#6 Vijay Nadadur

On using machines to help humans to understand natural language faster, cheaper and better and on feeling comfortable with your life choices

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Vijaykant Nadadur is the Co-Founder & CEO of Stride.AI. His expertise spans the areas of Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Understanding. He is also a mentor at Techstars Paris and Bangalore. He has lived in 6 countries and speaks 7 languages. 



Enjoy my conversation with Vijay

Lessons Learned From Ben and Jerry

We didn’t think of it as a business, we thought of it as a venture. We wanted to do it for a couple of years and then become cross country truck drivers.

A lot of our problems would be solved if we made the ice creams shittier.

Business is essentially “busyness”, it’s mostly commonsense and lot of work.

We ran a promotion in winter called “Penny Off Per Celsius degree Below Zero Winter Extravaganza (POPCBZWE)”.

Ben and Jerry are two great friends and amazing citizens of the world delivering happiness by the pint, under $5

Random tweet (credit: Marche’ Lawton) about Ben and Jerry, haven’t fact checked but if it is true I’m definitely buying more chunky monkeys as well

Jerry Greenfield, left, and Bennett Cohen, the founders of Ben and Jerry Homemade Inc., pose in front of their “Cowmobile” in Burlington, Vt., on June 15, 1987.
( Toby Talbot / AP Images )
Source: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/heresthething/episodes/ben-and-jerry-warm

Notes and Links

https://www.amazon.com/Ice-Cream-Wendall-S-Arbuckle/dp/1461380677

#5 Sreekanth Vemula

On following ones curiosity, being comfortable with not fitting in and taking care of his next patient

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Dr. Sreekanth is a leading Neurologist at Apollo Hospitals Hyderabad. He received his MD from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and DM in Neurology from Institute of Medical Sciences at Chandigarh. Teaching medical students is one of his passions, he has been actively teaching and advising students over 10 years.

“Thinking clearly, unselfishly, solves most problems in this world” and “Don’t worry, you will be automatically happy” –Sreekanth
Enjoy my conversation with Sreekanth

#4 Sidharth and Somvir

On a mission to rebuild real human connections locally, worldwide

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Somvir and Siddharth are co-founders of MyScoot platform which helps people discover great local experiences and meet amazing people through house parties. They are part of the Y Combinator Accelerator program and are fired up to change the way people build and develop social connections locally all around the world.

“By the end of this week, there will be 50 people who would have met each other through something that we’re doing”
Enjoy my conversation with Somvir and Siddharth

#3 Sumona Karjee Mishra

On a mission to eliminate pregnancy related disorders in India and around the world, starting with early diagnosis of Preeclampsia.

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Sumona Karjee Mishra is a scientist turned entrepreneur. She co-founded Prantae Solutions along with her husband to disrupt treatment of pregnancy related disorders, with an initial focus on Preeclampsia which affects 5-8% of all  pregnancies worldwide. She received her PhD from the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi.

“You can’t let the pregnant women die” and “Love yourself”


#2 Sriram Emani

On disrupting the 600-year old Indian music and dance industry and choosing to do what you love

Sriram Emani is the Co-founder and CEO of IndianRaga. He is a 2015 Global Fellow with the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA), where he was the only Indian out of 52 Fellows from across the world. Dedicated to popularizing Indian classical and contemporary music and dance, Sriram is the brains behind the widely popular Indian version of Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape of You’, which has garnered over 25 million views across various platforms.

“I went to IIT to do engineering, but I ended up doing a whole ton of performing.”

#1 Ishwarya Ananthabotla

On rethinking how audio is captured, represented and retrieved in this new world of AI

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Ishwarya Ananthabotla completed her BS and MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. She is pursuing a PhD in the MIT Media Lab’s Responsive Environments group, exploring ways to capitalize on our knowledge of human perception, cognition, memory, and attention, to re-think traditional paradigms for audio capture, representation, and retrieval. 

“Being family is a gift from God, staying family is a choice”

How Many Clone Startups Do We Need?

Why is the world obsessed with building so many similar products and companies, is it that many VCs are just sheep and throw money at startups in a large and growing market? Or is it that the world needs variety? current solutions are not serving the market well? the market is big and more companies can co-exist and thrive?

For example, I don’t work in the Cloud, Data or Monitoring space and I don’t spend much time thinking about this space but I have seen many companies popping up that are all doing variations of Cloud Backups, Cloud Log Analyzers. I can only imagine how many companies actually exist in each of these areas, I am probably only aware of a small percentage of them.

I see this happening in many industries, not just cloud computing. I see this even in Transportation (Lyft, Uber, Didi, Ola and on and on), Hospitality (Airbnb, Sonder, Lyric, Vrbo, Vacasa, Holidu and on and on), Streaming (Disney+, Peacock, Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu and on and on). I understand variety is the spice of life but I also know the “paradox of choice”.

The fundamental question I’m intrigued by is “why do people spend so much money, time and effort on building things that are not unique”, that are not, in my humble opinion, zero to one companies.

Madhav's Book Notes, SWITCH by Dan Heath and Chip Heath

Recently I was introduced to this book by a friend. I had known about the book for a while as I have read Made to Stick by the same authors a few years ago and liked their lucid style of capturing complex concepts in simple metaphors. Here is some notes I made as I listened to the audiobook on Scribd –

Bigger popcorn bucket size makes people consume more popcorn and vice-versa. To reduce eating more, reduce the plate size. To reduce eating unhealthy, reduce buying unhealthy food, once they are in the pantry, chances of eating them goes up significantly.

Forcing the team to think about “Under One Roof”, people started thinking about making room for other critical departments under one roof, for example, Radiology in the same building, improving breast cancer diagnosis. A woman coming in for an exam in the morning might be able to leave that evening with the results.

We all have the Rider and the Elephant in each of us, to appeal to a person we need to think about both aspects.

Who is a Rider? Analytical self

Who is an Elephant? Emotional self. Elephant tries to paint the rosiest picture of things, creating positive illusions. “truth teller” can break these illusions to help the Elephant make progress.

Show the Rider where we are headed with charts, data analytics. Show the Elephant the big picture and vision. Both Elephant and Rider are part of the same person.

What is a B&W goal? Back and White goals are basically binary goals, the state can be either 0 or 1, like “I will not drink wine”, “I will not eat processed sugar”. Binary goals are easier to practice than trying to moderate, in other words, Analog goals 🙂

At the beginning, don’t look for the middle, look for a strong beginning and a strong ending and get going. Focus on what we can control, the next step and the next.

When parameters are well understood and things are static one can apply analysis, think and change something to improve results. However, in real life, parameters are not well understood, uncertainty reigns, not enough data is available. How can one make decisions in that situation?

See → feel → change OR 

Analyze → think → change

Problem of change is not one of lack of information but it’s one of identity and emotion. People don’t buy BMW because of the information in the Ad but the emotional appeal, identity to “this kind of person drives BMW”, same with Nike shoes, “this kind of person uses Nike shoe”

Elephant needs quick wins to get fired up.

If you want to change a behavior, give clear direction (Rider), boost motivation and determination (Elephant) alternatively remove friction, create a slope and nudge them (Path).

Shape the Path, build habits. (Atomic Habits by James Clear is a good book on this topic)

Fataki (an explosion in Swahili, someone to stay away from) – Eliminating sugar daddies in Tanzania by popularizing the term “Fataki” on radio station campaigns, like “that guy is such a Fataki”.

How do you make the Switch?

  1. Direct the Rider
    1. Find the bright spots
    2. Point to the destination (like B&W goals)
  1. Motivate the Elephant
    1. Have someone read the email and ask if any of them is worth replying to
    2. Build identity – “John you are such a controlled guy”
    3. Build the growth mindset
  1. Shape the Path
    1. Break the environment e.g. break the breakberry
    2. Tweak the environment (turn of the sound, silent mode, no buzz)

Good relationships with colleagues is not going to happen based on Myers-Briggs types, it’s built from reinforcing bright spots, look for little rays of sunshine.

The more you are exposed to something the more you like it e.g. Eiffel Tower, just an ugly metal structure.

Cognitive Dissonance – people don’t like to think in one way and act in another way. So once they start acting in one way, they will like to continue to act that way, it helps with good habits, inertia is a good thing here.

When change works, the Rider, the Elephant and the Path all are aligned. Change follows a pattern. Clear destination helps with the change.

What will you SWITCH?

Lessons From People No Smarter Than You

“I’m still young, I try to always look at what people significantly younger tan me are doing. What’s the next thing? I like to imagine the world five years from now Or imagine what I want the world yo look like five years from now”

Brain Chesky

“I have always followed my gut – and sometimes it’s been really lonely. When you look at the Forbes 400 list and take off everybody who inherited money, what’s left are people who went right when everyone else went left. Conventional wisdom leads to mediocrity.”

Sam Zell

“I’ve seen plenty of powerful women squander a chance at power simply because they waited for someone else to give them permission to have power. There is no permission slip — you just have to BE powerful.”

Shonda Rhimes

“Power is taking action in a moment that could make you feel powerless. Never let anyone define you. Only you define who you are.”

Ginni Romettey

“Politics is a powerful place, but it can and should be a place where power is used to build communities, and to model exactly the kinds of values we teach to our kids.”

Jacinda Ardern

“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”

Malala Yousafzai

“Knowing what must be done does away with fear.”

Rosa Parks

“Power’s not given to you. You have to take it.”

Beyonce

“The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.”

Peggy O’Mara