0:04

Welcome back to First Principles. I'm

0:07

your host, Rohan Dharmakumar. Whether

0:09

you're a first-time listener or a returning one, thank

0:12

you for listening to us. I

0:15

am thankful that you choose to spend a

0:17

few hours with us each month when there

0:19

are so many other podcasts, so many other

0:21

things out there. Today, we

0:24

have a supercut episode. Normally,

0:26

our conversations go deep with one

0:28

specific guest. But every now and

0:30

then, we zoom out and go

0:33

broad by stitching together a multi-guest

0:35

conversation. And the invisible

0:37

thread that connects the conversations with

0:40

five founders we pick for today

0:42

is company culture. What's the

0:44

best way to empower your talent? What

0:47

do founders expect from employees? And

0:49

how do they build their company

0:51

cultures? You know, this

0:53

is where it gets interesting. In

0:55

most cases, our guests have differing

0:57

opinions on these subjects. But while

0:59

putting this episode together, we kept

1:02

encountering one word or substitute for

1:04

it in some cases, and that

1:06

was patience. Patience

1:09

in the way that they give

1:11

feedback to their employees, patience in

1:13

investing in your employees, building

1:15

these patience not just within themselves,

1:17

but within the entire organization. There

1:20

are some very interesting perspectives in

1:23

this episode on how these founders

1:25

approach and practice patience among the

1:27

other principles of leadership and management.

1:30

Let's get into it. First

2:01

up, we have Krish Subramanian of

2:03

Charge B who has a simple

2:05

and powerful dictum. Move the

2:07

chairs and get out of the way of good people.

2:10

At Charge B, you wouldn't fit in

2:12

if you limit yourself to a strict

2:14

hierarchy. He sees employees more as his

2:17

peer group. Among the

2:19

many examples Krish brought up in our

2:21

conversation was an instance where the opportunity

2:23

to give feedback led to an employee

2:26

who was about to leave deciding to

2:28

stay on at the company and how

2:30

all of this is part of Charge

2:33

B's culture. I

2:35

want to take you back to something that you've mentioned at

2:37

least twice in our conversation which is move

2:40

the chairs and get out of the way of

2:43

good people. So what does that

2:45

really mean? When you say get out of

2:47

the way, how does it translate into what

2:49

you do as a leader? Trust

2:54

them to solve the problem but before that

2:56

there is one crucial step which is have

2:58

they understood one the significance of what

3:00

we are actually trying to solve. Are they acknowledging the

3:02

problem current state as it is or are we in

3:04

denial? And as long as we

3:06

are actually on the same page with respect to ultimately

3:09

in any form. I am still going to ask what

3:11

does get out of the way mean? Get

3:13

out of the way mean. Because it is. Trust them to

3:15

solve the problem right and then you. Why even the way?

3:17

Then you take it right. So. Why even the way? So

3:19

delegation without review is application right.

3:22

So you delegate, you trust them to solve

3:24

the problem but you if you

3:26

are responsible and ultimately if you are still

3:29

responsible for that area then you still

3:31

have to check in with them for

3:33

progress and hold them have

3:35

that conversation to ensure that it's actually progressing the

3:37

way you would like. So

3:40

that is general working style and

3:42

within that to be

3:45

able to do this get out of the way what

3:47

is one more important step that

3:49

is there is to ensure that they have

3:53

understood we are on the same page

3:55

with respect to the problem definition this current state of

3:57

things that we are asking them to fix.

4:01

Can I flip this question? What does being in

4:03

the way look like? Being

4:06

in the way look like you. Since you're

4:09

getting out of the way. So

4:12

you give the problem to them, right? And

4:14

then you continue to obsess

4:17

about it for me, right?

4:20

Being in the way would mean I say

4:22

when I work on entitlements, so here is

4:24

what you need to do. And

4:26

then instead of actually

4:28

trusting this person, just agreeing on some contracts to

4:30

say hey, just make sure that you talk to

4:33

these types of people and build

4:35

enough context, come back to me with your learnings

4:37

and then do xyz things and then just run

4:39

with it. I keep doing

4:43

most of the user study and then

4:45

go and tell me what's your micromanaging.

4:47

Yeah, micromanaging is over simplified word, but

4:49

basically even simple things like telling him

4:51

insights instead of trusting his learnings from

4:53

customers, I still continue to trust my

4:55

hunch more than the information that he

4:57

is actually gathering. It's not a very hard thing for

4:59

a founder to let go of. Did you find it

5:01

easy to let go of this? If

5:05

you are going to trust somebody to solve the problem,

5:07

right? One is do they have the skills and why

5:09

did you actually trust them with? See you trust your

5:11

own decision process of why you are interesting something with

5:13

somebody and then

5:15

allow them to do the job by not

5:19

overriding them through your hunches. That

5:22

I think is more important than micromanaging,

5:24

right? We call it review. Review is

5:26

important, right? Micromanaging does not mean

5:28

don't do reviews. Review

5:32

is continuous check-in, enable them, unblock

5:34

them to win decision process. For example, there is a

5:36

new product that we have been building. One

5:40

of the things like my 20 minute

5:42

chat with the three member team

5:44

that's actually building is okay,

5:47

what do you guys need? Where are you? We

5:49

have early four customers in the pipeline. One is

5:51

already live. Super exciting stuff, but how do they

5:53

get 10, 20 customers is a question they are

5:55

running with. I could actually

5:58

tell them that, okay, take our freemium product. already

6:00

have $250,000 premium that we offer to

6:03

our early-stage customer, make it a million

6:05

dollars and offer these two early adopters of this product

6:07

and tell them that I'm actually going

6:09

to bring more value to you, why

6:11

don't you talk to us and

6:14

explore this new product? Ask for 15 minutes through that.

6:17

I can actually make that kind of a decision by

6:20

giving them the tools to succeed and

6:23

I'm able to help them kind of with that decision probably

6:25

they will not be able to make themselves. That

6:28

is unblocking. If I were to go

6:30

tell them, oh those four customers, they are

6:32

all early-stage startups, why don't you actually start talking to

6:34

some of these big customers who also look like they

6:37

are talking about this problem. That

6:39

I think is getting in the way because

6:41

then I am actually letting my instincts overrule

6:45

their actual scientific method of.

6:47

You are leading them instead of letting them

6:49

lead. Letting them lead that, right? Because they

6:52

are the DRI, they are the directly responsible

6:54

individual for the success and failure of that

6:56

thing and allowing them to own in

6:58

the best interest of the company and

7:01

those individuals so they can

7:03

actually continue to own it and succeed or failure, that's

7:05

okay, right? But

7:07

it is important that it's their thing rather

7:09

than making the decision then you hold them

7:11

responsible is the worst thing to do. Got

7:15

it. Krish, what's charge-based culture? If

7:17

you are to define it by simply. Okay.

7:23

If I try to define it

7:25

through the documented values in some ways, right?

7:27

You sound kind of skeptical about that. Yeah,

7:29

I'm going to tell me that the values

7:32

came up roughly about what, seven years after.

7:34

Seven years into the journey because we as,

7:37

see we did not feel

7:39

like writing down what

7:41

we would consider as values but because

7:44

some things have to organically come together,

7:46

right, the way we work and

7:48

then distilling it is much better. I

7:51

don't think we even planned for it. It is

7:53

that we never had this

7:55

need to actually document this because we

7:58

all end up accumulating the kind of. just

8:00

the way we actually accommodate your colleagues, you

8:03

pick people that you like working with for

8:05

a reason, right? And then some people will

8:07

reject you and move

8:09

on. Or you move on. One

8:11

of these two things happen. And

8:14

ultimately that tribe of people becomes

8:17

that early tribe ends up attracting

8:19

more of similar people and there

8:22

are certain things that you cherish, right? It's not

8:24

like it's not a monoculture and yet... And rejecting

8:26

some people as well because like you said... Yes,

8:29

system rejects. The system rejects people, right? As

8:31

all group of people. Can

8:33

I ask you what kind of people does

8:35

the charge B system reject? And by that

8:37

I don't obviously mean like formally reject... Yeah,

8:39

not everybody who leaves is necessarily rejected but

8:41

same time... No, no. I'm talking about who

8:43

will... What are the kind of people who

8:46

will not succeed at charge B? Who will

8:48

not fit in. People who expect strict hierarchy,

8:50

I don't think will succeed. The

8:53

process, for example, somebody who is hierarchical

8:55

in their behavior will also

8:57

expect me to be hierarchical with them, right? As

8:59

founder and CEO because if I actually make

9:02

decisions, they expect me... They will also look

9:04

up to say, have you made a decision? Have

9:06

you made up the mind? What do you want? becomes

9:09

a question. Then what I want becomes

9:11

a mandate and that's what they actually

9:13

want to implement to please me or

9:15

to align with me, right? I agree.

9:18

I don't think that works well for us because yes, I'm

9:20

a CEO. I'm the CEO responsible for certain

9:22

things. But the way

9:24

we actually work is more like

9:26

peers, like my direct reports. I want to

9:29

work with them more as peers. The

9:31

reason why we have continuously upgraded and brought

9:33

in change makers and senior

9:35

leaders into the organization is because I have

9:38

never been walked that path and that journey

9:40

and I'm not a specialist in each of

9:42

those areas. So I have

9:44

a group of people and people who

9:46

can counsel me with different perspectives where

9:49

80, 90 percent of the decisions they are going to make.

9:51

But the 10 percent of the decisions that needs a debate

9:53

and probably alignment, they should be able

9:55

to bring up those perspectives

9:58

and we... I maybe if... If

10:00

it is a hunch driven decision, maybe like wherever there's

10:02

data, the decision is clear,

10:04

wherever there is a hunch or like somebody has

10:06

to be a deal breaker, then I make the

10:08

decision. I think

10:10

stylistically that works well for us rather than

10:12

someone who expects most of the decision to

10:15

be hierarchical. Got it. Hierarchy is

10:17

one. What are some of the other things that? Somebody

10:20

who's close, the growth mindset is not there.

10:22

Like, hey, it sounds actually cliche to even

10:24

say that for me because almost everybody wants

10:26

to say that, right? And we'll say that.

10:29

But for us, if that, see

10:31

if there is a skepticism, cynicism is

10:33

there about, like, for example, all

10:36

hands, if you take the case of all hands, it's

10:40

very hard to make, depending

10:43

on the context in which some people

10:45

have past experiences and different countries and

10:47

all of that. The all hands, the

10:49

all hands, the context is the weekly,

10:51

weekly or monthly all hand meetings, right?

10:53

That you have with your team. Depending

10:55

on your previous experience, the relationship between

10:57

you as an employee and your employer

10:59

many times is also colored, right? I

11:02

don't judge people based on that, but

11:04

I just believe that there

11:06

is some level of dissonance or like

11:08

distance that people sometimes maintain depending on

11:10

the relationship and past experiences people have

11:13

had that employer is out here

11:15

to screw my happiness or like there is something that

11:18

they are going to, what is the catch,

11:20

right, is always there. And

11:23

I'm completely okay where people are skeptical

11:25

and coming in because you don't hire,

11:29

thinking everybody has to sing your traces and

11:31

then be a fan and all of that.

11:33

No, right? I'm completely

11:36

comfortable with a mutual contract that is

11:38

honored and respected and you bring your

11:40

honest work and skills to the table

11:43

and we do the, we

11:45

create value for you and all of that stuff. But

11:48

what doesn't work for me is continuing

11:50

to hold on to that cynicism

11:52

and not ever be able to

11:54

let your guard down to understand who

11:57

we are is a

11:59

lack of curiosity. Then you

12:01

are letting your past dictate your future,

12:03

that doesn't work well. Right? Which

12:06

is because my nature, by nature, thankfully, I am

12:09

somebody who is very comfortable, showing

12:12

vulnerability like and within the company,

12:14

we are to a large degree,

12:16

very transparent and even things that we are not transparent about,

12:18

we tell them that sorry, I'm not going to actually tell

12:20

you if you're going through like, for example,

12:23

several fundraisers that we have done in the past. I

12:27

used to go tell the team like

12:29

sometimes even before announcing one week or

12:31

there was one instance, one month ahead

12:33

of actual announcement, we told the entire

12:35

organization, but we trusted everybody to

12:38

keep it quiet to get the most.

12:40

Because there are lots of things that can go wrong. There are a lot

12:42

of things that can go wrong, but still money is in the bank, I

12:44

tell them that till the money is in the bank,

12:46

I'm not going to tell you. And I

12:49

don't want a distraction because we are

12:51

not dependent on raising that last round of funding

12:53

to keep running the company without that we can

12:56

do that. And yet,

12:58

if something goes falls apart, and

13:00

we don't close the round, because somebody

13:02

is asking for, let's say a governance structure

13:04

with some control as a last round of

13:07

financial, we don't want to give

13:09

that we want to go on. And so which means the deal might fall

13:11

apart. Everybody else

13:13

might feel like a failure and then

13:15

morale can go down. That is something

13:18

we don't want to inflict on everybody, right? So

13:20

there was nothing that had changed

13:22

between the previous before the money came in or

13:25

the money did not come in. And

13:27

yet it can feel like a failure. So we are not going

13:29

to distract the organization. My job is also to

13:32

ensure that we are focused on what is important,

13:34

which is serving the customers building the product, those

13:36

are actually more important. So I'm not going to

13:38

distract the organization. So these are things I will

13:40

not tell you transparently. When

13:42

you see charge

13:45

we know and what you're doing as a

13:47

game, how do you define that game? See,

13:51

there are different types. Every individual is

13:53

different, right? So not everybody looks at

13:55

it as work is not life. And

13:57

absolutely that is how it's going to

13:59

be. Exactly what you just

14:01

mentioned. Correct. And there is a wiring,

14:03

I call it

14:05

as manufacturing mistake that some of us have, where

14:08

work becomes the large part of your life and definition.

14:10

And that is OK. And then there will be a

14:12

lot of people who actually treat work as work, as

14:14

a 9 to 5 thing. And that's OK. You need

14:16

the mix of healthy mix of all kinds of people.

14:19

The game that I think everybody should play

14:22

is that great work ethic.

14:24

You have a social contract with

14:26

your relations that you have, friends

14:28

and all of that. The same way you have

14:31

an inter-interware relationship, a contract with

14:33

your employer as an employee. What

14:36

is asked in return is that work ethic

14:39

of the job, job definition, where you obsess

14:41

about a customer and you can have internal

14:43

customers or external customers. But your

14:45

job is to understand the needs of a customer,

14:47

solve the problems, and then derive economic

14:49

value from it is basically the game that we choose

14:51

to play. The intensity with which

14:54

any person chooses to play. Or the

14:56

lightness. The lightness, right? That

14:58

is completely different. So you can still be

15:00

in serious business. You can you, how

15:03

do we say this? We

15:08

can be in serious business, but you still don't

15:11

have to take yourself seriously. The silliness

15:13

and creativity is

15:15

necessary. Kid-like enjoyment when it

15:17

comes to approaching things is necessary. So that

15:19

lightness is necessary. And yet you

15:21

know that you are into the integrity of

15:24

the contract is super important. That work ethic

15:26

and all those things. That's all that's expected,

15:28

right? Like

15:30

for example, if you cannot work for, let's

15:32

say, couple of days this

15:34

particular week, or like this particular month, you are having

15:36

a personal situation where you need to spend more time

15:39

with your kid. Go talk to your

15:41

manager and tell them that, hey, this particular month, the three days

15:43

that I'm four days, I'm going to work. I

15:45

can actually do this. Or these core hours, I can do a

15:47

lot more. These hours,

15:49

I actually want to be able to

15:51

prioritize this. We are completely comfortable.

15:54

And I would appreciate people wanting to have

15:56

those kind of transfer and conversation and be

15:58

able to establish that contract. And

16:01

I would like the managers

16:03

also to be empathetic right? I would be

16:05

very annoyed if managers actually don't understand this

16:07

right? Their managers don't understand this. But

16:13

like owning that is

16:15

the part very much part of the integral

16:18

to the contract right? That's a game that

16:20

everybody should ideally like everybody to play. I

16:22

want to back it up a bit Krish

16:24

because I sense

16:26

this I think I

16:28

have it you have it a lot of

16:30

people have it as well which is essentially

16:32

the hesitation to

16:35

perhaps say that work can

16:37

be enjoyable and work

16:39

can be fun and that work can

16:41

be happy because I think we somehow

16:43

as founders get defensive and say look

16:47

it does not mean that you need to

16:49

give your you know turn over your personal

16:51

life to it. But I look at it

16:53

a very simple point of view if you're

16:55

going to spend eight hours of your day

16:57

at work might as well enjoy what you're

16:59

doing might as well play it as a

17:01

game right? As opposed to and I think

17:03

this is relatively I think you know I

17:05

mean over the last maybe like three four

17:07

years it's again coming up which is essentially

17:10

it's a strict contract and I'm

17:13

doing it because I'm paid a salary which

17:16

is alright but as

17:18

an individual if you're given an option

17:20

where salaries are the same and

17:23

in one workplace you get to enjoy and have

17:25

fun and do things that you like and you're

17:27

good at and the other one it doesn't really

17:29

matter which one would you rather pick right? So

17:31

it's a no-brainer in some level for me and

17:33

I do feel that that

17:36

is freeing a bit where some of

17:38

us especially the younger generation thinks that

17:41

it's wrong to want to have

17:43

fun at work or to be happy at work.

17:45

It's over simplistic one right? The moment somebody says

17:47

work is fun and all of that everybody does

17:49

not even I'm not asking for

17:52

like 80 hours or anything like that I'm just saying

17:55

actually have fun right? You can do it for

17:57

even if you're a deferred life plan But

18:01

like the 10 years that I actually spent in all

18:03

these companies are Raman worked at Zoho, he never wrote

18:05

his own CV. KPS

18:07

co-founder, he never had a LinkedIn profile for 10

18:10

years, right? And he never had written his CV

18:13

even once. And seven

18:17

years into charge, we was the first time we had to make him

18:19

write a CV because we had to apply for his US visa. So

18:23

there are people like that who actually had like

18:25

we all had fun. And

18:27

I actually had a very enjoyable time in all

18:29

the jobs, but also had a deferred life plan

18:32

of actually planning to want to start up, not

18:34

actually having a timeframe when, but

18:37

you can do both, right? If like

18:39

then my life did not have to be

18:41

miserable or think that, okay, things suck at

18:43

TCS or things suck at any of those

18:45

companies for me to want to start up.

18:49

It was actually enjoyable and I gave it, I

18:51

feel like I gave it my all. And

18:54

that's how I learned whatever I was able to pick up

18:56

in my job. And that's the only way

18:58

you can choose to do

19:01

things. Anyway it's meaningful and

19:03

with satisfaction when every time you look back.

19:07

How do you manage to see outside your

19:09

own biases and bubbles, especially as the founder

19:11

see, you need somebody who will call your

19:14

bluff country. I mean, one

19:16

set of people are your co-founders,

19:18

but other than that, do you

19:21

have any nothing that actually helps build

19:23

that relationship with all your peers as

19:25

well, like peers, co-workers

19:27

and all, right? When we are actually deviating from

19:30

some of these things that we have said, but jokingly people

19:32

should be able to point it out to point our own

19:35

deviations or like

19:37

slight changes. I think if

19:39

that is there without heaviness of struggling

19:42

to actually point it out, that's when it becomes

19:44

a cult or a particular

19:46

behavior where the, like

19:49

you form a hero or your role defines

19:53

the, what is the hero worship kind of behavior

19:55

that nobody's able to point out flaws, becomes

19:59

a trap, right? And one of the

20:01

things is thankfully, one thing we consciously are

20:03

trying to work on is how do we

20:05

have that circle of people continuously in the

20:07

organization, not our in circle or anything, but

20:09

a lot more people are able to comfortably

20:12

point out that, okay, do

20:14

you notice that you actually did something different?

20:17

Right. And it could be right or like

20:19

better, any of those things, but that's like

20:22

conversation needs to happen to be able to point out things,

20:25

show the mirror. And that's helpful,

20:27

right? Because none of us are trying to be perfect, but

20:29

it's just

20:32

being able to operate as colleagues with mutual respect, right?

20:34

If you are in the trenches and many are working

20:36

together, why not have that mutual respect where we are

20:38

working only as peers and colleagues? Some

20:41

of that doesn't have to reflect. It's,

20:44

if somebody is able to point it out, it's a credit to them. Plus

20:49

you earned one more person

20:51

who actually you are able to

20:53

get comfortable with. What's the best

20:55

way to give feedback to you? Hmm.

20:59

My wife would love to know the answer. Best

21:03

way to give feedback. The

21:06

best way, the best time. Um,

21:09

actually the best way to give feedback

21:12

is by, um, not

21:14

wanting to control my situation. Right. Meaning

21:16

the best way to, okay, now I'm

21:18

telling the opposite how not to

21:20

give feedback, but the best way to give feedback is to

21:22

ask, Hey, can I tell you, give me a feedback? Can

21:24

you give me a feedback seeking

21:26

permission? One I'm in the receptive mode immediately.

21:29

Second is to just say, here's my

21:31

story or here's my observation. I

21:34

have nothing to dispute. It was your observation. I

21:36

think that generally goes a long way where anybody

21:38

can share anything. And that is something we try

21:40

to strongly encourage. There have been instances when, um,

21:43

internally, when somebody wanted to give a

21:46

feedback to a CXO, right? And then they were

21:48

actually feeling very miserable inside the organization. This is

21:50

an individual contributor. I remember a particular instance where

21:52

I was able to drop on my lesson from

21:54

conscious leadership to go to coach, play the coach

21:56

role to tell them, actually, you know what? I

21:58

can go give the feedback. I realize this. And

22:01

I learned about it, but that

22:04

person was trying to quit. And I said, okay, why

22:06

do you want to quit and all that? And then

22:08

this person was extremely frustrated with the way they were

22:10

treated and then felt miserable or felt insulted.

22:16

And I said, okay, you can choose to quit.

22:18

Do you actually not like working in this company?

22:20

The person actually absolutely loved working in

22:22

the company, which is why the

22:25

information surfaced to me during exit interview. That's

22:27

how I reached out. I said, okay, if

22:29

you want to quit, absolutely quit. But

22:32

would you be able to

22:34

say you are walking away

22:36

without any regrets or

22:38

will you actually think, I wish I was able to say

22:40

this and still quit, if

22:43

nothing changed? Then the

22:45

person said, actually, you know what, you're

22:47

right. I wish I

22:49

could actually say this, but I don't know because

22:51

I'm scared, hierarchy and all that. I said,

22:53

but you're quitting. If you imagine

22:56

that your career will not be jeopardized in any way, and

22:59

I will actually, you can use me as a reference,

23:01

and I will personally vouch and make sure that you

23:03

are able to land anywhere that

23:05

you want to go. Then

23:07

you can remove the fear of actually this

23:10

career being colored because

23:12

of this relationship. But

23:15

would you still want to give the feedback so you can actually

23:17

move on without regrets? The person said,

23:19

yes. And I said, let me help you frame

23:21

the feedback. It will also help the person. You

23:23

will also realize that maybe the person did

23:26

not even realize that they created a situation like

23:28

this. It was

23:30

a breakthrough moment for the person when

23:34

they wrote down the feedback saying, this

23:36

is how I felt. This is this happened. These

23:40

are the facts during this conversation.

23:42

You did not let me talk. And

23:44

then you wrote everything that I said. And

23:46

then you went on a rant for the next

23:48

next five, 10 minutes, which had nothing to do with

23:51

the things that I did. Here is my feeling. Here

23:53

is my story. Because

23:55

of all of this, I even came to a decision where

23:57

I'm not valued. And I was

23:59

actually thinking about. leaving moving on from the organization.

24:02

And this is not how I actually thought charge

24:04

B will actually work. And I actually love the

24:06

company. I love working with my peer group. Yet

24:08

this particular conversation led me to this

24:10

kind of decision. And I asked this person to

24:13

give that feedback directly to the CXO instead

24:15

of even me relaying it. And I said, don't copy

24:17

me. Don't even tell this person that I know about

24:19

this. Surprisingly, the person

24:21

picked up the CXO, picked up the phone,

24:24

asked for a call, talked to

24:27

them, and apologized. And they realized that both

24:29

of them had the right intent, right

24:31

place in the heart. And the person said, OK, I shouldn't

24:33

have reacted this way. And the CXO apologized. And

24:36

something changed. And then the

24:38

person came back saying, for

24:42

me, I feel lighter because

24:44

I could give feedback to a CXO

24:47

and come out of the conversation more positive. I don't want

24:49

to quit. I would rather be in a company that allows

24:51

me to be able to give feedback to anybody, so

24:54

I would stay. And the person continues to stay and

24:56

do well. So

24:59

why did I go into this

25:02

tangent? I think mostly it comes

25:04

down to how to give feedback. I think for

25:06

me, learning to give feedback or receive feedback, again,

25:09

over time, we all pick up different ways in

25:11

which we all work. But I think even being

25:14

able to play the coach opportunity to actually teach

25:16

somebody else, like ignoring the power

25:18

structure, but treat somebody else's appear regardless

25:20

of their title to actually be able to do that

25:22

was a breakthrough moment for me also to

25:25

be able to quote somebody to give feedback.

25:30

Next, we have Varun Dua of Acco

25:32

Insurance, who spoke about growing in a

25:35

company from an employee's point of view.

25:38

One of the things he told me was, when

25:40

you find something you love, you should be at

25:42

it for 10 to 15 years, because

25:45

it's the payoff of years of

25:47

perseverance that is fruitful and not

25:50

the short-term gains you might make

25:52

along the way. It's the power

25:54

of compounding. And he

25:56

believes jumping around to build a resume

25:58

doesn't allow for this. He

26:01

also discusses how he spots the right

26:03

talent and why your outcomes matter more

26:05

than your decorated career. With

26:08

the benefit of hindsight, what's your advice

26:10

to others when it comes

26:12

to looking at

26:14

your career and pursuing something that's of interest to

26:17

you? What's your advice? Yeah,

26:19

I think I'm

26:22

a little old school. I think whatever

26:24

you like doing, you should give it like 10-15

26:27

years. I

26:29

think when I take founders or

26:31

professionals, whichever way, I

26:34

think some founders have an attachment

26:36

to the space for whatever. They could have worked

26:38

in it or they have a unique insight to

26:40

it or whatever it is. I

26:43

think those journeys last. Because

26:46

you are not looking at it as a valuation

26:48

or you're not looking at it. InsureTech

26:50

was not a word. I didn't

26:53

coin the word or it

26:55

came like, oh, I'm doing

26:58

InsureTech apparently in

27:00

some sense. For me, the space was important

27:02

or it became important. I think if you

27:05

have that attachment, how many ever pivots you

27:07

need, different companies you need, you'll keep sort

27:09

of banging your head against the problem till

27:11

you get there and somewhere hopefully there's some

27:14

successful outcome at the end of

27:16

it. But if you get down to a fad, I

27:18

want to do crypto, I want to do web3, I

27:20

want to do... You're not allowing to use the

27:22

financial term compounding. You're not allowing.

27:24

Your thinking is not compounding. I

27:26

want to do social e-commerce is the big thing.

27:29

I'm not saying the people who are doing it

27:31

don't have attachment to the space. But I've also

27:33

met enough people who are doing it because it's

27:35

the hot thing. China,

27:37

my job... To use the

27:39

same financial analogy, it's like if you're

27:41

investing by putting money into

27:43

one mutual fund one year and then taking

27:45

it out, reinvesting into stocks and then versus

27:48

picking great funds or stocks

27:51

and allowing them to compound over 10 or 15

27:53

years, we have

27:55

evidence that almost always the compounding

27:58

strategy wins. And

28:00

I say this with humility,

28:02

the depths that I

28:05

have gained, I can challenge a lot

28:07

of people who are in this space have not been. I have just

28:09

been at this problem for 15 years. I

28:11

still don't think I know half the things that

28:13

how to solve it. But it's not the, and

28:16

people ask me if I couldn't happen. I

28:19

said I would keep trying. I would find

28:21

the next time. I don't know what else to

28:23

do. Nothing else is as

28:25

interesting to me as this is.

28:27

And even with professionals, the team members who work in

28:29

our team, I keep telling them that

28:31

most people who will take

28:34

Flipkart for, we all had the $700 million

28:36

ESOP. Let's even take

28:38

a monetary lens or material lens to things. The

28:41

people who made the money on that were

28:43

people who lasted the journey. The

28:46

people who, hey, I want to become a VP. I

28:48

want to become like, I want to be head of

28:50

product. I want to be, you're not giving me this

28:52

opportunity, blah, blah, blah, and keep flipping and

28:55

not really deepening their skill set,

28:57

their ability to manage teams, their

29:00

own compounding. But

29:03

actually I've never seen them make money. Their ESOPs

29:05

never west. They're just not

29:07

there for the, you know, the

29:09

day the price is there, they have just

29:11

already optimized for the short term gain.

29:14

So I think my advice or philosophy is

29:16

just as long as you can go.

29:19

If you can come in as a founder or as

29:21

a professional, see, things can go wrong and you may

29:23

have to make some shifts or whatever it is. Unless

29:26

you're in the wrong place, I should just give it 10 years. Often,

29:29

like, you know, when people are young, it's like,

29:31

I wish I had a million dollars. Yeah. I

29:33

wish I was like, what's that for you right

29:36

now? What's your most ambitious? So

29:38

me, I like, to me,

29:40

I want to, let

29:44

me put it, I'll say two things. I

29:50

want Echo to be a public company. I want

29:52

Echo to last beyond me, you know, and

29:54

not be a sellout

29:57

situation. I think financial services companies

29:59

like... HDFC or ICS here

30:01

or even Kotak

30:04

first-gen right. Kotak is, they

30:06

can be massive and they can be large

30:08

institutions. I'd love to build

30:11

an institution like that in India. That maybe I

30:13

have to hang my boots five, ten years from now

30:15

or whatever it is. Or maybe I'm not the right

30:17

guy to run it. But I think we are in

30:19

a place where early Zaku's business model, the

30:21

space that it is in, I think it has a shot at it.

30:24

To me, that would be success. That

30:27

it lasts beyond me. It's not some

30:30

company that has to be saved because it continues to burn

30:32

money and you need to find a buyer.

30:34

I think that will be very important to me. Second,

30:43

I would like people who work in ACO to say good things

30:45

about ACO when they leave. I think that's important to me. People

30:47

will leave. They will have different career aspirations. They'll

30:49

fulfill a part of their career in ACO. There

30:52

will be some who have been there pre-inception. They're still

30:55

there six years, seven years. I think they'll do ten,

30:57

fifteen years also with ACO. Some

30:59

will learn a lot. We

31:01

will learn from them the four, five, three years that

31:03

they give and they'll move on. But I think it's

31:05

important to me. Maybe I'm vain or whatever it is.

31:07

I don't know. I want people to say, I

31:09

learned it was a good place. I

31:11

think that's important to me. When we've

31:14

had a disgruntled employee leaving and saying it

31:16

hurts me, that they said, ACO is a

31:18

shitty place. Something went wrong with them. Maybe

31:20

things didn't align. But

31:22

I would not like to be remembered

31:25

as a company with treats

31:27

its people very well. I

31:31

think that's important. In

31:34

many ways, what you're saying are all aligned. If

31:36

it's an institution that is around twenty years

31:39

from now, twenty-five years from now, chances

31:41

are it needs to be an institution

31:44

which is able to retain people, grow

31:46

people, etc. Frankly, we're very

31:48

proud of that. We've had

31:52

most of our initial people are still there. Most of

31:54

them. I would say 80% of them are

31:56

still there. Some who come in

31:58

don't align and then leave quickly. that has

32:00

also happened but yeah

32:03

I'm quite proud

32:05

of the fact that those people continue to believe

32:07

in ACO and continue to believe in where we

32:09

are going. You've obviously hired

32:12

a lot of people over the years. Yes.

32:14

How do you spot talented people?

32:18

What are you looking for? I'd say

32:22

right now my hit rate about and

32:24

let me talk I'm not talking maybe

32:29

people who are just starting their career or whatever it is

32:31

but at least people who are mid or senior management my

32:33

hit rate I would say still 50% of

32:36

where I thought the guy was great or the person

32:38

was great and when they actually

32:40

came on board like half the time has worked

32:42

out very well half the time it's just not

32:44

I was probably elated in the interview and finally

32:46

it didn't work out for me or it didn't

32:48

work out for them so I still don't know

32:51

is my first answer

32:53

yeah yeah yeah that I

32:55

still don't know there are

32:57

some telltale signs I

33:00

know what to avoid versus

33:03

really what to look for

33:06

I think it's a little bit of elimination for me

33:09

like even asking you

33:11

know I'll give you an example one of the

33:13

pet questions that I ask in you know in

33:15

an interview is while trying to get a leader

33:18

on borders if you had like the

33:20

same question you asked me actually coincidentally and that's why

33:22

I remember it last 10 years in your career you

33:24

wanted to change something if there was anything that you

33:26

do differently what is it that you would have done

33:28

differently if anything and

33:33

you would be surprised that very

33:36

few people have the humility to say I

33:38

did these three things wrong and you know

33:40

and I or I handled my team badly

33:43

I don't think I didn't think I coached them

33:45

enough I didn't I think my team was operating

33:47

in silos and I you know and and I

33:49

had to learn the hard way a

33:51

lot of people you know

33:54

oh I should have some people even take it back to

33:56

oh I should have taken an admission here or

33:59

I should have jumped the job, it's

34:02

about what would have worked for them better,

34:04

you know, versus

34:06

telling thing, hey, how they could

34:08

have operated and contributed better. It's

34:11

a very clear sign to me of somebody

34:13

who is constantly looking to improve and

34:16

better themselves versus who somebody who's

34:19

improving their

34:21

outcomes. Their

34:23

outcomes will improve as a, you know, as a byproduct

34:25

of if they do this part well, but I think

34:28

that to me is like a telltale style. It's very

34:30

difficult for people to answer the question, how do you

34:32

organize your week? Like

34:34

just just answering your best, like what

34:36

do you do? Then spend time hiring half

34:39

the time you'll realize at least I've learned to

34:41

realize that people react to the work

34:43

that lands in their inbox versus

34:45

saying, hey, I have a very

34:47

clear plan. My team, parts of

34:49

my team are weak. I need to spend consciously

34:51

a day a week mentoring them, coaching them, whatever,

34:53

or at least spending time with them. I need

34:55

to do my reviews a certain day. I need

34:57

to build my future team capacity or whatever it

34:59

is that I need to do. They don't have

35:01

a plan. You know, uh,

35:03

so some of these, not that

35:06

I do or I'm perfected these things, but I know

35:08

that these are things that I need to improve to

35:10

get to do my job better. Uh,

35:12

but I think people I tend

35:15

to stay away from, if I can be honest with people

35:17

who don't even

35:19

have an awareness of what learning or what

35:21

they need to improve or whatever it is,

35:23

I'm not looking for perfection. I think the

35:25

question that you asked, right? Like, you know,

35:27

what would you do differently? And I think

35:29

you talked about outcomes. The

35:31

way I look at it is that, you know, the

35:33

response that you get is that is the

35:36

person saying that if I had done this, you

35:38

know, differently, this is how different

35:40

my resume would look today. Absolutely.

35:42

How different I would look as

35:44

a person. Yes. You're trying to

35:46

look for, yeah. You know, you

35:48

talked about awareness. You are essentially

35:51

trying to find people who

35:53

are keen to grow as persons

35:55

and people not grow their

35:57

resume resume is the outcomes.

36:03

Yashish Dahiya, the co-founder of Policy

36:06

Bazaar was quite candid in our

36:08

chat. He spoke about why employees

36:10

who spent up to five years

36:12

at Policy Bazaar are still considered

36:14

new employees. We also talked about

36:17

how there are two conflicting qualities

36:19

that one must have when working

36:21

at Policy Bazaar. But perhaps most

36:23

surprisingly, Yashish also went on to

36:25

explain why he distances himself from

36:28

making hiring decisions. As

36:30

a leader, do you have any

36:33

tips on how you identify and groom

36:37

potential leaders? You spoke about future

36:39

potential. Same thing here. I like

36:41

to see truthfulness. I like to

36:43

see... So the one trait that

36:46

we classify in Policy Bazaar is an iota

36:48

of selflessness. And both those words are very

36:50

carefully used. We don't expect you

36:52

to be selfless all the time. You have to

36:54

be selfish to survive also and

36:56

to succeed. And

36:58

I want people to be smart and selfish also.

37:02

But at times, you

37:04

shouldn't be a person who doesn't have the ability to be selfless. And

37:07

I just don't have the ability at all. I can only think

37:09

myself. You know, there are some people who will

37:11

create a 100 rupee

37:14

loss for the company for one rupee of

37:16

their own benefit. Now,

37:18

that is something we

37:20

cannot have. And I know it sounds

37:22

weird, but that happens all the time in the corporate world.

37:25

Right? In any part of the world. Right? So

37:31

we spot that iota of

37:34

selflessness somehow. And over a

37:36

lifetime, you start developing a pattern, a

37:38

matching on that. When

37:42

people come into the organization who don't match that

37:44

profile, very quickly, that

37:47

gets like... They stand out

37:49

like a sore thumb in the organization. And

37:52

the organization is very harsh on them, very

37:54

rapidly. It's almost like a body turning on

37:56

a foreign agent. Yeah, it's almost like HR

37:58

doesn't need to get involved. people know

38:00

they are outsiders here

38:03

and it gets caught up

38:05

in everything and we are extremely transparent in the

38:07

organization so people almost start calling it out. And

38:13

we have seen small small things like

38:16

you know we don't have

38:18

anything like what time you come into office what

38:20

time you don't but on

38:22

a day that there's a problem and on the

38:24

day when you also have a personal commitment let's say

38:27

and depends right if your kid is unwell that's a

38:29

different issue but if you are going to see a

38:31

football match and you bought a ticket for 50,000

38:33

rupees let's just say are you

38:35

able to walk off

38:38

from that ticket because you have something serious

38:40

that you need to solve right we

38:42

look for those kind of things and

38:47

we find them and honestly

38:50

the 50,000 rupees doesn't matter in the long term. So

38:52

we basically look for silly decision making that

38:54

sometimes people do and

38:56

if you are a silly decision maker you won't last at

38:58

policy it's very simple. Culture

39:01

is obviously very important for you how

39:03

have you as a founder I

39:05

like to try to build and evolve your culture. So I like

39:07

to explain

39:11

to people that the biggest

39:13

traits for

39:15

success at policy with our long term are

39:17

going to be patience and trust. Whether

39:24

you trust us or you don't trust us. If

39:27

you trust us be patient at times it may appear

39:29

we're not being fair to you but

39:31

you show me cases where we have not been fair to

39:33

people for let's say five years seven

39:35

years show me cases look around the

39:38

organization see people see how they have

39:40

done and see if

39:42

we have been unfair to people over a medium to

39:44

long term period. Sometimes in

39:46

the short term life is never going

39:48

to be 100% fair we may not be able to identify everybody

39:50

we may not be able to be fair to everyone in the

39:52

short term. That's why I

39:55

say before five years we consider you a new

39:57

joining before five years are

39:59

over. So

40:02

be patient. What is your average retention? Because in

40:04

the world that we live in today, it's very

40:06

rare for people to say, I will work for

40:08

five years in an organization. So medium to senior

40:10

management, five years,

40:13

we consider the new joining. So

40:17

Sarabhi's now been about three

40:21

years. He's new in the system. Just

40:24

like obviously he's gotten involved very

40:27

rapidly, but that's the

40:29

thinking. So many people will

40:31

stand up and say, yeah, I'm new to the company. And

40:34

that's up to about five years. So I'm just giving you the

40:36

number. The number for us, the cutoff point is about five years.

40:38

We have more than 100 people who are 10

40:41

years old. Please appreciate in

40:43

the entire management team

40:45

at that time, there may be 150 people 10

40:49

years ago, like I'm talking about 2013. So

40:53

maybe 200 people. So of them, at

40:55

least half of them are still here. And

40:58

yeah, we

41:01

take great pride that those 100 do

41:03

well. And the fact

41:05

that others who are patient

41:07

eventually do well. Still

41:10

sticking to culture, I'm

41:12

trying to distill policy bazaars success longitude

41:14

down to elements of its culture. You

41:16

talked about honesty to a

41:19

fault. You talked about Iota selflessness.

41:22

And now you talked about patience and

41:24

trust. Is there any other

41:26

value which is like we work with urgency. So

41:31

see, we are patient. I was just about the

41:33

same time we work with urgency. So

41:36

work with urgency, work with purpose be.

41:40

I mean, and how does an

41:42

employee reconcile patience and urgency at

41:45

the same? Like, yeah, so

41:48

there we are being a being a bit selfish as a company. We're

41:50

saying be urgent with your work. Be

41:52

patient for the rewards. And

41:56

maybe we're being selfish. In

42:00

a way, we know our truth. We're also being honest in telling you

42:02

upfront that there is no way

42:04

that... So I'll give

42:07

you an example, right? One

42:10

guy pretty much after the IPO came

42:12

here and said, what's

42:14

in it for me for the future? I

42:17

said, why? He says, I

42:19

can get one

42:22

crown outside. Out

42:25

here, my compensation is 65 lakhs. It

42:28

doesn't add up. I said, how much have you

42:30

made in the last seven

42:32

years that you've been here? So

42:36

he said, yeah, I've made about 20 crore rupees. I

42:38

said, could you have made that? You could have, but

42:40

in general, were you expecting to make that when you

42:42

joined here? He said, no. But

42:45

he said, but that's done. So

42:47

I said, what makes you think that my colors will

42:49

suddenly change? Or our colors will suddenly change, that we

42:51

will stop all next for you to make money? He

42:56

basically... He's a nice guy, but

43:00

he didn't have trust and

43:03

he didn't have patience. So

43:10

he moved on. Gotten

43:15

joined a corporate. I

43:20

can promise you five years from now, he'll repent that

43:22

decision. And I'm not

43:24

being harsh to him or bad to him. It's just, I

43:27

just feel bad. I'm

43:30

not saying he could have continued

43:32

here forever, but all I'm saying is, according

43:35

to me, it was a terrible

43:37

decision, which I feel bad about. Bad

43:39

about not going to hurt the company in any

43:41

way, but because it's going to end

43:43

up hurting him. Because

43:46

life is long and, you know, there's another 15 years of

43:48

fun ahead. And of course we

43:50

will grow and we will grow in value and employees will make

43:54

lots again when they add value. But

43:57

it will be when they add value. It can't be without adding value.

44:00

And that's where the new ESOP thing that we are

44:02

going to plan is going to be market price linked

44:04

and all that stuff. So that from here onwards, as

44:06

you add value, you derive a lot of, there's no

44:08

problem. Nobody's saying that if the company

44:11

value, just saying over the next five

44:13

years, let's say, let's say triples, nobody's

44:16

saying management can't have 10% of it, of

44:18

the growth. Nobody's saying that. But

44:21

the point is it can't be that the value

44:23

would not grow and management would take 10%. That

44:25

also can't be. That's also stupidity. Right. So

44:27

I think as long as somebody's going to have an

44:29

honest conversation in a line, we are happy

44:31

to create. But

44:35

sometimes people don't have the patience because they say it

44:37

didn't happen today. Those

44:42

people usually tend to be their own enemies. How

44:45

do you teach and

44:47

mentor people in the

44:49

organization then? See, people in

44:52

the organization come up with lots of ideas,

44:54

lots of thought processes, and it's about our

44:56

framework and aligning people

44:58

on that framework. And how will we evaluate? How

45:00

will we look at things? How will we build

45:03

businesses? What are ethos? Those

45:06

are the things that we really focus on. Then keeping

45:08

then eventually watching the numbers also, it can't be just

45:10

strategy. See, having a good strategy is OK, but

45:12

everyone says value, you need to see the numbers also. So

45:16

then holding people honest to the numbers, that's

45:19

basically senior management role. What else does

45:21

senior management do? And culturally making sure

45:25

things are not going off, people's interests are

45:27

not misaligned, etc. Those are the things that

45:29

you spend time on. I'm sure you've

45:31

interviewed hundreds, possibly thousands of people from

45:33

the time that you started Policy Bazaar.

45:36

Not really, but OK. Let's

45:38

say dozens or possibly hundreds.

45:41

Do you have great open-ended questions

45:43

that you ask people? No.

45:45

What are your conversations? See, I

45:48

don't read any relationship differently.

45:51

I had an arranged marriage. Before I went

45:53

to see my wife, I had already decided I'm getting

45:55

married before seeing her. Right.

46:00

Same. I probably got

46:02

rejected by 5-6 girls. But

46:04

I did not reject anyone. That's

46:07

not my philosophy. I would almost not beat. Is

46:10

that the reason why you said that you haven't done so

46:12

many interviews? Yeah. So you don't

46:14

do interviews? I don't do interviews. Because

46:17

you don't say no. I don't say

46:19

no very well. And not just that.

46:22

I like to think

46:24

about it, right? Who are the senior people we've hired? They

46:26

are almost all people who have known for 2, 3, 4, 5

46:29

years. We

46:31

are not people who, you

46:34

know, we don't have, for at least the people I

46:36

hire. Almost nobody

46:38

is without relationship. Now

46:41

that's both a weakness and a strength. You

46:43

can say we are not open-minded to looking

46:45

at hundreds of people, right? We've

46:48

never had a headhunter. We've never had, you

46:51

know, anything of that sort. Yeah,

46:53

that is a weakness also. That's a strength

46:55

also. So for example,

46:57

when Sarabhir came in, it's not

46:59

like we had a headhunting firm looking for

47:01

a CEO. And then we

47:03

had 20 candidates and then we narrowed down to 3 and then

47:05

we said, okay, these 3 are the ones that our board will

47:08

interview. Basically, there's

47:10

a coffee with Sarabhir.

47:14

And me requesting him, would

47:16

you consider joining us? Two

47:18

of you and two IIT Delhi together. He

47:20

was my senior by 2 years. Somebody I

47:22

respect a lot then and now. And

47:24

even today we have difficulty because in a way he's my

47:26

senior. And in a way I am

47:28

his senior. But we don't behave that way. But point is, yes, we

47:30

do have those dynamics exist. Those dynamics

47:33

exist, right? But there

47:36

were very specific reasons because I

47:38

respected him quite a bit. It

47:41

was almost a tentative conversation

47:43

where I didn't even know whether he would

47:45

consider it. And he also said, look,

47:47

if somebody else would have said it, I'm not even thought about

47:49

it because I'm doing my thing. But

47:52

because you give me a weekend. He came

47:54

back after the weekend and said, yes, by now we had not discussed

47:56

salary. We had not discussed compensation. By the way, we never discussed it.

48:01

What was the trigger for it for you to reach out to

48:03

him or to bring on board a CEO? We

48:05

were going public in a few years.

48:10

See, I also

48:12

wanted to distance myself a bit from the organization

48:14

because please understand I'm the founder. And

48:17

as a founder, having worked 13, 14

48:19

years with the same team, you develop

48:21

a certain amount of affection,

48:25

which you cannot always

48:29

act on rationally. So

48:31

while you have a very good team, you know

48:34

that, look, however honest you

48:36

are, you're leaving some gaps because

48:39

of proximity, because

48:41

of very deep relations. So I wanted somebody to come

48:43

in the middle. And only

48:45

somebody whom I could trust so much that it would, it's

48:48

almost like, you know, you have kids. I

48:52

call it, that's how I explain to Sarbir also. I

48:54

don't know if you've seen that movie, the English movie,

48:56

The Mom, where this

48:59

woman is sort of developing cancer and so she

49:01

needs another lady whom

49:03

her husband is seeing to come in

49:05

and manage her children. And

49:08

how that woman

49:10

has to develop a relationship with the children

49:14

while this person is sort of dying in a way. Right. And

49:16

it's a very, very difficult relationship. I

49:18

think company and the people are like my kids, but

49:20

I also know that I could be harming them by

49:23

being too close to them. And so they need

49:26

somebody who's probably not as close and who can

49:28

be a lot more rational and

49:30

open-minded and also bring

49:32

in new people. Because also our organization was not

49:35

very good at bringing in new people.

49:38

We were getting stuck because I had hired a few new people and

49:40

at a senior level, they would get pushed

49:42

off because the

49:44

mafia was too strong, which was the

49:46

wrong word, right? But it's

49:49

sort of important to bring in somebody who

49:51

was not part of that. And

49:54

he's a fantastic guy. I also

49:57

think he's much smarter than I am, etc, etc.

50:00

Although over time I've realized there are a few areas where

50:02

I can be quite good

50:04

also. So I

50:07

approached him from that perspective. He

50:09

joined and I

50:12

think everything has moved in the direction that I thought

50:14

it would. In a sense because the

50:16

team took to him very quickly. He's brought in

50:18

a lot of fresh talent. So I'll give you

50:20

an example, right? We had

50:22

a very good, obviously I said

50:24

it about myself, let's say level

50:26

one, level two and

50:28

a half, but very good. But

50:31

we were struggling to develop level three and level four.

50:35

I think Sarabhi coming in very,

50:37

because people are not moving

50:41

in that direction. He's been able to build level three and

50:43

level four. He's been

50:45

able to question. I had a

50:47

massive aversion to physical

50:49

meetings because I thought too

50:52

much wrong can be communicated, etc, etc, in them.

50:55

He tried those things, right? I

50:58

come with a very strong bias for what's going to work

51:00

and what's not going to work. He

51:05

doesn't. He's happy to try out a lot of things. So

51:08

if you think about physical

51:10

or corporate business or the

51:15

claim support, a lot of things he's tried.

51:17

He's extremely disciplined. So the way

51:19

I see it is I was more like a

51:21

Brazilian football team. He's more like the German football

51:24

team. Very organized, very structured, will succeed at everything.

51:27

He's a little less passionate about the cause. Credit

51:31

where it's due, I think I'm very, very passionate about

51:33

the reason why we exist. By virtue of being a

51:35

founder as well. Yeah, perhaps. Perhaps.

51:38

I think also as a person,

51:40

he doesn't get very passionate about

51:42

anything. He's a little more

51:45

professional than me. German team. Yeah,

51:47

German team. I think German team is not

51:49

the team people cry about.

51:55

Next, you'll hear Acheet Gupta of

51:57

Clear. When talking about

51:59

employees, Acheet was very... specific. He

52:01

told me why investing into the

52:03

sincere and earnest people in the

52:05

organization is necessary and why getting

52:08

them to rise up in the

52:10

organization over time is important. In

52:13

fact, he went on to tell me

52:15

how people chose to stay despite his

52:17

shortcomings as a leader and how he's

52:19

now working to make up for it. We've

52:22

always believed that GTM should be a strength.

52:24

So we've invested also on it and I

52:27

was focusing over there a lot more.

52:30

What I figured was the COVID

52:33

sucked at this like the V

52:35

did not have the rituals and

52:37

practices to be very, very excellent

52:40

in shipping things when we were all

52:43

remote. I think we struggled with it,

52:46

especially to be enterprise grade. I think

52:48

consumer overall, we were fine, but enterprise

52:50

grade stuff for B2B. And

52:53

that's where the listening at scale at B2B. I

52:56

think we can get much better

52:58

and we are getting better, but

53:00

the, and that's why

53:02

we are now back to work from office. I

53:05

think we didn't have five days a week. Yeah.

53:07

All five days a week. We didn't have the

53:09

rituals and the practices to be excellent at well

53:11

collaborating remotely. So what that meant was the

53:14

products that were coming out were were

53:17

missing the marks somehow. Like they were,

53:20

they were okay. And I

53:22

think not crafted. Yeah, not crafted. Like, and

53:25

so I think the, and

53:28

our, and like sort of like DNA

53:30

wise, it hurts us when our products

53:32

are not crafted well, because I think

53:34

the, our teams, like

53:36

we are not in a sexy space,

53:39

right? Like teams don't people, individuals who

53:41

choose to join us make a very

53:43

deliberate choice to join us. So people

53:45

who join us are generally, if I

53:47

had to war, like our sincere earnest

53:49

folks, like not like

53:51

flashy folks who are in

53:53

our company for the wrong reason. Generally,

53:56

we have had like a fairly consistent, earnest

53:59

and sincere culture. So what

54:01

that meant is that

54:04

they were trying to do their best, but

54:06

we still miss the mark here or there. So what

54:08

I realized was the sort

54:10

of craft focus taste,

54:14

creating the right space and sometimes

54:16

the pressure to hit a prototype to the

54:18

market, but sometimes creating the space for the

54:20

team to and that those judgment calls, I

54:23

started getting involved a lot more. And

54:27

then like personally setting

54:29

up the team for success and spending

54:31

that time. So I think that transformation

54:34

is helping a lot. Talking

54:38

about people, is there anything that

54:41

you changed your mind when it

54:43

comes to managing people over time? This

54:46

is a very big topic for me, like a whole

54:49

lot. I think I've gone

54:51

from being a very

54:53

crappy leader,

54:55

I think, to being

54:57

at least consciously aware that every

55:00

day I have to come into work and make it better. I

55:02

feel we made a lot of initial mistakes.

55:06

Why did you consider yourself a crampy leader

55:08

earlier on? I

55:11

think like in hindsight, I know I was in

55:13

our calculator, not in post. But I think I'm

55:15

talking about that self-awareness. What do you know now

55:17

about the past you which you now

55:19

want to change? So

55:22

one is

55:24

actively managing people's growth

55:27

within clear. I

55:29

think we never

55:31

thought about it and so consequently then

55:34

actions did not happen. I think

55:36

there were a bunch of folks who trusted

55:38

us and fortunately some of them have struck

55:40

around and they have grown with us. But

55:43

there have been patches where we have not grown

55:47

as a company, due to

55:49

whatever factors, whether it was execution, macro,

55:52

what have you. In

55:54

those junctures, people

55:56

can leave and if

55:58

we... Some people diddly, some

56:00

people chose to stay. Now the people who

56:04

chose to stay, chose to stay

56:06

despite like

56:08

my sometimes misguided leadership and what

56:10

have you and I think over

56:13

there now we are far more intentional. So if I

56:15

were kind of blunt, you're saying that they chose to

56:17

stay despite you, not because of

56:20

you and the shift that you want to

56:22

make now is to make sure

56:24

that more people are staying through the harsh

56:26

times. So I'm giving myself the harshest score

56:28

I can. Of course, I think as CEOs,

56:30

that's the founders especially, that's always you hold

56:33

yourself up to the highest standard. Yeah, so

56:35

over here I would say like

56:37

we could have like when I look back, we

56:39

could have been done a

56:41

much better job like being intentional

56:44

in giving people different

56:48

roles, offering more

56:53

of us to them, being more. Can

56:56

I ask you to be more specific because

56:58

I mean the original question was what have

57:00

you changed your mind about managing people? Right,

57:03

so the big things is I think

57:05

a few things which come with scale, I don't

57:08

worry about them too much like going from a

57:10

three people company to 800 people or at peak

57:12

1000 people

57:14

company, the organizing

57:17

teams, setting up teams, I

57:19

think over there it is all learned capabilities

57:21

learned skill. So I think over there I'm

57:24

not too worried. I think

57:26

we made the mistakes which all

57:28

growth stage startups go through not

57:31

too bad. Like I think the part where

57:33

intentional about these are our people,

57:35

we have to focus on their

57:38

careers, their success, figure out

57:40

ways to grow them and

57:43

if they are bringing like the

57:46

right, like

57:48

if they are bringing the right attitude, how

57:51

do we partner with them till it hurts? Mindset

57:54

shift is what I'm talking about. Like

57:56

I think that mindset shifted for me.

58:00

like about a few years ago, but I wish

58:02

it had shifted very early on. So

58:05

is it? I'm still not sure that

58:07

I fully understand. But are you essentially

58:09

saying that you can't you

58:11

shouldn't leave the career

58:14

growth of your best people only to them, but

58:17

you need to have like a very strong plan

58:19

yourself also to partner them and to give them

58:21

a career. Is that what you're into? That's

58:24

that's one part. I think that's not good. Like the yeah, I

58:26

have to clarify. Yeah, I think. Like

58:30

a more recent example for like, let me quantify it

58:32

right like a more recent example is we've for

58:36

20 folks right now,

58:38

we've invested in leadership coaching, for example, recently.

58:40

Now, it's not functional.

58:44

It's about them becoming

58:46

more self-aware them, big them

58:48

discovering their true strengths and

58:51

doubling down on those trends and

58:54

and answering some very deep questions

58:56

about themselves. So now

58:58

this may seem very like

59:01

someone called it therapy for executive leaders.

59:03

Yeah, exactly. So this may seem very

59:05

soft and what have you. But from

59:08

our perspective, we are saying like we want

59:10

to create high performance teams and high performance

59:12

teams need to be called out.

59:15

And there's been there needs to be a culture

59:17

of coaching them. And so external

59:19

coaching, good internal coaching. Now we

59:21

run very deep programs. Some teams

59:24

are very good at it now. Some teams kind of

59:26

suck. So we are asking

59:28

everybody to raise bar. Third example

59:31

would be our teams having enough

59:33

confrontations. What we realized is

59:35

to grow,

59:39

we have to give critical feedback as well.

59:41

So it's not just the career growth element.

59:43

The career growth element is the

59:46

output of many inputs going

59:48

right. So I think the

59:50

first one is being very intentional that people

59:52

matter and we will invest behind our people.

59:55

And that is the biggest shift that I have

59:57

made. But now I have to make. the

1:00:00

entire company make and pockets of it have gotten

1:00:02

their pockets of it have to get there. So,

1:00:04

but getting to that

1:00:06

is very very important and I think

1:00:09

we like

1:00:11

simple example right like so I want to give

1:00:13

more color and flavor. I think

1:00:15

we bootstrap for four years right

1:00:19

and till Y

1:00:22

Combinator funding happened we had

1:00:24

no zero external validation. So,

1:00:27

I think that just to

1:00:30

be clear you were just losing money for

1:00:32

the first because when you say bootstrap and

1:00:34

you were also running clear tax the consumer

1:00:36

facing site and you weren't

1:00:38

like there wasn't a lot of revenue coming in

1:00:41

back then. So, we were charging something

1:00:43

to some users. So, all right like so we were

1:00:46

getting some revenue but there was some revenue coming in

1:00:48

but you were still burning money for the first four

1:00:50

years. Yeah, so we had like I

1:00:53

mean some savings I had from the

1:00:55

barrier and like

1:00:57

I think basically

1:01:01

we were living on a shoestring budget and

1:01:05

like we were obviously

1:01:07

like we were

1:01:09

obviously not in a good financial situation as

1:01:11

a company at that time right. So, but

1:01:13

coming back right like the for the first

1:01:16

four years no external validation. So, all validation

1:01:19

came from doing right by

1:01:21

customer's internal validation and what have you. Now

1:01:24

what I did

1:01:27

not give importance to and

1:01:29

understand at all because

1:01:31

my work life was a very

1:01:33

like my professional work was very few years.

1:01:36

So, I hadn't gotten to that like that

1:01:39

we need to appreciate

1:01:41

people when they do something

1:01:43

right create the

1:01:46

right environment where

1:01:48

people feel part of the community

1:01:51

part of the group then they get

1:01:53

something right they sort of feel

1:01:55

that connection and the good and

1:01:57

so lot of basics like connection.

1:02:00

valuing people, appreciating

1:02:03

them, the practice of gratitude,

1:02:06

the confrontations necessary to

1:02:08

give tough but necessary

1:02:10

feedback, investing

1:02:12

in people's growth, identifying

1:02:14

strengths and weaknesses, a lot

1:02:17

of these investments were never made. So I

1:02:19

feel the overall challenge of going

1:02:21

from three hundred three people to

1:02:24

1000 people, I mean, that like

1:02:26

is a journey filled with managerial mistakes which

1:02:28

every first time founder makes and I've made.

1:02:30

And all organizations must go through their own

1:02:33

respective learnings in that part. Right. So I'm

1:02:35

not too stressed on that part. I think

1:02:37

the just taking

1:02:40

customer obsession along

1:02:43

with people obsession, employee obsession would

1:02:45

have been awesome. I think

1:02:47

that's one thing which like for

1:02:49

example, why Combinator doesn't talk about like

1:02:51

and if they start inculcating those practices

1:02:54

and habits to early stage founders, that'd

1:02:56

be great because if you can make

1:02:59

the customer top topic top of mind,

1:03:02

make the people topic also top of mind and

1:03:05

I think founders are smart resultant tree

1:03:07

will grow differently and it'll be fine.

1:03:13

Lastly, M. N. Srinivasu or

1:03:15

Vasu as he's often called spoke to

1:03:17

me about how he built Bill desk

1:03:19

by essentially teaching the first set of

1:03:22

employees to be well versed in the

1:03:24

lines of business. Bill desk was creating

1:03:26

this is part of Bill desk culture.

1:03:29

Another crucial part as Vasu explained

1:03:31

is that Bill desk has done

1:03:33

away with defined hierarchies and designations.

1:03:35

There is a broad belief in

1:03:37

patients and Bill desk. Why

1:03:39

does patients matter? What allows his employees

1:03:41

to be patient and how do you

1:03:43

find meaning in practicing it? How

1:03:47

big is Bill desk today in

1:03:49

terms of let's say employees? Bill

1:03:53

desk itself is about 800 employees

1:03:56

give or take a couple of year, 800. Wow,

1:03:58

that's for the end. the quantum

1:04:01

of payments that you handle, that's

1:04:05

not a very large organization, especially

1:04:07

in these days when we are talking

1:04:09

about startups

1:04:12

that have thousands and

1:04:15

thousands of employees. Is

1:04:17

this by design? Very

1:04:20

much by design, but even

1:04:22

as a combative, I don't,

1:04:25

I mean, there are different philosophies how you build

1:04:28

company, right? In today's time or

1:04:30

in the last seven, eight years, it's been

1:04:32

an easier approach to build companies by throwing

1:04:34

money and people. Fundamentally,

1:04:36

if you're building a business, you look at what

1:04:38

resources are available, what's and how expensive, how cheap

1:04:40

they are. In the last few years, a

1:04:43

time has been the most precious commodity. Money and

1:04:45

people have been easier to come by. And

1:04:49

success and failure have had different connotations. So it's

1:04:51

okay to kind

1:04:54

of build something, hire a thousand people,

1:04:56

doesn't work, fire them or let them

1:04:58

go and move on. For

1:05:01

us, it didn't work, then it's unlikely

1:05:03

to work now because it has essentially two

1:05:05

philosophies. One in terms of are

1:05:08

we that kind of people

1:05:10

or a business who kind of

1:05:12

believe in saying, let's take a shot at something and see

1:05:14

whether it works or not. I think

1:05:17

we more come from the depth of we have

1:05:19

an understanding of what would be needed. It

1:05:21

might take time to win that game, but we

1:05:23

are more, I think, long-term. Just as a DNA,

1:05:25

we are more long-term, more institution-building, building

1:05:30

something lasting. It's a natural way

1:05:32

of doing things. And

1:05:34

that, by definition, means you can think

1:05:37

through stuff. That's

1:05:39

one part of it. From a people perspective, the

1:05:42

focus has always been we

1:05:44

are building a business in a

1:05:46

domain that didn't have experts

1:05:49

or any prior kind of companies.

1:05:51

We were among the first to start. So

1:05:53

you kind of have to train people to

1:05:56

get there. So to that extent, it's easier

1:05:58

to say we'll get good people. train

1:06:00

them, empower them, give them enough freedom,

1:06:04

give them enough work in the way

1:06:06

they are interested in, which

1:06:08

then kind of eliminates need to have five people doing

1:06:11

something, one person is, people inherently

1:06:13

are capable of doing a lot more if

1:06:15

they're invested into what they're doing and if they understand

1:06:17

what they're doing. If they're operating

1:06:20

in the periphery, then it's like a siloed

1:06:22

bit, but we've always had different philosophy there.

1:06:24

You mentioned the senior management team, which in

1:06:27

many organizations would also be called a

1:06:29

leadership team. I

1:06:31

would like to understand how has

1:06:34

the idea of a leadership team

1:06:37

and the actual leadership team evolved

1:06:39

at Buildesque from the time that you started.

1:06:41

The original leadership team would have been the

1:06:44

three of you, right?

1:06:46

And today, that leadership team would be very

1:06:48

different, but I'm sure it's gone through evolutions

1:06:51

in your own minds perhaps of what

1:06:54

is a leadership team, how big should it be, what

1:06:58

should it do, et cetera. So

1:07:01

I've never been able to figure out if the

1:07:04

buzzwords of we pivoted, we

1:07:06

evolved. To say we didn't

1:07:08

pivot, we didn't evolve whether they're good or bad signals,

1:07:10

right? That's only time to

1:07:12

tell. I don't even kind of particularly believe anybody

1:07:14

external can judge on those. But

1:07:17

a couple of facts of Buildesque. When we started in

1:07:19

2000, beyond the philosophy

1:07:21

we discussed, we also did one more

1:07:23

thing. We said Buildesque would

1:07:25

have no defined

1:07:28

hierarchy for people in the traditional organization

1:07:30

since and no designations.

1:07:34

23 years later, we still stick

1:07:36

to that. We

1:07:38

have no designations. I mean, other than what is

1:07:40

a regulator required to say a company secretary sees.

1:07:42

So I mean, those kind of ask the part.

1:07:44

So what are people called? People are just called

1:07:47

a member of a certain team. Appointment

1:07:50

letter would say you're a member of a technology team,

1:07:52

member of a business team, right? You

1:07:55

could be a member of a team with a, let's say one

1:07:57

crore salary, you could be the member of a team with a file. your

1:08:00

appointment letter will not read different, your designation will not

1:08:02

read different. You will be sitting

1:08:04

in the office next to a person who has 120th

1:08:06

your salary or 20th your salary. There

1:08:08

is no carved out places where

1:08:10

people, they're fixed places, it's not we're saying it's

1:08:13

a hotspots, we're aiming. But there

1:08:16

is genuinely no hierarchy in

1:08:18

terms of saying people

1:08:21

will sit here, they will have whatever.

1:08:24

There must be a reporting hierarchy. There is

1:08:26

a working relationship. So I said, therefore, what

1:08:28

is that? Why did we start?

1:08:30

That's one of the obviously the joys of starting

1:08:33

something and you can define your own rules. It

1:08:36

came from tourism. One I said, in

1:08:39

times we were building and in the space we were

1:08:41

building, there wasn't

1:08:43

talent in the market. You had to build that talent.

1:08:45

So the idea was when you're getting the first 10

1:08:48

people, you might have been, let us say, a

1:08:50

banking relationship guy in a bank. Idea

1:08:52

was to get you in, train you in the product we

1:08:54

were building and then figure out if your natural inclusion was

1:08:56

the client relationship handling the product or the business. So

1:08:59

in the initial teams, that's how it started saying, we're

1:09:02

getting people, India

1:09:05

had no definition of product at that point. Technology

1:09:07

was IT, in those are just to use words.

1:09:09

You had IT and MI teams, you didn't have

1:09:11

vertical product, no bank had a team called payments.

1:09:15

And you had relationship management

1:09:17

people in the traditional sense

1:09:19

within banks or other organizations. But that definition

1:09:21

was more of

1:09:24

just purely managing relationships.

1:09:27

We needed in our context, the

1:09:30

relationship manager being able to handle

1:09:32

whether it was a GM in a bank or a officer,

1:09:37

explain to them the product, be able to answer

1:09:39

a question, how does something work, be able to

1:09:41

demo it, give them comfort. So

1:09:43

we needed a more well-rounded, let's say,

1:09:46

personality, which means the person

1:09:48

had to have skills of product and little

1:09:50

understanding of tech, a little understanding the legal framework

1:09:52

to the business offering. So that's how

1:09:55

we, when we got our initial 10, 20 people, all

1:09:59

were kind of, of groomed into all these

1:10:01

roles. Sort of like a general management program.

1:10:04

Effectively, right. But again, I said this, we didn't

1:10:07

distinguish it in a two-year profile or a 10-year

1:10:09

profile. This is about we said, and this is

1:10:11

where we won in the initial is against our competition, right. Because

1:10:13

I know I'm jumping topics

1:10:15

a bit, but the difference between build-as conditions then that

1:10:17

time competitors was a competitor would go make a pitch,

1:10:20

let's say to in a bank or a merchant with

1:10:22

a certain thing. And the person would say, I need

1:10:24

to know something more. And they'll say, okay, we'll come

1:10:26

back with four teams. Build-as case, the person

1:10:28

would say, tell me and

1:10:30

I'll tell you the 14 right at our table. We

1:10:32

built a capability to a level and we've done this

1:10:35

where you'd go for a meeting, start explaining construct. But

1:10:37

the person across the table had the ability

1:10:39

to walk you to the product that take

1:10:41

through the agreement. And if you're okay, sign

1:10:43

it there, right into that level. So that's

1:10:45

how we built it. That's how people do

1:10:47

it. So many of us are also trying

1:10:49

to create more founders because typically founders are

1:10:51

these Swiss

1:10:54

army knife skills kind of folks, right,

1:10:57

where they can do client conversations, build

1:10:59

a product, understand customer

1:11:01

success requirements, etc. and all

1:11:03

that. Is that what you

1:11:05

were trying to do? To

1:11:08

be very honest, we would have articulated them

1:11:10

that were even now. I

1:11:13

know it would be a good thing to say that we

1:11:15

are targeting, but honestly not. What were we

1:11:17

trying to do? We said that we're

1:11:20

trying to build an organization at that point, we

1:11:22

didn't have an idea of how many people we

1:11:24

would need. We just said it can't work in

1:11:26

a new territory with us. You

1:11:29

may as well build the resources. We saw that as part

1:11:31

of a response saying we need to train 10 people in

1:11:33

all ways for them to deliver the best for

1:11:35

builders, also for them to figure out what they're good at. And

1:11:38

in turn, give them freedom to say if they needed four people

1:11:40

or 14 people, you define it that way. And

1:11:43

somewhere that became cultural, right. So today also

1:11:45

you have people who would have these skills.

1:11:48

What we're building founders, if

1:11:51

I were to take that path, then

1:11:53

the one ingredient we didn't push into them is

1:11:55

the ambition or the aspiration to break away, to

1:11:57

do something new on the run, to explore their

1:11:59

potential. We

1:12:01

always said, we're giving this freedom, we're giving the choice.

1:12:03

What you would perhaps do elsewhere, you could do here.

1:12:08

And if you had to go out, only if

1:12:10

you're dissatisfied here. And

1:12:13

I think many of, if I were to look at the first 100 people

1:12:16

in Builders who got

1:12:19

over the first five years, I would venture

1:12:23

to 70%, 80% of them are still around. So

1:12:26

I think in some sense of what we

1:12:28

gave them as an opportunity platform that's worked

1:12:30

for them, they've got perhaps all

1:12:33

the freedom a founder gets in a different organization

1:12:35

without the responsibility or the headache of figuring

1:12:38

out the investor and the capital side of

1:12:40

things. To

1:12:43

come back to my question, so therefore, the

1:12:46

leadership team or

1:12:48

the senior management team, what does it

1:12:50

look like at? I

1:12:54

know you've given me the philosophical answer to there

1:12:56

are no designations,

1:12:58

but out

1:13:01

of the 800 odd people who work at this

1:13:03

thing. So it's more role-lit on

1:13:05

what they build a point in time. If I were to

1:13:07

give today and define the team as in

1:13:10

a typical leadership meeting, we would get in, let

1:13:12

us say, 18 people, including the founders, 3 plus 15.

1:13:16

Why you will not get a sharper answer from

1:13:18

this? Maybe if I can index it because one

1:13:21

way people readily understand the absence of designations. I

1:13:23

could tell you, for example, that if you had

1:13:25

EVPs and Aids, that's one way to define it.

1:13:29

The other way for you to define

1:13:31

the relationship, people's compensation is reflective of

1:13:33

the role or the structure. The

1:13:37

ratio continues. The leadership team would have a person who is

1:13:39

X and somebody who is 10X. So

1:13:43

it's not from that. So

1:13:45

if you think in a certain function, that leadership team would have people

1:13:49

from all aspects, whether it

1:13:51

is the business side, the product, tech,

1:13:54

finance, HR, compliance, legal, everywhere.

1:13:56

And clearly, it would follow that some

1:13:59

of the functions. would

1:14:02

not scale and sell it as fast

1:14:05

as let's say tech or product in

1:14:07

today's context. So at one level that

1:14:09

is that reflection. But

1:14:13

the leadership team typically would have 15 people

1:14:15

who if we had found

1:14:17

a message for the organization

1:14:20

deliver, the 15 people are represented

1:14:22

in the pool that can convey this and make it

1:14:24

work through the organization. So we get in people in

1:14:26

the meeting who then have the ability to kind of

1:14:28

take down a message or get something implemented. What

1:14:32

are some of the markers of leaders

1:14:36

that build us? What

1:14:39

kind of traits might they possess? Again,

1:14:47

in a 20 year history, we've

1:14:51

tried to build a team that possesses

1:14:53

multiple markers with the ability to bring

1:14:56

sharp focus to a certain marker

1:14:58

at a point in

1:15:00

time given market. But as

1:15:02

an underlying thesis, the

1:15:05

key mark would be I don't

1:15:09

know if I would

1:15:11

define a stability integrity core

1:15:13

marker. Does

1:15:15

that seem to align well with a lot of the

1:15:17

stuff that you talked about build desk as an organization

1:15:19

and how it sees the world? Naturally,

1:15:22

even the employees have to see the world in

1:15:24

the same way. And if I had

1:15:27

to add to it, because the structure

1:15:29

that we have and the kind of I

1:15:31

would think of the great freedom to rely

1:15:33

on people, you

1:15:36

can build some of things like let's say

1:15:38

various parts, whether from compliance, integrity process,

1:15:40

you build either to process or to people.

1:15:43

We have tended to build at some level through

1:15:45

people with processes being a check. So

1:15:49

it's not that if there's something that you as an employer

1:15:51

doing, there'll be 50 processes to go through. We

1:15:55

would want to focus on the fact that the leader there

1:15:58

has the right integrity and I see integrity across various. if

1:16:00

integrating thinking to execution to financial integrity

1:16:02

to very smart of it, and

1:16:05

then leave it for them to build.

1:16:07

So that would be the core marker,

1:16:09

I would say. Second

1:16:11

is patience. The

1:16:17

third aspect you should know,

1:16:19

I mean, again, consistent no

1:16:21

hierarchy to know. We also

1:16:23

never had financial

1:16:25

metrics as KRAs for anyone. Right,

1:16:28

because as

1:16:32

I said, today maybe you would do it differently,

1:16:34

but context of times to what we wanted to

1:16:36

achieve, we believe that if people could do the

1:16:38

right things with

1:16:41

the right set of opportunities being given,

1:16:43

the build desk objective and the founder

1:16:45

vision is being met. It was not

1:16:47

something that we needed to measure through

1:16:49

financial metrics. Interestingly, one of the traits

1:16:51

that you said for those who get

1:16:53

to be successful and build as patients.

1:16:59

No one comes with inbuilt with patients,

1:17:01

right? Patience is, I would say it's

1:17:03

an enabling, it gets enabled in

1:17:06

a certain kind of environment or

1:17:08

organization, right? Like, you know, you

1:17:10

could bring the same person, place them into different

1:17:12

organizations in one, they would end up being patient

1:17:15

in the other one, they might just so what

1:17:17

is it in the build

1:17:19

desk operating environment

1:17:23

that allows employees to be patient?

1:17:28

Because it's not, it's

1:17:30

rarer and rarer today for

1:17:32

employees to be patient, because,

1:17:36

you know, they see everyone getting promoted

1:17:38

every year, jumping jobs, and here you're

1:17:40

saying be patient. How? I

1:17:51

talked of it as being a virtue that you'd find within

1:17:53

the leadership team. And

1:17:57

yes, you would be right in extrapolating thing that

1:17:59

becomes one. one of the attributes that

1:18:01

gets a person to succeed. I

1:18:07

think a lot of it is, that

1:18:10

level gets filtered in the hiring stage, I

1:18:12

guess, that you're looking for a

1:18:17

certain kind of gravitas to

1:18:19

the person. You're looking for some terror. I mean, you can

1:18:21

make out, especially seeing a

1:18:23

level as to how composed calm they

1:18:25

are, how thoughtful they are and

1:18:27

what they say or do. And I think there's some bit

1:18:29

of a selection process that happens that we obviously get some,

1:18:32

sometimes we do get it wrong and then that

1:18:34

naturally gets filtered at some time. But

1:18:39

yes, I think it's at that level. Now, can you,

1:18:42

does it work for all the 800 people? I would

1:18:45

perhaps say no, but because it's the

1:18:47

earlier discussion we're having to assess that

1:18:49

attribute in somebody who's fresh out of

1:18:51

college starting, they are bouncing

1:18:54

with energy. So there's a way you leverage that.

1:18:57

But at a larger level, right? Even

1:19:00

for those kinds of people, because you're not building for

1:19:02

something, you say, let's try it for a week, like

1:19:04

a functional doesn't work, we'll pull it off, which is

1:19:07

more, again, if

1:19:09

you look at the business, we are a platform that's

1:19:11

supporting other businesses. You're not directly consumer facing. So

1:19:13

there is no great reward or glory in saying,

1:19:15

can I experiment with the functionality which gets a

1:19:17

million likes or a million views and people can

1:19:19

move out. There is no, so

1:19:21

to that extent, A,

1:19:23

that's, I said, therefore that's the quality we

1:19:26

look for. And B, over a period of time, I

1:19:28

think people who stay on are the people who meet,

1:19:30

who like that aspect of the business we're building. I

1:19:35

mean, there are, I mean, I

1:19:38

said it has someone has to meet with

1:19:40

the person's profile. A person who's naturally has

1:19:42

a different way of doing things

1:19:44

or is happier to do with a different focus

1:19:46

in terms of timeline, that obviously will

1:19:48

be people who want to deliver

1:19:51

something, see, we train with 10 days, 15 days,

1:19:53

right? Those

1:19:56

kinds of people, obviously, we benefit from

1:19:58

them in certain places. projects when they come

1:20:00

in and whether they choose to stay on order, the question

1:20:02

of how they are evolving them, those people. Having

1:20:05

said that, I said this is not a comment on

1:20:07

the attributes of like in

1:20:11

a game of cricket, you do need the pinch hitter

1:20:13

to the you need the person who can kind of

1:20:15

stay on on the turf. When

1:20:17

you're building something for the long term, so clearly,

1:20:19

we're not playing the 2020, right?

1:20:21

You are playing the test match where in there'll

1:20:23

be times when you need the pinch hitter, but

1:20:25

you recognize that we're playing for the

1:20:28

long term. If

1:20:31

there been times during builder's

1:20:33

evolution when you've found

1:20:36

the need to be hands on in building

1:20:38

culture, we

1:20:41

have to kind of roll up your sleeves

1:20:43

to either fix or to

1:20:46

imprint some aspect of culture in the

1:20:48

organization. I

1:20:53

think through the 20 years, I

1:20:58

think the organizational feedback would be that

1:21:00

in an operational sense,

1:21:05

founders like to get involved into

1:21:07

knowing the detail and rolling up the sleeves.

1:21:10

So directly, indirectly, that's a very large part of

1:21:13

the culture. So as

1:21:15

an independent effort to do a

1:21:17

cultural thing has not been necessary. I'm

1:21:20

interpreting a question these ways, and

1:21:22

which could well be a definition of founder today, which is

1:21:24

to say that you're

1:21:27

focused with a lot of energy on

1:21:30

energy on the external externalities of business and maybe

1:21:32

on the product visioning, but not in the day

1:21:34

to day bit, right? In which case, then you

1:21:36

kind of have to have this intervention say, when

1:21:38

do I step in to do something else? We've

1:21:41

been very, very fairly well hands on. And

1:21:44

so to that extent, fixes

1:21:46

happen as you go along. It's not it's

1:21:48

not something that gets set aside as a

1:21:50

task to be done in any

1:21:52

format. It's ongoing all this. Has

1:21:57

that ever, because to 23

1:22:00

years and you're still hands on, right? Like,

1:22:02

you know, at some point, do you observe

1:22:04

that and see

1:22:07

that, is there a downside to that as

1:22:09

well? Of

1:22:12

not stepping back and,

1:22:16

because at the end of the day, it's like zero

1:22:18

sum game, right? The

1:22:20

more hands on you are, possibly

1:22:22

the less hands on someone else could be. Or

1:22:25

do you not see it like that? I

1:22:28

think there is nothing in life where there's a one zero answer,

1:22:30

right? You

1:22:33

could be totally distance from business and that can have

1:22:36

its advantages. You could be totally hands on and can

1:22:38

have its disadvantages, right? It's about finding the right balance.

1:22:41

I think in builder's case, the question

1:22:43

of what are we hands on about today versus

1:22:45

what were we hands on about 10 years

1:22:49

ago or five years ago. That I

1:22:51

would venture to say is dramatically

1:22:53

different, right? Also. So

1:22:55

in the first years of the business, you are

1:22:57

hands on down to functionality of product that's getting built because

1:23:00

that's what's going to go out to the market. You

1:23:03

are setting

1:23:05

basic rules of, let

1:23:08

me just take a different example of

1:23:11

the construct of an agreement with

1:23:14

a partner. How do you want it

1:23:16

to be? We were hands on there to say, it doesn't

1:23:18

matter if it's the largest bank in the country or smallest

1:23:20

bank, it will be the same fair

1:23:22

template. There is nothing extra somebody gets versus not.

1:23:25

If we are giving X to the largest bank, we will give

1:23:27

X to the smallest bank. Now you

1:23:29

could leave this as a process, not be hands on, or you

1:23:31

could say I'm defining this and I'm hands

1:23:33

on them. If you're hands on about this aspect in the

1:23:35

first three years, it tends to become the culture. You don't

1:23:37

need to be hands on this aspect

1:23:39

later. So that's what I mean in the chain. We

1:23:47

are hands on today also in

1:23:49

what context? It would be that if there's a new

1:23:51

thing that's happening in the market, a

1:23:54

new variant, let's say to a UPI and

1:23:57

a variant on it, understanding implications of it,

1:23:59

opportunity set up. of it to what can

1:24:01

be leverages of it. We would

1:24:03

not say four product teams go do a deep dive,

1:24:05

come back to us with a presentation. We would say

1:24:07

we would evolve it together. We want to be as

1:24:09

much part of the discussion as opposed to being presented

1:24:12

to saying this is the outcome of it. And

1:24:16

then I believe it's important, in important things. We may

1:24:18

not do that for a small

1:24:21

development. But let's say UPI is a big

1:24:23

thing. If there's a development there, we will

1:24:25

get involved because we do believe it has

1:24:27

long-term and material impacts. So that is the

1:24:29

assessment change. Compliance

1:24:35

matters. We want

1:24:38

to be as hands-on as time allows. It doesn't mean

1:24:40

that you're going to look at every return that the

1:24:42

soil information goes. But if

1:24:44

there is any small tweak of compliance in

1:24:47

understanding what it means to the company and what

1:24:49

has to happen, we are

1:24:51

part of that debate or discussion.

1:24:53

So that, as I said, the philosophy is you're not

1:24:55

missing on the spirit of what is intended. Left

1:24:58

to, let us say, a larger chain, in

1:25:01

important things, you could play to the word of what

1:25:03

is required, not the spirit. So we make the stress

1:25:05

of where we are hands-on. Thank

1:26:00

you.