SCALER POD 07 ft. Akash Saxena, CTO, Hotstar | Cricket, Managing Scale and Future of OTT Platforms

In this episode of Scaler Pod, we have Akash Saxena who is the CTO at Hotstar and previously has been with OpenTable for about 12 years. Currently, he focuses on building & scaling Disney+ Hotstar to reach millions of users across the globe and to provide entertainment through digital content and live sports streaming. 

As the ICC T20 World Cup is on the line, let's talk with him about Cricket, Ind vs Pak games, Handling Live Streaming for Scale, and the Future of OTT Platforms in India.

#Hotstar #ScalerPod #Podcast #Scaler

Timeline:

00:00 Introduction

00:52 A day in the life of Akash Saxena

04:33 On his journey before Hotstar

15:57 Getting started with Hotstar, Initial days, and Ind vs Pak

20:55 Making an Inhouse streaming platform and overcoming challenges

25:50 Preparing for massive scale and his F1 racing approach

36:23 Handling live buffer and delay latency

42:45 Concurring distribution and video quality

48:17 Optimizing user data and team culture

56:50 Building Watch and Play on Hotstar, Microservices

1:05:13 Scaling tech teams in Hotstar

1:15:55 Hiring requirements for the tech team

1:19:55 Advice for young people building their own Startups

1:26:06 Leadership approach, crisis management, and being customer first

1:35:41 Arnav tells about challenges he faced while his early startup days

1:37:49 Importance of modeled testing

1:40:58 Thinking for the engineering team and planning for their growth

1:47:31 Advice for freshers and about personal growth

1:56:23 Use of AI, Machine Learning in Hotstar, and the future ahead

2:02:49 Vastness of content and geographical diversification

2:06:18 Hotstar Multiplex and how watching movies is changing

2:09:35 Future of media and OTT content domain

2:12:27 Outro