Latest / Marci talks money (and life) / Success Looks Different for Everyone: Change, Growth, and Meaning with Anirban (Andy) Bhattacharyya
Transcript
- Marci Grossman (00:15) I am MoneyMarci. Welcome. I am thrilled to welcome today's guest, Anirban, Andy Bhattacharya. Andy is an accomplished leader with over 21 years of experience in supply chain, manufacturing, sustainability, and customer experience. As the founder of Amploglobal Inc, an AI driven firm specializing in enterprise risk analysis, Andy has revolutionized how organizations manage risk and carbon accounting. He holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from the Berla Institute of Technology and Science and an MBA from Duke University, where he specialized in strategy and marketing. Andy is a recognized thought leader holding patents in data monetization theories and supply chain optimization. and has authored articles in Forbes and books on Industry 5.0. A frequent advisor to CEOs on sustainability transformation, Andy also serves as adjunct faculty at the Indian School of Business and Rutgers University. His achievements include speaking at TEDx, coaching at top universities, and securing a partnership with AWS to further sustainability efforts. He advises firms on supply chain strategy, mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and incorporating sustainable transformation into their roadmap. Welcome, Andy. That's a lot and that's a lot of big words. So I'm not even sure of the meaning of some of what I just introduced for you. That's very impressive background you've got there. Andy (01:38) That was heavy. I like it. Hahaha Okay, I will take that as a compliment. Marci Grossman (01:53) Absolutely. tell me, how did you get to all of those fabulous achievements? Andy (01:58) Well, I still believe that I haven't tasted success. I still believe in my heart, in my head, in my breath. I still believe it. ⁓ That being said, ⁓ I'm always balancing it out and I'm still answering your question. I'm still balancing it out. My limitations, my ambition. and in this life is it that pressure I should take to meet the ambition that I have at my limitations. So in summary, how do I define success? To answer your question, I'm constantly struggling between the value I'm bringing on the table. Serving others in this case, let's say a customer or a student that I'm teaching, partnering with a partner to go to market with, right? I'm continuously thinking that what value I am, it's about me, it's not about Amploglobal or anything else, right? What value I'm bringing. So why I'm sharing all this? Because... I feel that whatever I have done from let's say education, career, creativity, I felt I messed up more than really doing things right. So that's the word struggle comes into the table. Right. So I'm always like thinking that out of 100 percent, 95 percent of time I'm like doing things which are not right. I'm messing up things and five percent I'm doing right. With that thought process in my head. Yes, I've written books. I teach. I'm big into capacity building. I do a lot of non-profit work in India, Nepal. Of course, I'm working, I'm consulting, I'm trying to take AmploGlobal to a level where it can be sellable, right? So, but I feel that maybe something I have done a little bit right to be, to your statement of being successful, And also my definition of success has changed, right? So when I was in my initial days of my high school undergrad career, my success was all about professional success. Then in my entrepreneurship cycle, my success definition was I want to be a good purpose led leader. Now my success is mainly peace and leave back a legacy. So with all these... hodgepodge response to this, I feel like, yeah, I've done something right from an education perspective. Not taking life for granted very much. Messing up in finances and decisions, which is very, because bad decisions make great stories. And I will say that it has made me more spiritual. So I'll take a pause here and it's a long answer. Marci Grossman (04:40) Well, it is and it helps us dive into, obviously this is a financial podcast so we can dive into a lot of different aspects of that. I mean you went and you got some degrees and education and obviously from the intro you have had significant professional success where your name is out there and you are recognized. if not necessarily expert, but a leader in aspects of what you do. It's hard different people define leader and expert differently. So I leave that up to yourself and others to determine where you fit in that. But you've been an entrepreneur and you are consulting and you are teaching and all of this. We come back to that financial part of where are you finding what your definition of that financial success is. Andy (05:33) Fantastic, and that's the core, right? That's the core where being in the professional world, where I made money, in the entrepreneurship world, where I have debt, right? and then coming back and doing more consulting and corporate work, right? Which I'm definitely most likely, I will come back to corporate full time, right? Next year after my exit. But I will tell you one big learning that I have is, three learnings actually, not one. One is, it has to be grilled from childhood to manage finance, which has not been with me. I've been always an emotional person than a rational person. So I have made decisions with my head and heart which has zero distance and I have gone wrong. Nine out of ten. But if you really see my level of intelligence with very humbly sharing, there's no dearth of intelligence in my head. But what happened is my emotions ran over on the intelligence and my IQ and EQ could not balance well. And I made some rash decisions, especially during entrepreneurship. And it's a big learning out there. So that's the first bucket I will say. How do you balance your EQ and IQ and make sure that you have enough knowledge of managing finance? Right. And I did not have until I graduated and I started working. Marci Grossman (06:54) Well, let me stop you there and say I've said many times and I'll continue to say that intelligence has nothing to do with how well or poorly you manage your money. If you are not educated and willing to make the hard decisions sometimes. Andy (07:04) Exactly. Yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely. The second bucket I will share. So the first bucket I talked about IQ, EQ, making wrong decisions that kind of came in my face and I learned the learning had been extremely costly. That's one bucket. The second bucket I will say is the spirit that I carry is also very I would say carefree. Which means I do not believe in holding money or making excess money. Right? That's my think tank. Right? So if I have $10 in my bank, I know I do not need $10. I need $4. The remaining six can be given to someone or can be saved for the rainy days. That's my think tank, right? We do not need that $10 to live life. So I believe in optimal living. In my house, it's very, very optimally set up from bed to bathroom to kitchen. No big things, almost no brand. I always go to Target or similar shops like Target, right? Which I love. So for me, I have an attitude towards not holding money and give away from charity to business. So I have that mentality of optimal living, don't need much money type of mindset. How that affects entrepreneurship is also a very good cycle. It actually affected my entrepreneurship journey, which means when I got some funding, I'll give a live example from Amplo Global's career. When I got some funding, Somebody told me that Andy, we should go for IP, intellectual property, which will give the company a better valuation. And some other coach, mentors, or board members told me that Andy, with this money, we actually should keep in the bank and use it later. We don't need the IP. Then another board member said, well, this money, we should actually use to pay off the dues. So of course I chose the last one to pay off the dues and I did not go for IP or to keep in the bank. So there is a wise part of me but also I feel like there is a portion where I do not want to hold money. I did not take a single payment so far from Amplo Global in the last five years. Not a single payment. It's always an outflow from my side. because I know once I sell the company, I will make the money, right? So when revenues are coming in, I'm not taking a, I take my expenses of course, but not a salary as such. So that's where. Marci Grossman (09:41) Now, wait a second, you did mention when you talked about if you had 10, you only needed four and you did mention saving and rainy days fund. So I'm assuming that means you do have some retirement, some investing that's just not part of your day to day? Andy (09:55) Great question, right? So I do have some that I've invested in, mutual funds, right? And I have a house. So I do not have things in real estate or I do not have things in Nvidia stocks. Haven't got that interest of time, right? I have some friends at Duke who live and breathe stocks, I'm not that kind of a person. So basically, I feel that whatever I have in the house for house or mutual fund, need to rebuild. I need to rebuild. I have lost my financial corpus. Absolutely, I've lost it. At a time when I was in Blackstone, I was making a heck lot of money. I paid off the Duke MBA loan and everything, but. Now I don't have. I put my own money, own assets, liquid money into the company. So that's second thing, right? So somebody who is very, I felt, and I'm not selling myself here hard for the entrepreneurs to do this, please don't do this. ⁓ Spiritually, I never thought about that's my own asset, I should keep the asset with me and I always should raise funds whenever I have trouble, right? I could not raise funds during COVID, I could not. I took a huge loan, I kept my personal assets as is, I took a loan, become a guarantor for the loan and I'm paying the loan from my own pocket now because Amplo Global, the way the revenue comes in and it goes out. Okay, it hits that profitability because I have to pay the loan out right from the profitability It's a tough choice. So I feel that yes, I could have done better from a financial perspective if I'd taken non-emotional decisions. I am also believing in optimal livings. I don't hold money into me. Right. And third is I think and I don't want to pass the buck to anyone, but I will say this that not every soul needs this torture that I have gone through. I feel like I have more headwinds than others. The choices I have made, like I did not know COVID will happen. I did not know sustainability will die down in this country. So the headwinds that I have faced, it also has gone against me. If I take these three buckets, emotional decision, not holding, not the attitude of having holding money or holding money and headwinds. I still feel that it has given me so much learning and rationalization 2020 and 2025, I have a huge difference on how I think financially, health-wise, career-wise, even relationship-wise, right? So I'll give an example. I went to Mumbai, my mom said, hey, can you change the fridge? Since you have come to India, we should change the fridge. I said, no mom, this is 2025, me speaking. I don't think you have to change the fridge this time. I know it's maybe $1,000 or something like that, but you don't have to change the fridge. Then she got upset because now it's a different Andy, right? I used to change the fridge if she tells me emotionally just to make her happy I will change the fridge. I said no, you should repair the fridge. It will still run for two more years. And she was surprised with my reaction. And it's a great example where I have learned. Make sense Marci? Or no? Marci Grossman (13:09) I guess it would depend how much it costs to repair the fridge but you know yeah those are decisions you have to learn how to make because it's easy to make someone that you care about happy and $1,000 doesn't sound like a lot of money until you spend it over and over and over again and and entrepreneurship is expensive. People think if I become an entrepreneur I'm going to be wealthy and most attempts at entrepreneurship do not succeed and depending on the business and whatever else, whether you walk out in debt or you walk out breaking even or with a small profit, it doesn't mean I'm an entrepreneur all of a sudden I've got six figures, seven figures, whatever waiting for me. Some people do better as an employee, their skill set or as a contractor, a consultant, whatever else. You have to figure your personality, your relationship with managing a business or managing what your resources are to determine where you're going to financially find the most success. Andy (14:13) Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's something... I would say that it has made me such a better human being from 2020 to 2025. It's not about the financial analysis part. It's also about what I want in life. How do I want to leave back a legacy? What is the goal? Marci Grossman (14:32) And on that note, let's take a quick break. Marci Grossman (14:36) Okay, so you're talking about getting your business together with the idea toward selling that business, and you're going back into corporate. Is your intention, as of this point in time, obviously it's subject to change at whatever in the future, that maybe corporate and consulting is better for you in the long run, or is your goal to eventually go back in and create a new business? Andy (14:43) Mm-hmm. Now, I'm definitely not doing one more business. At least if I pinch and I think I'm in senses I will not go back. And here is why. ⁓ I will spend more time and capacity building and sharing my knowledge of my entrepreneurship while I'm doing consulting or corporate America than spending that energy and energy and thing to. to do another startup? I will not. Unless, unless I have enough funding to start with. So short answer, going back to corporate, very clear. Capacity building, knowledge curation, knowledge sharing, very clear. If I raise funds in future, on an ideation stage, I will do it. But I will not do anything unless I raise funds on an ideation stage. I'm very- Marci Grossman (15:47) That makes sense. Andy (15:47) Yeah, that I'm very clear on that thought process. I keep getting calls from the newer startups from Silicon Valley, from Duke University, from Rutgers, and Andy come on over, join as one of the founders. We'd love to have your insight. I haven't done those signatures yet. I said, look, I would love to be a part of the founders team, but I want to make sure I take AmploGlobal to a level with a calm head and then I will join. So I'm very very very prescriptive, very careful on my commitment right now because this whole last five years have been humongous learning for me. Relationships, financials, career decisions, health, my health has gone down. I'm type two diabetic right now. ⁓ So it has really affected. And the ideation and the product you have and the country you choose to launch it. I mean, I can choose a lovely product, And if I launch in Casablanca, it can go better than if I launch in New York, because Casablanca has a population who will take that product. In New York, they may not take the product. So that learning, I'm gonna apply in my daily life and it all brings me more, makes me more financially smart. Marci Grossman (17:03) That makes sense. That makes sense. Now, you talked about 95 times you made the wrong decisions out of 100, but what you did was you were learning. You have learned, as Edison said, 95 ways not to make a light bulb. You failed early so that you can find more success, more knowledge. These startups that are interested in you Andy (17:22) Mm-hmm. Marci Grossman (17:28) probably as much as for the things you learned while failing than as for the things you learned succeeding. Andy (17:31) Yeah. I know, I know, and I absolutely love your empathy on this one, right? Because I started the discussion a little bit in a non-positive manner that, okay, because when you said in the beginning that, what do you have achieved and success? Because I feel very sensitive that I'm not successful yet. So I kind of... mitigated it down a little bit saying that I'm how I messed up overall but yeah it's a huge learning and I feel that the acceptance of being going wrong is so huge within me it just makes me so humble every day and so spiritual because now I can see somebody around me talking with me I feel that I have a different level of experience. I'll give an example My dad, right up here, one more vulnerable conversation, right? My dad thinks that I'm a loser. He tells me at my face, right? That, hey, I mean, what do you have done? I know that the cuts I have and the decisions I have taken to be that gutsy, he hasn't. He was in 40 years in his service in Bank of India. Went up the ladder very nicely. Smart man. 40 years and he loves that security. He loves that pension that comes in the bank now. So he thinks that I'm a loser, right? So how do you navigate these things, having a mental pressure from your dad that I'm a loser, and I get to hear from somebody, you're successful, right? How do you balance this to you? It's a big mental and like a very mental torture in your head that you have to navigate, and then comes with other things too. Marci Grossman (19:19) Well, but you have to think that different people define success differently. So for your dad, that security was success. That pension is success. Someone else will say, wow, you spoke at a Andy (19:24) Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Marci Grossman (19:34) got people calling on you and wanting to give you big dollars to do consulting for them. That is a success. You are recognized for for your knowledge and for your experience, that is a success. Other people might say, well, you don't have a certain dollar amount in your investments, so you're not a success. No matter where you go, no matter who you are, you're always going to find some people that say, wow, he's successful, and other people that said, what does he think he's doing? And it's important to recognize that. Andy (19:44) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And right now, in a way, say life's 3.0. 1.0 was corporate chaos, 2.0 was entrepreneurship, and 3.0, I have been, I found peace. I've found detachment. Though I'm involved in everything, I'm very detached to take more rational decision. Of course, it should impact financially nicely in the next five to 10 years as I rebuild my corpus. So I find myself detached, more rational, very much give back type of mentality. Right. and I found a purpose and that's the biggest success I have right now in life. I found a purpose. How many people at mid 40s would say, I found a purpose. I found a purpose to live. Marci Grossman (20:53) I'm older than you, I still don't know what I'm gonna be when I grow up. Andy (20:56) That was a classic one, right? So I found a purpose. I mean, very few people can tell that I found a purpose and I know why I was born. I told my, few cousins lately that look, I mean, for me, it's not about staying average. How I go to above average is my purpose. It's not about becoming a father. how to become a godfather, right? At a point of time, I was then to have kids, right? Now I don't think that thinking anymore. I want to be a godfather where I could influence and shepherd for change, And that is a huge satisfaction. That's what I feel where finances and this and money never buy, right? It's about finding the purpose. ⁓ Marci Grossman (21:45) that makes sense. Let's go back to the financials because I'm assuming from what you said you didn't learn about money growing up. When did you learn? How did you learn? And what is your feeling now other than, well I don't need all of it, and the generosity of giving and charitable. Andy (22:04) Of course, we talked about detachment, but I would be a very within the bell curve answer right? I've always been optimal. When I had a lot of money in the bank from Blackstone those days and consulting days, I still was not a, I never spent. I'm not a spender, right? I love two things, materialistically. I used to, I still love I think, travel and food. When I travel, I gift myself with a good accommodation, a good clean bathroom that I can go to, which I can, okay, and I sleep on a good bed. Materialistic, I know. Okay, but when I travel and when I eat, these two, I never... give up, right? In my thing. I never had to think. So, yes, to answer your question, I never even have to think about the math. What I have in the bank, how much I should spend, how much I should give in stocks, I should give it the real estate. I never thought about this. Money came in, I saved, I went up the ladder, and suddenly 2020 arrives. My brain cells get cracked. I want to leave a very decent job in IBM to start an entrepreneurship. The whole shift of financial learning. Do you think between the last 15 years before I did a startup, I did not learn finance? Of course I learned, right? Money coming in, how to manage, take care of my mom, dad, take care of other loans, and this and that. I had a Duke loan that I paid off very carefully, right? It's all money management, right? But 2020 is different. And I, I found one more partner from IBM. We put together around half a million dollar, And said, hey, let's get started, We built a product from scratch. And I never realized that I will not get that money back in two years. I did a mathematical model, I'm very strong in math, I did a mathematical model that I will get the money back in 2022 December. Three years, 2020, 2021, 2022, three years. And we rest some funds in Bay Area, debt funds mainly, and yeah, we had 1.2 million to start with. I never thought that... I have to take one more loan just to pull for the company because I will lose three programs during COVID. One in automotive, one in CPG, one in retail, all sustainable transformation, zero waste management, transformation programs. All the three are pulled out of us. I hired nine people. I have to let eight people go. Huge timing, learning, losses. And I know what an empty fridge is. I know. October 16th, 2021. I did not have anything in the fridge. I have to call my friend to get some groceries. Then I broke a mutual fund to have some money after that. But anyway, so yeah, life happens. it's an unbelievable experience of... managing the fund for the first 15 years of my career, but I thought I had no finance, then suddenly I don't have anything in the fridge, right? It's, yeah, it's a difficult topic. Marci Grossman (25:18) Okay. Okay, well, so you are in the states now, right? Andy (25:22) I mean, where? Marci Grossman (25:23) You're in the United States? Andy (25:24) Yeah, I live here. I live here all my, I mean, all my mature life. I've done my undergrad and then job and everything here, right? Marci Grossman (25:29) Okay. Okay, so you are now looking at, you know, you said your mid-40s. Well, I mean, we don't have a pension. We don't have a lot of safety net here. So is that changing how you are viewing the future and how you're viewing money so that you're putting away for the future for your own eventual? Andy (25:43) huh. Yeah, that's good point to conclude here, right? So let me kind of give a flavor of, I think I covered more spirituality than finances in this discussion, but for me, it's all about what I need optimally, whom I owe and pay off, have some money for the rainy days and definitely a balanced life. So for me, it is all about to achieve these things, balanced life, good health, good career, paying off the debt. have optimal bank balance to live a good life for the rest of life, Fundamental thing that I need is how do I exit from Amplo Global, which is doing well now, by the way, have some good news, it's doing well in the last one year. We shifted more in supply chain now, so more than sustainability, so it's doing well. exit and really make a mark in us more stable, at least for next five years, more stable job. So that's where my head is. And making sure that I completely, I keep saying this, completely rebuild my corpus. That's what my head right now is. And I feel like that will give me a lot of stability with the learning I have in the last five to 10 years. And I will do a much better job from all angles, relationships, career, health, finances, IQ, EQ balance. It has set the stage for me for the next level of spiritual Marci Grossman (27:23) And you said in the US, we're not really doing much on the sustainability and that's what you had to leave. So the work you're doing now is more on the supply chain and manufacturing. Andy (27:27) Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm doing more work around supply chain transparency, visibility, manufacturing, but there's always a tinge of sustainability in it. Like one of the deals we are working on right now is manufacturing with zero waste. So the manufacturer they want to manage those scraps pretty well, right? So I'm doing much more consummation work with a sustainability in the mix than saying I'm doing sustainable consummation, right? Nobody's buying sustainable right now in the market. Nobody in the US, right? It's just a nice to have. Yeah. Marci Grossman (28:10) And how does AI impact what you are doing? Andy (28:12) A lot, a lot. So great question. So from a purpose of driving entrepreneurship exit, luckily, one of the six IPs we have, one is on AI, which we visioned in We do a financial simulation. Finance doesn't go well with me, of course, but it's a financial modeling we do on environmental, social, and governance, that's we started. Now we say we do supply chain finance modeling. So we will say that, look, here are the 10 things in supply chain you should do to have a better, cleaner supply chain. So we do a financial modeling. So a lot of AI factors are coming into the mix. We are building agentic AI on the top, a lot of AIs. And we already have a patent on AI. in 2020 when we designed the platform. So we knew AI will be the big thing. So we have an AI portion developed in the code. So hopefully that helps our exit next year. But yeah, to answer your question more deeply is it will shift the industry for the next five to 10 years. More human input to make it more ethical. Once we make it ethical, it will shift the industry in a better way. Marci Grossman (29:18) Okay, so you think that will create opportunity for you? Andy (29:22) Absolutely it will. I mean, I'm telling you there's a reason why there's a human interaction, emotions still exist. exist. The thoughtfulness will change. We all have to go through upscaling. That has to happen, has to happen, right? If you're not upscaling, you will lose. I know that this time, I know that very well. So with upscaling in mind, I feel like we'll have a lot of better opportunities. I'm very bullish. Marci Grossman (29:52) Well that's good to hear. Do you have anything you'd like to talk about that maybe we didn't cover? Andy (29:57) No, I think the way I would like to summarize it's a more rhetoric than question. Marci, first of all, I would thank you for your time and hopefully I have given enough emotional factors and non-emotional factors for the audiences and the listeners to analyze. The way I will summarize this, Marci, is threefold. One Know yourself very well. At 40, if you know yourself very well, it's huge success, which has a component of why you're born, what's your strengths, what's your weaknesses, you cannot do everything in one life, what are the top three things you will do. Know yourself. Number one, which includes a solid input to the financial decision. Number two, the way I will summarize is, if you are passionate on something, please do it. give it 100 % into it, even financially. I know some people will not agree, but I am like that of a person. I've given all in. Third, just know when to exit. From relationship, entrepreneurship, you know when to exit. So I have been and do it more rationally, right? So know yourself, give it all, know when to exit. If we can take this as three inputs, three triangle, like all interconnected, I think we will be able to make our life simpler, which is the most difficult thing to do. That's my rhetoric. Marci Grossman (31:25) Well, that sounds great. Andy, thank you so much for being my guest today. We appreciate you taking the time to join us here. Andy (31:32) Thank you, thank you, Marci. Marci Grossman (31:34) And to my listeners, I will be sharing a link to Andy's information in the show notes. Check him out, he shares a lot of interesting information. And don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review and stay tuned. I'll see you next time. This has been MoneyMarci on Marci Talks Money, (and Life). Marci Grossman (31:51) You got this.