About Me

Hi, I am Madhav Srimadh Bhagavatam. My professional life is summarized on Linkedin, here is a bit more about my personal life.

You can reach me at madhav-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu 🙂

I’m curious and have much fun with software programming, art, music, running, writing, dogs, cricket, spicy Andhra food, and filter coffee. Just as I started my life as an adult, my Mom passed away and life felt completely meaningless and I felt lost. I started learning Indian Classical Music (Carnatic) and continued for 9 years from Smt. Aparna Balaji (daughter of O.S. Thyagarajan), it gave me something to distract my mind and a few songs I learnt gave a new meaning to my life again. During those years, I created raagabox with the help of many wonderful friends, to have a place online for music and lyrics without all the obnoxious Ads. A place where music, musicians and songwriters get due credit for their work. raagabox is growing strong with tens of thousands of monthly active users from 172+ countries.

At Nortel, we developed a precursor technology to Cloud “Grid Computing” that enabled businesses to request on-demand network, compute and storage resources. At Floodgate Entertainment, I was part of a team working with Disney that developed one of the first massively multiplayer mobile games in the world, “Pirates of the Caribbean Plunder the Port”. When iPad2 came out, the screen size and intuitive interface appealed to me and so I started an educational mobile gaming company “Hi Mahi” LLC and published 15 iOS apps, many of which were featured by iTunes in the education category.

My middle and high school years were in Puttaparthi, a beautiful, serene and no-nonsense spiritual place (Prasanthi Nilayam), where I was introduced to many gifts like Art, Athletics, Himalayan Masters, Meditation and the simple truth that God is neither distant nor distinct from you. I have a Bachelor of Technology degree in Computer Science from S.V. University, located in the beautiful temple town of Tirupati. There, I got hooked on computers and wanted to learn more, so I moved across the globe to USA to pursue Masters in Computer Science from University of South Carolina. While working at Bay Networks, I was intrigued by the business side of technology, which lead me to pursue Masters in Engineering and Management from MIT, Cambridge. I live in Texas Hill Country with my lovely wife Kiran and two wonderful daughters, Raaga, Mahi and our cuddly pug Boston.

In high school and college, I was a sprinter, won many races in 100, 200, 4×100, 4×400. In 2002 when my Dad passed away due to a stroke, 3 years after my mother’s passing, I took a liking for long distance running, it was my meditation. I’ve completed Boston, Vermont City and Austin Marathons and several half marathons. Raised $10,000 for cancer and stroke research. One of my goals is to complete marathons on all 6/7 continents.

I have learnt from many people, books, blogs and podcasts. I owe it to them and like to pay it forward.

My mom for her pure love and authenticity.

My dad for his work ethic and focus. He set the bar high without ever talking about it, receiving President’s Award from Prof. Abdul Kalam, President of India, for his work in Sanskrit literature and for leading Rashtriya Sankrit Vidyapeet to great heights as the Vice-Chancellor.

Sathya Sai Baba for instilling in me a sense of selfless service to people.

Steve Jobs for his clarity of thought and storytelling.

Bill Gates for showing how a software geek can change the world.

Tim Ferris for learning through self-experimentation.

Andrew Warner for his passion for startup stories.

Steven Pressfield for his War of Art.

Seth Godin for his distilled words of wisdom.

Jeff Bezos for his long-term thinking (regret minimization framework LOL)

Stan Novak for building an amazing team of smart and good hearted folks.

Tony Robbins for coaching people to awaken the giant within.

James Clear for his Atomic Habits

Shane Parish for his thought provoking blog.

Maria Popova for her timeless blog.

Hayao Miyazaki for his creativity and work ethic.

Derek Sivers for his infinite wisdom.

Jim Rohn for building yourself up from zero.

Yvon Chouinard for letting his people go surfing

This is all cool but wouldn’t it be funny if I figured out the point of all of this?, well I’m curious to find out, so here I am, on a quest to do just that and it would be my pleasure if you can run along with me…….