Hamza Khawaja
Arbor Labs, CEO
Career Highlights
When in college, I really fell in love with the learning that came with internships. The point where I interned way too many times (~15) but thankfully ended up getting a crash course on different roles, company cultures, codebases, and politics really helped me when starting my first full-time role
Two years after graduating, I was, fortunately, able to head product (and functionally be the internal CEO) of a ~20-person seed-stage startup of world-class talent that was fully funded by Eric Schmidt. I led them to build 3 market-leading features before our first launch in a hyper-competitive market and initiated the now ongoing IP acquisition by a web3 giant (despite the company being non-operational)
FailuresThe Eric Schmidt-backed startup had to shut down due to politics with Eric's investment team. There was a lot I learned in the process about relationships, runway, and diversifying investors
Upon graduating, I made the mistake of trying to take on more work to make as much money as possible. I looked at my main ML Product Manager roles non-compete and made sure I wasn't violating it. I then took on a second full-time job, was barely able to hold it together, and then decided to take on a third full-time job. I wasn't able to perform and within a couple of months, I got fired from the third job - I had never been fired before. Besides the money being great, everything else sucked. The stress, lack of focus, and the toll on my mental health. Since then, I've focused on one role and have been able to learn and grow a lot more
Hobbies
Running, Tennis, Calisthenics, Mindfulness, Eating great food, Learning more about new topics!
Talk to me about
Finding meaning in your career that aligns with your purpose
Time management
Moving fast (and sometimes breaking things!)
Mindfulness
I want to talk to you about
Fundraising
Hiring elite talent
GTM strategies (specifically referral programs, influencer marketing, channel partners, and rev sharing)
