Obviously, I am riffing on:
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is a 1994 American comedy film starring Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura, an animal detective who is tasked with finding the abducted dolphin mascot of the Miami Dolphins football team. It had box office revenues of over $107 million on a budget of $15 million.
If that was not bad enough:
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls is a 1995 American detective comedy film and the sequel to Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994). It grossed over $212 million in box office receipts (on a budget of $30 million).
I began the week at the Four Seasons (Bengaluru), catching up with Byas Nambisan, having thoroughly enjoyed Nilanjan Choudury’s play, The Trial of Abdus Salam, and ended the week at the newly renovated Four Seasons (New York), with the lobby designed by I.M.Pei, having enjoyed watching George Clooney on Broadway (see The Music Man and O Broadway, Where Art Thou?) in Good Night and Good Luck, and also discovering Aman Jazz Club pretty much next door. As I had tickets for the 9pm jazz show, that ended around 11 pm, I decided to stick around for the post-jazz DJ dance club at the same location, until well past 1am, a perfect follow up to Ella Fitzgerald’s Too Darn Hot (among other Cole Porter songs) and Etta James’ At Last with Adele, Whiney Houston, Gloria Gaynor and Abba!
Now for the two intended topics of this post!
First, it was wonderful to catch up with Kittu Kolluri and B. Kalappa, both IIT-Madras classmates, 1982-86 batch, at a Neotribe Ventures reception (at Bar Harta) to discuss upcoming IPO of a Unicorn (which will be our third), and:
Dear Sridhar,
We are glad that you are part of the Neotribe family! Thank you for your support to date.
We are organizing an early close for our early-stage venture Fund III, and I would love you to join us.
We are very proud of what Neotribe has accomplished in its first 8 years. We have raised $450 million to back exceptional founders building category-creating technology companies and overseen 8 exits (including 2 IPOs). Neotribe’s Fund I and Ignite Fund are both top-quartile performers. Fund II is experiencing great momentum with ~30% of the portfolio securing follow-on financing rounds in the last year.
We are excited for the next several months – our largest firm exposure is gearing up for an IPO, multiple companies are in M&A discussions, several financing rounds are being finalized, and we have a very full investment pipeline. I’d be happy to share details when we speak.
Best,
Kittu
Hi Sridhar,
Thank you for taking the time to speak with us recently about Fund III, we are delighted that you’ll be with us! In terms of next steps – we have updated the early close data room with a new investor presentation and a revised summary of terms. Please login to the data room to view the updated documents…
What else? Here we go (ACE is AI-Centered Enterprise):
Hi Sridhar:
I will get you a personal copy of the book when I see you at Cambridge. Meanwhile, here is a pre-order link on Amazon.
The AI-Centered Enterprise: Reshaping Organizations with Context Aware AI
I wanted to highlight that you can now read a sample and your foreword shows up in this sample!
Once again, thank you for your help and endorsement.
Best,
Ram
Here is my Foreword (you can also see an Introduction by Chairman and CEO of Bentley in the sample):
Yes, it has been an active week, but that did not stop me, upon my return to Pittsburgh, from watching:
Ballerina (marketed as From the World of John Wick: Ballerina) is a 2025 American action thriller film. It is the fifth installment in the John Wick franchise, whose films have a collective gross of over $1 Billion, and it is set between the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) and Chapter 4 (2023). It stars Ana de Armas as the ballerina/assassin Eve Macarro, alongside Keanu Reeves.
Although I was not in the room where it happened, it was joyful to see CMU alums Leslie Odom Jr. and Renee Elise Goldsberry (see Hello, Broadway!), as the original Hamilton cast reunited at the Tony Awards last night:
Original ‘Hamilton’ Cast Delivers Show-Stopping Reunion At The 2025 Tony Awards.
Let me close this post with my favorite pic (taken by our Provost Jim Garrett, at 2024 Graduation Dinner) related to Broadway + CMU:
