How 9/11 Nearly Wiped Out His Startup — Then He IPO’d

What we talked about.

Paul Singh, founder and CEO of Everest Labs, joins Sunny Ray to trace his path from studying electrical engineering in Delhi to building and exiting five startups in Silicon Valley. Singh describes growing up in India, earning an MBA in quantitative analysis at St. John's, and taking early risks as an immigrant entrepreneur. He recounts founding Vraz Networks, originally called IPverse, building software defined voice networks, and surviving the shock of 9/11, which wiped out a planned mezzanine funding round and forced him to cut his team from 100 to 61 employees just to survive. The company later merged with a division of ECI Telecom and went public on Nasdaq in 2007. Singh also shares the failure of Pix Sense, an early smartphone photo sharing app built before the iPhone existed, and the lessons on timing and distribution he took from it. He reflects on his three part formula of passion, execution and practicality, his time as an EIR at Lightspeed Venture Partners, and his current work at Everest Labs, where AI and robotics are transforming the recycling industry.

Entrepreneur Paul Singh recounts surviving 9/11's wipeout of his startup, later taking it public, and now building AI robots for recycling.

The questions, and the answers.

What is Everest Labs working on?

We are a physical AI company focused on processing industries. Most of our revenue comes from building an AI system and robots for the recycling industry. We help plants increase their recycling rates, deal with labor issues, get more material recovery, and reduce the carbon footprint by increasing recycling overall.

What was it about engineering that pulled you in early on?

Honestly, I didn't know much about it. If you did well in high school in India, you went into medicine or engineering, those were the cool professions. I didn't want medicine, so I ended up in engineering. It wasn't some deep calling, it was more the path everyone expected you to take.

What drove your shift from engineering to business for your MBA?

After a couple years working as a sales engineer in India, it became clear my path was going toward business rather than a purely technical route. As I always say, when it comes to technology I'm dangerous, but you can still convince me. So I moved more and more toward the business side from there.

What was the moment during the Vraz Networks journey when you realized this was actually going to work, especially around 9/11?

We were close to going public, raising a mezzanine round in New York and Boston, and had commitments for more than half the money. Two weeks later 9/11 hit and every commitment disappeared. We had to cut the company from about 100 people down to 61 just to survive. It was the worst day of my life, but our investors stuck with us, we later merged with a division of ECI Telecom, rebuilt for four years, and finally went public in 2007.

You said one of your startups didn't make it. What happened with Pix Sense?

We were trying to build Instagram on a smartphone before the iPhone existed. We were too early, and we didn't control our distribution channel since mobile apps had to go through the operator's network at the time. Well known VCs told me nobody would ever want to do that, and that was only two years before the iPhone changed everything.

You have a formula of three parts passion, two parts execution, one part practicality. When did that click for you?

I've seen entrepreneurs with pure passion who jump from idea to idea and never make it work, because ideas are a dime a dozen, what matters is who executes and how fast. But you still need that voice of reason, someone giving you outside perspective on whether you're actually doing the right thing, which is where the practicality piece comes in.

How did being an EIR at Lightspeed Venture Partners change how you thought about building companies?

It gave me a different perspective on how investors look at things versus how an entrepreneur looks at things. But it also made me realize I wasn't ready to be an investor. I needed to be an entrepreneur, so that experience actually confirmed which side of the table I belonged on.

When did AI go from being just another tech trend to something you realized would change everything?

AI has been brewing for the last ten years, it didn't come from nowhere with ChatGPT, it just accelerated things. I'm excited, but I'm also scared, because when technology moves this fast it leaves a lot of dead bodies behind, unemployment and negativity, and society and even people working in the field can barely keep up.