Yousuf Khan

co-founder of Clario

Compiled from 1 recorded interview. Every statement below is drawn from the passage cited beside it.

Yousuf Khan is a co-founder of Clario, a company whose stated goal is to give chief information officers trust in their data. He has described his path into the chief information officer role as accidental, and he spent more than five years as a general partner at a venture firm. Born in Pakistan, he grew up in several countries, including Egypt, Kenya and the UK.

Early life and background

Khan describes himself as a kid from Karachi, and he says he was born in Pakistan. He grew up in several countries, including Egypt, Kenya and the UK. He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area a little over a decade ago. He worked after school as his father's assistant, filing papers at his office. [1]

Education and early work

Khan held three jobs while at college to pay his tuition. One of those jobs was in a video rental store. He also worked for an import-export company to learn about trading. [1]

Career

Khan's first career in tech was at an internet startup. The company had just been funded, around 1999. At that startup he first heard the term venture capital. [1]

Khan was part of the executive teams at companies including Pure Storage, which he joined in 2015. He also briefly served as chief information officer at Automation Anywhere. [1]

Khan was a general partner at a venture firm for more than five years. In that role he invested in early-stage enterprise and AI companies, typically at seed and Series A. [1]

Clario

Khan co-founded Clario with a co-founder who is the company's CTO. The name Clario stands for clarity of infrastructure and operations. Khan says he was going to call the company garbage.ai. He described Clario as a six-month-old company, and he says it raised a $6 million seed round, led by a venture firm. [1]

Khan says he tried to solve the problem Clario addresses for 15 years as a chief information officer. He says he was frustrated by this problem for 15 years. He concluded that the only way to solve it was to build the solution himself. [1]

Khan says Clario's goal is to give CIOs trust in their data. He says the company scans file system metadata and batches recommended clean-up actions, and that it integrates with file-storage and collaboration systems, including Google Drive. He says Clario operates in three particular areas, and that its improvement is improving RAG and reducing compute, processing and token cost. He also says Clario has discovered terabytes of database files being shared on a file-sharing drive. [1]

Khan says he is focused fully on what Clario is building. He says he travels to cities including Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Boston, Charlotte and Dallas. [1]

Views on data

Khan says he finds the volume of garbage data created across enterprises absolutely ridiculous. He says unstructured data makes up 80% of a company's file system, and that companies now generate more unstructured data than ever before. In his account, unstructured data is growing fast, partly because AI generates it. [1]

Khan says unsupported file formats should not appear in search, backups or archives. He says old duplicate versions of documents have no place in a company's file or content system. He also says storage is not cheap to manage, secure, comply with, archive and process. [1]

Khan says enterprises need to clean their systems first. He says garbage in leads to garbage out in AI projects, and that AI projects will not succeed in the long term if the data is not clean. [1]

Views on AI and the industry

Khan says the AI question is how much jobs change, not whether they are lost. He believes AI in medical research will benefit society. Having seen the technology, he regards AI as a generational shift. [1]

Khan expects more data regulation and enforcement at the sovereign level. He says data is now a national asset, not just an asset for companies. He expects sovereign clouds and neoclouds to grow. [1]

Khan says legal tech was not really a thing until about five years ago. He says many companies still run on IBM mainframes, and many insurers still use fax machines. In his view, change takes time. He says the "SaaS apocalypse" idea was completely overhyped. [1]

Views on investing and founders

Khan says some of the best investors are the most patient, and that you have to earn the right to invest in a company. He says a good product is not always a venture-backable business. In his view, a services business is not a typical venture-backable company. [1]

Khan's advice to founders is to understand that the market is big and go after it. His advice also includes building a great customer experience so customers stay. He says building a startup is a foot race that rewards execution and focus. [1]

Personal life

Khan has run a bar, although he does not drink. He describes himself as a believer in moderation. [1]

Timeline

2015
Joined Pure Storage.[1]

Appearances

DateTitleWhere
2026-07-17 Enterprise AI is failing on garbage data, not on models Beyond the Bubble

Frequently asked questions

Who is Yousuf Khan?

Yousuf Khan is a co-founder of Clario, a company whose stated goal is to give chief information officers trust in their data. He has worked as a chief information officer and as a general partner at a venture firm.[1]

Where is Yousuf Khan from?

Yousuf Khan describes himself as a kid from Karachi and says he was born in Pakistan. He grew up in several countries, including Egypt, Kenya and the UK.[1]

What company did Yousuf Khan found?

Yousuf Khan co-founded Clario with a co-founder who is the company's CTO. The name Clario stands for clarity of infrastructure and operations.[1]

Did Yousuf Khan work at Pure Storage?

Yousuf Khan was part of the executive team at Pure Storage, which he joined in 2015.[1]

What does Yousuf Khan think about the AI bubble?

Yousuf Khan believes AI is in a bubble and says the current bubble has lasted longer than the internet bubble. He also says he sees valuation inflation in a number of areas.[1]

What does Yousuf Khan say about garbage data?

Yousuf Khan says garbage in leads to garbage out in AI projects. He says AI projects will not succeed in the long term if the data is not clean, and that enterprises need to clean their systems first.[1]

References

  1. Enterprise AI is failing on garbage data, not on models . Beyond the Bubble , 2026-07-17.
Show the source passages (69 statements)
  1. He describes himself as a kid from Karachi. I'm just a kid from Karachi who's trying to make it in the world.
  2. He was born in Pakistan. So I was I was born in Pakistan.
  3. He grew up in several countries, including Egypt, Kenya and the UK. I grew up all over the world from countries like Egypt, you know, Nairobi, Kenya and the UK for several years
  4. He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area a little over a decade ago. then moved to San Francisco Bay area just over a decade ago
  5. He worked after school as his father's assistant, filing papers at his office. being my dad's assistant uh uh after school, showing up at his office and filing papers
  6. He held three jobs while at college to pay his tuition. I had three jobs whilst I was at college paying for college tuition at King's College
  7. One of his college jobs was working in a video rental store. one was being a uh working in a video rental store
  8. He worked for an import-export company to learn about trading. I worked for an import export company uh to understand and understand trading
  9. He has run a bar, although he does not drink. I've run a bar even though I don't drink
  10. His first career in tech was at an internet startup. My first career in tech was moving working for internet startup
  11. The internet startup he joined had just been funded, around 1999. it was in 99 and it was a company that just got funded
  12. At that startup he first heard the term venture capital. It was the first time I'd heard of the term venture capital
  13. He had a full-time contract to join as an IT project manager. I had a full-time contract um to join as an IT project manager ultimately
  14. He describes his path into the CIO role as accidental. I'm the accidental CIO. I say this as the subject of my blog post.
  15. His CIO work covered IT and security teams, business applications and data platforms. overseeing IT and security teams combination of business applications data platforms
  16. He was part of the executive teams at companies including Pure Storage. part of the executive teams at companies like Qualis and Pure Storage
  17. He joined Pure Storage in 2015. I was lucky to be part of a company called Pure Storage where uh I joined them in 2015
  18. He briefly served as CIO at Automation Anywhere. had a brief stand as CIO at Automation Anywhere
  19. He was a general partner at a venture firm for more than five years. I was a general partner at ridge uh ventures for you know five plus years
  20. He invested in early-stage enterprise and AI companies, typically at seed and Series A. where invested in early stage uh enterprise and AI companies typically at seed and series A
  21. He co-founded Clario with a co-founder who is the company's CTO. prior to founding Clario with my co-founder Madivora who's a CTO of the company
  22. He says he has tried to solve the problem Clario addresses for 15 years as a CIO. I've tried to solve the problem that Clario is solving over the course of 15 years as a CIO
  23. He concluded that the only way to solve the problem was to build the solution himself. the only way to try and solve this is to literally try and do it myself
  24. He says he was going to call the company garbage.ai. I was going to call this company garbage.ai
  25. The name Clario stands for clarity of infrastructure and operations. which is clarity of infrastructure and operations
  26. He described Clario as a six-month-old company. We're six-month old company.
  27. He says Clario raised a $6 million seed round, led by a venture firm. We raised a $6 million seed round last year led by Preface Ventures
  28. He says Clario's goal is to give CIOs trust in their data. CIOS need to have trust in their data
  29. He says Clario integrates with file-storage and collaboration systems, including Google Drive. We integrate with one drive, Google drive, confluence, box, sharepoint
  30. He says Clario scans file system metadata and batches recommended clean-up actions. We scan for the metadata in the file system. We're able to understand how you can clean it. We'll be able to batch a whole bunch of recommendations in terms of actions
  31. He says Clario operates in three particular areas. we operate in in three particular areas
  32. He says Clario's improvement is improving RAG and reducing compute, processing and token cost. our improvement is improving rag number one and reducing the rev of compute and processing and token cost
  33. He says Clario has discovered terabytes of database files being shared on a file-sharing drive. We have discovered terabytes of Access database files being shared on one drive
  34. He says he finds the volume of garbage data created across enterprises absolutely ridiculous. the volume of garbage data that's being created uh in across enterprises and companies is absolutely ridiculous
  35. He says unstructured data makes up 80% of a company's file system. Unstructured data is 80% of a company's file system first and foremost
  36. He says companies now generate more unstructured data than ever before. they are generating more unstructured data than ever before
  37. He says unstructured data is growing fast, partly because AI generates it. the volume of unstructured data is exploding at a rapid pace and part of a lot of part of that is being generated by AI
  38. He says unsupported file formats should not appear in search, backups or archives. unsupported file formats shouldn't show up in search results, shouldn't be backed up, shouldn't be archived
  39. He says old duplicate versions of documents have no place in a company's file or content system. 17 versions of a document from 17 years ago have no place in your file or your content system
  40. He says enterprises need to clean their systems first. You need to clean the system first.
  41. He says garbage in leads to garbage out in AI projects. But a garbage in is garbage out
  42. He says AI projects will not succeed in the long term if the data is not clean. if your data is not clean, I'm sorry, it just will not succeed in the longer term
  43. He says storage is not cheap to manage, secure, comply with, archive and process. It's not cheap to manage and and secure and comply and archive and process
  44. He says AI is not yet delivering the ROI expected from a transformational technology. we are not seeing the level of ROI that we should be expecting from this transformational technology
  45. He says there are no clear patterns in the AI business yet. there's no patterns in this business anymore
  46. He believes AI is in a bubble. 100% we're in a bubble
  47. He says the current AI bubble has lasted longer than the internet bubble. this has been a much longer bubble than the than the previous one internet
  48. He says he sees valuation inflation in a number of areas. valuation inflation in a bunch of areas? Yes, I do.
  49. He says the AI question is how much jobs change, not whether they are lost. it's not about the jobs being lost. It's about how much the job is being changed
  50. He says legal tech was not really a thing until about five years ago. legal tech hasn't really been a thing for up until maybe five plus years ago
  51. He believes AI in medical research will benefit society. Do I think the use of AI and medical research will benefit society? 100%.
  52. He says having seen the technology, he regards AI as a generational shift. having seen the technology I think this is a generational shift
  53. He describes himself as a believer in moderation. just a believer in moderation everything
  54. He expects more data regulation and enforcement at the sovereign level. there's going to be more data regulation and there's going to be more data enforcement at the sovereign level than ever before
  55. He says data is now a national asset, not just an asset for companies. data is now not just an asset for companies, it is a national asset
  56. He expects sovereign clouds and neoclouds to grow. Sovereign clouds, neoclouds, I see that happening and morphing more and more
  57. He says some of the best investors are the most patient. I think some of the best investors are the ones who are most patient
  58. He says you have to earn the right to invest in a company. you have to earn the right to invest in a company
  59. He says a good product is not always a venture-backable business. Just because it's a good product doesn't mean it's a good venture backable idea
  60. He says a services business is not a typical venture-backable company. that's not a typical venture backable company because it's services
  61. He says many companies still run on IBM mainframes, and many insurers still use fax machines. there's lots of companies that still run on IBM mainframes. There's lots of insurance companies that still have lots of fax machines
  62. He says change takes time. change takes time and just it's important to remember that
  63. He says the "SaaS apocalypse" idea was completely overhyped. the SAS apocalypse thing I think was completely overhyped
  64. His advice to founders is to understand that the market is big and go after it. go understand that it is a big market and go after a big market
  65. His advice to founders includes building a great customer experience so customers stay. build a great customer experience and they'll stay with you
  66. He says building a startup is a foot race that rewards execution and focus. it is a foot race. You've got to execute, you've got to focus
  67. He says he has been frustrated by this problem for 15 years. frustrated this problem for 15 freaking years
  68. He says he is focused fully on what Clario is building. I'm just 110% focused in what I'm basically building
  69. He says he travels to cities including Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Boston, Charlotte and Dallas. I travel to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Chicago, Illinois, New York, Boston, Charlotte, North Carolina, you know, Dallas, Texas