Partner
Joff Redfern
AISaaS
A self-described “tall, slightly nerdy product guy,” Joff was previously the Chief Product Officer of Atlassian, responsible for leading its acclaimed portfolio of products, including Jira, Confluence, and Trello. During that time, Joff was named on the “Global CPO 20” list by Products That Count and as a “Top 20 Product Leader” by Product School. Prior to joining Atlassian, he spent seven years at LinkedIn, where he built the mobile team and led the consumer product as the company grew from 450 employees pre-IPO to 10,000+. His deep experience as an advisor, founder, product leader, and operator has given him a broad perspective and skill set that make him uniquely equipped to work with early-stage teams as an investor and an advisor.
As a partner at Menlo, Joff is passionate about: 1) the software development lifecycle; 2) the big shift in the future of work due to AI, especially next-generation business and productivity apps; and 3) businesses with network effects, networks, and marketplaces. He is drawn to founders who can combine engineering chops with great product sensibilities—rare individuals whom he considers to be the next wave of great entrepreneurs.
Joff’s life philosophy is “Less is more.” He is always in search of a better way and holds 11 patents. No stranger to entrepreneurship, he co-founded FlattenMe—award-winning, personalized children’s products that were selected as a top gift by Oprah, Good Morning America, the Today Show, the View, and more. He loves the company journey and knows what it takes to hyperscale an organization and product portfolio, moving from zero customers to IPO and beyond.
Joff earned his BA from Bates College and received his MBA from Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management. Outside of work, Joff is an avid adventurer—he believes life is to be lived, used up, and thoroughly enjoyed. He lives on an organic farm with his family, where they raise llamas and chickens and are food-, water-, and energy-independent. He has hiked the 220-mile John Muir Trail and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean.
Supported by: Lauren Centoni, [email protected]
Investment Portfolio
All Hands AI is an open-source AI platform for autonomous software engineering development, powered by AI and LLMs.
Milestones
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2024 - Founded
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2024 - Partnered, Seed
Leadership
Robert Brennan
Co-Founder & CEO
Graham Neubig
Co-Founder & Chief Scientist
Xinyao Wang
Co-Founder & Chief AI Officer
Partners
Mercor is an AI-powered hiring platform that matches talent with the opportunities they’re best suited for.
Milestones
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2023 - Founded
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2024 - Partnered, Series B
Leadership
Brendan Foody
CEO
Surya Midha
COO
Adarsh Hiremath
CTO
Partners
All Hands AI
All Hands AI is an open-source AI platform for autonomous software engineering development, powered by AI and LLMs.
Mercor
Mercor is an AI-powered hiring platform that matches talent with the opportunities they’re best suited for.
Stealth Company
AI-first personal agent
q&a
Investment Approach
At my core, I’m a builder. Software has been my canvas.
Something amazing—and a little unsettling—has happened in software development over the past few decades. Building and scaling software has never been easier or cheaper. Reaching millions, even billions, of users is within reach.
But the process has grown messy. Teams now juggle 25 or more tools just to build. Roles like engineering have become overly specialized. When I started my career, we mostly had full-stack engineers, and now we have full-stack, front-end, back-end, DevOps, SecOps, architects, and more. But we’ve lost something: simplicity, creativity, and shared understanding. That sucks.
I think AI offers us a path towards simplicity. Towards elegance. I want to work with teams brave enough to ask, “What if we started over?” That’s the journey I want to be on.
My father, a serial tech entrepreneur, gave me the best advice when I started my career: “Stay ahead of the wave. It’s as easy to get on an elevator going up as down.”
He had lived this truth. He started as an IBM mainframe engineer, then watched as mainframes gave way to mini computers, which gave way to PCs. Each decade brought a new wave that replaced the old.
I took his advice to heart. When I was working in the computer lab at Cornell, I got a glimpse of the pre-commercial internet and rode that wave to Fidelity and then to Yahoo. When I saw social media rising, I joined LinkedIn when it was still a startup. Later, seeing every company would need to become a software company or be “Amazoned,” I moved to Atlassian and became their CPO.
I’ve made a career out of catching waves early and riding them through hypergrowth.
