Latest / ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence / Suresh Shankar on A Founder-CEO's Guide to Company Building (#017)

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Suresh Shankar on A Founder-CEO's Guide to Company Building (#017) · ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence

0:00
SPEAKER_02: So you need, I think, a balance inside your company.
0:02
SPEAKER_02: It's not about a left-brain company or a right brain company, right?
0:05
SPEAKER_02: And I think one of the challenges when you build mono monocultures, and I think that's been very true of no criticism of any company out here, but it is true when you have these very, very large Indian IT services companies that are built out, you have a problem with that.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: Because monocultures tend to fail faster because they don't know how to deal with the unexpected.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to a new episode of ContraMind.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: My guest today is Suresh Shankar.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: Suresh is the co-founder and CEO of Crayon Data.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: Over the course of his long career, Suresh has built and led companies advertising marketing, data analytics, and artificial intelligence.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, I couldn't make it as I was not.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: But I have to take a conversation and create a sport by connecting credits by telling stories when creating a company with huge data.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: Suresh is also the host of Later to the Alco, a podcast that focuses on the impact and influence of AI on our personal and professional lives.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: Over to my conversation with Suresh.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: Hi Suresh.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for uh accepting my invitation to be a special guest in our podcast.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: And thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts in this podcast.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: Hey Swami, great to be talking to you and thanks uh for having me on the show.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Suresh.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Suresh, I would like to straight away uh dive in into something that uh you know I've seen from your uh you know work experience, which is you have been for the last three decades, if you if I see, uh you have been uh you know doing many things which are first, right?
2:07
SPEAKER_01: Uh you started Fulcrum, which is really you headed Fulcrum and that was something that was never seen before.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: Then you did you know an analytics startup when analytics was not even a buzzword.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: And then you have started this whole AI and big data company crayon crayon data.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: And uh what I see is there is something in your DNA where uh you really look at some trends and then you're able to build a business around it.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: So I would like to talk to you about that a lot more on how do you identify these trends?
2:43
SPEAKER_01: What is really the success of building a business around it?
2:48
SPEAKER_01: And that's really what I wanted to first focus on.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: And the my first question would be how do you really spot these trends and what does it take to build a business in so much of ambiguity and when things are not very, very clear?
3:02
SPEAKER_02: Okay, you asked me the hardest thing because you're asking me to decode my own DNA, and I have no idea is the easiest answers for me.
3:10
SPEAKER_02: But uh let me try and um uh try and uh relate back some patterns that I've observed about myself, right?
3:18
SPEAKER_02: And I think one of those things uh is really the ability to spot a pattern between two completely unrelated bits of um uh information, and that I think is the key to be able to, I mean it's what you call you know, people who do trend spotting do that, people who um are able to, you know, literally there are people who are able to connect the dots backwards, and most of us do that with our lives, but I think some people just have it the ability to kind of connect the dots forwards, and obviously, when you're connecting the rods forwards, you're in the business of making some prediction about what the future may be, and half the time you will go wrong, uh, or maybe more than half the time, and a few times you will be right.
3:55
SPEAKER_02: So I think this whole pattern spotting ability is something that um uh I think has been a very big part of me in some form.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: Uh, the second key thing I think that has helped me a lot in this is that I like to call myself uh, you know, if you look at my career, I started off with all these right brain industries, advertising, creativity, all of that, and then I started into analytics and AI, which are all what I would call left brain activities in some way, right?
4:21
SPEAKER_02: And the reason I think I kind of look at it like this for me is that I like to think that I'm a no-brain person, I'm neither left brain nor right brain.
4:28
SPEAKER_02: And there's another way I used to talk about it, right?
4:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is the same ability that you have when you're in advertising to talk to the client who's a very rational person, you could talk to your credit director who's a very creative person, and that ability to kind of sit in between this, be like you know, what in microchip architecture you call the bus, you know, be able to carry a message across two things.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: That's also probably a core DNA to be an in-between spaces person.
4:53
SPEAKER_02: And if I were to look back at my career, I think there are these two traits I think allow me to kind of say, if something is going to happen, and um you know, then you try and say that that that's the future, and I want to go there.
5:08
SPEAKER_02: And you gotta ally that I think with the third things for me, which is what I call the stupidity gene, which is the ability to inflict torture on yourself by trying to predict this feature, go out future, try and go on and make it happen when it's a few years away.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: And that is the uh the stupidity gene that I think every entrepreneur carries, if you will.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: Great Suresh.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: Uh see one of the things uh about this whole doing a pioneer pioneering thing, uh the challenge really is not what you believe in, but getting your teams to believe in.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: Because most of the time people around you want things that they have done before.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: Uh they know that you know there is a solution and I can apply that solution, but you pretty much are looking at it very, very differently.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: So, how do you really uh align your team to this thinking?
5:59
SPEAKER_01: Because you have built successful businesses with large teams around you.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: So, therefore, how what are the principles that you have used to get these things together to succeed?
6:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's a great question, but uh so if you don't mind, I'm gonna go back and add a fourth point to your earlier question because I just was thinking as you were asking this question, it reminded me of something else.
6:21
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
6:21
SPEAKER_02: Which is the role of luck and accidents in I think going and doing first of a kind things, right?
6:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you talked about fulcrum.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't my idea, it was actually somebody else's idea.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: We pitched it, you know, Thompson, the agency pitched it, won the business with Unilever.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: It just so happened that I wanted to move from my Chennai office to the Bombay office at that point of time.
6:41
SPEAKER_02: I am actually a client management guy, not a media person, but I'd handled a Unilever brand.
6:47
SPEAKER_02: And so they said, Hey, would you like to try this job?
6:49
SPEAKER_02: So it was a very accidental thing that I went there to do it.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: And it's the same thing when I started my first analytics firm.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: I was actually supposed to join some other firm as a CEO of a startup at the height of the dot-com boom.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: And in the 15 days between quitting my corporate job and actually joining the startup, uh, the guy called me and said, We're not even starting because the dot-com boom had turned into the dot-com bust.
7:09
SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, oh my god, what have I done?
7:11
SPEAKER_02: And then so I said, Maybe there's a message out here saying you should try something on your own.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: So I also do think that in a lot of these first of a kind things, there is a role of accidents or luck, and I think we should never underplay it.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: And you know, there's this famous cricketing captain or selector rather.
7:28
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Richie Beno, who commentator, who said when he was asked about this guy is a really good cricketer, he's the only guy who will make the team, and he said, But is he lucky?
7:36
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we should never try any of these things without luck.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but uh coming to your, I think uh the the question that you asked about how do you uh motivate the team and how do you get them to see it, uh, it's obviously hard because you know if you're a bit of a crazy guy and you're seeing things that other people don't see, it's very hard to go out there and try and make them see this.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: So, one of the big challenges that you have is that you've got to be able to explain at least to a certain degree of rationality, a certain degree of reasoning, why you think this future that you are so confident about will come to play.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: Without that thing, you have to realize that you know a lot of people don't want to make that jump.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: They don't want to, they don't see what you see, right?
8:22
SPEAKER_02: It's like getting somebody to jump across a canyon, which is where the word leap of faith comes from.
8:27
SPEAKER_02: Why should I take that leap of faith?
8:28
SPEAKER_02: So you want to break it down and say, you know what, it's not actually that far.
8:32
SPEAKER_02: I can tell you why it is, right?
8:33
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you run 18 steps, it's easy, it's only six steps, you know.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: Would you like to try it without you?
8:37
SPEAKER_02: Try all those things, right?
8:39
SPEAKER_02: To try and break the problem down a little bit rationally and make it look not so scary, not so futuristic, not so visionary, saying it's very possible.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: So you gotta do that thing because um there's an amygdalian response when people are given all of these things, right?
8:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when you're told something big and hairy, you're like, oh my god, no, I don't want to be part of it, I'm gonna go away.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: But then you've got to break it down and you've got to break that fight or flight response and say, here are four or five stall swifts, why I can make it practical.
9:08
SPEAKER_02: But that alone is not enough.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: I think there's another part of it, which is that you have to be inspirational and visionary, and you you have to be able to inspire them to conquer their own fear in a non-rational way.
9:23
SPEAKER_02: And when I say a non-rational way, I mean the truth is every one of us wants to be inspired.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: I mean, as a human being, you don't want to sit there and say, no, I'm gonna be in a boring little place, and you know, uh, I just want to do my wake up in the morning and do the things I do.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: Everybody wants that inspiration, and so it's this strange mix of trying to give them rational things that combat their fears, and this very, very inspirational thing of saying, you know what, you can fly, I can help you fly, you know, don't you want to fly?
9:55
SPEAKER_02: So it's that um funny mix that you have to use when you're trying to talk to your team.
10:00
SPEAKER_02: Um, ultimately, however, I think this also depends upon the kind of person uh we're talking to Swami.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: You're talking to an engineer, he doesn't want to beyond the point, you can tell him all these glorious visions.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: He is like, you know, give me the challenge of this engineering problem.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: Some people want that.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: If you talk to people in sales and you want to try and do that, he's gonna say, Hey, how big is this?
10:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they want to hear things that talk to their particular skill, right?
10:27
SPEAKER_02: The guy wants to say how big is the market, how easy is it sell, how you know, those kind of things.
10:32
SPEAKER_02: So you also have to be able to tailor the message basis the type of person that you uh you know that you're talking to, basis the um uh you know, basis the you know the field that they are coming from, the personality that they have.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: Um so it's quite complex, and frankly, the hardest way to do it, Swami, is not in one-on-one conversations.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: In a one-on-one conversation, you can always convince people because you can personalize the conversation.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: It is in a group chat, because every person in the group comes and brings different emotions, different fears, different hopes, different ways of approaching the problem, and that's very, very hard.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: And that is where I think one of the things that you've been from advertising, a lot of us who came from advertising or people who are good storytellers, and I think if you take the great entrepreneurs, they're all very good storytellers.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: That ability to weave that narrative that talks to the maximum number of people is I think a very, very critical part of being a great entrepreneur.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: Which which makes me ask you a next question, uh Suresh.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you are a great storyteller.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: You go and hire a team, and uh you hire uh great engineers, you hire great uh designers, and uh how do you build the storytelling capability in them?
11:53
SPEAKER_01: Because that's uh not something that comes naturally in our education system, right?
11:58
SPEAKER_01: You you tend to solve rational problems.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: So therefore, uh you because they run teams, they run very large teams.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: So, therefore, how do you really bring the storytelling capability to your one-downs, to their one-downs?
12:13
SPEAKER_01: Because that has a tremendous impact on the culture of the company, right?
12:16
SPEAKER_01: So, therefore, uh, you know, you then don't just do the tasks, but you are actually telling the large picture, but you are actually then moving them and saying, okay, here is the task, but this task has a larger story.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: How do you bring that capability in teams?
12:30
SPEAKER_01: Because that's not taught in any school, that's not taught in any company.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: And how do you do that?
12:36
SPEAKER_01: And what are the tricks that you know you need to have, and how do you really instill it in people?
12:45
SPEAKER_02: That's a really that's a really, really uh tough thing to answer.
12:49
SPEAKER_02: And I'll but I want to kind of say two things, right?
12:51
SPEAKER_02: One of the things you see, why does America produce great entrepreneurs?
12:55
SPEAKER_02: Because this whole thing of a story is inherent in the American gene.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: America is a story, it's an idea, and they all believe that, and and everybody is taught the story of American exceptionalism from your childhood that you know we are a great country, we are this thing, right?
13:11
SPEAKER_02: And that's one of the reasons why you know we are a lot of people say Americans are great bullshitters, but you know, the point is a lot of Americans wake up and they actually are taught to be like this, and they say it, and therefore they are believable, and more people want to follow them.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: And you're right, in Asian cultures, conformity is kind of stress, it's not just Indian, right?
13:29
SPEAKER_02: If you come to Chinese cultures, I live in Singapore, you look at Southeast Asian cultures, you know, conformity, family, community, these are the things that are toward, right?
13:38
SPEAKER_02: You know, study hard, be rational, be practical.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: But what I would also say is that the place that you're going to get that storytelling capability, uh, I I want to push back a little bit against this idea that you know that our that that we don't have it.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you why, because the place we get that storytelling ability is not in our education system, it's in our homes.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
14:00
SPEAKER_02: Every day, I mean all of us grow up with joint families, or some of us, I mean, in the modern era that's not so true, but you know, you always have the aunts, the uncles, the people who are telling you those great stories of literature, of um history, of all the things that happened, right?
14:15
SPEAKER_02: And that storytelling culture, I think, in Asian cultures comes from family and community, not from the education system.
14:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, all of us have been through it.
14:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, we've had that uh one lady who will be there in the house who will tell us not just the family history, but like, you know, tell us all the stories of you know, whether it's uh the Mahabharata, the Ramayana or whatever it is.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know that we don't get it.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: I do agree with you that our education system doesn't do it.
14:39
SPEAKER_02: So now I think the next question comes in how do you trigger that gene in the person when you're sitting in a work environment?
14:45
SPEAKER_02: And that's a little bit harder because you know, 15, 18 years of formal education can beat that entire gene out of you obedient to some mission and never let it see the light of day.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh that said, I do believe you're not going to get a team which is full of storytellers.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: And frankly, uh you're gonna get a few people, you need a few of those people who can tell that story and who can kind of be that um that Sutradar, the the person who can kind of make compelling narratives in meetings, you know, before meetings, after meetings.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: You also don't want a company of only storytellers because you might end up with a company of people saying, you know, this company is all just a big story at a big narrative that it doesn't actually anything happens.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: So I feel that this whole thing is about how does the team come together.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: There are some people who have to own the story.
15:35
SPEAKER_02: Right?
15:35
SPEAKER_02: There are some people whom you say, you know, you're almost like the I don't want to say you're the designated Sutradhar, but some people naturally are those people who will write it down, who will explain it, who will share it.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: When you go to a party, there'll be the people who will have that remember that incident and they'll kind of bring it up and so on.
15:52
SPEAKER_02: And that's the way it's like oral history, right?
15:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, and the that katha that gets passed on.
15:57
SPEAKER_02: That's that's what you you need a few of those in the company.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: You can't be the as a CEO, you can't be the only person who's doing the storytelling.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: So how uh so the question really is I I also agree that uh you just need to trigger that in a couple of people, right?
16:14
SPEAKER_01: So I I tend to agree with that a lot because uh it's not done before.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: Uh you trigger it, then a lot of people get it.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh can you give me some examples of what you did in say Crayon Data where because when I see that company, when I say uh when I see that you know you talk about the age of irrelevance, you talk about you know simplifying choices, okay?
16:37
SPEAKER_01: I see a lot of beautiful storytelling, not just positioning yourself as a big data and AI company, but you're really talking about you know the taste studio, you're talking about the commerce studio, you're talking about the engaged studio.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: I I saw a lot of storytelling right from the way you build your narrative, right?
16:58
SPEAKER_01: So therefore, I saw a lot of uh you know uh touches of your right brain thinking in a big data and an AI company.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: So, therefore, uh, can you give me some examples of uh finally it's a platform, finally you're it's doing something, but it's a beautiful story told there, right?
17:18
SPEAKER_01: So, therefore, how did you think about it?
17:20
SPEAKER_01: How did you get your people to then rally around it?
17:23
SPEAKER_01: I think that's an important thing, and there could be interesting moments that you can share with us because you know you're now well into your 10th year, and congrats on that! But clearly, running a company for 10 years, telling the story and building a global company is not an easy job.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: So, how do you really go about doing it and give me some moments which people can then say, hey, I can apply this back in my own company?
17:46
SPEAKER_02: And uh I can share uh lots of such moments, and you're absolutely right, Swami, in your description, right?
17:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I come from an advertising background, my co-founder Srikanth also has been both advertising and in CRM and things like that.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: So, to some extent, I think um we get this whole idea that you know of being creative and and and and I think certainly the company derives some strength from that.
18:08
SPEAKER_02: But I think we've also made some conscious choices to go out and always get some really, really good storytellers, either hiring them inside the firm in the marketing and in the in the customer uh related functions, or by hiring people to come in and do that kind of work for us, because we realized very uh uh very early on that when you sell a frightening thing like technology and AI and big data, you've got to find a way to make it acceptable and palatable to people.
18:37
SPEAKER_02: You've got to mind make it explainable, right?
18:40
SPEAKER_02: And that is not gonna come by being a geek and like you know, saying talking mathematics and formulas and all that.
18:46
SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of that stuff underlying the hood.
18:48
SPEAKER_02: You want to try and make it um relatively simple to use.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: So the first story I would share with you is the story of the name of the company, right?
18:57
SPEAKER_02: It is a big data company, and we went through all these things, and we are trying to think about when you set up the company what kind of things could it be, and um and you know what kind of uh technical things, you know.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: And if you look at all analytics and AI companies, they got a technical name.
19:11
SPEAKER_02: And some of them are good friends of mine.
19:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, like Shrikantha, fractal is a good friend of mine, but fractal, I mean, the name comes from the fractal, right?
19:17
SPEAKER_02: Mandelbroid fractal.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, you take Mus Sigma, you take a lot of companies which are all about like, you know, data this and data that and data economy and all that.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: And we were sitting around and saying, uh, we want to make this uh simple, right?
19:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this whole industry is vested in complexity.
19:35
SPEAKER_02: You want to tell people come in and use the platform and we can make big data or AI or analytics simple for you.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: And we went on a long thing.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: So the whole idea was this word simple.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: How do you make things simple?
19:46
SPEAKER_02: And then that became eventually one day, you know, me and another guy were sitting around, and I mean, I remember the room I was sitting in and talking, and he says, Hey, what's the simplest thing to use in the world?
19:56
SPEAKER_02: And suddenly, I don't know who it was.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's like the Tenzing Norge Headman Hillary.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: I don't know who said it and who.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: I said, uh, isn't a crayon?
20:06
SPEAKER_02: Or he said it's an isn't a crayon.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: And it just struck us then that look at it, a crayon.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: A child can use it, no instruction manual, tells a colorful story, and that is exactly what we wanted to make of that, right?
20:19
SPEAKER_02: And that's literally the founding story of the company.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: And I look at that over the over the years of what we have, and I'll pick a couple.
20:28
SPEAKER_02: I mean, one was where we're talking about choice and simplifying choice, right?
20:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we all know, I mean, thousands of choices, we read lots of reviews, it's all conflicting, it's you ask friends, you get lots, you you're basically suffering from information overload, and making a choice is hard, and that's the problem we want to solve, right?
20:45
SPEAKER_02: And I think we were working with this lady, this creative director, and she said uh one day actually, if you look at it, you know, shoe choice is a magical thing, right?
20:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's something that's right for me, but the process is so laborious and time-consuming and painful for you.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: And we came up with that line, right?
21:04
SPEAKER_02: How do we turn the misery of choosing into the magic of choice?
21:08
SPEAKER_02: Because it shouldn't actually be about the misery, it should be about the magic, right?
21:11
SPEAKER_02: Imagine something pops up like that, and it's Spotify recommendation that tells you this song is just right for you, and when it is right, wow, your mind is like, How do they know that?
21:21
SPEAKER_02: And so I think somewhere along the way, and there are more such stories, uh, Swami.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to bore your audience with that, but there's a lot of these moments that happen, and some of them are completely frivolous, right?
21:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh, one of our big things, not from Krayon, but from Red Pull, used to be that if you had a good in the early days of the company, if we had a good call with a client, we'd say, Wow, we had a great call of the client, let's go and have a drink now, right?
21:44
SPEAKER_02: But it became a thing, that story became a thing about how we wanted to celebrate as a team, and people found ways to go and celebrate this thing as a team.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: So um, I I I do think that these moments are what people remember, they what make your culture.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: And culture ultimately, and you know, I run a podcast called Safes to the Algo.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: There's this guy called Eric Sioux.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: He's a digital marketer, and he said this memorable thing that I've never forgotten so me.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: He says, Culture is the algorithm that runs your company.
22:14
unknown: Okay.
22:15
SPEAKER_02: Not my words, Eric Sioux, single-grained, lovely guy.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: And he said that, and I said, I was that was a aha moment for me, and I sat back and said, Wow, that is so true.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: And culture is built in every company around a campfire where we all tell our stories.
22:33
SPEAKER_02: Culture is built in communities and families and all that around stories.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: And that's something we try to very consciously kind of uh uh cultivate in in Crayon.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: So I want to uh you know uh circle back to something that you started, Suresh, which is uh I think the first half of your career you did it in a you know right brain industry.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: And the next half of your career you have done it in a left brain industry.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: So one of the questions that I have is uh what are the good aspects of uh right brain thinking uh have you taken and applied it to your big data and AI business?
23:12
SPEAKER_01: And share with me some examples of you know, because India has a lot of IT companies, and the challenges really are uh, you know, they do not have the exposure of a right brain industry that maybe you have had.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: So therefore, there are very good aspects of right brain thinking that uh you know you could take and bring it into uh you know a left brain thinking company.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: So, what are the good aspects that you saw, and how did you bring that into say different companies that uh you know you uh you have built and uh grown?
23:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I actually uh how I've done it is one thing, but I want to start off with an example of what I think is the single best right-brained idea in the single most dominant left-brained company in the world, which is the original Google search box.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: Okay, imagine that little rectangle into which you could go in and type anything, and the answer would pop up, and that answer was based on deep science, huge amount of left-brain technology, but they reduce it to that one little magical little box, right?
24:23
SPEAKER_02: And why I'm using that particular example is that now, of course, everybody talks about the user experience and the you and and and and the user interfaces being very important, right?
24:31
SPEAKER_02: And I think more and more people are realizing that it is not about the technology that goes under the hood, because that is, I won't say it's being taken for granted, and obviously there are cool technologies, the better you do it, uh the more um you know, in the better your performance is a company, your product does well, and therefore your customers tend to use it more.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: But I think it's all about layering that user experience and saying this is not about that complexity, but about making something very simple, right?
25:01
SPEAKER_02: And um, so to me, for me, uh this whole thing about in the early days of Creon when I started, and I think certainly in my analytics firm, one of the things that we used to say is how do you actually take all that science and kind of put a wrapper on it that makes it simple to understand in terms of visuals, in terms of um you know words that people can take away and understand very, very easily instead of drowning them in the in the in the science of the product, right?
25:30
SPEAKER_02: And um, so I think there is no magic bullet to it to doing it.
25:34
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like you have to make a conscious choice that listen, I don't want to say dump it down, but make it simple, make it simple.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: How can you tell that?
25:42
SPEAKER_02: Can you kind of distill out the essence of it?
25:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh and I think great communicators have known this for me for a long time.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, if you look back at it, it goes back to the idea of the pyramid principle that Barbara Minto talked about way back in the 60s, which is now the fundamentals of all consulting, right?
25:57
SPEAKER_02: Just tell me the simplest thing that you want to give me the conclusion and then give me all the rationale that supports it.
26:04
SPEAKER_02: Now we read Robert Sheldini, who's written probably the best book on influence on persuasion, which is called Influence, and he talks about the fact that every time when you want to do something, always give the conclusion and then explain the reasoning behind it.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: And the reasoning and the magic whether he uses is because, right?
26:23
SPEAKER_02: Say, I want you to do this, or I recommend you do this because that single insight is the right-brained insight.
26:32
SPEAKER_02: Most people tend to lead to the reasoning, they tend to say, Oh, you know, I've done this thing, I have analyzed this, I have looked at thousand things, I've done all of that stuff, and therefore.
26:41
SPEAKER_02: But most of the time, people don't want the therefore, they want that so what, the therefore up front.
26:46
SPEAKER_02: And for me, the single biggest thing that I think I contribute to this company again is I go back and tell me, people, what's that so what?
26:53
SPEAKER_02: Tell them that make the recommendation first and then support it with your reasoning.
26:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, and there are many such examples of how you do it, but I think now this is becoming increasingly commonplace.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I know we think India is a company of a country of technology people, but I see a lot of young people and I am very, very enthused by how well they communicate now in terms of this what are that so what and then explain the reasoning.
27:17
SPEAKER_02: It's not inbuilt.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: We are still used to the narrative style.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: I did X, I did Y, I did Z, and therefore I arrived at A.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: But um, I mean, if I had to give one tip to all your listeners, it would be like that set your conclusion, then give the reasoning.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: That's the simplest right brain philosophy that you can use.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: Uh and I I just want to discuss this a little bit further, Suresh.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: Uh, because uh we never have had a guest who probably has the right brain and the left brain uh businesses built.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to spend some time on this.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: You're agreeing with me that I'm a no-brain person in short.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: I am a no-brain person.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh so therefore, uh, if you really look at your right brain uh you know culture, you bring in diverse teams, your ability to uh you know accept ideas that you may not believe in, okay?
28:05
SPEAKER_01: Uh these are some of the things that you normally learn in a right-brained company, right?
28:10
SPEAKER_01: You actually brainstorm with diverse people, you look at uh you know uh uh you know adjacent uh you know ideas.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: Uh some of these things are very, very critical when you're actually moving to a left-brain company, right?
28:25
SPEAKER_01: So therefore, uh your ability to accept that, pick up some processes out of that and apply it back in your platform business is something that I think uh you know I can see that in some of the businesses that you have built, and I can see that in many companies.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: So at least the way uh, you know, if you really look at it, you know, when a problem is given, how do you really brainstorm on the idea?
28:46
SPEAKER_01: Okay, uh, that is something that probably uh you know uh you don't get it so easily in a uh you know a left brain tech company, but you really go back and then say, okay, let's get to the drawing board, let's let's get into the whiteboard and then start looking at you know the mind maps as we would call it, right?
29:05
SPEAKER_01: So, therefore, some of these things are very interesting learnings, and uh that's something that I think uh is very very critical when you actually start doing a left brain company.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: So that's really where I thought uh you know, pick up some five or things, five or six things that you used to do to generate an idea and go about implementing it.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to come back to the next question, which I will.
29:26
SPEAKER_02: But I'll give you a couple of I'll give you a couple of quick things that illustrate what you said.
29:30
SPEAKER_02: Two of uh my head of product and one of his product managers is a stand-up comic.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: They're both people who love data, who love engineering, who love deep left-lane stuff, but they're stand-up comics as well.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know how we find these people.
29:46
SPEAKER_02: I don't know whether it's a culture that attracts them or the culture that makes them that way, or you know whether they we just lucky door got them.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: But I think that's a classic example of how you can bring that in, right?
29:57
SPEAKER_02: When we could say, boss, I'll get this as that conventional type.
30:00
SPEAKER_02: We look actually for quirky people a little bit.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: Uh, one of my favorite interview questions for me is about asking people what is not on your resume.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: In fact, that's the only thing when by the time a person gets to me, I tell them, I have seen your resume, everybody in this company is talking about a resume, I don't want to know that.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: What's not on your resume?
30:18
SPEAKER_02: Right?
30:18
SPEAKER_02: What are those moments that you would like to kind of bottle up and like you know repeat?
30:23
SPEAKER_02: Because that quirkiness in an engineer is an invaluable asset.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: That ability in a marketer to be very structured in its thinking and analytical is an invaluable asset because you're bringing one part of the other side of this brain to play.
30:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you you can't build a company of entirely of people like that, but you need a few of those people who are doing that, who have this what I call this in-between spaces of crossover scale.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: So, uh, from a left brain company, say say an IT services company, I see some brilliant processes that a right brain company can deploy, right?
31:03
SPEAKER_01: So, because what I really find is their ability to build repeatability, okay, which you tend to get bored in a right-brained company, right?
31:11
SPEAKER_01: Saying that, oh, I want new things every day.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: But I see the aspect of repeatability, okay, in a process, which a right uh left brain company, you know, you can pick up.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: So, would you would you actually then now that you're running a left brain company, how do you really look at some of these uh you know good aspects of uh you know left brain thinking that you can apply to a right brain company?
31:34
SPEAKER_02: Um, I would approach the problem very, very differently, Swami.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: I think companies one go through different stages.
31:40
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and I think companies, even when they are evolved and all that, have different things that they need to do all at the same time.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: What do I mean by that, right?
31:51
SPEAKER_02: You are when you're in the early stage of a startup, you need a little bit of that creativity, you need the innovation, you need the experimentation, you're not looking for scale, you're not looking for process.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: In fact, you want people who don't mind failing, who don't ask what is the process, right?
32:06
SPEAKER_02: You need a little bit of that, right?
32:08
SPEAKER_02: You go through that thing and you go through that curve of let's say you know, of going from 0 to 1 and 1 to 10 and 10 to 100, and as you're reaching 10 and all that, then you're trying to say, I need to start to rinse and repeat certain things, I need the process standardization, I need things that I need to go back and rinse and rinse and repeat it.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: But you also realize as you're scaling that you don't want to lose that that creative DNA that can make the next thing happen because in tech this innovation is something that you have to keep constantly doing.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: So, what happens is as you are growing your company, you tend to say, Listen, I'm gonna start off with innovative creative mindsets, people who can who are doing the first of a kind.
32:51
SPEAKER_02: Then you start to say, Let me add some people who are in that in-between.
32:54
SPEAKER_02: You know, Bain has this idea that they call scale insurgents, who are insurgents but who can think about scale, and they are able to come in and kind of be that bridge thing saying I will rinse and repeat, but I won't be 100% process oriented.
33:10
SPEAKER_02: And then when you reach a certain stage of growth, you tend to say, I need people who are just give me the process, I want to turn up and I want to do the same thing.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: Now it's not just this is I think the stage of companies, the kind of people you need.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: But let me take the third kind of company.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: Let's say you're a$50 million company and you have you know 100 clients and you're doing some things and you want to rinse and repeat that stuff, and then you have some companies or some people who have new problems, or then you have some new idea that you want to.
33:39
SPEAKER_02: You literally need all three kinds of people in the company, but they need to be doing different things.
33:43
SPEAKER_02: The first of a kind person is needed for a first of a kind job.
33:47
SPEAKER_02: The the the what I call the scale insurgent is needed to say, I know how to take that first of a kind and make sure it doesn't remain one of a kind, that it's first of a kind, not one of a kind.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: I know how to make it kind of come to scaling, and then I get to this guy who just says, You're giving me this for 10, 100 is easy, I'll do it.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: So you need, I think, a balance inside your company.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: It's not about a left-brain company or a right-brain company, right?
34:14
SPEAKER_02: And I think one of the challenges when you build mono monocultures, and I think that's been very true of no criticism of any company out here, but it is true when you have these very, very large Indian IT services companies that are built out, you have a problem with that.
34:29
SPEAKER_02: Because monocultures tend to fail faster because they don't know how to deal with the unexpected.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: So I would say you've got to cultivate all these different genes.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: It's like saying I have an ecosystem and it's like or anything in the in in the forest, right?
34:44
SPEAKER_02: You need all kinds of things to make the forest flourish.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: Lovely.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: I like the idea of a monoculture, and you know, that's a very nice uh, you know, it gives me a vivid picture of how uh you know you need uh you know dynamic cultures and diverse cultures and diverse set of uh you know skills that are required in tails.
35:05
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
35:06
SPEAKER_02: The other thing that I think that works towards this, Swami, it's very interesting, and no one talks about it is gender diversity.
35:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's a very, very you know, I know it's a nice thing to do because you know it's supposed to be the the motive of the hour or something is the but beyond that I actually think making sure you have gender and age diversity makes a huge difference to the way you think in a company.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: Women just approach the same problem very, very differently from men, they see a different solution, and um so you've gotta try and create as many mixed teams as possible.
35:43
SPEAKER_02: You gotta try and get your team formation with age diversity.
35:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the way a millennial looks at choice and the way they want to do digital is very different from the way I look at it, right?
35:55
SPEAKER_02: And so I think you've got to get that almost consciously also, again, to break this idea of a monoculture.
36:02
SPEAKER_02: Team should also not be monoculture, there should be gender diversity, age diversity, different kinds of uh ways in which problems are being approached.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: Great.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: Uh once you build a company like this and you have a uh you know a pioneering idea, Suresh, uh one thing that you do is really you go to large enterprises, right?
36:23
SPEAKER_01: And uh the real challenge is for enterprises to take this risk, right?
36:28
SPEAKER_01: Because the real challenge is you go to them and you say, Hey, has anybody tried this before?
36:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I don't want to experiment.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, uh there's a there's a sense of uh I would say uh you know uh a fear of saying, okay, I don't want to try this.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: So how do you think uh you know uh enterprises need to start building this culture of you know trying out something new, being less risk-averse, trying new solutions, and especially if you are a monolith, uh trying to build this uh you know solution in their uh teams.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: What what have you seen global companies do?
37:07
SPEAKER_01: And give me some examples of how they embed this in their uh you know adoption.
37:14
SPEAKER_02: I think there are two separate things you said.
37:16
SPEAKER_02: How do they start the process and how do they embed it in the adoption and the two separate challenges, right?
37:21
SPEAKER_02: Um so obviously the cliche out here that all starts at the top and the leader, right?
37:24
SPEAKER_02: A CEO has to be willing to say, I want to do something new.
37:28
SPEAKER_02: But um if I take the way big ideas start and the way experimentation starts as a culture, the way people are doing innovation, it really comes from a couple of champions who are either, like I said, because the CEO, senior leadership, is saying we've got to go and do this, and or there's a couple of people who are willing to buck you know the system and go out and say, I don't mind going out on a limb to try something because possibly because they don't care, possibly because that's their DNA, right?
38:01
SPEAKER_02: So I don't think it starts any other way in a large enterprise.
38:04
SPEAKER_02: Simply because I mean a large enterprise is your thing, it's a monoculture.
38:08
SPEAKER_02: I turn up every day, I eschew the risk, I repeat the process, I continue doing it.
38:12
SPEAKER_02: That repeatability is what gives me success, right?
38:16
SPEAKER_02: But you need that somebody, you need that champion.
38:18
SPEAKER_02: The champion could be somebody who just emerges from the woodwork, or it could be somebody who's um kind of been spotted to do it, or somebody because it comes from the top down who is able to say, Let me start this culture of innovation.
38:32
SPEAKER_02: I feel that when companies start innovation with a view to just saying, Hey, I have an innovation agenda and I have to have an innovation agenda, it's bound to fail.
38:39
SPEAKER_02: Because then you're paying lip service to it, right?
38:41
SPEAKER_02: You have to have genuine commitment, which means top leadership has to give resources, commitment, show it, make sure that that thing will succeed and grow.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: Embedding it in an organization, I think, is a much larger challenge because you know there is little way in which I mean it's like the body and an infection, right?
39:01
SPEAKER_02: Your body is gonna fight the infection, innovation is an infection in a large company.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the antibodies will kick in.
39:09
SPEAKER_02: Why should we do it?
39:10
SPEAKER_02: We have done it like this before.
39:11
SPEAKER_02: No, no, this will not work.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: Look at all those things that fail, right?
39:14
SPEAKER_02: All those antibodies kick in to reject innovation, and that's a much harder problem to solve, right?
39:21
SPEAKER_02: What have I seen some CEOs do do successfully, and we've been part of because of the work we do as an AI and all that stuff, in general, it starts off with innovation and then from there it makes its way into the company.
39:32
SPEAKER_02: Is that uh one of the most successful examples I've seen of CEOs is what they call a ship alongside model.
39:38
SPEAKER_02: You can't change the existing company.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: You either have a separate unit and you protect and keep that unit, or you set up a separate company or something that you do which is really what you call I'm shipping something alongside because I can't change it.
39:54
SPEAKER_02: Here's an example of what we did in Myanmar with one of the big banks out there, and the guy said, largest bank, lots of people, largest you know, physical branch, cash economy, impossible to change.
40:05
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna try and launch a new bank with a payment bank.
40:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna use the assets of the old bank, the people, the network, and all that, but I'm not gonna involve them in this, I'm just gonna create something that I will ship alongside, and eventually, once this succeeds, then it is not an infection, then this is the main thing.
40:23
SPEAKER_02: Then people will slowly want to come over to this side, right?
40:27
SPEAKER_02: And whenever you see in banking a digital bank being set up as a separate unit, that's a classic example of what I would call a ship alongside model.
40:36
SPEAKER_02: Why do people choose ship alongside?
40:38
SPEAKER_02: It's just it's so obvious.
40:39
SPEAKER_02: Infection will overcome this when they try it inside.
40:42
SPEAKER_02: Um I mean, the infection, the innovation is like an infection that will be rejected by the main bank if you try to do it inside that.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: Um I have seen things of this fail as well, is when you don't embed, when you try to make too dramatic a change, and when you don't get the existing organization to understand the reason for the change.
41:04
SPEAKER_02: And so I do believe that one of the challenges of doing it as a separate thing is that you take it all the way, it proves it out, it's a POC as an innovation, as a whatever, but very late in that after a lot of people are vested in the success, the body finds a way to reject it, the main body, right?
41:23
SPEAKER_02: So at some point of time you have to do that counterbalancing thing of like it's like a blood transmission, right?
41:27
SPEAKER_02: You've got to get the body to accept this new thing that's being introduced in that.
41:33
SPEAKER_02: So I don't think there's any one proven way.
41:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm not an organizational expert.
41:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, everybody from Howard to McKinsey have all done a lot more of this work, but I do think that the one change that I've seen in the last 10-15 years of doing analytics and AIs for me is no longer is it acceptable to be in a room and walk in there and just say it's my intuition, my gut feel.
41:56
SPEAKER_02: You have to bring data to the play.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: Again, I've interviewed a lot of senior leaders in my uh in my podcast, and most of them say this, right?
42:04
SPEAKER_02: In a meeting, in a discussion, the guy with the data always wins.
42:09
SPEAKER_02: He says it's often the youngest person in the room.
42:12
unknown: Yeah.
42:13
SPEAKER_02: Because the youngest person has no problem using the data because the youngest person cannot come to the meeting and say, I have experience.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:21
SPEAKER_01: No, the reason I asked that question, not that because you're an organizational expert, because you go with such an innovative solution where you're really, you know, talking about uh you know billions of emails and SMSs being relevant and you're using the data.
42:36
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, uh the idea of silos in organization typically you know becomes your biggest barrier, right?
42:44
SPEAKER_01: Because the uh marketing team does not talk to the IT team, the IT team does not talk to the channel team, the channel team does not talk to the business team.
42:52
SPEAKER_01: So the ability to build a cross-functional capability, because finally uh you know the business, the CEO is interested in uh outcomes, right?
43:01
SPEAKER_01: So therefore, uh he's looking at your EBITA, he's looking at the margins, he's looking at revenue growth, and therefore the ability to kind of bring cross-functional teams and make them work together to understand, which is really where the right-brain thinking culture comes in, because you know, the fact that you know I he may not know my uh you know business, but you really have to kind of bring it in.
43:23
SPEAKER_01: So, therefore, I was asking for some examples of global uh you know uh ways in which adoption gets because digital transformation is a huge subject today, but the amount of failures that one sees because of what you really said, which is it is great to be innovative, it's a it's a lip service, but if you really want to do digital transformation, I like the ship along model, which is you know, which is bring it in the side and then do the blood transfusion as you called it.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: That's a very interesting way of doing it.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: But making cross functional teams work together, I think, uh is another important thing, especially in big data and AI.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: The challenge is that, right?
44:01
SPEAKER_01: So, how do you overcome that?
44:02
SPEAKER_01: And what are the things that you have seen work as the skills?
44:06
SPEAKER_01: Because you've built you know huge skill in terms of delivery of uh you know big data in large organizations.
44:14
SPEAKER_02: So I think um as an entrepreneur, in trying to solve the problem, you have two broad approaches that you can take, right?
44:22
SPEAKER_02: You build what you call horizontal solutions that say I'm going to take a particular slice of this pie, which is horizontal, and I will I will only solve for campaign management, I will only solve for you know doing a risk model, I'll only solve one horizontal thing, but I solved it horizontal in such a way that I really don't care about how this is being integrated to everything else.
44:43
SPEAKER_02: But you're paying me$50,000,$100,000 a year, that's your ACV.
44:47
SPEAKER_02: I can sell it to hundreds and thousands of enterprises, and that's what uh you will solve, right?
44:52
SPEAKER_02: And what is well known in horizontal size is that the total addressable market is very large, it's easy to scale the business, but it's a lower value, it's a lower differentiation because somebody else can come in and say, I have another horizontal solution.
45:04
SPEAKER_02: The second approach you can take is a what I call a vertical model or a vertical solution, right?
45:08
SPEAKER_02: And um, a vertical solution does exactly what you said, it looks at the problem and says, I need an output, and that's a business value output.
45:16
SPEAKER_02: And there's a chain of things that I need to do to solve that whole problem, and I'm gonna build a platform or a product or whatever it is that solves that whole vertical chain.
45:26
SPEAKER_02: Now, very hard to scale such businesses because the moment you do that, you're touching 10 people as you call it in a company, and then you're not successful is now dependent on like 10 teams doing that well.
45:38
SPEAKER_02: However, what is well known is that vertical SaaS businesses tend to have high value but lower scale, especially in the initial thing.
45:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the the the the utopia is that you build a vertical SaaS business that also scales because then you're creating a huge amount of value.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: You have since you're creating value for the client, you can ask for more money, and then if you're doing it for hundreds of enterprises, then that's like fantastic, right?
46:00
SPEAKER_02: Adobe Salesforce and all that are a little bit like that.
46:03
SPEAKER_02: So I think those are the two approaches that you can take.
46:07
SPEAKER_02: But if you want to run a vertical SaaS business, you have to embrace this problem or find a way to embed it either into your product or into your business model.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: Is this whole cross-functional silos and work making it work together?
46:20
SPEAKER_02: If you sell point solutions, then you don't care.
46:22
SPEAKER_02: It's 5,000, it's 10,000 bucks a month, whatever it is.
46:25
SPEAKER_02: You take the point solution.
46:26
SPEAKER_02: No, it's your problem as to how you want to make it there.
46:30
SPEAKER_02: So that's what I look at it from a sales side.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: If I had to advise an entrepreneur, make up your mind as to what your DNA is.
46:37
SPEAKER_02: Do you want to sell the horizontal thing, lower value point solution, scale more easily, or do you want to sell a higher value vertical solution?
46:46
SPEAKER_01: Great.
46:47
SPEAKER_01: So Suresh, uh, I'm now coming to a last set of few questions where it's a lot more uh you know personal.
46:54
SPEAKER_01: Uh so the first question I have for you is uh what would be the three pieces of advice you would give to your younger self?
47:04
SPEAKER_02: To my younger self?
47:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: Wow, okay.
47:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to think of what it is.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: I've done a lot of stupid things in my life.
47:12
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, honestly, I think um I have I have I have a few regrets about many of the choices that I have made.
47:22
SPEAKER_02: Because for me, it is not the choice or the implication of the choice, but your ability to embrace the the implications, the consequences, and make the most of what you will, right?
47:34
SPEAKER_02: So I think the person I was at that stage who made the choice that I did at that stage was I think that's all he knew.
47:44
SPEAKER_02: And uh so it's very hard to go back there and say, would I have done something differently had I known something?
47:50
SPEAKER_02: One of the things I would have said is that you know, if I looked at it, my favorite story, uh Swami, is the fact is that I failed math and stats through school and college, never studied technology, never went near a technology or a maths or stats class, and now God's way of taking revenge for all those classes I didn't attend is to make me do analytics and AI where I have to look at this stuff every day for a living.
48:10
SPEAKER_02: So I might have studied math and stats, but here is the thing that would have been a different me.
48:18
SPEAKER_02: So I don't want to go back and kind of um uh you know try and say, hey, listen, you know, should you have done something differently?
48:26
SPEAKER_02: What I think I'm happy about when I look at the course of my journey is that uh each choice came with implications, right?
48:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I quit a really, really fantastic job at the top of the Indian media buying industry at a time when India was just emerging as a superpower, left the country, went out to start something different.
48:44
SPEAKER_02: Would I have been something if I was there?
48:46
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I would have been, but you know what, it's okay.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: You make the other choice, then you say, What am I going to do with that choice?
48:51
SPEAKER_02: So I'm sorry, it sounds like a deeply uh philosophical non-answer.
48:57
SPEAKER_01: No, I think I think uh these are real answers.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: To me, the way I see is I think you're happy with your choices, you are happy to live by your choices, and you don't regret your choices.
49:07
SPEAKER_01: To me, it's a great answer, actually.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's the way I'm uh I'm kind of articulating what you said.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: So uh that's a that's a great answer according to me.
49:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh the other the next question I have is what is something you believe that nobody else agrees with you?
49:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay, uh I think I'm a very lazy person.
49:32
SPEAKER_02: Everybody else in my company, in my family, and my thing all says I work too hard.
49:38
SPEAKER_02: Um so I think they equate the fact that I'm always on with the fact that I work hard.
49:44
SPEAKER_02: I'm actually quite a lazy procrastinating dude.
49:47
SPEAKER_02: I mean, like, you know, I'm like if I can put off something, I will.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't think I'm like the most driven focused guy.
49:55
SPEAKER_02: But on the other hand, everybody tells me that I am, so I don't know the answer to this one.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, or maybe I just have maybe for me I have to be like you know, even more robotic for me to meet that expectation that they have that when they say when they say hardworking, I keep thinking, you know, are you obsessive, compulsive, training in the morning, disciplined, whatever that I'm not that disciplined man, right?
50:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm uh I'm a fairly comfortable, and that's why I use the word lace.
50:23
SPEAKER_02: I'm fairly comfortable with meandering along just a little bit.
50:27
SPEAKER_02: But I don't think people agree with me on that at all in my company.
50:30
SPEAKER_02: They all think I'm obsessive compulsive.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: Uh what is the best piece of advice anyone has given you?
50:40
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
50:42
SPEAKER_02: Uh one of the pieces of personal advice that I got from somebody was that you know, saying that when you are in a situation of conflict or when you are in a relationship or whatever it is, uh the person said uh you know, you've got to enjoy the parts that you are in conflict with, you know, you've got to embrace the person on the other side for the things that they are different with you with, and that is very useful because the moment you are able to accept that the other person is different, and he says the moment you like the differences that the other person has, then your whole outlook to life changes, right?
51:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, the same person gave me another piece of advice.
51:26
SPEAKER_02: He says, you know, you must always lead the question.
51:29
SPEAKER_02: He says, because when you lead the question, even if you have an answer, ask that you know, lead the question.
51:35
SPEAKER_02: He says the question will enslave the person because they have to know that's not their question, right?
51:42
SPEAKER_02: If you give them the answer, it's your answer that you're giving them.
51:45
SPEAKER_02: If you give them the question, then they have to think about the answer themselves.
51:50
SPEAKER_02: And these are two things that I remind myself a lot.
51:54
SPEAKER_02: But you know, there are so many things.
51:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I read a lot, Swami, I I look at all kinds of um uh influences in my life from music to sport to to people who do coaching, uh, and um there's so many different pieces of things that you can pick up small tips from, and um you know, yeah, I mean there is no end to learning.
52:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there is learning wherever you look.
52:17
SPEAKER_02: So if I have actually got, in fact, for this podcast, I opened up my notes thing because I compulsively kind of cut and paste everything I see which is interesting, and I went and read about a hundred of those things and saying, what exactly did I learn?
52:31
SPEAKER_02: And suddenly it's like you're relearning all over again.
52:34
SPEAKER_02: So I personally think there's no end to the amount of things that I learned even today.
52:40
SPEAKER_01: Uh, what does the word uh successful mean to you, Suresh?
52:45
SPEAKER_02: So I think um there are conventional ways of deciding success, and I think one of the most conventional ways is um is when you look at a person's achievement, and again, I'm gonna use cricket as an analogy out here, is to say how many runs has the person made.
53:01
SPEAKER_02: But you know, uh, I think you know, when I was young, my cricket coach told me always play with your eye on the ball, not the scoreboard.
53:11
SPEAKER_02: Right?
53:11
SPEAKER_02: You you can you can't make runs if you don't keep your eye on the ball, right?
53:15
SPEAKER_02: And I think we tend to, again, sorry this is a philosophical answer, but I think we tend to equate success with the outcomes.
53:24
SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, just recently, and you know, I know he's a person who evokes uh strong responses.
53:31
SPEAKER_02: Cole said, you know, I'm not gonna change my thing based on the results of what happened, right?
53:35
SPEAKER_02: I trust the process, and so I think success is a little bit about um I think having your own gauge of what you think is it, right?
53:44
SPEAKER_02: In Coley's case, he trusts the process, he says, This is what I will do.
53:47
SPEAKER_02: In other people, some people, for some people, it is the scoreboard.
53:51
SPEAKER_02: In my own case, I think success is um did I actually achieve my own aspirations for what I wanted to do?
54:01
SPEAKER_02: Is number one for me, right?
54:04
SPEAKER_02: And that's something that's personal that you have to sit down and write and say, Hey, uh, you know, did you do it?
54:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, the second one is um, I think for me is uh the way I play the game.
54:16
SPEAKER_02: I completely will not uh you know, if I have to kind of win or make runs in in a game or like you know, get you know, get get success or make a lot of money by doing things I'm not comfortable doing, uh, because it's the easy thing to do.
54:33
SPEAKER_02: I'm not that's I know that's not my definition of success.
54:37
SPEAKER_02: Uh I'll end with this thing that I'll you know, it's a kind of I think the entrepreneurial version of this bat with your eyes on the ball, not the scoreboard, which is somebody said, you know, once you create value, the valuation will come.
54:48
SPEAKER_02: Far too often in entrepreneurship it's been about the valuation.
54:52
SPEAKER_02: And uh I can tell you the nobody would have predicted red pill being bought by IBM, and like uh for me, that moment was vindication.
55:02
SPEAKER_02: Ten years, nine years before that.
55:04
SPEAKER_02: I'd said analytics is the future, everyone is like, why?
55:06
SPEAKER_02: What is analytics?
55:07
SPEAKER_02: We don't even know what this is.
55:08
SPEAKER_02: All the questions you asked me, convincing people to come on board, stay the course, create this, do that.
55:14
SPEAKER_02: And then when that day when we made that phone call that announced that IBM, after a global search, was acquiring Red Pell, that for me was vindication of my own belief that this was the future, and I'd gone out and actually managed to create it to a level where a global firm recognized it.
55:29
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't about how much money they gave us.
55:32
SPEAKER_02: That was a nice byproduct of the of the of the journey, if you will.
55:37
SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
55:39
SPEAKER_01: Uh my next question is what are the three, four things that you would recommend to an 18-year-old at an university today?
55:49
SPEAKER_02: Uh the first one's gonna be controversial.
55:51
SPEAKER_02: It is don't do an MBA.
55:53
SPEAKER_02: And this from a guy who's done an MBA is like um so I believe that um that you know uh let me kind of take that don't do an MBA and make it into a slightly larger abstract point.
56:07
SPEAKER_02: I'm just basically saying don't follow the beaten path.
56:10
SPEAKER_02: Right?
56:11
SPEAKER_02: The things that made sense 20, 30 years ago are not the things that made sense today.
56:16
SPEAKER_02: You've got to look for your differentiating yourself, and why I say don't do an MBA is that at that point of time, 20, 30 years ago, it was a differentiating degree.
56:23
SPEAKER_02: No, everybody has one.
56:24
SPEAKER_02: So, what does it do for you?
56:25
SPEAKER_02: Are you doing it for the college?
56:26
SPEAKER_02: You go to the network.
56:27
SPEAKER_02: If that's all it is, then be clear and conscious that's what it is, not the learning, especially when today learning is available in real environments, right?
56:35
SPEAKER_02: So uh I would say don't follow the beaten path, don't kind of um try and do what everybody is doing.
56:42
SPEAKER_02: Uh look for what differentiates uh yourself.
56:46
SPEAKER_02: The second thing is that it's hard when you're 18 to know what is your own special attribute, your own superpower, you're still developing as a person, but most of us have a feeling about it.
56:58
SPEAKER_02: And this advice is um for the 18-year-old, your parent is probably not gonna want you to follow your feelings because your parent knows better, but you've got to follow your own feeling and you've got to fight that battle.
57:11
SPEAKER_02: You've got to say, I know why I want to do this, and uh this is my life.
57:16
SPEAKER_02: Because if you don't want to write your the story of your own life, no one else will do it for you.
57:21
SPEAKER_02: And the worst thing you want to be doing in life when you're 25 or 30 is saying, I am living the life my parents wrote for me.
57:28
SPEAKER_02: Right?
57:28
SPEAKER_02: You want to be actually living your own life.
57:31
SPEAKER_02: Hard for me, easy for me to say, hard to do, partly because you don't know and partly because parental pressures, especially in Asian societies, are very, very hard.
57:39
SPEAKER_02: But I would say write your own story, lead your own life, follow your own uh path, and don't set out on a path that somebody else says is right for you.
57:49
SPEAKER_02: Uh for me, these are the two big um things.
57:52
SPEAKER_02: And the third one is uh you know, I don't think I need to say this, but um I think we've got to be looking for new ways of living.
58:03
SPEAKER_02: I think the younger generation is far more sensitive today to issues of climate, gender, racial equality.
58:09
SPEAKER_02: I think it comes naturally to them.
58:10
SPEAKER_02: In fact, if anything, I would tell older people we need to learn.
58:13
SPEAKER_02: But please don't lose the romance that you have as an 18-year-old with those ideas.
58:18
SPEAKER_02: You've got to let it sustain through your life, and you've got to be able to do it when you're 30, 35, 40, when you're part of the establishment, you've still got to be able to keep up with the romance of your idealism, if you will, that you had when you were 18.
58:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna stop there because you don't want to sound like a 58-year-old guy advising an 18-year-old guy what to do.
58:38
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but I think those are the three things I would say.
58:40
SPEAKER_01: No, but that's interesting.
58:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, uh, I think there are two, three.
58:43
SPEAKER_01: At least the first two are something that uh is very, very useful.
58:47
SPEAKER_01: And finally, my last question, Suresh, is what are your you know, top two or three favorite books?
58:56
SPEAKER_02: Um I think there are multiple books that I would talk about in different genres.
59:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, one of the books that I think really for me is a mind-blowing experience of discovering not just a new writer but a new culture, is this book called Hardboiled Wonderland and the Edge of the World by a Japanese author called Haruki Murakami.
59:16
SPEAKER_02: Murakami is probably the most famous writer alive not to have won the Nobel Prize.
59:21
SPEAKER_02: But uh, if anybody is looking, that book is a it's it's it's a mind-boggling construction of a book and and and a wonderful introduction to a great author.
59:32
SPEAKER_02: A second book that is, I think, another author who has won the Nobel Prize, but I think till about 40 pages in, you have no idea what's happening.
59:41
SPEAKER_02: Is uh My Name is Read by um sorry, how did I forget the name by the Turkish writer?
59:47
SPEAKER_02: It will come, it just is on the tip of my tongue.
59:50
SPEAKER_02: Um, so I think my name is Read is just a phenomenal book.
59:54
SPEAKER_02: You just absolutely have no idea how he's got those tracks running and how they all suddenly kind of wind up somewhere towards the end, and you know, and it's like magical.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_02: And um what's the third one?
1:00:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, um, if you're an entrepreneur, there is no better book to keep by your bedside.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's very hard, uh, but there is no better friend than um Ben Horowitz's uh the hard thing about hard things.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_02: He talks, he famously coined this the struggle.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_02: And if there's one thought I would leave an entrepreneur with, it is about just just keep that one thing about about the struggle that he talks about.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_02: Because that is the truth uh um of life, uh Swami, if I had to do it.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_02: Um I you know, I there are lots of books.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, I I I read about probably 30-40 books a year, so there's lots of different books, but off the top of my mind, I think um uh Orhan Pamuk was the was the Turkish write-up talking, you know, my name is Red.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_02: I I missed that one from that.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_02: How could I have done that?
1:00:58
SPEAKER_02: But I think uh these are three books that I've kind of uh always turned to in some form of fashion when I want to go back and uh listen.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_02: But I could recommend a hundred other books, and I'm quite happy to send a reading list to anybody who wants to write to me and ask me for one.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Uresh.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: It was an absolutely fascinating conversation, right from the right brain thinking ideas to the left brain business that you run.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_01: To some advice on how to really manage an 18-year-old career talking about how AI has a storytelling opportunity, and finally some great books that you've recommended.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely brilliant, and I think this is a very different conversation that we have had in Contramands podcast.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_01: And thanks a lot for talking to us and sharing your ideas with us.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much for having me on the show, Swami.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna leave with one thought which I had prepared for as my closing, which is a quote from the most famous football coach that most people have never heard of.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_02: A guy called Marcelo Bielsa, Argentinian coach who coaches Leeds United now.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_02: He is a coach for football coaches, Pep Guardiola, whom everybody thinks is the best coach in the world, looks up to him.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_02: And this is a quote that I want to kind of leave every entrepreneur with, but also I think everybody about, and it's about winning.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_02: And he says this, right?
1:02:22
SPEAKER_02: He says the joy, it's about the joy of winning.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_02: He says he knows that the joy of winning lasts about five minutes, and then there is a huge void and a loneliness that is hard to describe, and he goes on to say, failure actually teaches you more, and when you lose, you know, he says you learn so much more.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_02: And uh, I just want to leave people with that thought because you know, when we talk about winning and losing in entrepreneurship, we tend to ascribe too much to the outcome and not to the process of you know of winning and losing.
1:02:59
SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much for having me on the show.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, thanks, lovely, lovely quote.
1:03:05
SPEAKER_01: Thanks a lot for sharing it with us.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to the selected things, What is the colour?