Hi Ramesh. Hi Ganesh. Welcome. Delighted to be having this conversation together about a pretty interesting theme, team.many. And about what it takes for entrepreneurs to build organizations through teams. And I'm imagining that we will open up and do some straight talking. Be candid and talk about some of the problems that entrepreneurs face in building teams. If there are unicorns, I'm sure they're not here. They're busy raising the next round of money. So, hopefully there are a lot of potential unicorns who might find value in knowing what it takes to build teams and what are some of the challenges, beliefs, mindsets which might come in the way of building teams. Before we start, I'd like to know a little bit about the vantage points from which you're going to be sharing your perspectives, Ramesh.
First of all, just a quick couple of things. Number one, wonderful to be here. I remember being here a couple of years ago, 2014, and to just watch how TiE Chennai has grown and how much better it is now than 2 years ago. If life is all about improvement, it's just fantastic to see. So, congratulations to all of you. I'm very, very proud to be a Chennaiite number one and to be associated with TiE Chennai. So, big thanks for that. Thank you so much. So, very quick background. I think most of you probably know. Went to IIT IIM. Worked in India for about 3-4 years after that. My life is now exactly half and half. The first 28 years was in India and the next 28 years in the US. So, no marks for guessing how old I am now. So, went to IIT IIM and then worked here for about 3 years, management consulting and a foundry. Gave it all up, didn't want management, joined a small company called Infosys in December '87. And so don't start calculating my net worth now. I left Infosys very early, so don't make those calculations. So '88 went to the US, worked as a contract programmer, and then grew up the technical ladder. And I worked in a company called Manhattan Associates in Atlanta for 7 years, which is where my career grew again. And since then I've been CEO of three different companies in the US. One of them was a billion two, a billion with a B, publicly traded company. And then I was with an e-commerce fulfillment unit that merged with eBay Enterprise in 2015. And now I'm CEO of a Silicon Valley company called UYALA, an intelligent video. We provide technology for online video, and I'm currently CEO of UYALA. So that's my quick background. I've not been an entrepreneur so far, just haven't had the good fortune of coming across an idea that I'm passionate about. Hopefully life will give me a chance. I won't start a company just for the sake of starting a company, but if I come across an idea that I can throw my life at, there is every chance I might still be an entrepreneur again. But my vantage point is from companies which I've managed, but not started. Yeah, okay. But I've been in small companies, big companies, so I can give you that perspective.
All right, okay. And my vantage point, interesting half and half, but not in the India in India and the US, half my life working for organizations and half my life consulting, coaching, building organizations. And my vantage point is that I've worked with maybe 50, 60 entrepreneurs. I've coached many of them. I've consulted with a lot of them. I worked with venture capital companies. And in that sense, perhaps I've seen the underbelly of the entrepreneurial spirit, and what some of the undoings are of building organizations, seen as many failures as I've seen success. So, that's really the hopefully the combination that we'll bring to the table. So, I'd like to start by talking about the first potential trap that I find among many entrepreneurs, which is the belief that I can do it on my own. They may have a team of foot soldiers, or they may have normally a bunch of people, but the belief that I know it all. I just need a bunch of guys to execute. I don't really need another set of people who will bring an equally powerful point of view to counter what I have to say. And that is not necessary. Do you think that is a challenge, Ramesh?
Yeah, sure, Ganesh. And fair warning, Ganesh, today during the session, I'm going to make some controversial statements. Right, my objective is to leave you with a couple of impressions. I'm not going to be wishy-washy with my answers, right? And I may represent some 80/20 opinions as if they're 100/0. So, be aware of that. It doesn't mean there are no pros and cons, but I kind of want to take a stand one way or the other. So, in terms of building a team, number one, there is nothing wrong in running your company all alone. There's nothing wrong with that. If your company only requires an army of one, run it with an army of one. There's nothing wrong with that. Right, you don't need to go build a team just for the sake of building a team. I'm not a believer in that. I'm a believer in hiring to the extent it is necessary. Right, it is not necessary to get another point of view. If you have a clear conviction, a clear passion, you know how to get it done, go get it done. There's nothing wrong with that. And you will learn as you go along that you need another point of view and all that. I want to tell you one interesting incident. It was May 2000 when for the first time in my life I was promoted to a VP at Manhattan Associates. And I'm telling you it's the saddest day of my life, right? I was really depressed and down. Till then I was a programmer and also a manager. I had 15-20 people reporting to me. I could get stuff done. I was the main problem solver. It felt good, you know, when a user came and asked me a question, I knew the answer before the question was done. So, you know, it was an enjoyable part of life, right? And then they promoted me to a VP at Manhattan. I knew that is the day I was going to become useless, right? Like and now I'm a complete example of how useless a guy can be. Like every answer I have to depend on somebody else, right? Whatever I delegate to someone else gets done faster than whatever I keep with myself. So, I was sitting very depressed when the founder of Manhattan, Deepak Raghavan, walked in to congratulate me. He said, 'Why are you so down? Everybody is happy you got promoted to a VP.' I said, 'Deepak, today is when I start becoming useless, right? I'm going to become more and more hands-off.' And he told me that day, he said, 'Ramesh, you have two skills. You have technical skills, which we respect a lot, but that is limited by 24 hours a day. However good you are, whether you are President Obama, Prime Minister Modi, or Ramesh, you only have 24 hours a day. So, your technical skills are limited by the amount of time you have, but you have leadership skills that are scalable. You can lead a 10-person team, 20-person team, 500-person team. So, we have decided today we are choosing your leadership skills.' Like that, in your career you will face a stage when your leadership skills are more important than your technical skills. Don't fight it, but don't go after it. When the time is right, you will hire the right people, you will do the right thing.
So, what I hear you saying is if it's okay to do something on your own, but if your business needs it, you must have that ability to go and build a team. And would it be fair to say that is the day when you transcend from just being an entrepreneur to becoming a leader but you're building a team. That'd be a fair statement to say. I've seen that it's an important skill to be able to respect another point of view because one of the challenges of getting bright people around you is to be ready to respect other points of view, to know that other people have answers, and that I need to live with some differences, and it's healthy for the business. Would that be a fair...
Absolutely. I mean, there is no question about it. So, I would put all that under the fact that the most crucial thing you can be good at is being good at getting better. Being good at improving. That is the most crucial skill you need as a leader, as an executive, as a programmer, as a marketing, as a sales person. Life is all about getting better. That's all you can do. All you can do is make sure tomorrow you're a little better than you are today. In order to get better, you need input from others as well. You need to have an open mind. You need to be able to accept the fact, yes, I was wrong. I made a mistake. Respect for people who will come and tell you that you were an idiot, right? You made a wrong decision yesterday. So, for me, life is all about continuous improvement, right? I don't know how good I am today, but I'll promise you 3 months from now I will be better, and for that I need input from others.
Right. Right. And one way of getting those inputs on a real-time basis is to be able to go out and hire good people. So, I'd like to talk a little bit now about the perhaps most important thing of building a team, which is to even begin to think and contemplate about hiring good people. And oftentimes, I am confronted when I work with entrepreneurs with this belief that listen, I don't think I'm too small to attract good people. I don't think anyone worthy would come and join me. Or if I'm not funded, I can't even afford it. So, the question I want to ask you is are there a bunch of competent bright people who will still go and work for a small company? You did that yourself. You didn't go and work for a Fortune 10 company. Right? You never did. You chose to work for companies which did something to you. What did they do to you?
