Abhinav joined in 2012 and focuses on consumer, fintech, and SaaS investments. Prior to Accel, he held engineering and product management roles at Amazon, where he built online payment systems. He graduated from IIT Roorkee and Harvard.
Get to know Abhinav
What was your first job?
Software Engineer at AWS (Amazon). I got to Amazon purely by chance. Small group. High-performance team. Incredible learning! These were the early days of AWS. Couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams that it would become such a giant business. Everything starts small and it always looks impossible until it happens.
What’s the most impactful piece of advice you’ve received?
At college, I had a cherished relationship with the cricket coach, Mr. Pandey. Initially, as a player and then as the captain of the team, we discussed many things about match preparation, team structure, match situations, believing, staying put, and so on… one of the things that stuck with me was the lesson that every person is different. Our job is to find what's best in them and enable that. It sounds simple, but it’s very hard to implement. There are emotions that cloud judgment, there’s the self that comes in between. With time, I have realized that Coach Pandey’s lesson is essential for long-term relationships to succeed. Something I keep going back to.
What’s your all-time favourite movie, TV show, or book?
Book—A House for Mr. Biswas by V S Naipaul House is a journey of man’s desire for stability and control over one's destiny. I read it when I was young, and Naipaul’s voice of humor and humanity keeps me returning to it as my comfort read. He wrote it when he was all of 28! Age is just a number, and it's just about when one has clarity.
