Latest / Big Swing Podcast / Big Swing: Turning Ambiguity into Impact with Hari Dutt | Episode 7

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Big Swing: Turning Ambiguity into Impact with Hari Dutt | Episode 7 · Big Swing Podcast

• Jeremy Funk (00:02.243) Okay, we are back swinging big on the big swing podcast recording on a Monday this week Thanks to my ever-present Technical issues. Let's hope this goes off without a hitch. Who knows though. We'll see I got my man Hari Dutt, honey I think is probably the appropriate pronunciation but somebody that I worked with and Love had a ton of respect for really enjoyed working together flying all over the country helping In the earlier days of Seven Lakes and the go-to-market team, lots of large projects, big challenges. Yeah, man, what a time that was. It was like a bit of a roller coaster, a bit of a rocket ship. A lot of long days, a lot of time in California and Houston and Denver and Oklahoma and all that. was a good time, man, but really excited to have you on. Big swing, Corey, good to see you. I know we had a little bit of gap in the recordings. You went out to connections. I had some days that didn't make recording possible. So love being back with you behind the mic, recording an episode with my man, Hari Dutt. Corey Scott (01:19.03) Yeah, excited to have Hurry on. I mean, look, it's been a couple of weeks, but I feel like we put the mic back on. We're kind of back home. You know, it feels good with it. So I know you and I have a number of guests lined up coming up over the next few weeks. So we'll make sure for the listeners that the recording and everything is a little more consistent coming up over the next month in a bit. So super excited to kick it back off with, with Hurry here. Jeremy Funk (01:19.407) I'll throw it to you. Corey Scott (01:46.014) And obviously just getting into a little bit more. mean, Jeremy, you've, you've talked about him in the past, just in our relationship and, know, the time at seven lakes. So I'm really looking forward to the episode here. Jeremy Funk (01:46.536) yeah. Jeremy Funk (01:55.879) beauty of me having technical difficulties is the two of you can actually get to know each other a little bit, right? So I'm here logging out, restarting my computer, trying to figure it out. You guys are like, so yeah, who are you? Anyways, hurry, we'll throw it to you, man. Gotta hit you with the toughest question first, but who are you, man? Who is Hari Dutt? Hari Dutt (02:01.473) Yeah. Hari Dutt (02:08.395) Yeah Hari Dutt (02:14.261) Well, thanks Jeremy, thank you Corey for inviting me here and giving me the space to tell my story as well. Really appreciate it and you know, it's not always that you get to sit with friends and have a discussion and just chill out for a full hour and do nothing else, right? So really happy to be here, thank you again. Jeremy Funk (02:35.409) Shit, we're doing an hour? Crap, I better clear my schedule. All right. Hari Dutt (02:38.669) Now, you know, I kind of started out small. I lived in a very, I grew up in a very hyper competitive world back in India. Undergrad was pretty competitive as well. I went to one of the most competitive schools in India and did my engineering in material sciences and metallurgical engineering. Jumped into Schlumberger from there. I was there at Schlumberger for six years. That was a big learning experience for me. So I know that's been one of the key inflection points for me, right? As I kind of think back and think about what has happened over my life, I think two things really stand out. One is obviously all the wonderful experiences I've had, good, bad, ugly. think they've all been very... defining towards my character. And I think the other is, when I was growing up, my parents used to always instill that work ethic with me. So that was great. Two things, work hard and be kind. I think that's served me well over my years. And yeah, I kind of leave it there. We can jump in a little bit more details as well. So yeah. Jeremy Funk (04:02.759) Work hard, be kind, and drink a lot of coffee. That's one thing that I got from you as well, just to get you through. So when did you come over to the US? I know you went to IIT, which was introduced to me as the MIT of India. But there's a few of them all over the country. And now there's like triple IT, which is also making some waves. I remember Nuresh Panda went there, and he's like, actually, it's kind of like the hotter thing right now. Hari Dutt (04:07.723) Yeah. Hari Dutt (04:29.581) Right, Yeah. He'd like to say that, sure. Yeah. Yeah, it was about. Yeah, yeah, it was about one or two percent. It was, you know, you just sit in an exam and then it's countrywide 200,000, 300,000 people apply for it and. Jeremy Funk (04:32.295) there but but IIT super competitive I don't know what the yeah right I don't know the acceptance rate was but it's really low like under 1 % right of people that apply get in you get in yeah Hari Dutt (04:56.511) At the time back in 2000 when I gave it the exam, they had about 4,500 seats or so. those were the only, if you've made it in the rank, then you've got a seat. Otherwise, tough luck. But yeah, mean, think overall it's been, sorry, overall. Jeremy Funk (05:21.991) don't worry, Cory. Cory's in Houston. He just had an ambulance ripping by his office. Just another day in Houston. You live there. You know what the deal is. Hari Dutt (05:27.596) Okay. Right, right, Yeah, yeah, I was expecting more to hear it in New York, right? Sorry, I kind of lost my train of thought. You asked me about... Jeremy Funk (05:34.873) Yeah, right. Yeah. No, no, no. you, you, yeah, I wanted to know when, you know, you went from IIT and then you went to Schlumberger. So when did you come over to the U S and was your first experience in the U S working in, in oil and gas, or was there something in between like walk me through sort of that transition from growing up in India, going to super competitive technical school, getting out, then what, what's 22 year old Hari dot doing in this world? Hari Dutt (05:47.497) Right, right, Hari Dutt (05:51.915) Yeah. Hari Dutt (05:55.927) Sure. Hari Dutt (06:01.793) Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I got hired on with Slumber Shave back at IIT through campus recruitment. So which was a big deal back then, you know, it was one of the coveted companies to work for. My first posting was actually in Newfoundland, Canada. So I went there, I was working in the North Atlantic. on projects in, know, Glomar Grand Banks and Hibernia projects as well. So it was a very interesting time in my life. Very exciting as an engineer, you know, newly minted engineer coming out, seeing all these huge things that are out in the field, going to work in a helicopter. Very exciting as a young person. I got transferred to the US in 2008. And I moved to a small town called Houma outside of New Orleans in Louisiana. And I was working in the Gulf at the time. So I was going offshore for a bunch of companies at that time, know, Shell, BP, et cetera, as well. I was working on what was called reservoir monitoring and control. So we were putting in flow control valves. were putting in pressure and temperature gauges. Though, you know, that sounds very glamorized. The core part of the job was what we call clamping. So there was this wire which was like 10,000, 20,000 feet long that goes in the hole and at every joint you got to put a clamp on and drill, you know, the screw closed. And that was basically 12 hours of the day. Just doing that for four days a week, you know. But. Jeremy Funk (07:48.817) Hahaha Hari Dutt (07:51.266) You know, we had like the pressure testing and all of the other cool stuff happening, but this was majority of the job. Then I kind of moved into a more of an operations role. was engineer in charge at the Homa base for RMC, Reservoir Monitoring and Control for about a year and some. And then I got transferred into sales, which was, I mean, by far sales is like the toughest job I've ever done. It's such a hard job to be rejected, but still carry on and keep your chin up and keep doing it over and over again. It's a tough job. And I think that's when I decided I didn't know enough business in a sense. Most of my upbringing was engineering, mathematics, science, those kinds of things. I didn't know enough about business. So I had the... good fortune and opportunity to go to MIT Sloan for my business school. And yeah, I was there for a couple of years and that's when after I graduated in 2013, the Seven Lakes story began. Yeah. Corey Scott (09:05.822) I'm kind of curious real quick. First off, shout out to the Newfies up in Newfoundland. How was that real quick? Like the first week just hearing them speak really fast, every word kind of runs together. Like I know us Southerners don't have much to talk because we all have our dialects and everything, but how was that experience in Newfoundland? Hari Dutt (09:12.715) What a... my god, such a... Hari Dutt (09:26.389) I think, I mean, was a wonderful, wonderful time. it was such a beautiful place and the people were so nice. It was, I am in a way glad that, you know, my first step outside of India was Newfoundland because people were very warm. I mean, the weather was extremely cold. I was wearing jackets in June, but people were so warm and welcoming. It was just absolutely wonderful. Jeremy Funk (09:49.148) Right. Corey Scott (09:55.36) I think in my other question, I know you've only kind of covered just the start of it until you kind of get to the tech company world, the dark side. Any idea, you're sitting here, full engineer background, working in engineering role, and they tap you and say, your next line of work should be sales. Kind of how did that come about? Were you kind of already talking about that with them, or were you kind of surprised that that came to you as kind of the next position for you? Hari Dutt (10:15.084) Yeah. Corey Scott (10:25.362) I'm kind of curious how they quickly pivoted you from clamping over to the sell side. Hari Dutt (10:27.115) Yeah, yeah. Hari Dutt (10:32.845) I don't know. was, you know, like the engineer in charge role was more ops management. So I stopped going offshore. I stopped, started managing a portion of the P and L and I was helping out the field service manager who was my boss at the time, managing all the folks there, managing all the operations, insuring all inventory was all accounted for all the time. So I was kind of getting into the ops kind of thing. So I was maybe slightly surprised that I got tapped in for sales, but the role had opened up and I think they were looking to expand the team and needed somebody technical on the team as well. So I got pulled in for that, yeah. Jeremy Funk (11:16.667) Yeah, I could see it. mean, you had the work ethic. You certainly had the education and then you you lived it right like you were you were on offshore rigs before we moved to the post MIT stuff. I just got to know like what is it like working on an offshore rig? I never did it. I know certainly some of our listeners probably have. It's a bit of a rite of passage, I think for some people to get that like badge of honor in the in the oil patch. Corey and I would just You know, we just sit at desks and we sell stuff now. But I'm curious, like, what was it like? mean, I remember you telling me one time, like you didn't sleep for 24 hours straight type of thing. mean, it sounds brutally difficult. I'm hoping well paying. But like, what was it like living on an offshore platform? Hari Dutt (12:04.845) I mean, for a 22, 23 year old, it was extremely well paying. And I don't want to say I didn't sleep for so long, because obviously there are safety implications. I wouldn't say it even then. Just a wink, wink. it was a tough job. It was a tough job. were... Jeremy Funk (12:23.352) Yeah Corey Scott (12:24.628) Hahaha Hari Dutt (12:31.277) But it built so much camaraderie. I mean, we would hang out with the same people. We would, you know, in the office, outside of the office, especially me, because I didn't know anybody else outside of the company. So I was always hanging out. And then I remember, you know, my first time offshore, my shift lead, he told me, you know what, if somebody asks you to go find the key to the WeDoor, don't do it. There's no such thing. So just be careful. Jeremy Funk (12:58.481) that. Hari Dutt (13:01.015) So they were pretty nice and sure enough, somebody asked me to go find it. I said, okay, and I took a break and came back five minutes later and said couldn't find it. But it was fun times. mean, think everybody there is very safety conscious. Everybody there is working really hard. The one thing that I've taken away from all of that is, Jeremy Funk (13:08.687) Yeah. Hari Dutt (13:30.233) I don't know, I it's almost like obsession now. I check my door two, three times. check everything is, know, the gas is off two, three times. I feel like I didn't have those quirks before, before slumber day and going offshore, but just double checking, triple checking, everything became just a norm in my life, right? So that's, I think that's, that's become, that's something taken away from it. Jeremy Funk (13:53.755) And did you like Boston? I mean, certainly a change of pace from both Newfoundland, India and Louisiana, right? But obviously my heart's there. You see all the stuff behind me. You know I'm from there. Corey loves it out there too, especially Cape Cod. parts of Cape Cod, I should say. But yeah, you loved it. Hari Dutt (14:02.059) Yeah. Corey Scott (14:13.131) arts. Jeremy Funk (14:15.559) Right? Like Boston was a good fit for you. Did you find some good Indian restaurants? Did you make some good friends there? Were you just doing schoolwork all the time? Like I know MIT has a reputation for there's no easy classes there. And you were in the business school. But talk to me about your experience at Boston and going to MIT. Hari Dutt (14:18.764) Yeah. Hari Dutt (14:32.653) It was, I mean, again, I mean, it was wonderful. mean, people were, I knew a bunch of my classmates before even getting to Boston. I had been to Boston to visit the school once, which was great. Though I'd gone there in the dead of winter, so I wasn't excited about that portion of it. But with like four feet of snow on the ground, but just reminded me of Newfoundland days. know, the Boston was great. In my mind, when I first thought about Boston, I thought it was a much bigger city than it actually is. You get there and you realize it's actually a very small, compact city with huge suburbs that kind of fit into the ecosystem, right? And being at MIT, mean, the energy was always palpable, right? there was always something going on. You'd go to the bar and people were talking about, you know, it's a bar called Muddy Charles and you get two dollar beers. Well, I don't know now, but it used to be two dollar beers. but it was was it was it was great. mean, you just sit down and you have these really intellectually stimulating conversations with people from all kinds of backgrounds. You know, one of my classmates had been a veteran. He was in my team. He was great. He had so many stories to tell us about his time in the military. We had somebody from the Navy. had a lot of people from previously consulting background now doing, know, so there were all kinds of people from all different walks of life. It was just absolutely wonderful to meet and talk to them and learn about what all of them were doing. Some of them were like, pro athletes who would come to business school. Some of them were doctors who would actually come to the school. It was just incredible, the talent pool that was there. And there was always something going on, and being a student, just revisiting student life, just going to anywhere where there was free pizza and learn something new, that was a great experience as well. Hari Dutt (16:55.917) Yeah, yeah, yeah. But... Corey Scott (16:57.364) I think Jeremy did like, you we had a win on not too long ago, With attending Princeton. And not only did you have just obviously a lot of people with high IQ and high intellect, but you just talked about how competitive they were. So I'm sure you obviously had that same experience in seeing those. And just by the type of people you talked about with that type of background, very motivated, very driven, I'm sure it was a very competitive landscape. And you probably saw that through the people you interacted with. Hari Dutt (17:29.805) Yeah, no, I do think a lot of people came from a very competitive background, but Sloan was very selective. It chose people who were also collaborative. So, you know, there was a lot of great teamwork that happened. I can't think of a single person who I wouldn't be on a team with because, you know, they were all so great as part of a team as well. Everybody was super competent on their own, but as part of a team, know, one plus one became 11. So that was always the mantra there. yeah. Jeremy Funk (18:08.945) Did you go from MIT to Seven Lakes or was there something in between? Hari Dutt (18:16.109) No, it's, I don't know if you remember Jimmy. Yeah, so Jimmy, Jimmy sent me a message and said, I was still at Sloan and he messaged me and asked if I'd be interested in chatting with seven lakes at a time. I was like, sure, because they were all as well, know, Shiva's from Bombay, Jimmy was from IIT Madras, same as mine. So. He asked to talk and I was like absolutely. And then we got the ball rolling. I got there and the same day that I got there, did the interview, Shiva offered me a job and I was like, okay, let's do it. And yeah, I moved to LA after that. It was very, very quick. So, yeah. Jeremy Funk (18:59.921) Yeah, yeah, man. No, I remember that. And I remember like the next day she was like, dude, I got this guy hurry, like just you got to get this guy on some projects, man, this guy's a beast. And I'm like, all right, because it was it was a small company at that point. You know, I mean, I don't know how many people were there when you joined 15, 20, something like that. I mean, it wasn't it wasn't a lot. You were one of the earlier like sort of like of the non original Chevron crew, I feel like, to come on in the early growth phase. Hari Dutt (19:17.291) Yeah. Hari Dutt (19:20.673) Yeah. Hari Dutt (19:25.548) Nope. Right, right, right. Yeah, there was... It was about 20 people-ish. Yeah, I think that's about right. Jeremy Funk (19:34.703) Yeah It wasn't long after I came on, right? They knew they had something and wanted to go to market. So naturally they hired a sales guy and then, well, now we need people that can deliver at the, you know, the level that, that Jimmy wants, that Shiva wants, that, you know, the, that the company would expect. And we had, you and I spent a lot of time together because there weren't that many people that were going out in front of people in like the pre-sales process. But then you would also do some delivery and project management ultimately led to. Hari Dutt (20:03.915) Right. Jeremy Funk (20:06.907) product management, but there were a lot of things like, I mean, how many IIT guys in the US that had oil and gas background that wanted to work for a startup, you know what mean? Like you had a lot of things that put you in position to be the right resource for that. And you moved to LA and very quickly, it's like you're in LA, but you're flying to Houston, Oklahoma city, Denver, Dallas, like, you know. Hari Dutt (20:29.943) Yeah. I remember like the year 2015 I spent I think 200 days, almost 200 days outside of LA. I was catching flights every week and then there were some weeks that we would do Denver, Oklahoma and Houston all three in one week. It was a crazy ride and I remember that year 2015 Shiva said, hey, you got to come to the Christmas party. got to come to the Christmas party. I was like, I'm in Houston right now. And tomorrow I'm flying to Tanzania for my vacation. Right. And he was like, no, no, you got to just make it just change the ticket. I'm going to pay for it. So he had me come. I got in there. I still have the iPad that he gave me that year. You know, it's a pretty cool. Yeah. Jeremy Funk (21:29.794) yeah, yeah, you won employee of the year or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hari Dutt (21:33.004) Yeah, but I remember just the love and the warmth of the team that supported this entire journey. It always stayed with me. So she was like, no, no, you gotta come, you gotta come. And that was a big deal for me as well. But I went back and I went to Tanzania, climbed Kilimanjaro that year. It was a great year. Jeremy Funk (22:04.347) fantastic memories. Corey, one more thing and I'll let you jump in. But just thinking back to that time, I was there 2013 to 2017, a lot of changes in that time. think bringing on investors a pretty significant series A, like crazy revenue growth trajectory in a short period of time. And then it coincided in 2016 with a market crash, like commodity price crash. And that put a lot of strain and pressure, I think, on the organization as a whole. And I left not too long after that. It was just a different company on the sales side, know, shifted more to products versus selling the services. After I left, right, 2017 ish, how did your role adapt and change? Did you move more from like, you know, consultant project manager execution to more like product manager lead? Like talk to me about sort of the evolution because in the early stages of a startup, you just sort of do everything. You're everywhere. Hari Dutt (22:59.883) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jeremy Funk (23:00.263) You are all different hats. then, OK, we're not a service company. We're a products company. Where did your career path take you kind of 2017 up until the acquisition and then things to follow? Hari Dutt (23:10.781) Right, right, right. And I think the story starts in 2015, 2016, like you said, right? We kind of decided that FDG was going to be the mainstay of our business, but that's how we were gonna push product. There was also the analytics piece that we were working on at the time, but FDG was already ready, so that's what we went after. So I kind of handed off FDG. around 2015, 2016, and that's when I started working on that. I think initially, if you remember, most of our contracts were all services contracts. We eventually kind of had to shift them all to product, kind of rethink how we do SaaS. So that journey of really becoming a product manager started back in late 2015 to, know, and by 2017, 2018, know, we, Srivam, you know, Srivam was there. got shivun in and we were building product together, building out full FDG, building out JOIN2, which eventually became JOINFSM. And then by 2020, I got tapped in to pull in production accounting as well. So started building production accounting as well. The company changed, I think, in the sense of we became... hyper-focused on the product itself. I think the core mantra of being focused on the customer never changed, but we became hyper-focused on product. How do we make it easier? How do we make it faster? How do we add? Even back then, I think we were talking about AI in the sense of machine learning with routing engines and computer vision with ticket recognition in the field. And we brought all of that on mobile, which I think was... Previously not there in the oil field, right? So by 2020ish, once COVID had hit, things had kinda slightly slowed down for us, I think, we were still the one, know, the product, the biggest thing about product is recurring revenue. So that we had, we had like large customers, I don't wanna name them here, but. Hari Dutt (25:31.958) You know who they are, like pretty huge customers in the oil field. as far as I recall, most of them were very happy with us and always kind of good references for JOIN, JOIN FTG. We also started doing a bunch of integrations. We were always really good at integrations, but. as FDG kind of the scope increased, we added more and more integrations across the board. We actually launched an integration product associated with it. So, I mean, I think our portfolio became pretty expansive across the oil field, right? And I think that's kind of what led to the eventual acquisition, which in 2022, I think that's what it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but my role overall, I mean, it... it kind of evolved from being fully services back in 2013 when I first joined, to being fully product oriented, go to market and doing that piece, right? So, well. Corey Scott (26:40.182) And I'm curious, right, Jeremy, said, of course, as a startup, you're wearing a... bunch of different hats. You just got there yourself to the fire. You know, her, you, you got to experience a lot of different things, right? I think people are still trying to figure out SAS kind of in that 2015 type timeframe, right? you guys were shifting a little bit, you know, within your business as, as well, right? You had a services component, you the product component, you wore different hats, kind of looking back, what was, you know, and I know this leads to kind of a little bit probably where you are today too, right? But what was your biggest takeaway from your experience at seven lakes? Cause it seemed like you had, A lot of different roles, lot of different opportunities. You saw something somewhat small, around 20 people, right? Grow with hyper focus, both from customer base to the number of people probably working there. So every year is a little bit different when you're going through that growth phase. What would you say to listeners was one of your biggest takeaway? Hari Dutt (27:34.626) Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's a great question. What I learned, right, at Seven Lakes was the focus on customer and being customer centric when you're building our product, Previously, if I compare it to my slumper share business days, we were focused on safety and quality delivery. Seven Lakes obviously focused on the quality of delivery. Safety was not... that bigger concern for us, you know, doing software. security, obviously, was a huge deal. overall, the customer-centricity, where, you know, it matters who the customer is and what they exactly want delivered and how it actually improves their lives, I think became central to me. And I think the other thing that was a... big takeaway for me is how to actually thrive in ambiguity, right? Because there was a lot of ups and downs and I'm sure Jeremy remembers, we would have ups and downs through every single deal, right? And just living through that ambiguity and figuring out how to actually move forward and take the next step, I think was extremely important learnings. So those two things I would say are the key takeaways that still help me today. Jeremy Funk (28:35.121) Yeah. Jeremy Funk (29:00.807) Dude, mean, those are really valuable takeaways. And I'm going to throw a question to you, Corey, in a second. But I want to answer that for myself, because that to me was the most formidable part of my career as well, where I really learned sort of what excellence could look like from a delivery perspective and just turning creative thought into a tangible product quickly. But a lot of ambiguity for sure and a little bit of chaos. And I think that for me, I had the most fun in the early rise. I liked that early stage. And when things started to become much more formulaic, more segmented, more focused on we have less things to sell, there's more growth, it wasn't as fun for me. You know what I mean? So I think those learnings were like, that's important for me to know. I'm more of a startup guy than a scale up guy. Right. And I think that was something that I took away, like just personally, like, man, the most fun that I had was actually in the chaos, like in that Wild West phase. And for me, that was super fun. But to turn it back to you guys, both of you were at companies in oil and gas tech that were acquired. I want to understand a little bit more. Now, Corey, you were acquired by a much larger company than the one that that Hari was acquired by, which was W. But I'm curious, in that transition, was it just business as usual for you guys? Or was it business as usual for a little while? And then things started to really shift and change. Talk to me about some of the learnings in you built something, you take pride in what you built. The next day, you've got a different email address, you're working for a completely new company, new CEO. What's that like? Corey Scott (30:54.144) Well, I think it can depend in a few ways for us, you know, specifically like, with a company, right? They, most people worked remote, so we were able to keep our same office for the few of us. Right. so assimilating in the company, I would say. for our acquisition, specifically it started very slow. So it didn't feel like today as Red Dog Systems, it's, it was what it was for 10 years and tomorrow it's completely different, right? I'd say months went by before we started kind of getting assimilated in the culture, and also integrated within their, their verticals of how they ran their business. Right. I think they had a good approach, you know, as you, you, kind of bring on a new division and you make different acquisitions, right? You want to make sure that those acquisitions integrate correctly for what you're bringing them on into your business for. But then ultimately, once those companies are integrated over time and some take longer than others, then you start bringing them under, know, sales people roll under sales, product roles under the broader product marketing or the product division. the technical division, right? But for the first little while, everyone still kind of stayed as that company, right? Until we could kind of assimilate. I would say though, there was others that it was like, hey, we acquired you and like day one, here's this 90 day plan of getting integrated, right? And so some had to hit it a little bit harder than others. So, and that's just the nature of it, right? They can't let it run completely siloed forever, but that was the experience I had on mine. Jeremy Funk (32:23.281) Yeah. Jeremy Funk (32:33.831) Bye bye, you hurry. Hari Dutt (32:35.39) Yeah, I mean the technology side of things I think ran separate for a bit. I spent a lot of energy on figuring out how to integrate those pieces together. That became my mandate, but just the early days, it was a big change for me, right? Because people I was reporting to were no longer there. and my team remained the same. So on a day-to-day basis, the people that I was working with on the engineering and those kinds of things remained exactly the same, but on the sales and strategy and the product positioning and those pieces completely changed. I remember going out there, I think it was week one or week two, we went for a deal in Oklahoma City. We had to go out there and pitch. was a pretty big RFP going on. We went and pitched everything. And this was week one and I'm meeting some of the team members at W for the first time there, right? At the pitch. So some things were slower to integrate like Corey said, but some things were really fast and yeah, I mean, I got tapped in. to help integrate the two systems together. So building out the data layer and those pieces. So the next six months is, that's how I spent, you know, a majority of my time. But I think one thing that again, from the seven lakes days that really helped me is, you know, I'm not, I was never the person who would go out and proactively talk to people. That was not my strong suit. So sales was, that's why it was really, really tough for me at the time. but I think at seven lakes, I, I had to do it to a certain extent, especially early on. Jeremy would drag me everywhere and I'd have to talk to people. right. Yeah. So I, and, no, I, I, took that, took away from that. And, I think it w I was, I set up all the calls initially to talk to each and everybody across the product spectrum so I could learn what they were doing. And I kind of mapped all of that out. Jeremy Funk (34:27.943) Sorry. I had to show you the country, man. Hari Dutt (34:49.527) So it put me in a great position to actually, when they asked me to do the integration, kind of jump into that free as well. So I guess if I had to take one thing there that I learned from you is to not be bashful and talk to people when there needs to be done, yeah. Jeremy Funk (35:06.663) Well, appreciate it. Corey Scott (35:07.028) Learn to get comfortable with the uncomfortable, as they say, right? Hari Dutt (35:09.813) Right? Right? Yeah. Jeremy Funk (35:10.885) Yeah. Well, when did you move to New York in that whole process? Hari Dutt (35:16.967) New York. Well, I met my wife now in 2017 in New York and I'd started commuting to New York two weeks out of the month from LA September that year. And by January, no, February, I told Shiva, Shiva, I got to move to New York. My pocket can't afford, you know. Jeremy Funk (35:32.016) wow. Jeremy Funk (35:43.836) Yeah. Hari Dutt (35:44.238) traveling to New York every month. He was so cool with it. I'm always grateful to him for that as well. He let me move. I got married to her in 2019. We got engaged in 2018 soon after I moved. In 2019, I got married. It's been great, man. New York City has been an awesome ride. The one thing I miss is my Jeep from Houston. and LA but yeah, but other than that everything's been, you know, really good. Corey Scott (36:22.528) change the jeep for subway train stations I guess. Jeremy Funk (36:22.801) Nice. Hari Dutt (36:25.419) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The red interior of my Jeep is not the same as the red interior of the subway. It's two different things, but yeah. Corey Scott (36:29.237) Bye. Jeremy Funk (36:33.29) Yeah. Corey Scott (36:38.902) I was going to ask just, I know we want to kind of move to what's kind of current state for you, but you know, you had a lot of exposure right there at seven lakes and a little bit of a sunbeje. mean, but from the tech side, it seems like you had a lot of customer facing sales, um, you know, opportunity, but then you also had the ability to go back, work with the product team, the developers to just build internally, if you will, you know, where, where, um, Jeremy Funk (36:42.46) Yeah. Corey Scott (37:06.21) Looking back, which one did you really prefer more than the others? I know you said, there's a little comfort on the sales side, maybe one in the strong suit. But when you look back, did you enjoy that more at times than just working with the guys internally or which was your preference? Hari Dutt (37:20.833) Yeah, I mean, I think my, really enjoyed both sides of it, to be honest, in retrospect, because I realized what I truly value is having an impact. And I realized that I couldn't have had an impact without one or the other, right? I needed both of those things to make a truly an impact within the organization that I was working for and for the customer. So. I really enjoyed sessions where we were doing solutioning, right? We would sit, we would draw all kinds of stuff on the whiteboard. I really enjoyed those sessions because it was just problem solving. I really enjoyed translating that to engineering teams as well. And then looking at how it actually all materializes out of nothing. And then going back to the customer and seeing some of them say, hey, this is gonna change. how many hours a day I have to work, and this is really impactful for me. And those things kind of really made the day and made the difference. Jeremy Funk (38:26.813) Talk about the post, I guess, oil and gas phase. I mean, you really had a pretty significant run in oil and gas. I know you did the MIT Sloan thing there to break it up a little bit, but you were on the services side. You're on the consulting side. You're on the technology product side at a company that got acquired. You moved to New York. Obviously not a ton of oil and gas stuff there. You leave W Energy Software at some point, and I saw you popping up at various different startups. right? non-oiling gas tech startups, but tech companies. What's the past few years been like for you? And then sort of what led you to taking all these learnings and now launching your own firm? And let's talk about what you're doing with Turing Pilgrim today. Hari Dutt (38:55.49) Good night. Hari Dutt (39:09.857) Yeah, yeah, no, thank you for that. Yeah, last couple of years post W, I kind of joined a startup which was doing healthcare supply chain. And we were building a multi-agent workflow, right? That was kind of the end game for us at that point in time. So I kind of helped build that entire team, the engineering team, put that together, helped kind of flush out the product. vision, the roadmap, all of those pieces. And at some point I realized, I mean, they don't necessarily need me anymore to do anything. So kind of decided to part ways. And then for the last year, spent my year kind of talking to other startups, advising on how they should be working on. realizing certain market opportunities, on, you know, just playing with AI as it stands today and experimenting how we can build things, researching how adoption and, what do call it? How adoption and building out AI agents in the field and in operations can really have an impact. And so I spent a lot of time doing that. And the fruit of that, as you might say, is the Turing Pilgrim LLC that I started a few weeks ago. Though I'd been mulling over the idea for about a year, I started writing in February last year around it. And even though I was exploring a lot of different places, a lot of different things, the true line across the board had always been, do I help operations? Right, coming from an operations background, coming from a tech background, you know, how do I use tech to help operations become better and really impact the bottom line? That was kind of the true line the entire way around. And really coming to Turing Pilgrim, that's the mission that we have at Turing Pilgrim is how do we actually use AI to drive value in mission critical systems and mission critical operations, right? Hari Dutt (41:32.821) So that's the idea behind it. Jeremy Funk (41:37.127) Which I think is pretty, I think it's dope. And I'm glad that you're taking this big swing. And we'll get to the question that we always have to ask. But McCrory, think we already know the answer, right? He's going off on his own like right now. But I think a lot of companies are attacking AI from a document perspective or a back office workflow perspective. Or how can I implement something that helps somebody that's on a computer in an office, right? And the way that we engage on a personal level with AI and agents is generally through our devices and from our homes or if we need to ask it a question. But you're taking the approach of you are going to help, at least correct me if I'm wrong, operational mission critical in the field systems and how to best leverage AI to make the most of those systems. Hari Dutt (42:32.436) Right. Jeremy Funk (42:32.805) That's a different challenge to me. And I don't think that that's a space that people are going after quite as much. And Corey, maybe you see this a little bit too with what you're doing, right? I mean, you represent an invoicing platform today that's got all different bells and whistles and AI built into it, right? And that's common. It's almost like you have to do that to be able to survive. But I think there's still a mindset of at least in the operational sector in the field. Well, it sort of has what it has and there'll be tech evolutions and all that, but But you're attacking this from the perspective of that's actually where you can make the most impact financially, safety, performance, optimization wise is actually in the field. So that's a different challenge. I think that most people are going after. And I'm sort of curious how you're going to, how you're to do that. Like, like, what does that look like? And maybe you don't know, maybe it's still coming together and putting you on the spot, but I don't know. I think it's, it's an area that you'll do well with. Your background leads nicely to it. think it fundamentally makes sense. How do you actually implement? Hari Dutt (43:36.162) Yeah. I think true change will only come when we tackle hard problems, right? And I feel like the operations portion of it is the hardest problem there is. In companies like oil and gas, in energy, in infrastructure, these are all physical assets. You need stuff done, right? It's not just, you know, make my email pretty and send it out. I'm not saying anything wrong with that. just makes life easier, but it doesn't move the bottom line for the company, right? So have I figured out what exactly to attack? I feel like it's a different answer for each company, right? What is the most valuable operations that they're doing? How do we actually break that down into small pieces that we can deliver? which pieces are they likely to adopt, right, in the field? know, trust doesn't come easy in the field as you know, right? Even when we were selling FDG, trust was not easy. And there was nothing, there was nothing like massively different from them entering data on a laptop versus them entering data on a mobile phone from a, you know, end perspective, but it made a massive difference to their day. It made a massive difference to, you know, how they thought about things, but the initial push to get them to use of a mobile app was a big challenge in the field, right? And adoption was a challenging thing as well. And I feel like it's gonna be very similar in that sense, that AI may be able to make a significant impact, but figuring out what is the most valuable piece, figuring out how do we actually execute on that and how do we actually make it adoption friendly in the field. those are going to be critical. And how do we build the overall trust of any organization that is planning to deliver that AI to the field, right? Whether that be internal IT or whether that be an external vendor, how do you build that trust, right? So that's kind of my thought process as I think through this, just applying product 101 to how AI should be adopted in the field, right? And thinking, breaking problems down, yeah. Corey Scott (45:56.311) Yeah, I would think it's kind like everybody, you know, is being asked to handle things internally of saying, Hey, mandate is you've got to find a way to optimize your day, optimize process. The board is talking about AI and asking, you know, all of the directors. you know, how are we researching it? Where are we in that AI type journey? And everyone's at different places. There's some that are, you know, researching it every day, every week. They're coming into it saying, I know what we need to focus on. I have an idea. Then there's others that are like, I know we need to do something. I just don't know where to really start in bringing that in. I know kind of the areas we need to go, but that's where it ends, right? Where someone like you could come in and say, okay, that's, that's where I is hurry come in. and say, all right, guys, here's how we need to think about it from this point. So you got to kind of hand me the baton so I can help you guys with this, right? Help me help you a little bit on it. Because I think a lot of people get stuck. They know they got to get there, but everyone's mind is still kind of scratching that surface of how they can really get around it and leverage this new generation of technology to where it can really go. So that's. You know, and you and I were talking a little bit about that before. Obviously the million dollar game of minesweeper is who are the people that know just a little bit, but they really need additional assistance, right? Whether it comes from that consulting piece or leveraging your side to say, here's what we know today, but it's very little on execution. How do we start breaking it down and building a plan around it? You know, so think there's probably still, regardless of the role, anybody's in any company, people kind of get stuck with this, right? Hari Dutt (47:41.291) Yeah. Corey Scott (47:41.637) So that's what I'm trying to think for you, right? How you kind of break through, you're earning that trust, but that way people are saying, hey, from an operations perspective, a field perspective, we know we have to do something even if we don't execute on it, but how do we bring that type of expertise in? And I won't, and I'll kind of buy a second to think about it, but know, Jeremy, it's no different than sales, right? You see all time LinkedIn, bigger sales organizations, right? They have to find ways to do it. They're being mandated on saying, are you bringing AI tools in this, whether it's administrative from sales process or your CRM, but also just kind of on the agents. How are you automating your outbound? How are you trying to get in front of as many people as you can and having your assistants kind of help with you on it? I mean, the list goes on, but people get stuck probably earlier stage, more so than people think. That's what I'm kind of curious, just maybe through some of the conversations you've had, hurry up to this point, or just kind of networking with people, kind of hearing that kind of just what's the overall feel? Do people have a bit of handle on it, but they just don't know how execute? Or where do you find like that pendulum lying right there? Hari Dutt (48:51.189) Yeah, yeah. What I've mostly heard, right, is that, hey, we have been given a mandate to think about AI and how do we actually use it in the company, but we're struggling with areas that are operationally inclined, right? If you're talking about legal or accounting or regulatory or any of those kind of back office pieces. companies have a better handle about how to use AI because there are services offering those pieces already, right? When it comes to operations, there's always that mantra, I'm sure everybody's gonna, you know, gone through it is like, if it ain't broken, don't fix it, right? And if it's working, people don't wanna upset the Apple cart, even though there may be a lot of value behind it. The trick is to figure out Jeremy Funk (49:44.947) Yeah. Hari Dutt (49:50.36) how can I conduct an experiment within a small enough blast radius of a valid bet without actually upsetting the apple cart? And then once I see success, build on top of that. So figuring that small piece out, because most companies I talk to, they're thinking about the whole shebang. How do I kind of change everything from the beginning? But... Jeremy Funk (50:04.713) Mm. Hari Dutt (50:18.601) in operations, it's not gonna be that simple, right? My experience as well as having this conversations that I've had, it's about running these smaller but very focused, not just, just here's access to cloud, go do something. I feel like that doesn't connect directly to ROI, right? Not everybody can be a Google where they give 20 % of their time to people and. they can just go build stuff. Most companies don't have that luxury, right? So they have to kind of think about how, Yeah, so most companies have to think about, yeah, yeah, exactly. And most companies have to think about how does it impact the bottom line? And then that's where I would come in and my expertise is to help bridge that gap and say, okay, how do we actually take this big thing that we wanna change in operations, break it into smaller parts, do the experiment. Jeremy Funk (50:49.427) Yeah. especially s- especially small ones. Hari Dutt (51:17.813) run the success criteria, push it in direction where we actually start adopting it and build that trust through the organization to actually make a huge impact to the bar. Jeremy Funk (51:29.289) Yeah, man. One of the things that you did that really always impressed me was take the as is state. Hari Dutt (51:41.825) Absolutely. Corey Scott (51:52.085) Yeah, I think what we got to do with every every guest on here is we got to have a bold prediction. Now Jeremy and I usually do our bold predictions around sports. just kind of a common ground with it. But we know, guys, they want to come on and talk about a sports prediction, but sometimes it's just any general prediction, right? So I'll kind of leave it open-ended to you, right? Maybe what's one or two big predictions just from your view and opinion, whether it's AI based, whether it's weather based, whether it's anything, we just like to have what those are. Hari Dutt (52:26.733) I have very limited knowledge in sports, so I'll stick to something that I know about. I feel like in the future, it's already happening to a certain extent where tokens, AI tokens have become currency to a certain extent, especially in the tech company. I see that becoming, well. Corey Scott (52:33.994) Yeah. Hari Dutt (52:54.089) I can see a world where that becomes the currency, de facto currency, right? Instead of like Bitcoins and things like that is how many tokens you can use to do your job or, you know, can you give away tokens to buy bread? I don't know. But that feels like where the direction that we're going slowly because these tokens are becoming ever so important. Jeremy Funk (53:20.418) That's a good one. That's dope. Corey Scott (53:20.692) Germany any feedback on the tokens? Hari Dutt (53:20.973) So. Yeah. Jeremy Funk (53:24.792) I buy it 100%. I could see like, if AI starts to really take over everything, we're all going to need tokens, tokens will become a new form of currency. And yeah, people will start bartering for tokens, but it'll be like Bitcoin a little bit too in the early days. But I mean, this is going to have more of a profound and lasting impact. That's a good one. My prediction Corey, as we know, Celtics look good yesterday. I think we can take that chip. Hari Dutt (53:42.187) Yeah. Hari Dutt (53:48.203) Yeah. Corey Scott (53:55.031) I'll tell you, I'll take Spurs-Celtics. I Spurs get it done over the Thunder in the West and we'll leave the rest for the final of the episode, but I think y'all make it to the Championship round. That's my prediction so far. Jeremy Funk (53:57.752) Go. Jeremy Funk (54:04.536) That would be amazing. Yeah, took my son on Saturday to the Nuggets game. That was fun. He got to DAP up Julius Randall, one of the star players on Minnesota. Super awesome highlight. He's never going to watch his hand again. But you know what? If that's if you get to bump fist with an NBA player, so it goes, hurry, where can people find you, man? Where's your website? Can they reach out to you on LinkedIn? Like, how can people get a hold of you and learn more about what you're doing and the amazing impact you can make for organizations around implementing AI? Hari Dutt (54:20.119) Yeah Hari Dutt (54:37.419) Yeah, thank you, Jeremy. My website is Turing Pilgrim like Alan Turing, Turing and Pilgrim like going on a pilgrimage because it's a journey to get from where we are today to the promised land of AI nirvana. So Turing Pilgrim dot com and they can reach me and my email, Hari at Turing Pilgrim dot com. That's H A R I at Turing Pilgrim dot com. Corey Scott (55:05.566) Well Hari, it was a pleasure meeting you. Glad you're able to come on the podcast. I know we had a little bit of difficulties at the start of everything, but appreciate you working through with us. If you got a bill for overtime, just send it to Jeremy. He'll take care of it. Hari Dutt (55:07.671) Thank you, same here. Hari Dutt (55:16.811) Yeah, yeah. And thank you guys for having me on and asking me all these questions, which made me think a lot. So, I appreciate it and looking forward to keeping the conversation alive. Corey Scott (55:30.418) Absolutely. Appreciate it, man. Be good. Hari Dutt (55:33.015) Thank you.