Talk:Mike Volpi

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Infobox request

My name is Rachel Hansen. I am an operating partner at Hanabi Capital. I created this account to engage on Wikipedia as an official representative of that organization. I am familiar with Wikipedia's COI guidelines and will conduct myself accordingly

Could editors update this article's infobox to reflect that Mike Volpi's "Employer" is currently Hanabi Capital, not Index Ventures. You can find confirmation that he is a partner at Hanabi Capital in this Bloomberg article. RH at Hanabi (talk) 22:50, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Done! MetalBreaksAndBends (talk) 15:46, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

Early life and education request

Hi, this is Rachel Hansen again. I noticed that this article has a banner on top expressing concerns that some of the "listed sources may not be reliable."

It seems like the Early life and education section might be the most egregious example of this, as it repeatedly cites a LinkedIn profile.

I drafted a revised version of this section in which the core claims remain (with light rewording) but the citations are updated to more reliable sources:

Updated Early life and education

Volpi was born in Milan, Italy. When he was five, his family moved to Tokyo, Japan, where he lived until he moved to the United States in 1984 to attend college.

He earned a BS in mechanical engineering and an MS in manufacturing systems engineering from Stanford University. After working at HP for several years, he returned to Stanford to earn an M.B.A. from the Graduate School of Business in 1994.

References

I cited four sources for this draft: a 1998 New York Times profile, a Behind the Tech career summary, a CB Insights profile, and a Stanford Business article. I think these are clear improvements from the LinkedIn and Forbes citations.

Please let me know if this update is possible. RH at Hanabi (talk) 22:21, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

 Done Implemented in my edit here. Spencer^T•C 03:20, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the assistance, Spencer. I'm about to post another small request, and I would be grateful if you could look at it as well. RH at Hanabi (talk) 20:47, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

Request to remove poorly sourced claim

Hi, this is Rachel Hansen again. I spotted another poorly sourced claim, this time in the HP section.

Right now the second paragraph in this section says "While at HP, he met his future wife Toni C. Cupal." The cited source for this claim is a brief entry for Mr. Volpi at the Notable Names Database (NNDB). This entry lists Toni C. Cupal as his wife, but doesn't suggest they met at HP. And I've scoured the internet and can't find any other confirmation that they met there.

Given this context, could this claim and citation be removed? Doing so would presumably help address the "unreliable sources" banner at the top of the article. Thanks! RH at Hanabi (talk) 20:48, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi RH at Hanabi Agree with the removal of "while at HP" but there do appear to be some reliable sources that name his wife: , , so I don't think wholesale removal is necessarily warranted. What are your thoughts on rewording and resourcing? Spencer^T•C 03:50, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for looking into this, Spencer. I should have been clearer above. Toni Cupal and Mike Volpi are indeed married. That fact is confirmed by numerous sources, including the ones you listed. But the claim in this Wikipedia article is that they met at HP. While that is in fact correct, it's not confirmed by the cited NNDB database (which just says "Wife: Toni C. Cupal"). My understanding is that information can only be included on Wikipedia if it's verified by the cited source.

I'm trying to flag unreliable and misleading sources so that the flag can be removed from the top of the article. Are you able to make that removal? RH at Hanabi (talk) 22:40, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

OK, I have removed that sentence and moved the name of his wife to the personal life section. Spencer^T•C 04:30, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Appreciate the help, Spencer. Would it be possible to remove the "Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable" banner now that the low-quality sources (namely LinkedIn and Notable Names Database) have been replaced with better citations? RH at Hanabi (talk) 23:06, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Do you have an alternate reference for Volpi's father? That appears to still be sourced to NNDB. Spencer^T•C 01:52, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Sure. This Bloomberg article confirms that Vittorio Volpi is his father. The article is behind a paywall, but the sentence in question says: "His father, Vittorio Volpi, the head of the Japanese subsidiary of Swiss UBS Bank, says his son has learned flexibility from the Italians, subtlety from the Japanese, and pragmatism and fairness from American business culture." RH at Hanabi (talk) 18:49, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

User:RH at Hanabi I updated the reference with the provided source and have removed the tag. Best, Spencer^T•C 00:11, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Request to update Career section

Rachel Hansen here again. The subheads at the end of the Career section seem to be out of order. The second paragraph under the Entrepreneurship subhead is all about Joost. But then the next subhead is titled Index Ventures and Joost CEO—even though Joost is not mentioned there!

I tried my hand at fixing this here:

Updated Career subsections

Sequoia Capital and Joost

After Cisco in 2007 he became entrepreneur in residence (EIR) at Sequoia Capital.

A few months later, he was appointed CEO of Joost, an Internet startup focused on online TV which was founded by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. In September 2009, a lawsuit was filed against Volpi by Skype’s founders in conjunction with the proposed divestiture of Skype from eBay. The lawsuit was dropped in November 2009.

Index Ventures

In 2009, Volpi joined Index Ventures. At Index, Volpi invested in early-stage companies, primarily across autonomous driving, open source, and artificial intelligence. Volpi has served on the boards of Index portfolio companies, including Aurora, Big Switch Networks, Blue Bottle Coffee, Confluent, Covariant, Elastic, Kong Inc., Hortonworks, Pure Storage, Scale AI, Sonos, Tekion Corp, Wealthfront, and Zuora. During Volpi's time at Index, the firm grew its office in San Francisco to an equal presence on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

References

I retitled the Entrepreneurship subhead to Sequoia Capital and Joost, since that captures what the two paragraphs are about. Then I changed the Index Ventures and Joost CEO subhead to simply Index Ventures. I also updated the investments in this section.

As noted above, I am an operating partner at Hanabi Capital so I'll only be suggesting updates to this article, not making them myself. Please let me know if you have any feedback. RH at Hanabi (talk) 23:51, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi RH at Hanabi, this overall seems reasonable. You didn't mention why in the above discussion why you removed the following sentence from the article? "From 2012 to 2018, the firm had six initial public offerings in the US, including Dropbox, Etsy, Sonos and Zuora, and has invested in early rounds of companies including self-driving car startup Aurora,[26] Bird and Robinhood.[27]" Best, Spencer^T•C 15:55, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Good question, Spencer. I was concerned that the sentence you flagged came across as promotional, as it was framed around the firm's investments. That's why I restructured that passage (and surrounding ones) to focus on investments Mike Volpi was directly involved with, as specified in the cited sources. And I limited the list of companies to only the most notable ones. RH at Hanabi (talk) 19:46, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

 Done Spencer^T•C 12:57, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the assist Spencer. I'm putting together a potential Hanabi Capital subsection that could be positioned at the end of the Career section. Mike Volpi's role at Hanabi has received coverage from Bloomberg and specific investments have been covered by other outlets. I hope it's okay if I tag you on that request when I'm finished. Again, I'm aware that I've leaned on you a lot already for these updates. RH at Hanabi (talk) 21:50, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Sure. I have been pretty busy off-wiki so I anticipate someone else will need to give it a look, but feel free to give me a ping just in case. Spencer^T•C 23:06, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Request to add Hanabi Capital subsection

Rachel Hansen here again.

I'm checking to see if editors would be amenable to adding a Hanabi Capital subsection to the bottom of the Career section. The career chronology currently ends at Index Ventures, but Mike Volpi is now at Hanabi Capital, as documented in Bloomberg and other business & finance outlets.

I put together a brief draft that pulls from media coverage to summarize his role at Hanabi.

Proposed Hanabi Capital subsection

Volpi co-founded Hanabi Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm, in 2025. Volpi serves as general partner alongside co-founders Bryan Offutt and Ishani Thakur. The firm invests in artificial intelligence, software infrastructure, and similar tech startups. As of 2026, notable investments include Applied Compute, Cerebras, ClickHouse, Cognition AI, Cursor, and Netic.

References

Once again, I am an operating partner at Hanabi Capital and I'm putting forth the draft above for review by experienced editors. Please let me know if you have any feedback. RH at Hanabi (talk) 21:49, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

A couple quick thoughts. Superscout doesn't seem like a reliable, independent secondary source, so if possible would recommend alternative sources or leaving out those companies. I think the names of the cofounders can be ommitted for now since they don't have an article. Would say "technology startup companies" rather than "tech startups". It may be helpful to clarify that his involvement at Hanabi is occuring while he is still with Index; it may be worth having these as two paragraphs under a single heading as well. Lastly, in my opinion if the startup doesn't have an article (e.g. Netic, Applied Compute), those should be omitted for now as well. Best, Spencer^T•C 03:43, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for such thoughtful, prescriptive feedback, Spencer. I lightly revised the draft to strip away (a) the other cofounders, and (b) all of the "notable investment" companies except Cognition AI, since that company is prominent enough to have its own Wikipedia entry and the cited media coverage directly references Hanabi's investment. I then added Mind Robotics to the list since that company is likewise Wiki notable and again there's media coverage describing the Hanabi investment. Updated draft:

Volpi co-founded Hanabi Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm, in 2025. Volpi serves as general partner. The firm invests in artificial intelligence, software infrastructure, and similar technology company startups. As of 2026, notable investments include Cognition AI and Mind Robotics.

References

Does that work? Please let me know. And regarding your other question, Mike Volpi is a retired partner at Index and has no active investing role at the firm. As such, it doesn't seem like any clarifying language is necessary, but again please let me know. RH at Hanabi (talk) 19:12, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

One additional question, is Volpi one of the general partners (but not only?) If so, would tweak to "Volpi serves as one of the general partners". As written in the above proposal, it reads that he is the one and only one. Let me know and give me a ping, and then I can add to the article after a final look. Best, Spencer^T•C 22:33, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I can confirm that Mike Volpi is the only general partner, and I added a Wall Street Journal citation to the draft that includes language ("Mike Volpi, a veteran tech executive and venture capitalist who is general partner at Hanabi Capital") specifying that role:

Volpi co-founded Hanabi Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm, in 2025. Volpi serves as general partner. The firm invests in artificial intelligence, software infrastructure, and similar technology company startups. As of 2026, notable investments include Cognition AI and Mind Robotics.

References

Please let me know if that works. Also... would it be worth updating the article introduction to capture his Hanabi role? Maybe changing the last sentence there to something like "He co-founded Index Ventures’ San Francisco office with Danny Rimer in 2009, and currently serves as general partner at Hanabi Capital"? Curious what you think. RH at Hanabi (talk) 17:51, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

 Done @RH at Hanabi: for both the above section and the lede. What I did since the career section was mostly small paragraphs was remove the section headers and condense some of the combined sections into paragraphs. Additionally, some additional research noted overlap between his time at Joost and Index, so I added additional detail and restructured some of the sections without the separation of different section headers, which helped make the timeline clearer. Best, Spencer^T•C 18:21, 29 July 2026 (UTC)