#183 CEO & Co-Founder Harness, Jyoti Bansal: Three-Layered Cake
Mar 25, 2024
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Jyoti Bansal discusses selling AppDynamics to Cisco, his shift in what truly makes him happy, starting BIG Labs and Harness, and the importance of work-life balance. The podcast covers CROs, the challenges of high-growth companies, and reflections on success in building successful companies.
Passion for building companies drives speaker's fulfillment and dedication to continuous growth.
Business challenges are likened to video game levels, emphasizing iterative learning and skill mastery.
Transition from corporate to startup founder highlights challenges of hands-on work and work-life balance.
Deep dives
Finding Joy in Building Companies
The speaker expresses their passion for building companies as their craft and primary source of fulfillment. They highlight that while they appreciate breaks, their true enjoyment stems from perfecting their craft, indicating a dedication to continuous learning and growth in the business world.
Navigating Levels of Business Challenges
The podcast delves into the speaker's analogy of business challenges being akin to levels in a video game. They emphasize the continuous learning process by tackling one level after another, each presenting new skills to master. The speaker stresses the importance of focusing on winning the current level before advancing to the next, highlighting the iterative nature of business growth.
Adapting to Life Balance and Priorities
The episode explores the speaker's adjustment from being a corporate executive to a startup founder. They discuss the challenges faced, such as readjusting to hands-on work and balancing life priorities. The speaker reflects on the importance of optimizing life for a sustainable work-life balance, necessitating careful consideration of family, health, and personal time alongside professional commitments.
Advantages of Repeated Company Building
Building multiple companies brings advantages like faster hiring of experienced talent, improved scalability, and better time management due to prior learning experiences. Over time, the learning curve decreases, allowing achievements in lesser time units with accumulated experiences. Repeating company building is likened to riding a bike where things don't get easier, but you become faster at navigating challenges.
Product Excellence and Company Success
The podcast delves into the critical role of balancing four key product development lists to drive company success. These lists include customer demands, sales team needs, engineering technical debt, and future product vision. Emphasizing that success is a three-layer cake starting with product excellence, followed by go-to-market excellence and operational excellence. Striking a balance among these key areas leads to a logically organized product plan that prioritizes business needs effectively.
Guest: Jyoti Bansal, CEO and co-founder of Harness
Cisco bought Jyoti Bansal’s first company AppDynamics for $3.7 billion, making him a very wealthy man. But after two African safaris, a week of Michelin-starred meals in Tokyo, and more adventures all around the world, he realized that spending his money didn’t truly make him happy. After some soul-searching, he realized what he really enjoyed: “I liked to build companies. That is my craft ... If someone enjoys playing gold for six hours, I would enjoy working on a startup for six hours.”
In this episode, Jyoti and Joubin discuss the evolution of Grit, Carlos Delatorre, Tom Mendoza, Glean, growing up in India, traveling the world, three-star restaurants, soul-searching, automating gruntwork, paying for nice hotels, red-eye flights, product-market fit, Jeff Bezos, the “three-layered cake,” Frank Slootman, raising the bar for distribution, technical debt, structural efficiency, and taking pride in your work.
In this episode, we cover:
(00:59) - Top-tier CROs
(04:18) - The video game levels of startups
(07:24) - Selling AppDynamics to Cisco
(09:16) - Keeping up with high-growth companies
(12:10) - The chip on Jyoti’s shoulder
(16:15) - How he thinks about money
(18:02) - Do what you enjoy every day
(22:32) - “What would make me happy?”
(24:56) - Starting BIG Labs and Harness
(29:16) - Adjusting to a new reality
(34:13) - Work-life balance
(36:30) - What gets easier — and harder — over time
