Max Gazor — CEO
Max is a Partner at Striker, where he partners with technical founders at inception to build generational companies in AI, cybersecurity and infrastructure software. Before Striker, Max spent over 14 years at CRV, where he remains a board partner. Across his career, Max has made every first investment before revenue, backing founders of Reflection AI, Ricursive, Inferact, Airtable, Cribl, Dyna Robotics, Lepton.ai ($NVDA), Respond ($GOOG), CloudGenix ($PANW), Scanner, Edison, and more. His founders have gone on to raise over $4.7bn with his support as a board member, all from pre-revenue. Max is a 4x Forbes Midas List winner (2022–2025), recognized as one of the world’s top venture capital investors. His investing approach is simple but rare: a concentrated portfolio, deep alignment with founders, and unwavering conviction from day zero. Earlier in his career, Max led acquisitions and investments at Cisco and Oracle. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MS in EECS from MIT, and a BS in EECS from UC Berkeley.
Stackforce AI infers this person is a venture capital expert in AI and software industries.
Location: San Francisco, California, United States
Experience: 21 yrs 4 mos
Career Highlights
- 4x Forbes Midas List winner from 2022 to 2025.
- Backed founders raising over $4.7bn pre-revenue.
- Expertise in AI, cybersecurity, and infrastructure software.
Work Experience
CRV
Board Partner (7 mos)
General Partner (14 yrs 8 mos)
Striker Venture Partners
Partner (7 mos)
Ricursive Intelligence
Seed Investor (1 yr 4 mos)
Inferact
Seed Investor (1 yr 4 mos)
Edison Scientific
Seed Investor (1 yr 4 mos)
Stealth
Board Director (1 yr 4 mos)
ReflectionAI
Board Director (2 yrs 4 mos)
Dyna Robotics
Board Director (2 yrs 4 mos)
Spacewalk AI
Board Director (2 yrs 4 mos)
Deductive AI
Board Director (3 yrs 4 mos)
Lepton AI
Board Director (2 yrs)
Scanner
Board Director (4 yrs 4 mos)
Napkin AI
Board Director (5 yrs 4 mos)
Cribl
Board Director (7 yrs 4 mos)
StarTree
Board Director (7 yrs 4 mos)
Resilience
Board Partner (8 yrs)
Respond Software Inc.
Board Director (4 yrs)
Airtable
Board Director (11 yrs 4 mos)
CloudGenix, a Palo Alto Networks Company
Board Director (7 yrs)
Xamarin
Board Observer (4 yrs)
HPE SimpliVity
Board Observer (6 yrs)
Cisco
Corporate Development (M&A and Investments) (2 yrs 1 mo)
Oracle
Business Development, Server Technologies Division (M&A) (4 yrs)
Education
MBA at Harvard Business School
M.S. (Ph.D. Candidate) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S. at University of California, Berkeley