Outliers

In this episode of Outliers: Season of Resilience, I bring you an hour long conversation about how Girish is navigating the ongoing pandemic for his startup, and himself as a founder.

Deep Nishar is among the most admired product builders, having created impactful products at Linkedin, Google among many companies. He’s now Softbank’s senior managing partner based in Mountain View, California. Listen in to know how’s he reading the ongoing pandemic?

I speak with William for this week’s podcast, he reiterated FabIndia’s focus on standing by its community of craftsmen and women, and the employees, even during the ongoing pandemic. “For the first time, truly the first time, in human history, it’s an event that affects every single person on the planet,” he tells me.

For Ashwini Asokan, co-founder and the CEO of AI startup Mad Street Den, fears of her startup’s “death is a distraction.” “Hope is not a strategy. I truly believe that death is a distraction, sooner or later everybody dies, sooner or later all companies die and it’s a question of when, it’s never a question of if and it’s a distraction and it’s the same for companies,” Ashwini tells me in this episode of the Outliers.

In this week’s Outliers podcast, I bring you another candid conversation with Nithin Kamath, the founder of Zerodha who has disrupted some of India’s biggest banks and financial services companies with his innovative and bold approach. Add to that his bootstrapped startup journey, which illustrates how to build a company that matters without raising monies from a VC.

Manish is a battle-hardened entrepreneur who has steered his startup Printo through many crises, including the last existential crisis triggered by the Lehman collapse post-2008. In the entrepreneurial ecosystem, he is looked upon as a bold voice of realism and honesty. Not false hope.

Over the next few weeks, I intend going back to some of these Outliers (and some new voices), sit down with them for deeper conversations about how they managed different cycles of disruptions and crossed the valleys of death in their lives and careers -- basically, look how their experiences in the past can help us navigate the coming few months or quarters. The first in this series is a conversation with Ravi Venkatesan, the former chairman of Microsoft India, who has worked across the sectors of manufacturing, technology and now social over the past few decades.

A.R. Rahman is one of those Outliers who, having charted a unique path of their own and spread their magic along the way, hardly need an introduction. His genius lies not just in his creative melodies but in seeking out all that is ‘good’. In music, in life, in other human beings. Produced by Anand Murali Music Credit: www.accelerated-ideas.com/

Raju Reddy of Sierra Atlantic talks about his entrepreneurial journey, and how the underground nerve center of BITS Pilani network – he's an alumnus and currently the chairman of BITSA – works. Produced by Anand Murali Music Credit: www.accelerated-ideas.com/

C K Ranganathan of Cavinkare talks about starting up and his journey building one of India’s best homegrown retail brands. Produced by Anand Murali Music Credit: www.accelerated-ideas.com/

Ritesh Arora talks about how he learned from failures to bootstrap, and then turn BrowserStack into a $60m rocket ship. Produced by Anand Murali Music Credit: www.accelerated-ideas.com/

“Giving just returns to your investors and shareholders is a restrictive model for business. Business is such a powerful force, it needs to stand for a higher purpose,” Bissell tells me in this episode of Outliers. Produced by Anand Murali Music Credit: www.accelerated-ideas.com/

Listen to Amuleek Singh of Chai Point talk about some never-told, amazing back stories about Chai Point’s innovative packaging, business strategy, and organization culture. Produced by Anand Murali Music Credit: www.accelerated-ideas.com/

Vinoth Chandar, founder and CEO of ChuChu TV, talks about his journey and building a successful global YouTube company with over 24.5 Billion views and more than 38 Million subscribers across its channels. Produced by Anand Murali Music Credit: www.accelerated-ideas.com/

Sebastian Thrun, the Google X founder and among the world’s top AI and robotics scientists, flying cars are no more science fiction. In this episode of the Outliers podcast, he talks about flying cars and solving today’s problems Produced by Anand Murali Music Credit: www.accelerated-ideas.com/

Kishore Biyani talks about his rollercoaster ride of an entrepreneurial journey and his latest ammunition to fight his business battles - a combination of his customer base and technology-powered data insights for making decisions. Produced by Anand Murali Music Credit: www.accelerated-ideas.com/

Nandan Nilekani - cofounder of Infosys, the brain behind Aadhaar and India’s recent financial platforms, including “the IndiaStack.” - talks about his playbook for building things and how he builds them to create impact at scale. Produced by Anand Murali Music Credit: www.accelerated-ideas.com/

Guneet Monga of Sikhya Entertainment talks about her journey producing next gen movies in a world ruled by the incumbents. Produced by Anand Murali Music Credit: www.accelerated-ideas.com/

The first Indian in space, Rakesh Sharma, talks about his journey becoming an airforce test pilot, going to space, and life after space. Produced by Anand Murali Music Credit: http://www.accelerated-ideas.com/

Journalism’s biggest existential battle isn’t about fighting the business model disruption or the way new consumers of news are behaving. It’s the war against intense polarisation and biases plaguing the newsrooms. There’s extreme negativity on one hand and excessive cheerleading on the other. For those in journalism staying true to the craft and following the principles of objectivity and the good old world balance, it’s a tough battle. Amid all this chaos, Ravish Kumar is a rarity who practices fundamentals of journalism by pursuing. How does he stay this way? And why? And what’s the cost of speaking truth to power? Our Season 2 Finale of Outliers is with a journalist who evokes emotion in what he chooses to cover as much as admiration in the way he keeps to the fundamentals of on-the-ground reportage.