Ex-Facebook & Uber Heads Reveal 9 SIMPLE HABITS to EARN ₹50 Lakh/Year | IBP EP34

[Music] How to make 50 lakh rupees a year to a lot of things. The answer is a you work with Mark Zuckerberg.

How did Mark Zuckerberg cultivate this culture of ruthless meritocracy in Facebook?

It is what you said which is Anjaman Singh former tech leader at Facebook helped build Messenger and launched the company's London office.

Pavik Rathod led Uber's India expansion and scaled to over $1 billion in revenue.

Human founded Scala. Havik later joined as chairman of Scala School of Business, a B school aiming to fix India's education to employment gap.

What exactly is so special about ISB?

Some people even say that ISB students are better than IM students. Is that

true?

You know a lot of people speak about the importance of alumni. How does the alumni help students get opportunities?

So there there are two parts, right? One

is uh why do 99% of the engineers in India get paid so less on there is a difference in how can somebody learn problem solving calculatively what are the most

important attributes that Uber looks for in a high performing individual we used to have this term at Uber which you keep calling what are the attributes that make Silicon Valley the place it is most Silicon Valley tech companies I've seen so far are

but you supposed to get promoted within a year if you don't get promoted within a year you were fired so promotion or fire promotion or fire how do to differentiate between two candidates.

A lot of rums that actually stand out.

They are résumés that talk about [Music] Guys, today the agenda for the podcast is pretty simple.

You guys have worked at two of the most incredible companies on the planet. Anan

you worked at Facebook, Bhavik, you worked at Uber and you guys understand what it is to work at a hypercompetitive organization. You guys understand what

organization. You guys understand what is the meaning of innovation in a culture. Now a lot of people in India do

culture. Now a lot of people in India do not want to become entrepreneurs but they want to make 30, 40, 50 lakh rupees a year. But sadly most people in India

a year. But sadly most people in India get paid less than 5 lakh rupees a year.

Interesting anecdote is that uh when I was graduating from college 2019, TCS, Vipro, Infosys, all these companies were paying anywhere between 3.5 to 4.5 lakh

rupees per year. Even today, these companies are still paying in the same range. Now earlier I used to think you

range. Now earlier I used to think you know evil corporates but then as I got into business I understood that it has to do less with evil corporates and more with less productivity.

maybe incompetence of the people, maybe incompetence of the colleges in terms of training the students which is leading to such low salaries. So today I want to

have a playbook, a playbook which is not available anywhere in India by which anybody who's watching this podcast no matter whether they are from a tier one college, tier 2 college or a tier three

college, I want them to understand what are those high value skills that can help them make 30, 40 lakh rupees a year. I want them to understand the

year. I want them to understand the concept of ESOPs because of which hundreds of people have gone on to become kodaties in the past 3 years. In

fact, I was just reading about Flipkart and I understood that employees of Flipkart got about $700 million in cash which was distributed amongst 19,000 people and I also heard that from Swiggy

hundreds of people became Coronatis not because they were founders but they were just employees who had esops and since you belong from Uber and Facebook

you are at the perfect vantage point to help us define this playbook in such a way that in the next 2 hours people can have concrete takeaways on how to make 50

lakh rupees a year. That is the agenda for today's podcast. Shall we get started guys?

Sure. Let's do it.

First, let's define the problem statement. Why do 99% of the engineers

statement. Why do 99% of the engineers in India get paid so less?

Yeah, I think um it is what you said which is there is a difference in u productivity. There's a difference in

productivity. There's a difference in skills that are needed. In fact, uh we talked about Infosys, TCS etc. Right?

They hire people from college and they run them through a six-month training after that because they know that what they're hiring for is not their skills because they are anyhow unskilled.

They assume the worst and then they train them for 6 months to make them productive. That's when they can deploy

productive. That's when they can deploy them on actual projects. Um and to be very honest it's not like the projects that TCS and Infosys are driving with pressures are like really highly

complicated projects. the number of

complicated projects. the number of graduates that we have or the percentage of graduates that we have that are actually employable is in low singledigit percentage of total engineering graduates that we have.

Okay.

Um and if you have to look at the reason of that I can go into the reason and then I can go into the solution also but the reason is there is sort of like a

tech boom happened that that happened in very early 20201 or so. Um back then the the colleges that were actually producing engineers were IITs or NITs.

um that you see today and the number of those engineers would then be only in thousands. Suddenly there was this need

thousands. Suddenly there was this need for getting hundreds of thousands of engineers and and there weren't enough engineers to employ from um and because of that that gap in demand suddenly

there were bunch of these colleges right like I know in Delhi NCR like almost every single gully has this new one college that has opened correct um but when you scale colleges like that

or institutions like that uh bunch of things don't scale for example you don't have very high quality faculty that that can teach students you don't have u the right kind of controls in place to help

build the right culture within the colleges. So what ends up happening is

colleges. So what ends up happening is that you suddenly have this race of people getting into engineering and then just finishing BTE by just getting the bare minimum marks. The same students are then getting employed as teachers

when they themselves are not employable and then that that cycle continues and that's that's been what's been happening for 90 to 95% of our engineering graduates till date. There are

exceptions though. Um for example, one of the things that India did so well was establish IITs in tech. Um and I mean all being said and done about their

curriculum, their teachers etc. um one thing that I has been able to do really really well is that they have this very strong community of um engineers who are who are the top brains and there's this

senior to junior relationship that exists which in a way nurtures the juniors to do things that are outside of curriculum. In fact, one of the highest

curriculum. In fact, one of the highest paid job from IIT by the way was uh till till 10 years back was quant trader.

Okay.

Um and there's nothing related to quant trading in the curriculum.

Okay.

It's it's all informal learning that happens from seniors to juniors.

So you're saying that the alumini network of IIT is very strong.

Yes. The alumni network is strong. The

the the intake year over year is also very strong. I mean that's they're

very strong. I mean that's they're basically the top thousand brains in the country.

Got it. You know a lot of people speak about the importance of alumni whether that's in Harvard or Bits or IIT. Can

you tell me how does the alumni help students get opportunities?

There there are two parts right? One is

um um what do I get from my alumni and what do I get from my seniors?

Okay.

From the tradition of what whatever has happened in the college I get the culture which is what is celebrated versus what is not celebrated. Um what

kind of exploration do people do? For

example, this quan trading thing that I was mentioning that became sort of like a culture or unsaid um ritual that there are these top people who would run these

clubs. They would teach the juniors. So,

clubs. They would teach the juniors. So,

so you learn this informally from from your seniors who have embied that from their alumni.

The other is um for example, ISB has a very strong alumni network. Um and one of the things there is that there are they're usually part of some WhatsApp group or some form of a group you just

send a message there. If there is a company hiring you sort of get that unlocked. Um if you want to hire

unlocked. Um if you want to hire suddenly like you have this uh job that posting that you make and you have a bunch of ISB alumni also applying to that job. So it it helps both ways. Um

that job. So it it helps both ways. Um

if you have a very very strong alumni network.

Got it. Bik, I have I've been hearing a lot about ISBs. What exactly is so special about ISB? In fact, some people even say that ISB students are better than IM students. Is that true?

I've experienced that. Um, when we were at Uber, we used to do a lot of hiring drives. Um, we did when we were scaling

drives. Um, we did when we were scaling the company across the country, uh, we did want to hire a lot of MBA graduates and we actually went to the top two IM in the country without naming them and

also went to ISB as well. Um, what was interesting is we literally went to the best IM in the country and we walked out without hiring anyone.

Why?

And I'll just give you the flip side of that. We went to ISB and we actually end

that. We went to ISB and we actually end up hiring a lot from ISB instead. In

fact, I would say that year if you were to have hired 10 MBA graduates. I think

about seven of them came from ISB. Maybe

two came from an INSEAD and maybe like one came from one of the IMs. And the reason we saw very high success rate on ISB versus an IM is because I think when we went to IM in an interview, you're

asking them real world problem statements and the answers that come out are basically what they learned in a book, right? A lot of theory. So they're

right? A lot of theory. So they're

really good at answering accounting principles. They could be really good at

principles. They could be really good at answering a financial equation if you throw at them, right? They could be really good at maybe creating a really quick Excel model out of a case study you would give at them. But if you throw a real business problem, for example, if you throw a real business problem of

saying, "Hey, I'm launching in a new city. I'm launching Uber in a new city.

city. I'm launching Uber in a new city.

I'm exploring whether I should be launching with a Uber Gore or Uber Premiere and I want to get the first 1,000 drivers and the first 10,000 customers." The answer that you get from

customers." The answer that you get from an IM is a very bookish answer, right?

The usual traits of what you would do similar to what you would do probably trying to sell a shampoo in a retail store or trying a consumer to buy Coke.

But that's very different than a tech business at Uber where you have to convince someone to download an app, put their credit card or UPI on file and then book a ride and convince a driver that hey, you're no longer going to be

driving 80 km for 8 hours. um you know a shift that you're typically used to garage to garage but instead you're going to be getting rides and you're going to go trip to trip basis the requests that you end up getting um that

shift on mindset was very hard at an IM which was so ingrained in I think the curriculum that was designed for them at an ISB I thought the curriculum was a lot more practical a lot of the students that got into the curriculum as well or

into the program itself also are folks that already had some prior industry experience so I think that gave them a sense of how to apply some of the principles in the real world.

I think also at ISB the culture was there to do a lot of real world business cases, right? So they would work with

cases, right? So they would work with companies or partner with companies, bring in projects from companies and saying, "Hey, can our students work on these projects?" So they were real

these projects?" So they were real projects and when they solved that, they started realizing that what I'm taught in theory, what I'm taught in textbooks in a classroom versus what I actually have to apply in the real world, there is a fundamental difference in that.

And I started applying that. I started

realizing the nuances. What does it really take for me to get the first thousand customers? What does it really

thousand customers? What does it really take for me to get the first thousand drivers on the platform? What product

will work best? What pricing should I go for? And how that be perceived talking

for? And how that be perceived talking to customers about it? That nuances are very very clear uh in an ISB curriculum in the way they design it and the way they end up maybe also recruiting the

students or the candidates into the program as well. And I think that also led to a lot of the design choices we made under the program that we created here at Scala School of Business. Um but

I think we we saw that very evidently in not just one year that was year after year. I think I must have gone to all

year. I think I must have gone to all the top IM and ISBs probably like five years in a row when I was at when I was at Uber hiring and unanimously year

after year we ended up more successfully hiring at ISB than any of the IM.

Got it. What are the most important attributes that Uber looks for in a high performing individual?

Sure. Um you know we used to have this term at Uber keep calling about it always be hustling right where it's such a broad term on hustle and the hustle culture sort of you know sometimes looked down upon in some startups as well that just means like go in and just

do whatever it takes but I think if you just peel the layers behind the scenes right especially if you look at some of the students that have done well or some of the candidates that we end up hiring that did really well in the company were those that combine that attitude of

saying I will get this done but I'll peel the layer to go deep into the problem itself first right And so deep problem solving skills, very datadriven insights. So I would peel the

datadriven insights. So I would peel the layer and go down to the level of of data. I would talk to users. I'll be

data. I would talk to users. I'll be

very very clear about what is the issue that every single user is facing and I will solve customer tickets myself. I

will talk to drivers myself. I'll become

an Uber driver for a day if I have to just to learn how customers are behaving with drivers or vice versa. I would take rides full day, you know, on my app as well as all the competitor apps to see what they're doing differently in

experience as well. So when you see that part right those individuals that combine hustle but with deep problem solving they are curiosity to keep going deeper and deeper into the problem and

layering it down to saying here's the data here's why I'm lagging in this particular indicator and I'm going to track this now very meticulously day after day week after week and see how I

can improve this so then then they actually come back to you with an answer saying hey I just didn't do something and it just happened but this is exactly what I did laying pieces and hence this is how the data moved upwards and the metrics got better.

Beautiful.

And that's that's what they did really well compared to some of those who was who were probably a little bit more in terms of um you know very high level and

trying to and trying to address a problem without actually understanding what the real problem is or what the deep inside of the problem is before going and uh finding a solution.

Beautiful. So problem solving, customer experience, root cause analysis, using datadriven insights. Can you give me an

datadriven insights. Can you give me an example of a problem that you discovered using data and how did you solve it using root cause analysis?

Sure. Um I think one of the hottest topics and I'm sure all of you experienced this also uh used to be about cancellations, right? Uh riders

constantly complaining about the fact that we book a ride and drivers cancel, right? And we had this constant debate

right? And we had this constant debate and we should start asking drivers, right? why would he cancel? And the most

right? why would he cancel? And the most common reasons of cancing were the destination um you know or the pickup location for the customers was too far or it was the destination that the c

they would call the customer and ask the destination like okay that's not in the route of where I want to go like let's say my home is in one direction and that's towards the end of the day but the customer is taking me in the opposite direction right as an example

or it's taking me to an area where I believe I may not get another ride and hence I'm going to be sitting idle and I have a lot of dead kilometers to come back to a high demand area again So I'm not keen on taking that right. And this

debate kind of went on for a while and say how how do we really solve for this um do we penalize the drivers for cancelelling? So say hey every time we

cancelelling? So say hey every time we cancel you know there's some kind of penalty uh before you get paid as an example or do we instead solve for this by saying you know what we'll show you the address up front of the customer uh

that they want to go to the destination and you choose if that destination is good for you then accept. If you don't accept, let go to another driver who might be okay going to a destination. We

started realizing all of this and we did a lot of AB testing and tried different cases you know penalizing a driver showing the address.

We even did something called driver home which is saying hey for the last trip you put the location that you want to go and we'll try to match you to a ride that takes you towards the direction of where your home is. Right? Right. So on

the driver app you could put your home address and you could say um enable driver home equivalent and that would ensure that the trip that's matched to you is in the direction that you want to go.

This still exists, right?

This still exists. And then we kept kind of iterating on that and the cancellation side. What we said then was

cancellation side. What we said then was that even when we show the address, there are a lot of these destinations that the drivers may not want to go or they just have belief that there may not be demand. So we kind of tinkering and

be demand. So we kind of tinkering and say hey maybe the first three trips we don't show them the address or the first five trips we don't show them the address. If they do those five trips

address. If they do those five trips without cancelling still accepting without knowing where the destination is from the sixth trip onwards in the day we'll start showing them the address.

But how does that change the driver behavior?

Because it starts so now just think about a driver psychology right from the very first time if I start showing them the the destination you could have certain destination the drivers just don't want to go to. So the what happens in that case is for the customer the

experience is terrible. You have to keep balancing both the the marketplace right the customer also on one side that you care about the rider and the driver as well. Now the rider opens the app sees a

well. Now the rider opens the app sees a lot of cars placing a request but no one's accepting right. Why is no one accepting? Well they're seeing an

accepting? Well they're seeing an address that they don't want to go to.

On the flip side, the driver's like, "Hey, my life has got easier, but then the ride experience has got spoiled."

So, we say, "Okay, maybe for the first five trips, we don't." That ensures that at any point of time there are enough drivers out there who don't know what the destination is. We still accept for the writers. So, you solve a little bit

the writers. So, you solve a little bit for ride experience also, but you also incentivize the driver saying, "Hey, you know what? As long as you do five trips

know what? As long as you do five trips without cancelling accepting irrespective of knowing where the destination is, we then start showing you the destination so that you can now be more particular about which trips you want to do and maybe it gets you closer

and closer to the destination that you want to get to.

Wow. So these are some of the datadriven insights we kept tinkering with a lot of AB testing, a lot of talking to drivers, a lot of talking to riders and again you have to balance it solving for experience and experience like that's one example at least I can think of

where a lot of this root cause analysis on how do we really solve for this problem of cancellations and it's not gone today I'm sure we experienced it whether you take an Ola or an Uber you still face cancellations correct it's

not a problem you can fully solve for but you keep working iterating to at least minimize it as much as possible if you keep playing around with the data got it this is so interesting and In fact, you know, when we did a case study

on Ola, I actually spent two months taking a cab back and forth and I was talking to the drivers to get some insights and they told me stories that just blew my mind as to how did they get into driving a cab? What exactly was

their expectation? What was the story?

their expectation? What was the story?

So, in fact, something as simple as initially when the when the payoff was very high, the drivers used to change the schools of their children from A school to B school where the B school

was way more expensive as compared to A.

But then as the fairs started coming down, as their payoff started to go down, they realized that there was a drastic change in their standard of living and they just couldn't cope up with the school fees which then became a problem for them. So a lot of them kept

switching from Ola to Uber because the children's school fees was too high.

And that kind of taught me that when you speak to people, you just understand so many insights that otherwise may not get reflected on data. So what you're saying is something that's that I find deeply interesting that is you don't just look

at data but you actually try and validate the stories behind the data by talking to the people. So you're saying that if an individual is capable of understanding data is capable of investigating the story behind the data

and then gets to the root cause of the problem and then has the ability to solve that problem that person could be considered as a high performing individual. Is that

correct?

Will definitely perform a lot better than most of the others.

Bavik you know problem solving such a broad term.

Mhm. Right. And you mentioned about root cause analysis, customer experience, problem solving. But very few people

problem solving. But very few people actually have a road map on how to learn problem solving. I learned problem

problem solving. I learned problem solving through a course called design thinking which I did from IDO. And IDO

taught me how to solve problems by understanding customer disability, market viability, and technological feasibility. But again this is not um

feasibility. But again this is not um this is not out there in the public as much as the general problem solving methods are like root cause analysis and stuff like that. So my question is how

can somebody learn problem solving calculatively more than learning calculatively or more than sometimes what a uh specific course can teach you and of course a course can teach you a lot like the one that you

did as well. I think actually almost replicating a real world business problem for yourself, right? Or or if that could actually be incorporated into the program itself, right? Where you're

given a case study that you're actually working on where let's say you have to launch a new product of your own or you're starting your own business. When

you go through the steps of actually doing that, where you take your real product to the market and actually get customer validation, will someone actually pay for this or not pay for this? Can you generate revenue? Does the

this? Can you generate revenue? Does the

economics actually make sense or not? I

think you learn 10x more than probably any other course can. So I think my recommendation would be if anyone wants to really build problem solving skills either take a real case study and figure out how you would do it and do the

entire analysis behind it. Do the market research and actually come back with an answer saying hey this is how I would solve for it or try to do it yourself in whatever small scale possible. It could

be a simple thing like literally opening up a a drop shipping somewhere you know in the locality that you are in. It

could be as simple thing as selling a very basic product that you can source from from some supplier and selling it to a community around you. You learn just so much in

around you. You learn just so much in just doing that than I think any other textbook or a course can teach you in my opinion.

Beautiful. Can you give my subscribers a problem statement that they can work on or three problem statements that they can work on that they might find interesting which will enable them to learn problem solving?

Okay. So I mean I can give you a couple examples. Um and actually came across

examples. Um and actually came across this when I was interviewing candidates for Scala School of Business as well.

One of them just to learn fundamentals of business. Basically started renting

of business. Basically started renting apartments and then putting them on Airbnb.

Okay. And all he did was take apartments at as low cost as possible, spruce them up a little bit and then list them on Airbnb to see how Airbnb bookings work, how the arbitrage works, what kind of

margins this person can make of what kind of customers are coming, who's actually booking for how long a period and he learned so much in just that operating that one apartment which actually I think from what I remember correctly the interview

I think he mentioned that he multiplied to six apartments in a very short period of time. So I

ended up actually renting six apartments, short duration apartments and just put them in Airbnb, right? Just operating that much, right?

right? Just operating that much, right?

What kind of reviews am I getting? What

kind of ratings am I getting? What is

what are customers valuing more? The

location itself or the apartment itself, the fact spruce it up or as a good host, right? What was my arbitrage in that?

right? What was my arbitrage in that?

What are the little overheads I'm incurring uh on managing the apartment, the cleaning cost? Just that much very simple thing to do. If I have to take that to Uber as well as an example, can

you just rent two cars and get two drivers and get them to drive in an Uber in a city just to understand how the economics will work? How many trips is customer doing? How many trips is a

customer doing? How many trips is a driver doing per hour? What can they make on a daily basis? How much is my cost of the maintenance of the car? How

much is the cost of the the fuel in the car as well? How many hours can the driver drive? Do I need to have two

driver drive? Do I need to have two drivers to shift so that I can operate the car for 24/7? how much I can utilize the asset more and visav how much do I earn how much commission Uber takes and yet how much am I left with after paying

the driver and the car rent as an example just doing that much low cost low effort will teach you a lot more than pretty much any textbook yeah I mean um I don't have a problem

statement from education as such um primarily because my philosophy is that education has to be more long-term and hence you can't do something short-term but I think today in in today's day and world you can start like a cloud kitchen

for example You can register on Swiggy.

You can start delivering food which you could run for a short period of time just to see again like how the food economics work. It's a it's a

economics work. It's a it's a competitive place. So if you're able to

competitive place. So if you're able to generate profit from there, you should have done something really well. And it

doesn't require a lot of investment uh to begin with if it's a just a homely food.

Beautiful guys. Tell me something.

I did not understand the value of these side gigs until I heard Paul Graham. And

Paul Graham says that rums might lie but side gigs never will. But I want to understand from you if somebody comes to you and says let's say Tanisha comes to you and she says that Anuman this is my

resume I've got technical skills that's fine but you know what on the side I actually tried starting a college canteen and I made three lakh rupees in profit. My question to you is how much

profit. My question to you is how much more valuable does the candidate get the moment they tell you that they've run a successful side gig and generated a

profit? I I believe um for somebody to

profit? I I believe um for somebody to success like succeed in a business role um there are following things which are important right and one of one of those things is being extremely curious and

very proactive um in today's day and age like to be honest like if you're very proactive there are so many tools that will help you on the job today I might not know

how to design an org but but if I go and talk to a GPT uh it will give me 80% of the answer correct and sure it might need more refinement after that but It just takes a lot of

productivity for you to just go and ask those questions, right? You could ask 10 of your mentors and they can tell you like what you might be doing wrong. Um

so it does help it does help in short listing that particular resume u because it shows me some signal that this person is proactive. In fact that's one of the

is proactive. In fact that's one of the biggest signal we look for in SSB admissions also.

Oh really? An tell me something. How do

you differentiate between two candidates? One with a side gig and the

candidates? One with a side gig and the other without a side gig but a great resume. I mean I I don't think it's

resume. I mean I I don't think it's necessarily side gig but it's some proof that you've been very proactive in your life. You've not just followed what was

life. You've not just followed what was told to you throughout your life. Right?

So if you've only been academic, if you only prepared for J, if you only let's say finished your whatever bachelors because you were told to um then you're not as interesting. But if you have done

things outside of of what you were told to do and you've been if you you've been able to go deep there and you've been able to actually produce a result then you become suddenly far more interesting

because that's a signal that I wouldn't have to tell you every single thing you you know that you have to be proactive.

Correct.

Um and we see that as a signal of uh success in most people who eventually go and do well. They've been extremely proactive in life. they keep scouting for opportunities instead of somebody coming and telling them that hey look

you should go and apply to that particular job or you should you should go and talk to that particular person um I I'll take an example so um so one of the things that we were deliberating

with Prasana he is the co-founder of a company called rippling which is a $20 billion company uh was like how do we how do we nurture the top talent in the campus um what kind of support do we

give them what kind of people do we connect them to what kind of courses do to be done. One of his insights was that look uh the the you took example of Paul Graham, right? So one of the approaches

Graham, right? So one of the approaches that Y cominator also followed was that look it doesn't make sense to guide people and like connect them with with people themselves. it doesn't people who

people themselves. it doesn't people who are usually proactive um would reach out to the right kind of networks themselves right

um the reason why I knew prasan was because in school I was very active in coding okay and my school had my college uh

professors had no exposure to coding they were not even interested in helping us uh in in some of those things but we figured it out because there were a bunch of these college kids who would participate on this website called top coders. So we connected with each other

coders. So we connected with each other there and we constantly chat about problems and like what else to do etc etc right? be form your own tribe and

etc right? be form your own tribe and community.

People who are very proactive, they usually figure out their tribe, they figure out their community if they know that like I'm trying to do something in education for example, you you would reach out to the right kind of people in education to get guidance when you're

stuck.

So hence proactivity is one of the the strongest signal uh for somebody succeeding and that's why that that side gig absolutely matters in the initial selection. Obviously like

then there are conversations after where you try to see how deep you are what's your problem solving process the other attributes are also important but this is a great way to unblock your resume shortlisting for example

beautiful in fact you know I was speaking to Aaral and I asked him about the the fellowship so what I had in mind was like a crazy syllabus great teachers guest lectures

probably an interaction with Brian Chesky which could have resulted into Peter theel fellowship becoming so successful I asked Retesh, "So Retesh, tell me what

was Theel Fellowship like and what did you learn over there? What was the curriculum like?" He was like, "There

curriculum like?" He was like, "There was no curriculum." I was like, "Bro, then what did you do?" He's like, "Nothing."

"Nothing." Because Peter Theel understood that if you get a bunch of smart people together, they will figure out what needs to be done by themselves. I was

like, "Okay, then why is it called a fellowship? I mean, they must be

fellowship? I mean, they must be teaching you something, right?"

He told me that I have to decide what I have to learn. I will just be connected to the right people and then I have to hold a conversation with them to try and solve my problem and hopefully go back

home with a different perspective on what works and what does not work. So he

went to Peter Theal fellowship with a concept of oral stays and then he went back with oo which became a billion dollar company which was quite astounding right so what

you're telling me does that fall in the same lines which is you don't have to teach people how to become legendary legendary people will become legendary merely because of their proactiveness

yeah and I think um it's unfortunate that our schools teach us not to be proactive they teach us to mug up scripts so that you can score well in exams. Um so hence like once you

graduate from school there is a bit of unlearning to be done and the role of a college or an institute is to do that.

How do you make somebody unlearn and push them to be proactive in life?

Because people who are legendary they are I mean I have never met a person who is successful in life but is not super proactive themselves.

Yeah.

Uh they just do what they are told. I

have never met such a person. Right. So

there's a 100% correlation. Hm. An tell

me something. How do I gauge proactiveness of a person in an interview? Because I face a lot of

interview? Because I face a lot of problem with gauging proactiveness. On

the outside, it looks like everybody's proactive because they they want to look like they're proactive in the interview, right? But then how do you gauge

right? But then how do you gauge proactiveness because I also want this to act like a check system for both the founders who are interviewing people as well as the people who are giving these interviews to check if they are proactive or not so that if they're not

proactive, they can go on to become proactive. So I had a conversation with

proactive. So I had a conversation with Savv Ganguli once and I had asked him the same question.

He said uh in sports also there is no way to judge potential of um performing well.

All you have to do is you have to see what they have done and bases that you judge somebody's potential.

Uh very similar for for proactivity and performance usually uh judging somebody based on potential is a bad um bad way of judging. You're

more likely to fail. What do you mean by that?

Um, so there are two ways, right? One is

I have a conversation and basis my conversation I feel this person can become very proactive in life has the right kind of energy versus there's another conversation where somebody talks about what they have done in life

which shows or proves that I am so proactive.

The second or the latter way is a better way of uh selection because you have proof of work which reduces your risk.

Got it? uh so judge people on what they have done in the past and that is why I said like the side gig where somebody starts generating two lakhs in revenue that is a much better way of uh judging that somebody is proactive rather than

somebody saying oh wait look I here is what I want to do in life and here is what will make me successful and hence I'll be super proactive. So those that's the that's the difference because everybody wants to do great things in life but very few people do.

Yeah. So you judge people by their actions not what they say.

So unrealized potential is no potential at all.

Yes. Got it.

I mean they might end up doing well but like not what you want to select them basis.

Yeah. I think it's also sometimes you know through the interview you realize that is this person who was given a problem statement and all they went ahead was execute as per solution that's given them. They may executed really

given them. They may executed really well right? They were given a problem

right? They were given a problem statement. They were given hey here the

statement. They were given hey here the steps you need to follow to solve this problem. Go execute. They may have done

problem. Go execute. They may have done a fabulous job of execution. They

probably really good execution also.

However, when you probe them further on what did they do through the execution, what insights did I d out of it, you often find these candidates who then come and tell you that while I was doing this, I found this other opportunity

that I went back and relayed back to my company saying, "Hey, this is what I we could also do that can either make us more efficient or save us more money or create a new business opportunity or a new revenue opportunity for us or unlock

a new set of customers for us and that led to 10x more growth." Right? So when

you see some of those proactive that I'm not just doing what I'm told sure I'm doing them pretty well but I'm already given the playbook of what exactly to follow I'm just doing that exactly well

but if I'm actually going that one step beyond saying you know while doing this I also uncovered these three additional opportunities that when I further go into created several more opportunity for the company as well. I think those

are a few things that you can always try to get into uh through those interviews.

I can also maybe talk about some of the so we keep hiring in product, we keep hiring in strategy. Um and typically if we post a position we get like 200 300

odd resumes. Uh most of the résumés are

odd resumes. Uh most of the résumés are very plain. They talk about hey look

very plain. They talk about hey look here is where we did our MBA from here is where we did our PT from here is the job that we worked at right and um and

here was my responsibility etc etc. um lot of rums that actually stand out.

They are résumés that talk about hey look for the companies where I worked here was the impact that I was able to create.

The numbers were here I was able to take those numbers to from X to Y. So they

don't talk about here is what I did but rather like what change I brought about tangible result tangible and they talk numbers I mean that's one of the the the the signal that instead of saying that oh I made

the business better they talk about how much better. Can you give me an example

much better. Can you give me an example so that everybody else can understand this in the context of a resume?

Yeah, I mean so for example there are two kinds of rums you would find. one is

um would talk about hey look for examp I'm just taking hypothetical example right so let's say I was working at Amazon and I was uh responsible for the gaming division and I worked there for

two years I managed 10 people um and uh I manage stakeholders across let's say 10 different teams right so that's one kind of resume the other kind of resume would be very focused on impact which

would say hey look I was responsible for the gaming division I took it from x revenue to y revenue Let's say let's say hypothetically $2 million revenue to a $10 million revenue. We brought down the

cost of acquisition from X to Y. Here is

what the P&L look like. And we did it with with a 10 member team. So having

more people in your team is not to be celebrated. It's it's basically a means

celebrated. It's it's basically a means to achieving what you want to achieve.

Correct.

When you see those attributes, then you know that the person actually cares about the right things, right? Being

proactive, constantly asking the right questions.

Got it. Or if you look at their side projects as well or projects that they did outside of work, they again are like would talk about numbers numbers. Um for

example, not that I did a side gig where I was running a cloud kitchen, but what happened after running the cloud kitchen right?

And I generated a revenue of 20 lakh rupees.

Yes.

With a profit of two rupees. Got it. So

you're saying objective, responsibility and result. These are three most

and result. These are three most important pointers that are required under the project section. Is that

correct?

Project or experience? Both.

Experience section. Okay, got it. Is the

process important? Is it important that I state what process I used in order to solve a problem in my resume itself?

Not really. I mean that comes out in the conversations. But what differentiates

conversations. But what differentiates you from others is like what changes were you able to bring? If you were there just occupying a seat for for 2 years, 3 years, that doesn't interest me

because you'll probably do a similar thing when you come to my company. Um

but if you were able to bring about a large change then then I really want to talk to you because I also want that change.

You know when I speaking to a lot of my students at the communication masterclass most of them are executives they often bring up a problem statement where they have brilliant ideas to save the company 10 cr rupees 20 cr rupees but the management just doesn't listen

to them and because of that they don't have a tangible result to show in that case what would you do bavic?

Um I mean I think that's a hard one. Um

the reason I say it's a hard one is it could actually be two different you know path you could take. One path is like hey I strongly believe that by doing these things I'm going to save the company 10 cr rupees. I'm going to keep

harping on that. I'm going to keep reaching out to the management. I'm

going to keep sharing why that's a good opportunity. I'm going to you know uh

opportunity. I'm going to you know uh make sure as much as possible I can reach to the right levels within the company that can be decision makers on understanding why these steps will actually help the company itself. and as

and I'm probably the best person to execute also to deliver that 10 cror savings as an example. So either you go that part but if you still feel that you are basically knocking on doors where you're not getting any response at all

then probably have to ask yourself the question that I'm at the right place in the first place right is this the company that has the right culture is it really meritocratic you know one of the things that I strongly you know feel

that and I think there's a lot for us to learn uh in organizations in India cuz you know I've worked with more Silicon Valley companies than worked with Indian companies right now and you know also

worked with with meta before or Facebook those companies are ruth ruthlessly meritocratic.

M can you explain that with an example?

Um because ruthlessness is often seen in bad light.

No. So they are extremely rewarding to high performers and they are uh almost the opposite to those who are average above average which basically means that

you are not just there in the company to warm a seat right. If you are not delivering results to the earlier point, right? Number driven, result driven,

right? Number driven, result driven, objective, clearly making a change in the company, you don't need to be in the company anymore. And they're very okay

company anymore. And they're very okay with letting you go, making that clear, probably letting you know that you're probably not in the right place. Maybe

your skill sets don't match the role and hence you're not able to deliver. Maybe

your skill sets and the way of working is better suited for another company, not us. Right? But most silicon tech

not us. Right? But most silicon tech companies I've seen so far are ruthlessly meritocratic in making sure that they keep weeding out in the group of people they've hired who are the ones

who are high performers and I'm going to keep rewarding them and I'm going to keep filtering out those who are just out there warming the seat and not producing a result. As a result I keep raising the bar right and that what it

does is that you you you compound that over year to the next year to the next year. What have you done? And you've

year. What have you done? And you've

basically kept rewarding the high individuals, beating out, making it harder and harder for people to perform at a higher level because the bar itself has gone higher. As a company, you've just raised the bar of performance and

then you have this extremely high performing team that all of them are resultoriented and just supercharging towards a mission and you end up delivering and as a result create iconic companies and I

would probably say that that holds true for pretty much every iconic company that you heard out of Silicon Valley.

I'm sure that holds true for Facebook as well. Um, truthlessly metocratic,

well. Um, truthlessly metocratic, rewarding high performing individuals, raising the bar. That's true for Uber as well. That's true for pretty much any

well. That's true for pretty much any company out there. Um, so, so, you know, I think if you're in an organization where you're stuck, despite of you making your case stronger

and stronger and stronger, um, you probably have to then question, are you in the right place? Is that company meritocratic enough to value uh

suggestions you know inputs from everyone and does it allow for the best answer to win versus saying hey I'm the manager or I'm the leader and hence I know what I'm doing and I will not allow the best answer to win the the minute

you create a culture by the way this was one of our cultural values at Uber that the best answer always wins no matter where it comes from right as long as you make sure that's always the case you will always make sure that you're going

to be metocratic as a organization as well as you work with Mark Zuckerberg.

How did Mark Zuckerberg cultivate this culture of ruthless meritocracy in Facebook?

Uh firstly, I think everybody was told that if you have an idea which most people don't agree with, go and try out that idea. So, and the way product

that idea. So, and the way product releases were planned was initially everybody would use Facebook. Even the

employees would use Facebook. All

employees had access to a version of Facebook which was different from the public which is all the experiments that were going on. You would be exposed to that.

Okay. So in a way you had a version of Facebook if I wanted to build something which I believe would work um you just build it and it will be open to employees first for example u chat and

messages there was a big fraction within Facebook that believe that Facebook should not have chatted messages it's a social media sorry social networking website it should have newsfeed it should have post should not

have messages that is a Google chat thing should happen on Google chat uh somebody actually went on and built this in a hackathon overnight and it went live for employees.

Employees liked it. Then the second phase of rollout usually used to happen in New Zealand because New Zealand was this one country where the external connections were not many.

Okay.

So it was sort of like a self-sustained country within at connections.

So second phase of release would happen in New Zealand. There you would see as an AB experiment whether the engagement is higher in that region compared to other regions or not.

M if it is then it goes live.

Got it.

And nobody would hold it against you if you fail.

So failure was in a way celebrated like the the the theme there was um uh move fast, break things, make mistakes. Those

were the posters you would find everywhere in the office. Uh so so in general like um failure was celebrated in some ways because you went ahead and

did try something. What was uh however the format of your review at the end of 6 months or 1 year would be exactly the numbers that you moved format of the review.

So you had a performance review at the end of 6 months or a year. Nobody would

ask you what time you come to the office, what time you go from the office as long as you show up to the meetings that were scheduled. Okay.

But my format of I remember my format of performance reviews also. I would be asked like mentioned in 6 months and one year what were the numbers before what were the numbers after that you were able to affect

regardless of which position you were in um I mean so they were sort of softer on very new joinies on E3 level E3 was the entry level okay uh but you were supposed to get promoted within a year if you don't go to get promoted from E3 to E4 within a year you

were fired okay so promotion or fired promotion or fired yes you're supposed to graduate to E4 in a year this is by the way the case I'm saying when Facebook had 200 100 300 odd engineers.

Oh wow.

That's when I had joined. Uh it

continued till it had thousand engineers. I don't know how things have

engineers. I don't know how things have changed post that.

But uh you had a year to sort of get promoted from E3 to E4. If you don't then you get fired. And from E4 onwards you had responsibility of numbers.

Got it.

You had to show number movement.

So performance review. Can you please walk me through this performance review?

This is for two reasons I'm asking. This

is for two reasons. Firstly, the

founders are watching this podcast. I

want them to understand how to review performance including myself. Secondly,

if there is an employee who believes he or she is a high performing individual, they should be able to make a performance review report card for themselves to check whether they are high performing individuals or not. So,

walk me through this process and help the founders and the employees understand how can they gauge high performance through performance review.

Yeah, I mean so different logs follow different format. Um, uh, for example,

different format. Um, uh, for example, one of the things that was followed at both Facebook and Google was the OKR framework. OKR framework. OK KR

framework. OKR framework. OK KR

translates to objective and key results which is you start from what is the company objective what does the company want to do in the next six months or a year right it might want to grow its revenues it might want to let's say

reduce the burn uh it might want to grow to more users whatever is that that goal right and then you start asking question what does it take for me to achieve this goal what kind of teams would I need who should be responsible for what right and

then you calculate it away a level down that look if we have to grow to let's say 500 million users look this particular team has to deliver X this particular team has to deliver Y and this particular team has to deliver Z.

As long as these teams deliver then the overall goal will be met.

Got it. Can you explain this in the context of YouTube because I'll be able to understand this better and everybody understands YouTube so it'll make it easier for them to understand it.

Sure. Sure. I mean um again I haven't done this exercise for YouTube so I'll do it on the fly. So imagine let's say your goal is that today you have 2 million subscribers you want to grow to 3 million subscribers in a year right?

Um now you would then ask the question what does what leads to growth in subscriber base. You would probably

subscriber base. You would probably break it down by age groups. You would

say that today I have um let's say a million subscribers in the 25 to 30 age group but my competitors have let's say 2 million subscribers in this uh or let's say one and a half million subscriber in this age group. So so I

should aim for let's say 500k growth here 500k growth there. M

and then you will percolate it down to say okay fine that means I want this kind of content um being published these many times with this kind of views in

this age group versus that age group and then you might divide that across teams you might say hey there's a team one you're responsible for growth in this you a segment team two you're responsible for growth in this segment right

got correct so now these two teams have goals um very similar they would have people reporting to it so so that person would say hey look if I have to achieve these goals here is what my reportee should

do. So if somebody's responsible for

do. So if somebody's responsible for production then you sort of tell them look I mean um videos have to be of certain quality here is how I'll measure it if you're doing your job I'll end up achieving my goals

and so forth. So it percolates down to the entire org if you think of it as a tree. Um and

then your final reviews are in the format where I don't say that hey you put in so many hours to work but rather look here is the goal that was given to you. How are we moving towards the goal?

you. How are we moving towards the goal?

What numbers are moving there? Are we

moving in the right direction? Are we

likely to meet the goals or not?

And at the end of the year you finally either met the goal or almost met the goal or you exceeded the goal and that's basically how you say that somebody was a great performer or an average performer or maybe does

not belong in the role at all.

Got it. Now if somebody were to evaluate their performance using this framework they will fit under the KPI section right. So how should an individual gauge

right. So how should an individual gauge their performance through this framework so that they can understand whether they are a high performing individual or not.

I think at the end of the day when a goal is given to you the first thing is you you should have conviction that you can meet the goal. You don't feel that the goals are unreasonable um not achievable nobody has done it in

the world and then you expect me to do it. But once you have conviction then

it. But once you have conviction then the the whole and sole parameter of performance has to be whether I'm able to make successful progress towards the goal. Unless something changes in the

goal. Unless something changes in the world right covid happens or or something drastic happens unless something out of the blue happens. You

should be making constant progress towards your goal. Uh usually progress doesn't happen overnight. So banking

that okay fine nothing is happening for 6 months but suddenly something will happen and and the goals would change that never happens. So you should measure are you making constant progress towards the goal. For example, I said uh

social media right now social media I know if I know the trend from the last year I want to double this year. Then if I compare the numbers day over day from last year am I actually getting to the

double number quickly or not?

That becomes my evaluation of whether I'm doing my job properly or not. And if

I'm not then I should panic.

I should go and seek out help. I should

go and ask GPT. I should go and ask out mentors. That's the proactivity bit that

mentors. That's the proactivity bit that I don't sit there sulking but I make every effort possible to meet those numbers where they should be.

Panic before panic is necessary.

Panic before panic is necessary.

Got it? So in the context of YouTube, if I were to break it down, it would be like if I have to hit a million subscribers this year and I have 10 months to go, then each month I have to

gain 100,000 subscribers. If I have to gain 100,000 subscribers this month, I should be able to gain those 100,000 subscribers. If I don't then I'll have

subscribers. If I don't then I'll have to change my strategy so that it doesn't happen that at the ninth month I realize that I am 400,000 subscribers short

right so if somebody is if somebody is analyzing their performance they should measure their performance over a short interval and

then panic before panic is necessary. It

could be week on week. It could be month- on- month. But it should not be quarterly or yearly because then there is a possibility that it might just be too late to go back and rectify the mistakes.

And be data driven. Don't be driven by I feel that we are getting there.

What is data telling you? Be driven by that.

You know, this is a problem that a lot of my founder friends also face where somebody just walks up to them and they say that you know what bro, I've been working for 12 hours a day. I should be paid more.

What they don't understand is the productivity bit. In fact, Bhavik, I

productivity bit. In fact, Bhavik, I want you to throw light on this because since you are building a scaler school of business, it has to do a lot with producing leaders who can be productive at the top level, right? Project

managers, they're going to lead 20 30 people and the productivity of those 30 individuals is dependent on the leader that you produce. My question to you is A, how do you define a great project

manager? B, how does Kalo School of

manager? B, how does Kalo School of Business train them to become great project managers by design? because I

intend to train my people into becoming legendary project managers.

Sure. Um let me touch upon I guess three of the most important aspects I think in my opinion. One I think is clarity on

my opinion. One I think is clarity on the objective itself right what are we trying to optimize for in the project whether it is time cost or quality um and and making sure we have very clear

definition of that uh that's clearly defined for yourself and for the team so they know exactly what they have to deliver on that project. That clarity is the first important thing I would I would I would call out.

Okay. Time, cost and quality.

Yeah. Okay.

The three three most important parameters of a project, right? Like you

have to deliver the project on time at the desired cost with the high quality that you have to uh deliver it on.

Second thing I think that's really important is communication skills. I

think most uh often underrated I would say adding on to what Anonosa said earlier about um you know performance reviews and KPIs. I think high performance individuals all leaders also

similar traits. They don't wait for the

similar traits. They don't wait for the performance review to come and say, "Hey, this is what I was able to achieve and this is what happened." Versus

they're like, "Hey, this is what I'm doing right now. I'm either doing much better than what I was supposed to do and hence I think I should double down more and let's rework the goals and see if we can actually take it higher or I'm saying I'm struggling here. Let's kind

of brainstorm, see how we can problem solve and course correct sooner as well." They won't wait for the six-month

well." They won't wait for the six-month performance cycle to happen. So,

communication skills really important for high performance individuals also, but really important for project leaders as well. Are they able to clearly

as well. Are they able to clearly communicate on a regular basis how the project is progressing? Where are the lagging behind? What are some of the

lagging behind? What are some of the tweaks they have to make? What kind of feedback are they getting from the customer on an ongoing basis? And are

they incorporating that changes into the project real time or not? Right. I would

say second thing is that. Third, very

process driven.

Process driven, right? I think super important to be

right? I think super important to be very process driven. Define a set protocol that we're going to be following and follow that process to the tea, right? and see if there are any

tea, right? and see if there are any lags or any areas the process is breaking on, right? That's causing any friction or the reason why the project is lagging behind from its objectives of

hitting the deadline for the project or the quality or the cost that it needs to meet. Um, so very process driven is

meet. Um, so very process driven is really important.

When you obviously go deeper into, you know, process driven specifically, you obviously come out with the fact that the project leader that's managing this entire team should actually be able to break it down really well as well. Say

okay if I have a team of 20 30 people my end goal of the project is B. I'm

starting at A. What does each one or how do I divide my teams of 20 30 people into groups of four five seven whatever is required depending on different areas and who's going to focus on which part

and how is the entire throughput on the project going to be met right by making sure these teams are really well coordinated among each other. Got it?

What kind of syncs am I going to have?

What kind of handoffs am I going to have? What kind of daily standups I'm

have? What kind of daily standups I'm going to have right? what kind of reporting each team is going to make so that they all have visibility into what each team are delivering as a result the project is on track or not. Right?

Beautiful.

And the last of course which we touched upon earlier very very metric driven very very metric driven right break down the project into smaller pieces smaller

milestones define what objective we have to achieve or what KPI we have to achieve at that milestone and see are we hitting that or not.

Got it. So in simple words process-driven is understanding the objective of the project like Anuman said then to break it down into different processes then to break down

the process into different tasks and then delegate the task to the right person or the right and then or the right team and then track it right okay got it so project process

task delegation and track does that sum up your answer yes okay perfect when you say communication a lot of people misunderstand communication to be English speaking So I want you to break the myth and help me

understand what is the meaning of great communication. In fact, a lot of people

communication. In fact, a lot of people even think just because I speak too much means that I'm a good communicator. So

help me understand concretely what is the meaning of a great communicator and how do you gauge that during an interview that'll be better?

Wow. Um I can tell you what I have experienced at work and then how transfer that to the interview as well.

I think what I've seen at work often is and it's a hard truth is people who speak really good English and are loudest in the room often get heard the most.

Correct. And I think your knack as a leader has to be to cut through that noise and actually understand the person who may not be the loudest voice in the room but is able to articulate the

solution or the problem whatever that is in the most crisp precise way and probably is able to give out insight which are probably closest to the ground truth and hence has the highest capability of actually understanding the

problem and hence find the solution as well.

Got it.

When you then translate that to the interview as well you start realizing that it's not just about English. is not

just about the ability to you know speak really good English words and you know narrate your story uh in the most emphatic way. It's more important that

emphatic way. It's more important that are you able to articulate precisely and crisply what exactly the problem that you were dealing with and how do you actually go about resolving that problem or the solution itself

you do look for confidence though. So if

you have someone who is constantly looking down, nibbling, you know, looking left, right, I had this recent feedback for one of the students at a presentation. The audience was sitting

presentation. The audience was sitting out here, but the person's looking out, you know, towards the window just because the person has a little bit lack of confidence of facing uh and you often start losing engagement immediately, right? So we obviously do have to look

right? So we obviously do have to look for indicators on how is this person able to hold your attention. But it's

very important to make sure that at least as an interviewer or even as a leader that you cut through the noise and say okay you may not be the loudest in the room you may not have the the biggest grasp on you know the the

English language but are you able to articulate precisely what actually is happening on the ground as a problem and do you have a solution you can offer that you can go and start working on and

then are you able to constantly keep me in the loop or your team in the loop keep me in the loop is very very important bhavik dive deep into it and the importance of keeping people in the

loop. I think people may be really good

loop. I think people may be really good at at communication skills in general, but if they're not communicating often with their team or with their leader in sharing as they're learning and making

sure that all the teams are shared with either, you know, some of the pitfalls they they uncovered or some of the setbacks that they had while they were trying something or some new, you know, learnings that they had along the ground

or how they're making progress and what are some of the bottlenecks that they're solving or here are the 10 tasks I'm going to deliver today or this week And I was able to do six of them and four I couldn't. And here's why.

couldn't. And here's why.

Without asking.

Without asking. If they're proactive in communicating. In my book, by the way,

communicating. In my book, by the way, and maybe I'm a little bit of an exception. And would love to hear

exception. And would love to hear Anuma's thought. In my book, there's

Anuma's thought. In my book, there's nothing called overcommunication.

Overcommunication.

There's nothing called overcommunication, right? As long as

overcommunication, right? As long as you're keeping me in the loop and as long as I'm always aware of what you're up to and what you're working on, what are your challenges? Can I come in? Do

you need some additional support either from me or invest in a company to help you resolve that issue? please reach

out. You'd rather do that than say I'm fig figuring it out and I have no clue and then I'm surprised 3 months later, hey, why isn't the data moved in the direction we're supposed to move? Why

haven't you hit your goals? And they're

like, hey, here are all the problems I'm facing. I'm like, but you never

facing. I'm like, but you never communicated that to me.

Correct.

Right. So keeping you in the loop, constantly communicating that, you know, documenting it very clearly, reaching out to the right people, I think are more important than your ability to

articulate a beautiful English sentence and be louder, you know, in your in your conversation.

Got it. Now tell me how does Scalar School of Business by design inculcate these qualities of clarity of objective communication turning an individual into a process-driven individual and then

making sure that they're also metric driven because I believe most of these qualities are intrinsic qualities like Anman just said right now these are qualities that you need to have and it's just that a school or a mentor can just

make sure that they are followed by design. But how does your curriculum

design. But how does your curriculum make sure this is imparted by design?

So a lot of case studydriven approach in this case. Um you know we start working

this case. Um you know we start working with our faculty, our professors and our students on just working on very real world case studies. Uh some real world projects as well. Right? So through

these case studies we make them work on areas where they have to understand where the process is breaking. How do

you find the critical path right towards the answer or the solution the fastest.

Um so the students actually work either in teams or sometimes individually working on these case studies which are not case studies from the 70s or the 80s right often in fact if you go to even the top uh MBA schools today they're

still using the same case study that was probably taught back in the years right and the world has changed dramatically correct uh and hence I think your understanding of how to implement that has to change dramatically as well so we do make them do a lot of case studies which addresses

a lot of these aspects we make them dive into that and also then create presentations that they have to present back to you know the faculty In fact applying that to the real world very recently we actually had a case

study for our teams um from Mochabara if you heard of of course Moabara the you know the the amazing D2C brand that we have um what we did was we actually gave a real case study to all our students of

how will Moabara go and expand their footprint in APAC and launch a new market in Asia.

What is APAC?

Uh Asia Pacific.

Okay. Can you name a few countries that fall into this? uh Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, you know, Middle East. Uh so

everything basically that covers Asia and the Pacific part of it. Um so the problem statement that was given to them was a very open-ended problem statement by uh by Moabara saying, "Hey, I'm the founder. I'm the head of growth. We're

founder. I'm the head of growth. We're

looking at expanding Mochabara beyond the country, beyond India. Uh looking at Apac as a region because of proximity to India as well, you know, probably we can understand the market better. US

students, can you guys create a case study and a presentation? Which country

in APAC we should go first to and why and what kind of a you know P&L can we expect or what kind of projections can we expect? Can we hit a 100 crores in

we expect? Can we hit a 100 crores in three years if we launch that new market? And then the students were given

market? And then the students were given six weeks to prepare this entire presentation. Right? And they went

presentation. Right? And they went working in teams from doing research to understanding the market to even for that matter I was amazed by the amount of hustle and investment the students

made. They even went and hit up people

made. They even went and hit up people on LinkedIn in South Korea and Japan and Singapore and Malaysia and Vietnam and did Zoom calls with them.

Okay. random user saying hey here's a brand called Moabara we plan to launch this in the market what we look for what we made you switch from your current options that you have maybe it's a Samsungite maybe it's a you know an

American tourist or some other brand found out charit is pretty big in in Singapore as well to actually maybe buying a mochabara what could be those traits you'll be looking for what are you what are the things that you're not

happy about in your current suitcase or these brands students went to that extent of actually having in fact in some cases they're conversation which are not in the local language Okay.

And they could not understand hind like English, right? So they actually had

English, right? So they actually had translators or they would use Google translation while they were on calls to understand the user insights then doing market research to understand the macro factors of it. Doing comparative

analysis on what a Samsung is doing out there or what a American tradition is doing out there, what a Charles and Keith is doing out there and what would be the wedge or the entry for Moobara at what price point would actually make

them successful and then which market they should zoom into where they can actually get 100 crores over the next three years. So when he goes through

three years. So when he goes through this entire process through a real case study and then what we did we had this presentation delivered by the students to the founder of Mokubar and head of growth of Mokubara come into the campus

itself. So both Navin Parval and Venu

itself. So both Navin Parval and Venu Madav who are the the co-founder and head of growth came on campus and the students that were selected among the top three presentations got a chance to

present their entire findings and the entire uh presentation to these and get real feedback directly from the founder himself right on and so if you just break it down it taught them how to do

research it taught them metrics it taught them how to solve for a P&L on numbers it taught them how to drive user insights it taught them how to work in a with each other and how to break up the responses or who's going to work on

which aspect of this entire case study as well. It taught them how to um

as well. It taught them how to um communicate and and build on the presentation skills to this entire process, right? And more importantly got

process, right? And more importantly got them ground reality of how a business operates and how you launch a new business in a new market. So this is one example like that we keep working on

different case studies that allow students to learn whether it's process uh you know how do you kind of come up with good processes or how do you work on communication skills or how do you work on certain you know user insights

or user research what's a good technique to drive real user insights how broad can you be in your questions versus very specific things like those are all taught through real examples and real case studies

I think just just to add to that right so one is the the case studies and that's where you get validation whether you've learned communication the right way or not.

Uh one of the things that actually helped me when I was studying tech or business was uh having access to some places where I could keep practicing uh without being judged. So so what I

said to you right like some qualities are intrinsic.

Uh but a lot of times when they are intrinsic as well they need owning before they you get to a place where your communication skills are at the place where they should be.

Yeah.

um I did that for coding but like the same thing applies to communication as well. So one of the things that we've

well. So one of the things that we've been able to do is um we've been able to build a learning copilot where specifically for business case studies and communication case studies we build

out these um uh interviewing platforms where you can interview as many times as you like. It gives you a case study or a

you like. It gives you a case study or a problem statement and then you basically present the solution to the problem statement to to to the AI and the AI then gives you feedback on what you could have done better, where did you falter and you can keep doing as many

times as you like.

So that becomes your safe space where you practice.

Got it?

Where somebody is giving you feedback and then this becomes your real space where you actually then deliver and then get feedback whether you did a good job or not. You have enough chances to fail

or not. You have enough chances to fail before you actually get to the real place.

Got it. One challenge that I think you guys might be facing is that when you put out your numbers, your placement report, a lot of students might expect that you know they usually look at input

and output. They say okay scalar school

and output. They say okay scalar school of business 26 package I mean the message usually is XY number of students got a 26 lakh rupee package.

The median salary was XY Z but it often gets translated as you know what the moment I enrolled into Skiller School of Business 18 months later I'm going to get paid 26 lakh rupees. My question is

how do you gauge a good student and a bad student within your own batch so that a if somebody is enrolling into a business school they would understand that even though that school is prestigious that school is not meant to

give the output they are supposed to derive the output using the facilities and exposure given by the school B if someone enrolls into scalar school of business by looking at this podcast I want them to have their expectations straight

so I think firstly differentiate between a good student and a bad student I think to what you said and I've experienced that my MBA uh program as well that I did many years ago. Um the program just

provides you a platform, right? What's a

good program? A good program is a curriculum that's evolved to what the future expectations from the business world are. Uh a good faculty, right? A

world are. Uh a good faculty, right? A

good exposure to industry, good mentorship, and a culture and environment created that allows you to grow collectively, right? That's what we provide as a

right? That's what we provide as a program. That's what pretty much any

program. That's what pretty much any college that's striving that wants to do well, we provide that. But then it comes down to the student on how much they can derive out of the program. Right? So

it's how much you can give and take from the program itself. And I say both give and take. How do you give to the

and take. How do you give to the program? You give to the program by

program? You give to the program by contributing in terms of participation in the class, right? Being active in terms of, you know, doing your assignments, you know, working with your colleagues and your classmates on different assignments or projects, maybe

building something or tinkering on something on the side as a side gig. um

is how you give in the program. How do

you take from the program be attentive in the class you're learning some concepts working on these case studies taking these chances the campus is giving you like this opportunity of of a real case study by the by Moabar

themselves as an example right take those participate actually work on that and see if you can actually come up with something which is exciting that boosts your confidence that I know how to

tackle a deeper business problem so when we see students who are actively giving and taking in a program that to me is a good When you start seeing a student who is

just sitting back on a seat and saying I am a student now the program has to deliver an outcome to me and then they start passing on the butter on to the program itself

and to the the team behind Scala school of business itself that it's now your job to get me this job that I'm looking for which I thought I will get when I come on the program that will they lose

that agency on themselves that I have to also work hard and make it happen typically will not end up you know in a in a great place. Now we as a program will try our best and we as a team will

try our best to make sure we nudge every student. We create that culture that no

student. We create that culture that no one's sort of left behind right and everyone's kind of nudged to kind of work towards that objective that they want to work towards and achieve whether they want to become a founder themselves

or join a big company or you know or pursue any other programs in the future.

Um but it's very it becomes very obvious and very clear through this entire program duration where you start seeing some students who have very high agency and give and take a lot in the program

and those who just sit back and saying I'm I'm here now just do what you have to do for me guys do you find it difficult to position yourself in front of legendary

B schools like IM and ISB how do you position Scalo school of business in front of these so I think see firstly we have to recognize these institutions have done a phenomenal job right They've been in the country for decades. They've produced

some of the most incredible talent. Uh

some of them have become business leaders not just in India but globally.

Um and have done extremely well. Uh and

they've made the nation really proud in creating that. Um I think our

creating that. Um I think our conversation that we have with students right and that that are evaluating multi different multiple options that they

have. Um I think one we do emphasize a

have. Um I think one we do emphasize a lot on the fact that we are a program that's at the intersection of technology and business and we are a program that

is um taking a lot of industry leaders into the program itself that allows you exposure directly to the industry and as a result prepares you better for the

industry as well. Right? So it's by industry leaders to create new industry leaders. Right? And we use that in our

leaders. Right? And we use that in our prospectus and on our website but we actually mean it as well. Right? So we

have business leaders who keep coming on campus interacting with our students giving them these problem statements mentor them coach them and eventually help create business leaders also. I

feel somewhere even though the IM and ISBs have done a phenomenal job and they continue being a great institution as well they have sort of distanced themselves right from the industry.

Okay. And this is a feedback we unanimously get from all companies, right? We've spoken to product based

right? We've spoken to product based companies, we've spoken to uh service based companies, we've spoken to consulting companies, we've spoken to startups and the unanimous feedback is that they create solutions because they

filter for the talent really well, right? So because they're so

right? So because they're so aspirational that you have millions of or hundreds and thousands of you know aspirants applying there and then they select and the selection process filters for the high agency really high quality

and high performing individuals and hence as a result of that because they've done that program and they got filtered there I have expectation this person will be a good performer in my team as well but when they actually hire

the reality is that they start realizing the college itself has distanced itself from the industry a lot and as a result what happens is industry moves at a much faster faster space then the curriculum of these colleges can evolve and the

distance between the two keeps growing more and more and then what you end up happening is you have students who graduate but when they start working and they're not able to relate a lot to the work environment

itself or the work they're supposed to do on the job which is you know some examples we spoke about earlier too what we try to do very differently is because we involve the industry so much into the program itself and we make sure that we

are including a lot of these real case studies you know creating this program we have a program in in within Scalos for business called the hustle program.

Hustle program, right? Where basically students who want

right? Where basically students who want to participate in the program are expected to essentially create their own business idea from scratch, right? They

can come up with their own business idea. They can partner with students

idea. They can partner with students from scalers technology to actually build a product if it's a techbased product or a website or whatever they want required from there. Actually go

ahead um market that product or the service that they're offering, generate revenue, right? work with us and the

revenue, right? work with us and the team that's going to mentor them and coach them including industry leaders to tweak on that idea and make it better and better eventually being hopefully good enough that they actually pitch it

in front of you know investors uh on a demo day uh and raise and raise funding right that's part of the program now when you do such things right including the examples I mentioned earlier you're now staying at pace with how the

industry is moving and what it allows you to do it allows you to create leaders that are more relevant for the future rather than you know leaving them behind And with the evolution of technology and especially what's

happening today with the world of AI, right? Business leaders need to be

right? Business leaders need to be equipped with the right skills on how business is going to look in the future and that's going to be fundamentally different than what do I know of business today or what was 5 years ago.

Correct.

But I see that gap increasing substantially between an IMISB versus I think programs that we offer. At least

that's my take. I don't know if you want.

Yeah, I I would just maybe add a few examples there. Right.

examples there. Right.

um basis whatever is happening in the AI we have a very strong conviction that the way we work and the kind of jobs that look today will change

substantially in the future um the workflows will change very dramatically in the future um I'll give you an example like this is something that is happening internally within scalar and

and that that probably will tell you so one of the um largest teams that we have today in scalar is the sales team where in a way somebody before enrolling into the program they have they want to

talk to somebody to figure out whether the program is right for them or not. Um

and the the goal for that team or like in a way the way we look at that team is that look I mean to employ these people we are paying certain amount of salary there is some amount of revenue that we get. So in a way whatever we spend on

get. So in a way whatever we spend on the salary is the sales CAC. The lower

the CAC the better it is right. So if a single person is able to cater to more people, give the right kind of advice more, enroll more people, the better it is for the business and the margins. Um

now how do you however bring up the sales productivity? One challenge that

sales productivity? One challenge that we face is that when you hire somebody new it takes them a while to understand the ecosystem, understand I mean in a way the trajectories in tech are very complicated. How do you how do you get

complicated. How do you how do you get everybody to understand those trajectories really really well? Um so

the way that workflow today has changed um is we say now look if you're coming into the system firstly the hiring also happens where we give you some materials and we ask you to pitch to a user.

Okay. Can you give me an example? So we

have this tool called as mimic. In a way what we've done is we've taken all the calls that have happened in the past and created these user personas that you pitch to and the AI has a conversation with you pretending to obey that user

taking away the exact snippets of what objections the user puts.

Oh wow.

And if you're able to answer those then it gives you a score out of 10.

Did you build this tool internally?

That was an internal tool. Yes.

That's amazing.

So now unless you have a score beyond six out of 10 you're not even in our hiring funnel. M so that

hiring funnel. M so that that's a product by itself an I don't know if you realize that I know I know I'll talk about like what we're doing on the enterprise side later on but but that's that's step one of the

hiring right now once you're inside the the system the way the a sales co-pilot has been built for you even before you make a call uh you see the profile of the person that you're going to call it

tells about hey look for people like this for example let's say you're going to call somebody from Samsung for people who have worked at Samsung here is how the previous convers conversations have gone. Here is our our snippets that have

gone. Here is our our snippets that have worked and has evoked interest from the from the uh customer versus here are snippets that haven't worked.

Wow.

And then you make the call because we have the call transcript. We're able to one one like do an automated audit that you did not make a false promise. You

did not state things which were not true because that gets immediately flagged to your manager and then a bunch of other people without a human being. Um however

post the call as well you get a feedback again that hey look uh here are for example rapper building is is one part of of doing a sales call like here is how I would score you on rapper building

uh here is are the pointers that you were supposed to mention but let's say were not mentioned so here is the score that I would give to you basis your your rap like pointers that you mentioned right and so forth so that way after

every call you have a score and and a a pointer on how to improve your pitch in future calls some of this also boils up to your manager. Now your manager knows that if I have 10 people reporting to me

who are struggling at what aspect. So

that way I can sit with them. If let's

say I have two people who are bad at rapo building then I sit with them to drive up the rapo building skills for them.

Okay.

Now this is a very different workflow than what we are used to right like in a regular human-driven setup you would operate very differently.

Correct?

And this is how the the world is however evolving where you will have these kind of flows. Now if you're a sales leader

of flows. Now if you're a sales leader for example, you have to be able to think of these workflows otherwise your teams would not operate at the same efficiency where your competitors might operate.

Correct?

So and and that's where I don't believe that IM or ISBs can be the at the forefront of changing these workflows because they don't come from a tech experience. And we believe this this

experience. And we believe this this resides at the intersection of tech and business.

So you don't need to learn tech but you need to be around tech to understand what is possible via tech. So one of the design principles hence in scalar school of business is that there's an innovation lab that sits at the heart of

scalar schools.

Okay.

Uh where we get a lot of people from scalar school of technology. We get a lot of tech leaders, business leaders as well as people from SSB to come and build together. Um there are bunch of

build together. Um there are bunch of teams where you have two or three people from SST maybe one person from SSB and then they are building and collaborating to build something together. In fact, uh

one example, uh we so there's a VC firm in Germany. Um they were trying to build

in Germany. Um they were trying to build out a scouting tool.

Okay, which is how do I identify founders who are very high potential basis the work that they've done in the past. They

might be likely to start a company or they might have already started a company. Uh how do you identify them

company. Uh how do you identify them first so that I can go and talk to them before they even get into the fundraising process. Uh now this is a

fundraising process. Uh now this is a proper data science and tech problem. Uh

however the business insight is on look what are the attributes you should look for who is more likely to to maybe start a company. How do you evaluate the

a company. How do you evaluate the business? How do you evaluate the

business? How do you evaluate the domain? So you need a business person to

domain? So you need a business person to be able to drive up the product charter in some ways and you need these tech people to build out basis the direction given.

Correct.

And at the intersection then you start to understand what's feasible versus what what is not.

In a regular business school you would not even be able to explore the possibilities. And that's the

possibilities. And that's the differentiator that the world is going to look very different 5 years from now, 2 years from now, 3 years from now. The

workflows are going to look very different. Like a single manager might

different. Like a single manager might be able to get things done with five people which the other manager might need 50 people for.

Yeah.

So your P&L margins are going to look significantly different depending on the kind of workflows that you're able to adopt. And there being understanding

adopt. And there being understanding tech, not being able to code, but at least understanding tech is going to be a very very important attribute.

That's amazing. Do you intend to sell the subscription to mimic?

Yeah. So what we have done is maybe we should talk separately on this but mimic as well as sales copilot. So this entire workflow including the audit as well as

this feedback pre-all post call in your own setup analyzing your own calls all of that is being formulated as an enterprise product right now. We started

with Vidantu we we also talking to a bunch of other companies um obviously if you want to take that up happy to come and set it up for you as well.

Thank you so much. I would like to have the early subscription.

Sure.

That's beautiful guys. So you're talking about the intersection of tech and uh project management which helps the project manager look for possibilities that he may otherwise never understand

or realize if this person doesn't understand tech 100% and and by the way like I believe that workflows are going to change everywhere today for example I I'll maybe again just my example right

one of the things that I believe is is a key responsibility for me is hiring the right kind of people but finding those right kind of people on LinkedIn or no etc I said it takes a lot of my time.

Correct.

So one of the things I've done is that on claude I have basically set up an agent and I leave my laptop open. That

agent basically goes on every LinkedIn profile. I have set some rules on if

profile. I have set some rules on if profiles match these parameters then just note down the link and put it in a file.

Okay.

So by the end of the day by the time I go back to my room I have these 100 profiles to check out because they match my criteria. Maybe experience between 5

my criteria. Maybe experience between 5 to 8 years working with these particular tech stack etc etc. I mean all of those happens and then I start to send messages even for sending messages I

don't send messages I tell my agent to send those messages so so some of that has is happening right now uh which will just change how productive you are if

you understand how tech works and we include some of those in the program right so those are exactly things that we would teach our students so they can become 10x more efficient when they

become business leaders versus you know someone graduating from a more traditional college.

Correct. This is actually brilliant guys. I would like to have the

guys. I would like to have the subscription to the claude agent as well.

Yeah, sure. Absolutely. But what I'm saying is look um I think we're still scratching the surface.

Yeah definitely.

It's sort of look when electricity was invented in 1750s, it took us a while to build an electric bulb. Nobody imagined

that like you have this electricity in the in the clouds that can actually replace a horse.

Correct. So I think what has happened right now is you've suddenly discovered that there's intelligence that has been discovered in machines. Now what is possible through those intelligence we'll discover probably not in 150 years

but in like the next 5 to 10 years and that is going to significantly transform how we work.

So not understanding tech is not an option anymore I think because like the way you work is going to change right so so we believe that all programs have to evolve.

um tech programs are obviously at the heart and soul of what we do but like even businesses need to evolve and hence like the SSB business program is is built at at that as the core

honestly like I've experienced that myself right like when I did my MBA program this was back in 2006 2006 almost like 20 years ago or 19 years ago

um we were still being taught of course the more traditional MBA program right how do you sell a shampoo in a retail store how do you go about you know setting up a coffee retail chain or uh what does shelf space mean in a retail

store and how do you kind of bid for that and how do you get attention from the user or how do you run ads on billboards.

I joined Uber in 2013 and I had to figure out how to get app downloads and how does a funnel work from there onwards on how do I get people to actually first go on the app store download the app and from there on sign

up and from there on put their credit card and UPI and then from there on actually book a ride and then how do they keep re-engaging? I had to figure all of that out while I was on the job itself because what the MBA program

focused on was more traditional, right?

But this was just between my instance of 2006 to 2013 where we went from feature phones to smartphones and suddenly there were apps and we had to learn how to drive app downloads and how to get the

attention of the user not on a billboard but on a digital screen and then you know get them to actually download the app and start using your service. You

fast forward that to 2025 today and what the next five years is going to be everything spoke about on AI agents and you know sales co-pilot and everything else that's going on. It's basically

that's the future right but if the programs are still going to be stuck to where I was or even for that matter have come to maybe a certain point of just maybe now teaching new tech businesses

in terms of just app downloads or how to build an application or maybe basics of performance marketing that's still you know five years behind already. Yeah,

it's quite primitive and and every year you seem with the AI evolution, it's not years anymore. It's

in fact months in the way it's evolving as well.

That makes so much sense. But if there is a calculative way to explore these AI tools in such a way that if there's a student in a tier 2 college or a tier three college who has access to

internet, how can this person explore these tools in a calculative way so that they can go on to become high performing individuals? What would that method be?

individuals? What would that method be?

I'm not sure if there's a playbook.

Usually what I've seen is if you're curious and you like tinkering, you figure out these things, right? Like

the way these tools are built are like they're super human friendly.

Yeah.

U you just play around. You nothing is wrong. You can just type out any prompt

wrong. You can just type out any prompt you want. You can type out anything you

you want. You can type out anything you want and it gives you some form of the output. Right.

output. Right.

So there it's it's non-judgmental. It's

you can you can do anything that you like. Right? is basically about taking

like. Right? is basically about taking out some time in your day and just playing around with things to see what is possible.

Just experimentation.

Just experimentation.

Got it.

And it goes back to I I think one of the things that Paul Graham also said was um um usually great ideas, great companies don't come because one day I had this

epiphany and then like I was looking for a good idea and it happens. Usually it

happens because you've been playing around and exploring so many things.

You've been so curious that you ask keep asking the question why does it not happen? in this particular way and then

happen? in this particular way and then you realize oh wait this is broken why not just go and fix it right like take a rocket you break it down the sum of parts isn't like the cost of the rocket right so then it should be much cheaper

and hence you go and build a SpaceX um so I think to a lot of things the answer is just being very curious and just tinkering around things because it gives you joy and fun not because

somebody told in a podcast that here is a playbook too because Anuman said in a podcast you should explore the people are exploring In fact, you know what I find very interesting is that now that you mentioned accidental discovery, it

reminds me of the story of Slack. You

know how Slack was discovered, right?

Slack was practically discovered as a business idea when people realized I think it was a gaming company back then.

Then they realized that emails are just too bad. So they'll have to make this

too bad. So they'll have to make this process way more efficient. So the

product was Slack which they used internally only to realize that oh my god the entire world is fed up of emails. We need to put Slack out as a

emails. We need to put Slack out as a product and eventually today it's a billion dollar company. And actually to anybody could have built it. So the

thing is IRC's were in fashion for decades before IRC's as in very Slack-like experience. There were

these IRC channels that you would have um these could be public channels could be gaming channels etc. And you could be part of in fact like we used to have something like that within Facebook also. Um a lot of gamers a lot of geeks

also. Um a lot of gamers a lot of geeks would usually be part of some IRC channels where they would be chatting.

Okay.

Very slackike.

It was never productized and made out into an enterprise product. Somebody

thought that this would make for a great enterprise product which makes sense and then made it out to be.

And Google also discovered that they could make money through ads because of an accidental discovery, right?

Very interesting guys. Now I just want to talk about ESOPS because you guys have been in the startup space for so long. Um you guys are building a company

long. Um you guys are building a company by yourself which means you also might be giving out ESOPS. I want to understand what exactly are ESOPS in simple words and then I want to delve deeper into what makes a person eligible

for ESOPS and how they can use ESOPs to generate wealth. So let's start with the

generate wealth. So let's start with the understanding of ESOPs. What exactly is an ESOP?

Yeah, the simple definition that uh if I'm an early stage company or a mid-stage company in a way I want you to have some ownership of my company so that if I succeed then you also succeed.

If today I'm worth 10 million, tomorrow I become worth 100 million, which means my my company has become 10x more valuable, then you also end up deriving some value from that 10x growth. That is

what I want to happen. Now the way I do that is like in general, for example, any company has is is made up of a bunch of stocks. For example, if my company is

of stocks. For example, if my company is worth 10 million today and then if it had 10 million stocks, then every stock is worth one one rupees.

Okay?

Right? If the company becomes worth 100 million then the value of every stock becomes 10 rupees. So the value of every stock increases as the value of the company increases if the number of

stocks are the same. Um now how do I give stock to an employee? Um so what I say is look if the company is worth 10 million today I will give you an option

to buy some y number of stocks. Let's

say I have 10 million stocks. I I am willing to part with let's say thousand stocks. So I'll give you an option to

stocks. So I'll give you an option to buy thousand stocks at a very discounted value. Let's say the stock value is 1

value. Let's say the stock value is 1 rupees. I'll give those stocks to you at

rupees. I'll give those stocks to you at 0.1 rupees. It is you may want to

0.1 rupees. It is you may want to exercise and buy those stocks. You may

not want to but you're getting stocks at a very deeply discounted price. Which

means if the company even stays at the current value, you still end up making some money. If the company becomes 10x

some money. If the company becomes 10x then let's say if you have bought these,000 stocks right at 0.1 rupees. So

you basically spend 100 rupees, you now have 1,000 stocks. Their current value is 1,000 rupees. If the company goes from 10 million to 100 million, then every stock value becomes 10 rupees. So

now you have 10,000 rupees worth of stocks. Which means you spend 100

stocks. Which means you spend 100 rupees, you now have 10,000 rupees worth of value. Whenever you sell these

of value. Whenever you sell these stocks, then you end up making 10,000 minus 100, which is roughly 10,000 as wealth for yourself.

So that's stock options. Now what

happens usually is that um all these companies don't give you just 10,000 worth of stock. They'll give you um um stocks worth a significant value.

Um and in a lot of cases because these stocks become 10 times or 100 times of their original value when you joined then you end up generating the kind of wealth which you cannot generate through

salary. For example,

salary. For example, for example, imagine I joined Flipkart.

Let's say the salary that I was given to you given to was 20 lakhs and I was also given 20 lakh worth of ESOPS.

Let's say very small exercise price. So

I'm not counting the cost of those stocks at all. Right? So I have 20 lakh worth of shares. Now if Flipkart's value becomes 100x, then this 20 lakh becomes 20 crores.

When I sell these stocks, then I would make 20 crores maybe in 10 years, right?

because I won't the company won't become 100 times in in just just a year but in 10 years has become 100 times more valuable. So now when I sell these

valuable. So now when I sell these stocks I may end up making 20 crores. I

would have never made 20 crores through salary.

Correct.

But I was able to still get a wealth of 20 crores through this through this path.

In fact like in Silicon Valley it's a common culture. People believe um if you

common culture. People believe um if you can take four good bets in your life, one of them is going to work out and there your stocks will become 10 20 30 times and you'll end up generating the

kind of wealth which you'll probably not generate through salaries.

Um and and a lot of that happened in the period of 2000 to 2010. A lot of companies became really really successful started from from a few million in valuation became like a a billion dollar company or a few hundred

million dollar company which is like 100 to thousandx growth.

Yeah.

Even if you had like 10,000 or 100,000 worth of stocks they suddenly became worth tens of millions of dollars. In

fact like there's a very popular story that when Google went for IPO a lot of their employee had so much wealth that they could go and buy an island.

Wow.

uh because like Google had this uh this this became like in a post IPO within two years or three years it became like a company worth uh hundred billion dollars u a lot of them were given stocks when Google was less than a

billion dollar worth so so 100x growth plus Google has been very liberal in in giving uh its employees stocks so so hence got it are all early stage employees

eligible for ESOPS it usually differs from company to company uh companies companies have policies on who they want to give ESOPS to. Um a lot of forward-looking

to. Um a lot of forward-looking companies, a lot of um Silicon Valley companies, they want to give ESOPS to employees because in a way they have

that ruthlessly ruthless culture of awarding for meritocracy which Bhavik was mentioning. So they want that if you

was mentioning. So they want that if you if you're doing well stay in the company for long enough and and you grow as the company grows. So so a lot of those

company grows. So so a lot of those companies you'll find most companies in Silicon Valley for example give out esops.

Okay. As a founder, if you were to decide which person should get an ESOP and which person should not get an ESOP, what would be the differentiating factor?

I mean, firstly, in India, not every company gives out ESOPs. But I'll tell you like a framework which usually most people follow and if you're a founder, you should also follow. In a way, um,

for immediate performance of a person, you give out bonuses, you give out salaries, but for the potential that the person has for the business impact in the future, that's where you give out ESOPS. So if you know that somebody

ESOPS. So if you know that somebody comes with a skill where they'll be super valuable a year down the line, two years down the line, three years down the line and they'll be critical to the business, the more the criticality, the more uh esops you should give because

they should be vested then in the business succeeding over a period of time.

That's the framework you should follow.

Um but I don't think that everybody follows that framework. Not not every company gives out ESOPS but a lot of good companies would give out ESOPS to their early employees. That's the the way to me.

Okay. And what is the differentiating factor between who should get an ESOP and who shouldn't get an ESOP? As a

founder, how do you decide that?

Like because potential is quite subjective.

How do you put that? How do you put this down objectively?

Initially again look there are different kinds of founders. Some founders have given ESOPS to everybody.

Um um I remember there was this exit case. Um forget the name of the company.

case. Um forget the name of the company.

It was a payment gateway company. Uh the

founder Jin has started a company Jupiter. Now uh they exited for like

Jupiter. Now uh they exited for like citrus pay.

Citrus pay. Yeah. Yeah. So uh they gave gave out esops even to the receptionist and the receptionist uh ended up making like a few crores through that esops which obviously they couldn't have made

uh through their regular salary.

Alibaba Alibaba was a similar story.

Yeah. Receptionist became a millionaire.

No.

So so some founders give esops to everyone. Some founders are selective on

everyone. Some founders are selective on who to give esops with.

The founders were selective.

Yeah. On what basis are they selected usually?

Yeah, I mean so they basically bet on what are the key departments or key people which would be important for the future success of the company?

Key departments and key people.

Okay. So for example uh imagine if I'm building a tech product and if my moat of success my reason where where nobody else will be able to beat me is uh let's

say the kind of people in tech that I'm able to hire then I I would want that those people in tech are incentivized through esops because then they stay for in for longer. Um I don't want them to just come like mercenaries and then

leave in six months. Um there's some companies that might be driven by their go-to market strategies and like how their brand is positioned, how the marketing teams is positioned and there

you might want to then award ESOPS generously to people who are there in your branding team or marketing team so that they end up doing the kind of work that you really like. So for example, for a lot of D2C companies, it makes

sense to have a very strong branding and marketing team because that's your biggest differentiator on how you're positioned, right? And

there you would want to make sure key people there have significant amount of esops so that they're vested in your eventual success.

Got it?

So the the most important departments for you and the most important people for you might differ from company to company because but whoever they are they should have some skin in the game.

Yeah. And sometimes I think companies have a very simplistic approach also where they will just define that here are the different 10 levels I have in the company. Everyone who is level three

the company. Everyone who is level three and above will get a stock option.

Everyone who's let's say level one, level two which is very junior roles will not. So when you get promoted into

will not. So when you get promoted into a level three you get a option grant but until then you don't. So sometimes they have a very simplistic approach of just defining or differentiating between just

levels.

Got it. An you spoke about Silicon Valley and we all are fascinated by Silicon Valley. In fact um Aush just

Silicon Valley. In fact um Aush just visited Silicon Valley and he told me that bro every fourth person over here is a millionaire. I was like how crazy would that be right? I want to understand what are the attributes that

make Silicon Valley the place it is apart from just being a hyped up place for tech talent and tech companies. What

exactly makes the culture of Silicon Valley so competitive? Yeah,

I mean apart from the legacy that exists there which is uh Apple and Microsoft and they were all born in in or like sort of nurtured in Silicon Valley, right? So you had a lot of people who

right? So you had a lot of people who succeeded from that that journey and so there was excess capital and excess capital led to again this virtual cycle of then that capital getting invested in more tech being

built and then that led to uh more disruption and so forth. But I think the key aspect is what I said earlier right failure is celebrated which means there is there is people would sit on dinner

and and joke about um what they had tried and and failed at. Uh which means that there is no in general there is no judgment around you failing and maybe

not making it. Um and and you'll find people who are billionaires just uh I have been to so there's this uh Saravna Bhan in in Silicon Valley.

Son of Bhavan is in Silicon Valley.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's one in uh close to Sunnyale and I've seen uh Steve Jobs like a couple of times having dinner in a Sarah Bhavan.

You saw Steve Jobs?

Yeah. Uh when I was there.

Okay.

And nobody cared. So, so people are in general humble and like there is there's a lot of um acceptance of failure. Uh

which means people then can take a lot of u aggressive bets and risks. Um

and and Silicon Valley is again this place where you'll find a lot of people who are very deep in tech, they want to be. So if you're very deep in tech,

be. So if you're very deep in tech, you're constantly exploring and you're you're you can take so many risks, then I mean you're more likely to create

things of value. Um

in a way if you see like the large successes that have happened in Silicon Valley, they've come out at the combination or the intersection of a lot of knowledge depth and being able to

experiment. Um Google was that, right?

experiment. Um Google was that, right?

Like it's not like uh Larry Page one day woke up and built a search engine. That

was his life's work. He was he was genuinely interested in solving the search problem. His PhD was on search

search problem. His PhD was on search and then he took that out and made a product out of it because he knew that his solution was better than most other people. the one of the the biggest

people. the one of the the biggest headphone companies Bose Bose came out of MIT because the person who built out was doing that as a PhD research and like was working on the on the problem

of like how do you solve the audio experience for people for so many years.

M so I I think that is at the core of um core of the Silicon Valley the why it succeeds and why it continues to do well risk-taking appetite right

open AI before creating GP burned so much money correct and then nobody questioned what is your way of making revenue in fact like I remember once Sam Alman had jokingly

quoted that if I end up building AGI then AGI will make money for me yeah he said he will ask AJI how to make money so so Uh so yeah I mean there is a lot

of risk appetite there's a lot of capital and there is a lot of good tech talent. At the intersection of these

talent. At the intersection of these three you end up creating beautiful things.

Beautiful. Ashman you worked so closely with Mark Zuckerberg. What makes Mark Zuckerberg so special?

The two three things. So one is um I think there was a lot of appreciation for understanding human psychology in the field of social uh networking. Um I

remember most of our product managers they had done something or the other some minor in in in human psychology if they were hired as a product manager. He

himself uh at Harvard had done a course in psychology. So he came from that

in psychology. So he came from that mindset where he understood how humans function. Two is he was super humble. Uh

function. Two is he was super humble. Uh

I joined there as a fresher like this that was my first job. Um I sat on my table. He came and walked up to me to

table. He came and walked up to me to introduce himself that hey I'm Mark. I

run this company. Welcome to to Facebook. I remember the next day there

Facebook. I remember the next day there were three of us who were sitting on a table having dinner. He came over and then sat with us to understand who we were because genuinely genuinely curious to to understand and like what our

motivations were, what are we good at and then then sort of uh be a part of our journey also. Right? So super humble people in general. My manager, first manager was the person who created

Cassandra which is a database very popular database at that. Uh my

second manager is today the CTO of uh Facebook, current CTO of Facebook.

Oh wow.

Both again like if I look back they were super humble. Um

super humble. Um so I think uh one of the other reasons that contributed to to Mark's success was also the fact that one is he had great understanding of human psychology

and and obviously he was a tech genius so he could apply it to to the field of tech. So there it was interdisciplinary

tech. So there it was interdisciplinary in some ways but also the fact that he was so humble that he was always willing to learn. he was willing to learn from

to learn. he was willing to learn from somebody who was a fresher out of a college in India. Uh that that continuously learning and in becoming better is is is is what has probably led

to his evolvement evolution in some ways. I'm not sure whether you've seen

ways. I'm not sure whether you've seen but like if you look at very early interviews of Mark he was very um shy camera shy wasn't wasn't a very fluent

speaker but like compare that to today he's become so fluent. So uh I think constantly evolving and and becoming better has been a key attribute which has led to where he is today.

Got it. So you're saying understanding of human psychology, humbleness and uh the ability to keep on learning.

Yeah. I think that comes from humility.

If you're very humble, then you always feel that other people know more than you and then you're always willing to learn from them instead of hushing somebody away that correctan. How does a 25-year-old kid

correctan. How does a 25-year-old kid like Mark Zuckerberg mobilize the best talent across the world to build something so revolutionary? Because you

mentioned that he was humble and great talent often comes with a bit of arrogance. So why would an MIT graduate

arrogance. So why would an MIT graduate who has 10 years of experience come and work for a guy like Mark Zuckerberg? And

if they did, I'm assuming that's because of his insane leadership quality. What

was that quality and how did he execute it?

I think u just elaborating on the communication aspect, right? Like one of the things that founders have to be really good at is selling the idea and selling it in a very uh with the right

choice of impactful words which which also resonates with you. Um Facebook was such a cool thing back then that once it started to get traction it became very easy to sell the idea and people would

join because they believed this could become really really large and they wanted to be a part of that mission.

They wanted to build this next coolest thing on the planet. Um so one is his ability to be able to pitch and convince people that this is the next thing to build.

Okay.

Um two is obviously like the traction or the proof of work in some ways right like um he was building Facebook and Facebook I would also give kudos to his GTM strategy right which was going to

colleges first universities first before actually releasing it to the public. So

the coolest kids were there already.

Um and it was growing like wildfire. Um

so so as that happens um there a bunch of unique opportunities that arise like from a tech standpoint the that kind of scale is hardly seen by any company. I

think at that time it was only Google who had seen that scale. The kind of engineering challenges that you had at Facebook was very unique to Facebook. Um

very similarly um from a product standpoint from a marketing standpoint you wanted to be a part of this this cool thing that everybody in the country was using everybody was just going gaga

about. So all of that helped attract the

about. So all of that helped attract the right kind of talent early on. I mean

obviously like founders are very very lonely when they're doing the zero to one because it's very hard to convince people to come and join you on the mission. But once your product starts to

mission. But once your product starts to do well then both the product and the founder uh they both pitch together.

Got it. What are the three most important learnings that you took away from Facebook? I

from Facebook? I I think continuously obsessing over impact, the numbers thing because it was driven drilled down in me through the performance reviews that you have to

talk numbers, you have to talk impact.

Uh so so obsessing over that being extremely meritocratic which is get the right people for the right job uh who can get it done eventually. Um and being super humble through the phase like

always realize that there is there is more to learn um from everybody who's around you um and as long as you continue continue to do that then you'll keep becoming better.

Got it bic what would be your what are the three most important lessons that you took away from Uber? I think the first one which I mentioned earlier ruthless metocracy. Uh I think companies

ruthless metocracy. Uh I think companies like Uber which are generational companies that fundamentally change the behavior of you know of human travels or you know how we consume um food as well

for that matter of Uber Eats. Uh these

companies have to ensure that they have the highest performing individuals at the right jobs. So meiocracy was number one I think. Number two, just ability to understand that every decision that you

can make can be driven by data, right?

Obsessing over data. Looking at every single aspect through the lens of a data and taking decisions only based on that versus this is what I feel like doing and hence I will do that as a decision.

Um I would say that was number two and and number three when you have hyperrowth startups and you have teams that are you know all around the world and you know we were live in multiple different

countries, cities across there. so much

to learn in terms of nuances of businesses from different different people from different parts of the world that took away that a lot right like how business is different in the US how economics work different in the UK how

users think differently in Japan versus what happens in India uh and sharing what happens in India to other parts of the world as well beautiful so learning during the stages of hyperrowth and learning always for

that matter perfect guys thank you so much for spending two and a half hours over here it's been a delight because I'm taking away so many things. Tomorrow I'm going to execute a lot of things in my company and hopefully everybody who's watching

this has some actionable insights to work on. Before we say goodbye, I just

work on. Before we say goodbye, I just want to quickly summarize on the things that we discussed. I'll just try to do I hope I do justice to the conversation that we've had through this summary and you tell me if there's anything that I

need to correct in order to make sure that we can provide uncontaminated value to the people who are watching this. The

first thing that we discussed was about the most important attributes that a person needs to have in order to make 50 lakh rupees a year. A 50 lakh rupee person needs to be a high performing

individual. A high performing individual

individual. A high performing individual needs to be a great problem solver, needs to be a genius at creating great customer experience, which means this

person has to obsess over customers. And

we also learned that root cause analysis is a very important part of the problem solving ability of this person which enables this person to look at problems way deeper than they actually are which eventually turns them into better

problem solvers and turning them into high value individuals.

Then we spoke about how great players operate. Here we spoke about Resural and

operate. Here we spoke about Resural and you telling me about a bunch of high performing individuals put together.

When high performing individuals are put together because they're so proactive, they just tend to produce the best products regardless of whether you give them guidance or you don't give them guidance because they're high performing

individuals. They figure it out by

individuals. They figure it out by themselves. So if somebody wants to

themselves. So if somebody wants to become a high performing individual, the most important quality is proactiveness.

And with that proactiveness, this person needs to cultivate a problem solving ability. They need to obsess over

ability. They need to obsess over customers and they need to understand root cause analysis.

Then we spoke about three problem statements that we gave away to our subscribers. If they can work on it,

subscribers. If they can work on it, they will understand how to solve problems. One was canteen. Your idea was that of an Airbnb. And Anan, what was your idea?

Cloud kitchen.

Cloud kitchen. So if you can run a cloud kitchen, if you can sublet apartments in Mumbai or Delhi and run an Airbnb, not

not Mumbai, a great place where people can stay and have a great experience. If

you can sublet that and make money, if you can start a college campaign and make money, you will get a you will get a very deep understanding of how does the customer behave, what does the customer pay for, what exactly is the

real meaning of profit, what is customer acquisition, what is sales. If you

understand these basics, A, you will end up with a great side gig. B, that side gig could go on to become your main gig.

See, even if the side gig does not scale a lot, it is an incredible value addition to your resume which will help you stand out because we learned that résumés might lie but side gigs don't.

Then we spoke about how to how to design a great resume and here you you told me that there are three very important aspects of a candidate that needs to come out while the resume is being read

by the recruiter. These aspects are objective, responsibility and result.

What was the objective of the project?

What was the responsibility of this individual in that project? And number

three, what was the result because of this individual? If there are no

this individual? If there are no results, it means that this candidate is not a high performing individual.

Bahavik, you told me this. No matter

what you do, it has to be measurable in terms of data. If it's not measurable, it's not impactful enough. If it is impactful, you better have some metrics to back it up. And here's where we spoke

about key performance indicators.

Then we spoke about Babik you gave us a very good perspective on who is a great project manager and here you spoke about clarity of objective in terms of time cost and quality. This is what defines

the objective of a project. A project

will be deployed either to reduce time or to decrease cost or to improve quality. Then you spoke about

quality. Then you spoke about communication skills. Good English does

communication skills. Good English does not mean a person is a great communicator. This person should be able

communicator. This person should be able to present the objective to the team in a way that they understand to the customers in a way that they find the product lucrative and to all other stakeholders in such a way that they can

together fulfill the objective of the project. If this person is not capable

project. If this person is not capable of doing this, no matter how good of a storyteller this person is, they cannot be considered as great communicators in a high performance setting. But then we spoke about the importance of a project

manager being processdriven. If this

person can break down a project into multiple processes, break down those processes into multiple tasks and then successfully delegate those tasks to the right individual eventually to fulfill the objective. This person is a high

the objective. This person is a high performing individual and this requires a proper breakdown of the project in a way that delegation is possible. If this

person cannot do this, then you can't consider them as high performing individuals. If they can do it, the

individuals. If they can do it, the clarity by itself will turn that person into a high performing individual. And

last and most importantly, after all of these things are done, it is important that they deliver impact which are backed by metric. Again, it comes down to the same first principle. If you

can't measure it, it's not impactful enough. And if you can measure it, you

enough. And if you can measure it, you should definitely put it down into numbers so that the impact is visible.

Then we spoke about how do you measure this impact here. Anman, you told us about the objective key result framework where an objective needs to be broken down into multiple goals. So an

objective will let's say have two goals, goal one, goal two. Those goals will then be broken down into KPIs and those KPIs will be given to individuals.

Individuals will have KPIs, teams will have goals and organizations will have the objective. So when the objective

the objective. So when the objective gets percolated in terms of KPI, the impact can be measured at the grassroot level. And when multiple when all those

level. And when multiple when all those grassroot level impacts come together, it results into the objective of the organization being met. And you gave us

the example of 15,000 paid applications eventually resulting into 400 students.

If you want to go from 400 to 800 students, you'll have to have 30,000 paid applications. 30,000 paid

paid applications. 30,000 paid applications will require double the viewership on your YouTube channel, which means the social media team will have the goal that they'll have to go from 1 million subscribers to 2 million

subscribers if we want to get 30,000 paid applications. Then we spoke about

paid applications. Then we spoke about the Silicon Valley. Here's where we spoke about ESOPS employee stock options and it is dependent on two parameters, key departments and key people. A

company like Mochabara would value somebody in marketing and branding way more as compared to let's say manufacturing whereas a tech company because for the tech company the mode

itself is tech they would value people in the tech department.

Then we spoke about what are the most important qualities that make Silicon Valley the place that it is which is highly competent, highly innovative which which consistently attracts great

talent. It started with capital and the

talent. It started with capital and the glorious stories, but then it resulted into a virtue cycle where great stories attracted great talent. Great talent

then became great at problem solving, risk-taking. When supported with capital

risk-taking. When supported with capital and humbleness, it results into great collaboration. And when that is backed

collaboration. And when that is backed up by creative confidence where people don't shame you for your failures, it results into a highly conducive atmosphere which results into something

as magical and revolutionary as Silicon Valley. And there you saw Steve Jobs

Valley. And there you saw Steve Jobs having lunch which was quite fascinating. You spoke about the three

fascinating. You spoke about the three qualities of Mark Zugok. His deep

fascination with human psychology, his humbleness and his ability to keep on learning. No matter who he is. Back then

learning. No matter who he is. Back then

he was a 25-year-old kid. He was

learning. Today he's the CEO of a billion dollar company and he is still learning.

Then we spoke about the three most important takeaways that you have from Facebook which are impact, merit and being humble. Three important

takeaways from Uber are impact being extremely datadriven and and always and the appetite of learning which will consistently make sure that you succeed

in the hyperrowth phase. Then we spoke about the expectation that people need to have with Scalar School of Business or for that matter any other business school where it's a give and take relationship. You need to give to the

relationship. You need to give to the institute and take from the institute and that is what will result into a symbiotic relationship where there is success for both the institution as well as the students. Input is not always

equal to output. Your input is actually your effort and not the fees that you pay to a particular institution or your enrollment. And then we spoke about the

enrollment. And then we spoke about the big gap that the ISBs and IM of India have left back which is a disconnect between the industry and the academics.

not a disconnect per se but then the gap has gotten wider which is then resulting into a space for companies like Scala School of Business to evolve where you

mentioned how the founder of Mocha gave out a problem statement to your students and that motivated the students to go and speak to people in South Korea in

Japan in Indonesia which enabled them to uncover customer insights that served very useful for Moabara themselves. So

when evaluation is done not by the professors but by the founders the insights that they come out the learnings that come out are way more useful and that is what bridges the gap between the industry and the academics.

Anuban you told me something very very important. Why is it important for the

important. Why is it important for the CEO or a project manager? Usually people

think they would require an MBA but you mentioned that they require a perfect intersection of project management abilities and tech perspective. Not the

understanding of tech but the ability to understand what tech is capable of so that those possibilities can then uncover insights which will turn a team into a super productive team. And when

that is applied across teams it turns an organization into a super productive organization. One example of the same

organization. One example of the same was your tool mimic which is an incredible tool for which I need a subscription which understands the conversation that is happening between

the sales team and the customers. It

profiles the customers, judges the sales team on the basis of rapper, the quality of the conversion, whether the pitch went through or it did not go through, if it did not go through, why it did not go through. All those insights then act

go through. All those insights then act as raw material for the sales team to then churn on to understand how can we close deals better. And this tool then enables the next next leg of sales team

to then pitch to clients better to look for the right profile of clients and eventually turn sales into a very very efficient process. Had this perspective

efficient process. Had this perspective not been in place then we would follow the same Excel sheet sales team framework where the sales team would call they would enter data in Excel sheet and the next team that comes in

will then be surfing through the Excel sheet to look for valuable data which is quite difficult and to be very honest it's quite impractical.

If this is deployed across organizations where they have CEOs and project managers who understand both tech as well as project management I think you mentioned that it will give rise to a

cohort of individuals who will by default be high performing and they're required in today's age because like Bhavik mentioned today the cycle is no longer about years it's about months and

we are exploring this on a day-to-day basis when this is happening quarter on quarter we need individuals who have the appetite to learn who understand that they know very little and who understand

the pace at which this pace is evolving.

If they have this understanding, they will consistently be learning, they will consistently be evolving eventually resulting into high performing individuals. Those high performing

individuals. Those high performing individuals will then result into high performing organizations. This is what

performing organizations. This is what Scalar School of Technology, Scaler School of Business, both of them are coming together to develop. Perfect.

Thank you so much guys. It was a pleasure. I hope you had fun. It

pleasure. I hope you had fun. It

was great. Thank you.

Thank you guys.

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