Building Meter for decades, not an exit | Anil Varanasi (Co-founder and CEO)

Anil Varanasi is the co-founder and CEO of Meter, which provides full-stack networking infrastructure as a service for businesses. Since founding Meter with his brother Sunil in 2015, Anil has been playing a distinctly long game in one of the most entrenched markets in technology, betting on vertical integration, business model innovation, and a multi-decade time horizon. In this conversation, he unpacks Meter’s origin story, from four-plus years of heads-down R&D, and shares how his unconventional approach to planning, management, and pace keeps him excited to run the company for decades. In today’s episode, we discuss: • Why Anil thinks in 25-year horizons • How operating in a monopolistic market shaped Meter’s approach • Why Meter scrapped a year of OS work during the R&D phase • How Meter is rethinking networking’s business model • Surviving COVID, Apple’s M1 transition, and “a thousand bad days” • Anil’s contrarian views on planning, OKRs, and management • How founders can build companies they’ll want to run for decades Where to find Anil: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anilcv/ • Twitter/X: https://x.com/acv Where to find Brett: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson Where to find First Round Capital: • Website: https://firstround.com/ • First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital • This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast References: • ADT: https://www.adt.com • Alex Honnold: https://www.alexhonnold.com • Alex Tabarrok: https://x.com/ATabarrok • alarm.com: https://www.alarm.com • Apple: https://www.apple.com • Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com • Bryan Caplan: http://www.bcaplan.com/ • Cisco: https://www.cisco.com • Coca-Cola: https://www.coca-colacompany.com • George Mason University (GMU): https://www.gmu.edu • Intel: https://www.intel.com • Julia Galef: https://x.com/juliagalef • Martin Casado: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martincasado/ • Meraki: https://meraki.cisco.com • Meter: https://www.meter.com • Michela Giorcelli: https://x.com/M_Giorcelli • Nicholas Bloom: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-bloom-stanford/ • Raffaella Sadun: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raffaella-sadun-3a182225/ • Sanjit Biswas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjitbiswas/ • Sunil Varanasi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunil-varanasi-662a01253/ • Tyler Cowen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-cowen-166718/ • Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv Timestamps: (01:27) Meter’s unusual timeframes (04:06) “We don’t do OKRs” (06:32) How to plan without planning (08:31) Track your unhappy customers (11:43) How Meter’s journey began (15:02) Dissecting the 2010s SaaS boom (17:06) The networking industry trap (21:44) Meter’s first roadblock (22:07) Why Shenzhen accelerated Meter’s progress (26:29) The process to get a sales-ready product (31:02) Why you should own the full stack (32:45) The surprising thing you should innovate (35:03) Avoiding the one-trick pony trap (37:39) The secret to finding an excellent market (43:48) How COVID’s constraints propelled growth (48:25) Why founders need to know their customers (49:34) Why Meter didn’t sell via traditional channels (51:44) You need “seller-market fit” (54:51) The danger of meta-work (56:25) Decoupling management from authority (1:02:17) When the person is the problem (1:05:05) The inherent value of going slowly (1:09:41) Running a company for as long as possible