Guest: Bipul Sinha, co-founder and CEO of Rubrik

When Bipul Sinha graduated from the Indian Insitute of Technology and came to America to work in tech, his mother told him: Don’t start a company. His ambitious father was a failed pharma entrepreneur, and Bipul was content for most of a decade to hold a steady job at Oracle. But in his early 30s, he began to shed his risk aversion, pursuing a part-time MBA and more difficult jobs, and by the time he co-founded the data security firm Rubrik in 2014, he had gone through an epiphany: “Only make decisions that you truly believe is the right thing to do,” he says. “If you are here, at the moment of truth, you want to succeed or lose based on your own terms, not what others feel.”

In this episode, Bipul and Joubin discuss how debate moves business forward, companies as living systems, growing up poor, refusing to compromise, risk aversion, finding your own potential, paying tuition, context matters, psychological safety, and smelling the roses.

In this episode, we cover:

• Joubin’s interview with Ali Ghodsi (00:51)
• The importance of authenticity (02:33)
• Extreme voices (05:10)
• Being yourself at work (08:14)
• Reducing blind spots (11:08)
• Tough feedback (13:09)
• Learning entrepreneurship through osmosis (14:41)
• IIT or bust (19:40)
• Setbacks and reorienting (23:35)
• Leaving India for America (26:53)
• From Oracle to Blumberg Capital (30:21)
• Prioritizing his own happiness (34:36)
• “This is a career” (37:08)
• Dissatisfaction and the next thing (40:37)
• Creating an enduring institution (45:02)
• No one knows what they’re doing (49:32)
• Open board meetings (53:39)
• Hiring and firing (55:37)
• Good and bad startup advice (57:58)
• Working forever (01:01:16)
• Positive feedback and empathy (01:04:19)
• Who Rubrik is hiring and what “grit” means to Bipul (01:08:55)

Links:

• Connect with Bipul
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com 
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
• This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm