Sajith Wickramasekara
Sajith Wickramasekara is the co-founder and CEO of Benchling in Founder Mode: Sajith Wickramasekara, Founder & CEO, Benchling. The episode says he started the company as a junior at MIT, where he studied computer science and worked in biology labs, noticing that scientists still relied on paper notebooks while software teams had stronger collaboration tools.
His source role is to ground Founder Mode in ownership rather than slogan. Sajith says founder mode means caring about company standards at many levels, from customer relationships to press-release language and product details, because tolerated weak work becomes the standard others learn from. At Benchling’s scale, his main regret is letting himself and senior leaders become too distant from customers during fast headcount growth.
The episode also makes him a Stage-Appropriate Hiring and executive-fit case. Sajith says founders often know within 30 to 60 days whether a senior leader is working, but can postpone action by hoping coaching will overcome the habits that made the person successful elsewhere. His current operating stance is to trust his judgment sooner, challenge inherited playbooks, and make customer conversations non-negotiable for senior executives.
Connections
- Benchling - company he co-founded and leads.
- Y Combinator and Paul Graham - Summer 2012 accelerator context and early belief in Benchling.
- MIT - source of the computer-science and biology-lab exposure behind the company.
- Founder Mode, Founder Proximity, Founder Delegation Discipline, and Stage-Appropriate Hiring - main operating concepts extended by his episode.
- Life Sciences Workflow Software and Vertical SaaS Domain Expertise - product and founder-fit context.
- The Social Radars, Jessica Livingston, and Carolyn Levy - interview context.