Our Team
PETER SIMS
“Eagle”
Founder
Peter Sims is the Founder & Chairman of BLK SHP (Black Sheep). He’s also the best-selling author of True North, co-authored with Bill George, as well as Little Bets, which was named one of the six best books for entrepreneurs by the Wall Street Journal. Previously, he worked as an investor at Summit Partners in London where he co-founded the firm's European office. He has also been an advisor at Google[x], The Moonshot Factory, Alphabet's semi-secret innovation laboratory.
J. TAYLOR CRANDALL
“Mr Wolf”
Chairman, BSV
J. Taylor Crandall is Chairman emeritus and a founding member of Oak Hill Capital Partners which he co-founded in 1986. Crandall serves on the board of directors of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford and has served on numerous public and private company boards in the past, including serving as a director of American Skiing Company, Bell & Howell, Cincinnati Bell, Genpact Limited, Interstate Hotels and Resorts, Meristar Hospitality Corporation, Quaker State and Washington Mutual. Crandall earned a B.A. degree, magna cum laude, from Bowdoin College, where he received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Bowdoin College in 2010.
ED CATMULL
“Da Vinci”
Operating Partner
Ed Catmull is the co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, where he was the company’s long-time President, as well as the President of Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has been honored for his contributions to computer science and 3D computer graphics, including with the 2019 ACM Turing Award. His book, Creativity, Inc., was a New York Times best-seller. He has also been an advisor at Google[x].
CARL BASS
“The Godfather”
Operating Partner
Carl Bass is a former President and CEO of Autodesk, Inc., which grew by nearly 10x during Carl’s tenure as CEO. Previously, Bass was a co-founder of Ithaca Software, which commercialized HOOPS, a 3D graphics system, before it was acquired by Autodesk. He serves on the Board of Directors of Autodesk, HP Inc., Zendesk Inc., Planet, VELO3D, Formlabs Inc., Box, and Built Robotics. He also serves on the board of trustees of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. He has also been an advisor at Google[x], and a special advisor to Alphabet co-founder & CEO Larry Page.
AMRIT SAXENA
“James Bond”
Venture Partner
Amrit Saxena is the Founder & CEO of SaxeCap. Prior to SaxeCap, Amrit successfully founded & sold two AI companies (Fancy That to Palantir, Stella to PE funds). Amrit is also an active angel investor in data, AI, and enterprise software companies in the Silicon Valley. Amrit received his B.S. in Computer Science with a concentration in Artificial Intelligence and M.S. in Management Science & Engineering , both from Stanford University with Distinction.
SESHU AJJARAPU
“Larry David”
Senior Advisor
Over three plus decades, Seshu Ajjarapu, held various leadership positions in Automotive, Semiconductor and HighTech industries. In 2017, after ~11 yrs at Google, he joined Lyft to jump start their self-driving division. He couldn’t stay away from Google for too long and returned to Google, this time Google DeepMind in 2020 to build an Applied AI/ML team. He currently leads Applied AI at Google DeepMind.
MARCO ANNUNZIATA
“Copernicus”
Senior Strategist
Marco Annunziata was the Chief Economist & Head of Business Innovation Strategy at GE.
Annuziata served on the Board of Advisors on Information Technology of Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry; as Entrepreneur in Residence at GE Ventures and a Research Fellow at Autodesk. He is a Princeton PhD economist, but as he likes to say, “with an optimistic twist.”
CHRIS YEH
“Doctor”
Co-head, Silicon Guild
Chris Yeh is the co-author, along with Reid Hoffman, of Blitzscaling, the book that explains how to build world-changing companies like Amazon, Alibaba, and Airbnb in record time. A writer, investor, and entrepreneur, Chris has had a ringside seat in the world of startups and scaleups since 1995. His books help founders, venture capitalists, corporate leaders, policymakers, and everyday people better understand how the internet has changed the way we work together to build amazing organizations.
RITA MCGRATH
“Joy”
Co-head, Silicon Guild
Rita McGrath is a best-selling author and longtime professor at Columbia Business School. As one of the world’s top experts on innovation and growth, Rita’s work is regularly published in the Harvard Business Review. She is consistently ranked among the Top 10 management thinkers in the world and was ranked #1 for strategy by Thinkers50. Rita is the author of the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). Her most recent book is Seeing Around Corners (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019).
Those who know BLK SHP often compare us to “the Avengers” — a dream team of entrepreneurs, investors, artists, and thought leaders who come from a variety of worlds who band together to unleash creativity and innovation. We support this mission and endeavor with a corporate business (BLK SHP, Inc.) and a venture capital business (blk shp ventures or “BSV”), while having a hell of a lot of fun.