In this episode, Sai Krishna, a serial entrepreneur, who calls himself a metaverse plumber, loves creating interesting applications based on emerging and maturing technologies. In this conversation, he sharesHow a decentralized squad model, working with local partners and having an engineering focus for differentiation would help scale and localize, as neededHow to build an organization to realize the vision of the foundersCadence of 2 weeks or 12 weeks, multi-skilled squadsWillingness to learn and time to feedbackA founder’s feelings related to exit decisionsFounder’s formula: have fun, optimize for joyA founder’s job is to make everyone in the team to reflect back and feel the impact of their workMetaverse: hype or old wine or something substantial?Why 3D printing technology underdelivered on its promiseHow finances (and capital)  are critical to help new technologies become practical and increase wide adoptionHow commoditized solutions can trigger a race to the bottom affecting the survivability of a companyImpact of new technologies on the carbon footprintOblivious, brash and corrective : the three stages of companies operating to exploit new and emerging technologiesTips for anyone looking to get deeper into the metaverse ecosystemStep1: understand what variables you want to optimize forFinancial gains, Wealth: building a company is probably the hardestJoy of learning being part of an emerging spaceSolving a problem that itches youFind a reason to resonate with the causeThe market also needs to be readyWould you see it as a decades long journey, 15 hour days.. Yes, not just as an option to make quick moneyCobbling a team of like minded lunatics..If he chose to be in AI because AI is in his name!Sai has spent more than 9 years in building deep tech startups. He was an early believer and pioneer in the Metaverse, and built & backed startups in the domain. Notably:- His Virtual & Augmented Reality venture, Scapic was acquired by Walmart/Flipkart- He backed a venture studio for the Metaverse, Cope. Studio, which was acquired by Polygon/Matic- His marketplace for Metaverse assets, Reality Tools, was acquired by MotionPageSai currently leads Flipkart Labs, where he focuses on new deep tech initiatives such as Camera (Augmented Reality) & Firedrops (NFTs & Web3) in the Walmart Group. He is currently an advisor at Polygon & Polygon Studios. He is alum of Stanford University Graduate School of Business, recipient of the Indian National Startup Awards and a fellowship recipient from Ondeck. He's been awarded by organizations such as Facebook, the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, Wharton and IIM. Sai has delivered 80+ keynotes at international conferences, IIT-Bombay, NSRCEL & more. When it's not about work, Sai is quintessentially south Indian, with an affinity to dosas and filter coffee. You can reach out to Sai at oho@5saitec.com on anything around building moonshots.

In this episode, Sai Krishna, a serial entrepreneur, who calls himself a metaverse plumber, loves creating interesting applications based on emerging and maturing technologies. In this conversation, he sharesHis adventures and misadventures in ITHailing from a south Indian family that emphasized educationMoving to Bangalore to continue his education in RV CollegeHis attraction to build products, more with an intention of having fun in doing itHis first product in the education spaceUnderstanding the need to think like an entrepreneurship and getting sponsored for an entrepreneurship program at StanfordStarting his company Scapic - with AR/VR as core technologies and being acquired by FlipkartHis approach to identifying problems to solveShiny toy syndrome: to pick something that looks cool; these may not be a venture worthy ideaChoosing a problem that matches your expertise: your and your team’s complementary skills; this helps accelerating to marketSelect entrepreneurs: going after massive market opportunityLousy team, great market, market winsGreat team , lousy market, market winsGreat team, great market - nonlinear outcomesHow to think scaleVisualizing the finish line: that is not a goal post; focus on the next milestoneThe importance of obsessing over the first cohort for a startupThe value of creating a playbook after validation and further experimentation with the second and third cohortsDifferences between B2B and B2C solutionsHow a decentralized squad model, working with local partners and having an engineering focus for differentiation would help scale and localize, as neededSai has spent more than 9 years in building deep tech startups. He was an early believer and pioneer in the Metaverse, and built & backed startups in the domain. Notably:- His Virtual & Augmented Reality venture, Scapic was acquired by Walmart/Flipkart- He backed a venture studio for the Metaverse, Cope.Studio, which was acquired by Polygon/Matic- His marketplace for Metaverse assets, Reality Tools, was acquired by MotionPageSai currently leads Flipkart Labs, where he focuses on new deep tech initiatives such as Camera (Augmented Reality) & Firedrops (NFTs & Web3) in the Walmart Group. He is currently an advisor at Polygon & Polygon Studios. He is alum of Stanford University Graduate School of Business, recipient of the Indian National Startup Awards and a fellowship recipient from Ondeck. He's been awarded by organisations such as Facebook, the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, Wharton and IIM. Sai has delivered 80+ keynotes at international conferences, IIT-Bombay, NSRCEL & more. When it's not about work, Sai is quintessentially south Indian, with an affinity to dosas and filter coffee. You can reach out to Sai at oho@5saitec.com on anything around building moonshots.

In this episode, Usha from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Chitra and shares her 3 plus decades of experience in software and technology around -Working at Raman institute for 10 years, her first exposure to computing A research institute expects you to do your own learning, but of courseWriting programs for 'astronomical' data analysis and structures of crystals in pascal & Fortran, Finding logic was easy, testing with missing data and reconstructing it was challengingBecoming self-reliant, so finding solutions is now naturalBuilding test harnesses from scratch, Joining i2 tech in supply chain planningSetup the first performance testing lab, getting things startedWorking with resource constraints while setting up the performance labLearned how software products were sold, understanding product ROILearning from Eliyahu Goldratt's book and seeing those principles applied in product developmentCustomer experiences & product deliveryA stint in Australia via Siemens in the telecom domain - testing & system integrationThe evolution towards collective responsiblity from specialized roles & functionsConcept of quality and embracing culture around it, getting people aligned around quality goalsViews on establishing test procedures, measuring effectiveness & ROICustomer experiences right under their nosesImportance of building the right teamsImportant to follow your heart & passionUsha is a Consultant with PM Power. She has worked for companies like Tech Mahindra, Siemens and Mindtree before founding LastMile Consulting Technology Solutions.She has been a practitioner of Agile for 15+ years. She trains and helps large teams adopt agile methods

In this episode, Abhay Havaldar shares his story and experiences related to:Starting his IT career with a role in  testing software and going on to play other roles of marketing support and salesProduct management and support with a dealing room packageAlways willing to experiment and joining a venture capital firm - Draper InternationalEarly stage investing, General Atlantic, India - and a boutique investment firmWhy he got into ITHow he positions an IT solution to a prospective clientHis experience of product management, explained in today’s terminology, as Software as a ServiceHis experience with developing software solutions under a contract and the benefit of listening skills to add context to contractsThe power users wield in product led growth modelsHis starting out being a venture capitalist as a partner directly with the legendary Bill DraperHis approach of investing in the plan first, than the market opportunity that is forecastThe importance of evaluating all risks and being humbleHis thoughts on scaling startups and the Powerlocker model adopted by his formHis views on reviews by investors in the context of fundraising and context of goalsHow he approaches theme based investingHis approach to learning from othersBeing wrong is a great time to learnHis experience and perspectives on the social sectorThe importance of being comfortable with storytelling, particularly for entrepreneursExperienced Board Member with a demonstrated history of working in the venture capital and private equity industry. Skilled in Corporate Finance, Venture Capital, Investment Banking, Strategy. Strong business development professional with a MSc (Sloan Fellow) focused in Business Administration and Management, General from London Business School.https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhay-havaldar-a4a46523/

In this episode, K Nageswara Rao - known as KNR - shares his story and experiences related to:Four threads related to his careerIndividual contributor, team leaderConnecting digital switches in the telecom industry; each switch being a digital exchangeTraveling to locations that he is not supposed to talk about, due to security reasonsJoining Tata Unisys and learning a lot in terms of working with teams Working on the operating system : Unix SVr4Moving to the Solaris OS group with Sun microsystemsCreating a community for Open Solaris, engaging with various stakeholders, including studentsNext thread: leading R&D and product teams in India for large multinational organizationsGaining ability to work with people Fundamental challenges faced by him 20-25 years ago, still existingThird thread: driving innovation cultureFourth thread: influencing people’s lives: through processes and systems in companies or through coachingQuitting a corporate job to start - What is my North - a coaching company, continuing to help individuals growHow he combines or switches between working with people or with machines [embedded or systems software] using systems thinkingHow it helps when one abstracts specifics and infers patternsAsking open ended questions and helping people figure out the answersAbout the impact of not having direct customer connect and experience, when developing products and solutionsImportance of the ability to pay attention to detail and not jump to conclusionsHow an articulated shared vision by the leaders enables every individual to rally around a larger causeThe need to accept contrarian viewsHow humility is a strong characteristic for a great leaderEstablishing genuine connections with peopleIf humility a trainable skillHow humility can co-exist with confidenceIf it was easier to connect computers, compared to connecting peopleCreating an environment where people want to help othersThe role of constructive or creative dissonance in nurturing great communitiesCompassion being the common theme between being line managers and being a coachCreating a startup culture within a large organizationAspects related to product leadershipWhat he has enjoyed being in ITHis career tips for people considering a career in IT or mid-career professionalsAfter 34 years of a strong leadership career in IT, KNR decided to pursue his passion for helping people achieve success. When he quit his job as VP of Engineering in Unisys last year he started “What’s My North?”, to help people achieve success through Personal Transformation.  Before Unisys, KNR has worked in Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Tata Unisys and ITI, primarily in Embedded Systems and Operating Systems.https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayenarr/thecoachknr@gmail.com

In this episode, Karl Hughes, founder and CEO of Draft.dev, sharesStarting his career, working with startups as a software engineerTaking on engineering management and CTO rolesCovid triggering a shift to get into technical writing for developersHow to think of documentation for developers, as an intentional activityHis views on Agile approaches and documentation and the need to right size the documentationHow the product maturity influences the need and depth of documentationWhy writing is the most effective way to document and communicateHis thoughts on effectiveness of visual communicationWriting for a diverse audience and the role of video for communicating with developersImportance of reviews and feedback for greater effectiveness of written contentHow he got interested in writing If writing is a teachable or learnable skillHow he balances and manages his time between the maker and manager modes of workingHis experience with Shark Tank, when his company was invited to pitch at Shark TankWorking with a global, distributed team of software engineersWhether audio has a role to play as a medium for communicating with developersHis career tips for getting into writingBio: Karl Hughes is a former software engineer and CTO in Chicago. He is now the Founder and CEO of Draft.dev, a specialized technical marketing agency that creates content designed to reach software engineers.Twitter: https://twitter.com/KarlLHughesDraft.dev writer application: https://draft.dev/write

In this second  part of the conversation with an IT industry veteran, Satyendra Kumar, he sharesHis perspective on Agile approachesAgile approaches are good for certain contexts such as: products, supported by DevOps and other techniquesMay still be reluctant for systems such as critical, real-time systems [nuclear, aircraft etc]For services work, need to be careful; unless there is a strong risk management approach, it may be risky to use Agile approachesExamples from his experiences in helping large organizationsHis approach to understanding an organization to enable change, by starting with a business problemHis tips to address data quality and quantity, by looking at the metrics system and identifying the right lead indicatorsThe need for the quality function to learn and evolveA sneak peek into his upcoming book on building excellence in organizations

In this first part of the conversation with an IT industry veteran, Satyendra Kumar, he sharesComing from a humble background and doing his initial education in a villageGetting into Delhi University based on his good academic performanceHaving to take up a job, to meet some family needsHow he chose a job in a defence agency and rising to a senior levelLeaving his job and getting into consulting and qualitySetting up the Tata Business Excellence Model for the groupWorking with different business units in different domainsSwitching to an IT organization before joining and spending 14 years at InfosysContinuing to work with different organizations post retirement from InfosysHow learning came naturally to him, particularly in very new, challenging and different environmentsHow he gains confidence about being able to do anything, amidst uncertaintyThe experience based on a major decision to switch from the comforts of a government jab, to a small apartment in a distant suburbHow he thinks scale in conceiving and implementing organization wide initiatives, while making sure he has enough bandwidth to plan for the future and growing his team to 700His experience of recruiting people from non IT organizationsHow to get comfortable with delegation, with trust in the teamHis experience of creating an awareness and acceptance of processes among technical teamsThe tendency in quality professionals to become more of audit persons than having a direct connect with the senior leadership, to help them steer the businessWhy there should be shared goals for improvement between the quality function and the business unitsIn the next part, Kumar shares the answer to the question on his experience and perspectives related to Agile approaches and many more interesting points. Do not miss that..Independent Advisor and Consultant to several large and medium scale institutions and enterprises since 2013. Was the Global Head and Senior Vice President– Productivity & Quality, Technology Tools & Software Reuse at Infosys Limited ( 2000 – 2013). Worked as Vice President at IMR Global, USA between 1998 and 2000. Worked as Deputy Chief Executive for Tata Quality Management Services – Tata Group between 1996 and 1998. Has consulted for over 50 national and multi-national clients in areas of Business Excellence, Operational Efficiencies, Customer Satisfaction Management, Business Continuity Management, Project and Program Management, and Quality Management. Had been Board member ( QuEST USA) , On the Panel of Judges - Wisconsin State Award ( USA) , Administrative Reforms Committee of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Chief Technical Advisor to the Confederation of Indian Industry – Institute of Quality.Has been a recipient of IEEE-Software Engineering Institute ( Carnegie Mellon University) International award (2011) and honoured with the “ Life Time Achievement Award for Quality and Business Excellence “ by a IT Industry association

In this episode, Harish Achappa KM sharesChoosing mechanical engineering as a subject of study and getting into TCS engineering servicesWorking on valves and compressorsGetting into programming as part if his workThe experience of having a paid vacation in Italy!How his interest in programming developed after starting to use C, C++ as a hobbyNoticing differences in projects done at client locations v/s in IndiaWorking directly with users and feeding off the energy based on common questionsGetting quicker feedbackUnderstanding that some of the work cannot be done remotelyAvoiding assumptions and getting clarifications in contextRequesting to work in a development projectGetting an opportunity to work on a public infrastructure projectLearning the value and benefit of parametrization while programmingTaking some time to find his feet in a fully software coding roleHis experience of taking up a product manager role, enabled by his ability to ask a lot of clarifying questionsOn product thinking, even for an enterprise solutionHis career adviceCuriosity and willingness to learn: driveConsolidating the learningsTaking the responsibility for one’s frustrationsAre you motivated to build, generate ideas or bothHarish is a product manager with over 23 years of experience; he has been a developer, boot-strapped a firm and been a consultant. You can reach him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/hachappa/

In this episode, Brij Sethi, a Principal Consultant at PM Power, sharesHis growing up days in Pantnagar, near NainiTalHis passion for reading booksHis liking for mathematics and wanting to be an engineerBeing bitten by the electronics bug and electronics engineering in collegeJoining a masters in management in systems in IIM AhmedabadLearning Transactional Analysis Getting into a project to make ECG machines as an engineer, forgetting his MBAJoining WIPRO in 1993 and working on many challenging projectsHis strong feeling in 1998 to be a facilitator, including facilitating 6 sigma projectsTaking up the CTO role with HP, and enabling filing a record number of patents across teamsWanting to teach and getting back to WiproCreating education related media and starting a companyHow he connects various ideas picked up from books and other sources, by letting goBe simple in what he has to shareUsing Obsidian to keep connected points Making conscious efforts to digest what he readsApplying TA in business contextsTransitions across different ways or states of thinkingConsciously spending time in capturing his state of mind before switching statesBeing low on J orientation, can accept contradictions and unresolved stuffTip from his mentor: Need to wear a facilitator hat and outcome hatHis experience of working in a social sector contextA story on the approach of influencing with PowerPoint slidesWhy, Who and What - three questions for a facilitation sessionCreating an empty space for ownershipThe experience of a father-son founding teamThe trigger and satisfaction on launching his podcastHis career adviceLeave yourself open, take some risksBrij is a Principal Consultant with PM Power. He has worked for Wipro and HP for many years and more recently founded a Media Studio to make educational content. He facilitated deep expertise in HP during his tenure as CTO. The number of patents filed in 1 year went up from 6 to 184.Brij is a trained in group facilitation. He helps agile practitioners do personal action planning, undo team dysfunctions by themselves and dream a future by tinkering to a customer context. He also talks about career readiness in his podcast - Ready to work - on brijsethi.com.