Post #238

H1-B to $5.5B: Harness raises $200M at $5.5B valuation, making founder Jyoti Bansal a new billionaire. Harness automates software deployment with AI. Customers like United Airlines see 75% faster deployments. Growing 50% YoY with $250M+ revenue. Bansal's playbook: • Moved from India with few hundred dollars on H1-B • Worked 7 years as engineer waiting for green card • Built AppDynamics, sold to Cisco for $3.7B in 2017 • Got bored on safari after 6 months of retirement • Founded Harness to solve adjacent problem in same domain • Now worth $2.3B personally Key insight: "Writing code is 30% of the job. Testing and deploying is 70%." Serial founders with domain expertise build faster. https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonemelvin/2025/12/11/how-this-indian-immigrant-went-from-an-h1-b-visa-to-building-a-55-billion-business/ Brewed by Startup Beaker.