Microsoft Ventures executive Rahul Sood is leaving Microsoft to start a startup



Rahul Sood, general manager of Microsoft Ventures and former head of VoodooPC is leaving the company to start his own startup called Unikrn (pronounced as unicorn).

The executive announced his departure on LinkedIn, and admitted that he is leaving the dream job, but blamed his entrepreneurship traits for the shift. “This is the kind of crazy shit entrepreneurs do (or at least I keep telling myself that!)”. He said he is proud of the work Microsoft Ventures is doing right now.

“Microsoft is an amazing place to work, it’s the one place where you can take on any challenge and thrive, we have a living founder who has dedicated his life to making the world a better place, and the people are just so damn smart,” wrote Sood in the post. “I am so thankful for this memorable life changing experience. I’m now ready to take my next step. Now that Microsoft Ventures is up and running and in a good place I think it’s about damn time for me to jump out and risk everything again.”

Before joining Microsoft, Sood started VoodooPC, a boutique seller of custom-made computers in 1991. Among other services, the company also sold hand-painted computers for thousand of dollars. Sood sold the company to HP in 2006. He joined the Redmond-based company in 2010, where he was a general manager in the Xbox division. He later moved to a leadership role at Microsoft Ventures.