view of what Rubrik could become.

The founder remembers leaving those meetings with the same feeling every time: “I still wasn’t thinking big enough.”

Vinod saw Rubrik’s potential in cyber and ransomware early. But this was not about chasing every interesting idea - more than double the value of the company.

That distinction matters. Telling a founder to be more ambitious is easy. Helping the company decide where to take real risk is much harder.

Vinod did not just push Rubrik to expand the vision. He helped turn that ambition into a set of bets the company could actually pursue. In much better framing and market sell with essentially the same product. For a founder already trying to build something massive, that kind of pressure can be uncomfortable.

That was the point.