#60: Rajiv Srinivasan — On Intellectual Humility and What Makes Great Leaders

My dear friend, Rajiv Srinivasan, is back by popular demand after inspiring all of us to read more on Episode 23. Rajiv is a Global Client Director at LinkedIn and the Chief Reading Officer at 99pages, which we get into on this episode.

Rajiv was on the Dean’s List at West Point and graduated in the Top 5% of his class in 2008. He also earned an MS in Applied Mathematics from Columbia University and his MBA from Wharton.  His amazing wife Chelsea is also a Wharton graduate.

After graduating from West Point in 2008, Rajiv deployed to Afghanistan as a platoon leader.  In Afghanistan, Rajiv did over 300 combat patrols and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and received the Combat Action Badge.  Rajiv transitioned out of the military in 2013 and moved to Silicon Valley, where he was part of the Founding Team at Morta Security, a cyber security company that was acquired by Palo Alto Networks in 2013. 

After Morta was acquired, Rajiv became a Enterprise & SLED Account Manager at MobileIron. In 2016, Rajiv became a Global Account Manager at VMWare.

Rajiv is also an Eagle Scout, avid snow skier (you’ll hear him talk about a scary incident he had in Lake Tahoe), musician (he plays guitar, ukulele, piano, and is a vocalist), he has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, has completed the NYC Marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon, and the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon.  Rajiv has also been a contributor for the New York Times and TIME on military and veteran issues. 

Rajiv is someone that has inspired me ever since we met at West Point in 2005.  In this interview, we dive into what Rajiv has been reading, his motivation for starting 99pages and what it is all about, his views on leadership, and we finish with a fun lightning round of questions. I really enjoyed this conversation, just like every conversation I have with Rajiv, and I think you will, too.