 Hi everyone, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are joining us from and today we have with us Birad Sheet, the person who sort of founded Gupshap right now, which is the platform that he's founded but before this he founded another company called Elance which was really one of the precursors of the gig economy and we are going to talk to him about the life of an entrepreneur. So over to you Birad, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us on Dreamers and Unicorns. What I wanted to do was to actually get started first by asking you a personal question. I'm going to start with that personal question. What is the meaning of Birad? What does it really mean? Oh, it's a Sanskrit word that means Padui or honour or an award and I guess my mom looked deep in the dictionary to find this because it's a fairly unusual name even by Indian standards and the fringe benefit I have of a name like this is that I can get it in any namespace so in Yahoo or Skype or Gmail it's just Birad. I don't need to add any digits after it, right? There's only one of me. So Birad 15 at gmail.com. That's great. Birad, I'm going to sort of divide this conversation into two chunks. One I want to talk to you about the sort of early influences that we'll talk about the gig economy and how you sort of really went about building that and then we'll talk about your current workspace. So do you have a preference in terms of how we should start from now or we should start at the back, looking at it, the making of Birad shit, which of these two is better story arc for you? No, I'm finding the way but I guess the chronology might make more sense going from early to now. Okay, all right. So I'm going to really start by saying that when you look at your early years, how do you sort of define the influences that you've had as you're growing up? What were those, who were some of the people deeply influenced you or incidents that influenced you? Where you first felt you wanted to be an entrepreneur or was that not something that you thought about? Well, not quite in that fully formed way but anyway, let's start. So I think, I mean, I grew up in a sort of average middle-class family in Mumbai, I think growing up in Mumbai or growing up at that time in the 70s and 80s, one is we had limited means and resources, so frugality is a value that you just grow up with, you don't think about it, you reuse, you recycle, you reduce your usage, you sort of just live with the new means but on the other hand, you're just surrounded by lots of love and relationships and family, so that's a good part. I think, of course, Indian parents value education, so all of us were beneficiaries of that focus on education. How was it told to you? What was told to you? That education is the way to a better life and nothing, I mean, you don't have a lot of money, you're not given a lot of inheritance but what you have is sort of what's in between your years in your head and you got to use that to find your way to a good life but not no pressure as such, right? I mean, it just sort of do the best you can and I think for me, I mean, I just was, I was just curious, inquiring mind, I think the good thing was my parents just let me explore, let me try different things and they really loved, my dad was really a fan of math, so he just made me love it or enjoy it in a way, my mom was always very creative, hacking solutions, if you will, finding creative ways and I think that rubbed on to me as well and I took Oh, I don't know, I mean, it could just be improvising, if something is missing, then you find something else in the house that looks like it and you improvise it and you never or even just, yeah, I think, for example, I mean, she used to work in the insurance industry and she'd have to, she had to go out to work, which means I'd be left alone at home because my dad was also working and so she signed me up to some place and it'd be a lot of overhead if I think about it now, she'd have to take me to, we lived in Boroughville, she used to take me somewhere to Santa Cruz, drop me at this kid's sort of play area and then go to work and come back, pick me up, then come back home and so on and she was always, even as it was tiring and exhausting, I mean, she'd focus on just really child development, if you will, right and I'd say I'd have one hour class for badminton or something, but I'd stay there the whole day sitting in the library, hanging out, meeting friends and so on because I had nowhere to go but in some ways I never realized that it was a problem because I really enjoyed it, had a good time, I took like fish to water, I'd read up all the books in the library on my own and a lot of Amar Chitrakathas, if you know, right, I mean, this was when I was really young, but later on, I just took like fish to water to just, I don't know, math, science, you know, then yeah, she heard about something called Bombay talent search or national talent search, which now is fairly commonplace, but at that time was fairly uncommon. So again, I mean, she just put me up for, exposed me to all of these things and saying, see if you like this and so on and it was just lots of exposure and such, which was really influential and I enjoyed it. In fact, it was funny, these classes were in Matunga and they said, okay, coming from Buribli, this is in eighth or ninth grade, right? I mean, you're really young and the teacher said, how are you gonna, how is the kid gonna come alone? I'm only gonna admit if you bring in three other kids. So then she went around and drafted three other kids who would go along with me so that we could be a group going to these classes safely, traveling on our own in local trains and so on. So I think just some of these were early influences, but I never felt like we lacked for anything because we had whatever I needed in my then worldview, we had in abundance. There were always lots of friends, lots of family, lots of books, what more do you need, right? So, is it better for an entrepreneur to have a mindset of abundance or is it better to have a mindset of scarcity? What creates a better mindset? Oh, I mean, certainly, frugality is a key prerequisite and even if you have a lot of funding, like say, and we'll come to that right now, we've got a big round of funding, but the frugality mindset is not just doing things with less money, but it's doing more with whatever you have, right? Stretching the limits, pushing the limits and so on. So absolutely essential, but in early stages, it's critical because you usually, you know, you may raise a few hundred thousand or a million dollars and really, you know, the statistics say that most companies die simply because they run out of money. It's not that it's a bad idea, it's not that it didn't work, it's just that you didn't last long enough to be able to figure out whether it was a good idea or not, or to be able to deploy your vision and so on and the in frugality can stretch your runway. It can help you, you know, keep going and to innovate more, to ideate, to iterate over different examples and so on. So absolutely, you know, frugality is key. Another direct influence I can tie to that is also, you know, never getting hassled, right? I mean, nothing goes as planned. Like at that time, you know, if the trains are not working, you still have to show up to work, you know, you just figure out and it may take a half an hour longer to get there, but you just go, you don't complain, right? If the rickshaw is not working, you get a bicycle and get to the train station, right? If something doesn't happen on schedule, you just get on with it, you don't complain, you just sort of, you know, you do it and it's the same thing with your entrepreneurial life. Nothing is ever going to go as planned. You're just going to improvise, figure it out, adjust, go with the flow and so on, right? And it was funny that in some other places, conversely, when things go exactly as scheduled, always on time and then you're just conditioned to expecting that and when it doesn't, you can get very frazzled and so on. So I think I've just found that these are, I think in many ways Indians are natural entrepreneurs, right? Because you are between frugality and resiliency and just sort of being calm about things, I think it helps. Now, I'm not saying everybody or every Indian is like this, but I think in general, the ecosystem is such that it forces you to be that way. When you finished your school, what was your career choice? I mean, what did you want to be if somebody had asked you in class 8, 9, 10, whatever? When you were old enough to sort of understand some career choices, what was it in your head? What did you want to do? Oh, you know, all cool problems, have some impact on the world. I think it was really abstract in some sense, right? Because like I was telling you, National Talent Search, these are really IQ tests. They make you solve puzzles really and it was a lot of fun. It was like really, you could work just doing things like this. It's only much later than I realized that a lot of things in life you do. Problem solving and really tricky problem solving is a rare skill and if you can do that and do that well, that helps. Now, I went to IIT Bombay and I studied computer science again partly because everybody, every advisor or every uncle I talked to would be like, okay, this is the future, so you got to do a focus on that if you could and fortunately I had a high rank, so I had that choice. But I really, again, loved computer science. It was very, it's exactly that, problem solving. A lot of it is just math, analytical, algorithmic, so it was a lot of fun. So I stayed with computer science but it's not like before I got in there, I knew exactly where that would lead. So yeah, the earliest sense of it was, yeah, just work on the most challenging, exciting, interesting puzzles and problems that you can find and let's see where that leads. And obviously, as I went through it, you sort of realize much more. After IIT, I ended up at MIT as well and that just exposed me to a lot more things, right? I mean, things happening on a global scale. So I think that sort of one thing led to another. Yeah. You know, when you compare the environment of, let's say IIT, you went to IIT, Mumbai, and then you ended up at MIT. What is it that you see as an inherent strength of the IIT, you know, or versus the MIT? What would that be? Oh, versus MIT because I think there were very similar experiences in some sense, right? I think they really take, you know, the cream of the crop, if you will, at least in the STEM fields, they take the best kids they can find in the country and put them together. And, you know, you'd think it's a hyper competitive, which it is, but it's surprisingly also very collaborative. I mean, I've formed some of the best relationships that survive to this day, right? Really, my closest friends are people I went to school with, even though back then we used to compete a lot and fight a lot. I think MIT had the same dynamic as well, right? Just they sort of take the best kids from the US or globally actually and put them there. Maybe the difference to the extent it existed was because I did undergraduate school versus graduate school. It's a little different, right? Undergraduate school is a lot more of coursework. Graduate school is a lot more of research. So you're more, you know, focused on just your lab and your work and so on versus lots of group activities and lots of, you know, large classrooms and so on, right? So I think maybe that was the difference. But in terms of school, of course, you know, MIT has a ton more resources, right? So again, you know, Indian institutions are frugal, but also very creative and resourceful, right? The books are the same, but the computers are not and, you know, you kind of have, you have to push the limits of what your, you know, what your computers can do to develop some of these things. But I think it was really great preparation. I mean, there was no challenge whatsoever on the core things, right? I think the bigger learning, perhaps, going from undergrad to grad school, right? So the, there are many strengths and weaknesses, I think, of the Indian education system, right? I think certainly, you know, in some ways, there's a greater emphasis on education among all families, people like doing it. It can be hyper competitive, which is, again, good or bad, right? If you're at the top of the pyramid, it's a great thing. But, but it can, you know, really be challenging and distressing for a lot of other people, right? So I don't know if it's entirely good, but obviously, many people who went through IIT and so on benefited from this today. But the other thing is, you know, you're always told what to do, right? All through high school and undergraduate school. Well, this is the course you take and that's it. And when you get to, when I got to MIT for grad school, it was kind of funny, you know, I'd go to the admissions office and what courses do I have to take? And they ask you, like, what are you going to do? And it's like, oh, I don't know. I mean, I've been told all along what to do. And now you have to think, right? And you have to find and chart your own path through the education system. What is it that you're really passionate about? And it's surprising, right? It was a very new phenomena at that time. But it really forced you to think, like, you know, to your earlier question, right? That was the first time where you really started thinking, okay, what is it that I want to do? Where do I want to go? What is it? What is it I want to specialize in or study or, you know, interesting? So what did you want to study? What was that? So yeah, it was, it changed. It changed a lot. And I discovered a lot. And I think it was a process of self discovery. So for example, in my case, you know, I'd done some coming out of IT, I'd done my research and published, even published a paper in distributed computing, right, which was sort of one part of computer science. Explain to me in layman's terms, what is distributed computer? It just, you know, connecting lots of computers in parallel to make a bigger computer, right? So that's sort of one specialized field of science. But even before I got to MIT, I read all the brochures and I saw these images of people working on AI, right, artificial intelligence. They were sort of trying to simulate human behavior, you know, create a hand, create a foot, whether it's physical human behavior or even interactive, you know, intelligence. So I said, okay, this sounds more interesting or more cool. So even before I got to MIT, I changed, changed it. And MIT was really cool about, you know, allowing you academic freedom to study whatever it is you want. So I did that, but when I got to MIT, now this was in the early 90s, you know, Cold War was over, defense funding was declining. So the AI lab had less funding. But then I went to the media lab and I worked on, you know, again, AI for personalized newspapers, right, which is super interesting. I took courses in the management school at Sloan School, which I was just curious about, right? This is where I started sort of thinking about, okay, you know, technology is great in and of itself, but what impact does it have on the real world? How can I apply it? And, you know, sort of, you know, how do you make a dent in the universe as the cliche goes in Silicon Valley? You want to, you know, you want to have, have some real impact, not just academic problem solving, right? So this is where a lot of that development happened about, you know, sort of how the world works and how, how money works, right, which was super interesting. So by the time, and perhaps the most important realization was, you know, after about, so I was admitted to the PhD program, but I realized that I didn't want to stay in academia. I wanted to be in the, in the world of business entrepreneurship and try something along those lines, right? So already I'm taking these courses at business school along with my research in computer science. And I think that sort of really, when it got crystallized or formalized into saying, okay, you know, I like working at the intersection of, of technology and business of, of using, you know, all the things that I'd learned to have some real world business impact. So when you think about, you know, this transition, so one of the things that, you know, I think you worked in a place which was, you know, full of technology, you looked at artificial intelligence, it was that, and then of course you come into, as you say, the real world or the business world, which is entirely people raising funds, finding talent, where did that skill get developed? Because clearly, this is not something that you planned for. So is it something that takes very little time to develop? You know, how does it go? I guess, I don't know, maybe my Gujarati blood or something like that. No, I'm just kidding. I think so, you know, the things that you don't learn that, that in general, right, again, generalizing the Indian education system is a good ad is really, you know, letting you experiment, freestyle thinking, right, figuring out what you want to do, or a lot of the interpersonal skills, right, the sort of persuasive skills, right, conflict resolution skills, having, having debate, challenging, trying to convince the other person to your point of view, and still, you know, being mature and cool about it, even when they disagree with you and so on. And these are all very, very essential skills, right. So being a, being a salesperson is something you just have to do, you have to sell your ideas, or, you know, working in large groups, leading, following and so on. Now, of course, you know, in, in IT, a lot of it, at least for me, happened informally. I mean, you just participate in, in, you know, hostile activities or other group activities where you're always debating, fighting, challenging, you know, creating teams doing things. So, so you pick it up along the way, right. I think, so, so really, but it does take, you know, that and also risk taking, right, which, you know, I saw a lot of my ID friends, in a way, by the way, you know, a lot of this academic success, in some ways, it kind of sets you up to be risk averse, right, because you've done all of this. And by the way, once you graduate, you can get almost the best salary jobs that there are. And it's, it's not that challenging. And therefore, a lot of people would just say, you know what, it's, it's good already, why take a risk, right, because I've succeeded in everything, why put myself in a position where it could fail. And that, that fear of sort of a track record of success can also lead to a fear of failure and so on, right. So, is that why you decided to go and take a job in the financial sector, where you work with city and Merrill Lynch and No, actually, so in my, in my thinking, really, you know, I knew, I mean, I'd learned everything that was at that time, you know, to learn in computer science felt very confident about it. What I didn't know enough off was about the business world, right. So, in a sense, my sort of five-year stint on Wall Street was more like my business school experience, which really taught me a lot about, you know, negotiation about selling. I mean, I was initially, I was modeling sort of securities, right, which is, which is more computer science than finance, if you think about it, because you're really, you know, developing these financial models, which are all sort of based on statistics and computer algorithms and so on. So, and then a couple years later, sort of, I became the trader of these securities, a bond trader, if you will. So, but in that process, right, you're hedging risk, you're building a portfolio, you're trading, you're negotiating, you're strategizing and so on. So, I think it helped. That was my, like I said, my business school experience, but meanwhile, and while I was there, now it's in the mid-90s, you know, the internet happened, right? Sort of, Netscape went public, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, all of these companies were being formed. And I was like, okay, now it's real. A lot of it felt theoretical, you know, while I was in school, but it's starting to have these, this huge impact on the real world. And that's where I kind of got back to my sort of, you know, got back to the intersection of business and technology. I mean, and that's something sort of I felt, you know, I was sort of without really being conscious of it, was headed in that direction anyway. I think the fear of failure never bothered me. I mean, I felt like, okay, you know, I'm confident I feel I have nothing to prove in an academic sense, but there's a lot to prove on the business side. And I think, you know, what good is all the skill sets and all the experience that you've developed, if you can't, you know, sort of solve some interesting problems, create some new things, have an impact, you know, on the world and so on. Right. So that's how I felt. I mean, I was just drawn to it. It didn't, you know, just sort of doing a basic job at that time didn't excite me. It just really wanted to have more creative freedom and drive it. Now things have changed a lot these days. Right. I mean, a lot of tech startups today provide that creativity while without having to take so much risk, you know, while being part of a large organization. So I think these days there are many more choices than there used to be. But so that's how I ended up where I am. Perfect. So, you know, just to sort of recap for those of us who've joined in late, I'm talking to Virat Shet. He's the co-founder of Gavsha. He's the CEO of the company as well. And he also, you know, formed another company which was at that point of time called Elance and later it became Upwork as a result of a merger. We'll get talking about that. But that's coming up for you. We have a couple of comments that, you know, some of our viewers have put together, you know, they've shared. Preeti Shroff talks about the early influences, progality, family education and experience of hacking solutions. And she also says a great insights. Thank you. Real impact is the true measurement of education, entrepreneurship, technology and learning. So that's Preeti. And then you have Naina Prabhu who says, such a wonderful description of your mother Virat. So you have some of the listeners comments. So thanks. Thanks a lot for listening in and just to recap, we're going to really start moving into your entrepreneurial journey and really start with this question which I have always been intrigued about. You know, when you start a company, is it true that when you're an engineer, you know, you're dealing with a lot of things which are binary. You know, it's either right or wrong, whether it's putting, whether it's engineering problems. When you are working in business, you're working with people and it is anything but binary. You know, the same person is not going to respond in the same way to the identical stimulus. Is it tougher for somebody who's trained in a very binary thinking process, you know, do engineers find it harder to respond to human solutions or challenges? What is your take on that? No, I think quite the contrary. Well, so the interpersonal, I mean, I don't know if there are good schools for interpersonal relationships or, you know, sort of teamwork and so on. That's something all of us are born with and you sort of refine and, you know, optimize and so on. I think, and then the engineering thought process really helps you, you know, with the problem solving mindset, right? How do you do large, complex things by breaking it into smaller components, by modularizing it, by, you know, solving each component separately, being very analytical about it, by, you know, leaving emotions out. And I found that, you know, a lot of, you know, when you deal with sort of the personal dimension of it, the people aspect of it, sometimes it helps to be thoughtful and feeling an emotional person, but many times it actually helps to take emotions out of it to depersonize the issues and focus on whether it's right or wrong. And I think, you know, for example, you know, conflict resolution requires you to sort of actually, you know, take emotions out of it and really say, okay, what makes sense or what's the best idea, right? It's not about egos. It's not about hierarchy. It's not about, you know, who likes whom the most. It really is, you know, looking at it objectively saying, what's the best idea? Who has the best idea? You create a meritocratic environment that actually leads to, you know, sort of the best ideas coming up, the greatest growth for the company, the most innovation. Also, people stop playing politics when you, you know, take, when you don't play favorites, you know, when you say, like, or if somebody comes and complains to you, my first question as well, what did the other person say, right? Or did you talk to that person directly, right? Don't escalate to me until you try to resolve it. Or even if there are challenges and so on, right? I mean, it's a workplace is not a family, right? It's really, we are optimizing for business growth. We're not trying to optimize for personal happiness, right? So I think really just keeping that focus, you know, I think the engineering mindset really equips you with a very, like you said, you know, it's a bit of the opposite skill set, but equally as essential in solving the people aspect of it too. Now, there's no doubt that, you know, some, some people are just far more, they're far more EQ, far more intuitive, you know, far more capable and so on. So of course, you know, as a team, we have lots of people, many of whom are better than me and some of these other aspects, right? And so on. So you kind of have to know your strengths and your weaknesses and surround yourself with others who can compliment you and so on, right? You don't need to be no one. That's also much tougher. You don't work with people who are very different from you. And I actually want to sort of challenge this whole view that, you know, you said that you take away the emotion and that's one part of it and make an objective, totally get that when you're trying to solve a problem. Sometimes it's important to segregate the emotion and the person. But does it also mean that, you know, when you take emotions out of it, the workplace becomes super transactional. And then you don't get all the things that you talk about employee engagement, you talk about being passionate about a dream. You know, would you think that when you remove emotions, it also has the by-products that you make it super transactional. It's the money, you do this and then I do it kind of thing. So, yeah, fair enough. I think, look, this is such a complex topic that I don't think you can generalize to one end of the spectrum or the other. I think there are situations where, you know, diffusing emotions is better. There are other situations like leadership, inspiration, motivation are clearly emotions that drive, right? So there are constructive emotions that, you know, passion, commitment, right, intensity, hard work, resiliency, great. I mean, these are very critical and essential emotions to success and you got to have that in spades. In fact, you want to over-index on that side, right? And you want to under-index on, I don't know, jealousy and, you know, politicking and, you know, on anger, on, you know, things like that, right? So I think there's, I don't think you can generalize entirely. So, yeah, you want to have a lot of the right kind of emotions. You know, one thing we talk about a lot is you want missionaries, not mercenaries, right? You want people who are excited about the mission of the company, what you're working on. It's not just for the money, they're just not here just for the compensation because, as you know, in a hyper-competitive Indian market, you know, no matter what salary you're at, you'll get, somebody will pay you. In fact, because you're at Gapshap, very likely somebody will pay you more, right? Out there. And you can't sort of play this game of matching and one offensive constantly, right? So if somebody is doing that, I mean, in fact, we try to filter that out right at the recruiting phase. But, you know, it's not like we're going to under-pay by any stretch, right? Because you want everybody to have a good life and everybody has to live. But on the other hand, you know, you want people to be excited about what they're doing as well. So yeah, I think, you know, just finding the right balance, you know, seeing where it's useful versus not. Yeah, I think it's really a balance. You know, and you built one of the first places, at least that I know of, which is about the gig work, you know, finding opportunities for gig workers. What was that idea like? How did it evolve? What set you in that direction? How did you come up with that idea? Tell me about it. So this was, you know, it was in the late 90s and really, this idea was a culmination of my life experiences until then, right? So this was in the late 90s. I was in, you know, I just graduated from MIT, I'd spent some time on Wall Street and so on. And as I now think back, right, so there may be some post facto revisionism, but not really, right? I think, you know, coming from India, I knew that there were talented people all over the world, right? But so that's sort of one obvious life experience. Having studied computer science, I could see the immense power and impact of the internet to connect people in far-flung places. That was sort of my second, you know, personal life experience. And then the third thing was, having worked on Wall Street, I knew that you could create marketplaces even for, you know, seemingly illiquid securities, right? So not just for stocks and bonds that most people think about, but even for all kinds of other, you know, mortgage back and asset back securities and things like that. So you take these sort of three ideas, right? And what you get is really a global services marketplace, a place where you can have freelancers from all over the world interacting and getting work done for people in other parts of the world connecting through the internet, having a live marketplace where, you know, the price for doing work is determined by the freelancers themselves, by the participants, you know, and so on. And we just, we set it up as a little experiment, which was, you know, so the funny thing was literally the beta version of the product, we said, where can we, you know, getting a marketplace started is really, really hard. Where can we get some freelancers who can do some, you know, high quality work for a low price and then try some projects with it. So guess what, we went back to IIT and there's a lot of, you know, summer students who are always, you know, they had some job, but oftentimes these are not interesting jobs. So they could work on, you know, of course, coding projects, they were very good at those things. And any pocket money, especially in dollars at that time was a lot for these kids. So even today, right, kids from that time, they remember they made a ton of pocket money far more than whatever their internship paid them. And somebody would list a project saying, can you bring me a website or can you write this software program? And guess what, right, like literally like three days later, right, it would get done, it would be very high quality and it'd be very inexpensive and really sort of validated that idea. So soon as that happened, we made public with it, we, you know, launched it, more people signed up and so on. And you just sort of from that, you extrapolate to what today is up work. And there are millions of freelancers all over the world earning their livelihood through a site like this is such a, you know, it's so gratifying that it has had such an impact, like I was saying earlier, right. So really, it's fostered, you know, millions of entrepreneurs in a way because a freelancer is really an entrepreneur, right, they sort of every day, they come in and they create their own future really. So very exciting. But yeah, that's how that's how Elan's got started. Even at a personal level, we didn't have a lot of money or resources. This is where frugality comes in, right, we started in a in a two bedroom apartment in New York or in Jersey City, which is just across the river. Because, you know, I mean, we raised money from some friends, again, the IT alumni network, right, we had about five friends, each of whom brought like three or four investors in. So we had about 20 people. We raised a million dollars, you know, we are in this two bedroom apartment. And we grew to about 20 people who would come in in the morning and leave in the evening. And our neighbors are wondering, like, what the hell is going on, you know, are you, you know, in a place of residence really, but we were just improvising with, you know, it was all cramped. And in fact, my co-founder was actually using that as a bedroom at night when nobody was around. And in the daytime, it'd be office and so on. So I think it's been quite a story of how we got started. When you think about, you know, the marketplace, Upwork is obviously one of the largest, you know, gig platforms. Do you think the concept of a gig, you know, takes away the whole joy of working continuously on something, you know, does it make work very transactional or does it really give you freedom? Is there a balance between the two? Well, I think, you know, firstly, there's no one size fits all, right. Some kinds of work are just inherently modular, right. I think, I mean, if you think about it, let's say, you know, even as a company in normal circumstances, when you're working with lawyers, you don't need lawyers all the time, right. But if you're doing a transaction, if you're doing a deal, if you're negotiating something, you need them, but there are times when you don't need them. Or like design work, right. You need them when you're launching something new. But once it's done, you want to be consistent with that design. So you're not changing it every time. And so when you go through it, right. In fact, it's funny. So there was an MIT professor who did some phenomenal research on the theory of organization, meaning what's the right size of a company. And, you know, he studied like over the past couple of hundred years and sort of said, you know, companies grow big when it makes sense, when it's easier to do transactions within the company than outside the company, right. But new technologies, especially the internet at that time, was making it easier to transact outside the company than inside the company, right. Because if somebody had a stationary shop, right, meaning office supplies, they could do a really good job at it rather than your department in house. So you're better off working with them. And the internet allows you to very quickly go to their website, order it and bring it in. So his point was, you know, as that happened, as internet gets more widely adopted, organizations grow smaller because you don't need, you just keep your core competency inside and outsource the rest, right. It's sort of the Indian outsourcing industry and then freelancing is an extension of that. And by the way, this is what he called, he coined the term sort of the Elance economy, which is where we took the name from. And then, you know, we talked to him, made him an advisor and so on. So I think, no, it's no one size fits all. I think there are things that need continuous sustained effort, but there's a lot of work that is just periodic, modular, on demand as needed. And companies need the flexibility to be able to scale up during, let's say the holiday season, when there's more demand for some services, and scale down when there's less demand, right, maybe a call center, maybe a support operation and so on. So I think the whole freelance model really gives businesses the flexibility to solve other kinds of problems that were not previously possible, right. So you now have Nimbler organization that can right size themselves over time, right, literally by the day or the month and so on. So I think, yeah, I mean, it's really, by the way, you're seeing this, you know, the computing equivalent of this is what we call cloud computing today, right. You might say, well, I want to own my computer because I use it all the time. But the reality is, you know, oftentimes there's plenty of idle time, it's easier to let AWS manage, you know, Amazon Web Services manage the whole thing, or, you know, by the way, this whole idea of freelancing and gig economy and sharing economy, as it's called, it all comes from the same place, right. So you might want to own your own car, but 80% of the time you're just sitting in the garage, right. What if Ola and Uber can find another passenger when you're not using it. But when you need it, you press a button and it shows up, right, we're all sharing the car or Airbnb, right. Yeah, you want to own your house, but your bedroom is lying idle, what if somebody you could rent it out, you could make money, they benefit as well, right. So this whole idea of there being idle time that can be utilized better and optimized is good. It just unleashes greater efficiency through the ecosystem, it drives more flexibility, it drives, you know, less wastage and so on. And it just, you know, it literally creates a value out of nothing. I mean, it was just lying idle, right. So freelancers, a lot of it initially started with literally moonlighting, meaning you have a day job, but you still have a lot of energy on the weekends or evenings and so on, and they want to work and they have the skill. So they just do a little bit of a project and get it done, but it's at a lower cost because, you know, it was idle time for them anyway, right. So they can make extra money and it has to cost lesser than the market rate and therefore it just drives, you know, full of employment and so on. So I think these are really powerful, impactful ideas that have now gone on to, you know, transform the world we live in. Do you look at, you know, the world of gig work, so to say, with a sense of, right, that, you know, it's created so many opportunities or do you feel that your vision of how gig work should have been, you know, now a lot of people talk about the fact that gig workers don't have health insurance and all of that and this notion of flexibility is not something that somebody can really sustain at a really minimum wage kind of a level. What is your take on that? I mean, how do you view it? Opportunities on millions, there's no getting away from that. Yeah, I think, you know, I mean, it's in my mind that there's no question, there's no doubt at all that it's net positive, right? I think what's missing yet is that the rest of the world has to catch up to sort of this freelance lifestyle, right? Let me explain what I mean, right? So traditionally, you know, so where did the idea of 9 to 5 jobs come from, right? That's not how, thousands of years ago, that's not how people lived, right? You had the artisan economy and you had people just doing in the village, you'd have people doing their own thing or the trading communities and so on, but it was sort of in the industrial era, right? Where you started having the steam engine and the factories that followed after that that required, you know, there's a standard place of work, right? Firstly, there's a fixed factory and then you have to have shifts because it has to keep running and so there's a fixed amount of time and so on. And once people started going from 9 to 5, for example, then you had to create schools where kids could go at the same time, right? Which also give you the school hours because while the parents are at work, somebody has to watch the kids and so on. And then the education system developed, you know, so a lot of it is it came from the industrial era, right? So it's not sacred by any stretch, but over the 500 or so years that it developed, you know, think about it, society also adjusted around it, which means healthcare and employment sort of got tied to your place of employment, right? So at least in the US, all your health insurance and benefits are provided by the employer and that kind of worked. Now the moment you get to, but the internet era is inherently different, right? It allows you to make connections with people all over the world instantly, flexibly and so on, which is what's driving the freelance economy. It provides additional flexibility to businesses, to people. I mean, the fact that, you know, you can live anywhere and work anywhere, I mean, you know, actually just to fast forward, right? While we were preaching remote work, there were many people who were skeptical or doubtful and so on, but two decades in a pandemic later, it's now conventional wisdom, all of us, right? The world would practically have ended if we couldn't do remote work over the last couple of years with the pandemic, right? The fact that and even in the US, for example, these remote towns where lifestyle is good are getting very popular because you can go live by the lake or in a nice, lovely place with less traffic, even as you're working in New York or in Silicon Valley and so on. So the point I'm making is, it gives you, it affords you these opportunities that you didn't have before. Either you had to live in downtown, like, you know, if you're in Mumbai, you know, you had to live, like near Churchgate or you live very far and commute for like two hours every day. But now guess what? You know, you could go live in Goa and work in Mumbai or Delhi. I mean, isn't that great? Now, the challenge is benefits, healthcare, you know, which are employer-linked, they need to change to be employee-linked, right? So they stay with you no matter where you go and every employer or every project, every freelance project you do gives you that extra, you know, amount for benefits, but it gets aggregated at a personal level, right? So Europe, for example, has less of an issue dealing with some of this because they have nationalized healthcare, right? So it doesn't matter where you work. It's not coming from your employer, you know, so you have flexibility to do different things and so on. So I think this is really, you know, the world or, you know, governments and benefit programs and, you know, the rest of the ecosystem has to catch up with really this powerful force that's been unleashed with freelancing, right? So it's been what, like, barely two decades since I started it and just a few years since it's become widespread. So I think, you know, the world needs some time to catch up to what's really going on. Tell me about your current setup in Gapshap. What is Gapshap? What does it do? Where do we see its impact? Talk to me about that. So we describe ourselves as a conversational messaging platform, okay? And these are big words. So let me explain, right? Firstly, let's talk about basic messaging, right? So most of your users today on their mobile phone listeners, on their mobile phone, they receive these text messages, right? Either from the bank or from their e-commerce company saying, you know, oh, you spend 100 rupees at the cafe or payment is due tomorrow or maybe your order is confirmed, your package is shipped and on and on, right? So these are, so businesses across industries and across geographies, right? Worldwide send a lot of these messages in real time to all their consumers. So we provide a platform that allows them to send these billions of messages, you know, to lots and lots of people we connect with mobile operators and to other networks to enable that delivery and its high performance and there's a lot of complexity to it. So we manage all of that, that's the platform we provide, right? Now, so far, all of this messaging has been very basic, which says, you know, you sort of get an SMS very likely or just a plain text message. But there are some newer technologies that are emerging, which allow that message to be much richer. So you can now put an image inside the message, right? So it could either be a logo or a chart or something that's relevant or you can put buttons and cards inside the messages so that, you know, if you get some spend notification, you can, you know, you can reschedule your delivery or you can make a payment right away and so on. And also you can now have two-way conversation between the business and the consumer, right? And that's what's called a conversational messaging experience. And if that happens, now, just through that message, you could, you know, you get the payment reminder with one click, you make a payment, you get a delivery notification with another couple of clicks, you can reschedule the delivery or with some order confirmation, they can give you a recommendation saying, here are some accessories, there's a special deal on that and you can even shop for it. So, or if you have a complaint, you can, you know, you can sort of just send a message. So suddenly chatting or interacting with business becomes as easy as chatting with a friend. You can just send a text message. So now you won't need to call the call center, assuming they have one, right? So if they have a call center and you call, you don't have to call them, you don't have to be on hold for like 15, 20 minutes, you don't have to explain the whole story, you're really just sending them a text message and say, I have this problem, I need a refund or I need to do this and it just gets resolved right there or I need to upgrade my flight or reschedule, you know, my hotel booking or whatever. All of that just gets done through conversational messaging. So it's a really big idea where, you know, if you think about it, in the mid 90s when the web came about, every business had to build a website because that's how customers were looking to interact with businesses and today it's all commonplace. I think if you look forward a few years from now, every business, right, will be doing this. So the conversational experience is sort of the new digital storefront. This is where consumers are looking to interact with businesses and if they, and you know, we will all just be able to chat with any business for getting deals and offers, for buying things from them, for reporting problems, for getting, you know, so whether it's customer support or marketing or commerce, all of that would just be taken care of maybe through WhatsApp, maybe through, you know, SMS messaging or newer technologies that are coming up will make it really, really easy to to converse, right? So conversational experiences are a big phenomena. We are very excited about it. We are the leading platform. We provide all the tools and all the infrastructure that businesses need to make this work and to offer a delightful experience, right? And there's a natural, there's room for AI and natural language processing so that, you know, you can do this, do these automated conversations with millions of people at very high scale. So anyway, that's, that's what we're working on. Yeah, so, you know, when you think about, when you think about this whole, you know, experience of growing an organization, when you think about that, why is it that when you build an organization, the technology is going to be at a certain stage and then technology evolves, you need different skills, you know, so how do you build for that in the organization? What is your method of doing that? Yeah, I mean, I think, in fact, we are living this right now as we speak. We are going through a hyper growth phase and really, you know, scaling fast. But, you know, the best analogy I've heard is that different company, there's a military analogy which says, you know, there's different stages of company growth, you need different kinds of people. In the early stages, you need commandos, right, which are, commandos are very versatile, they carry everything they need on their backpack, you can throw them, you know, far into deep into enemy territory and they'll figure out a way to establish a beachhead. And once that's done, right, then you bring in the army, right, which operates in a lockstep fashion, they need, you know, a whole supply chain to support them, but they can, from the beachhead, they can go there and acquire, gain more territory, you know, but they operate in large numbers with a lot of support and infrastructure. And finally, once all the territory is captured, then you need the police force, right, to maintain law and order, right, they're just making sure that things are working fine, that there are no complaints, and so on. And each of these is a very different skill set, right, so at early stages, you know, and that's very true with tech startups as well. In the beginning, you need these versatile people who are, you know, who are comfortable with lack of structure and lack of, you know, you have to do whatever is required and the, you know, the job requirement might vary by the day, because different things happen and different, you know, you have to deal with it. But it's a small team that can be very aggressive and figure that out. And then as it scales up, now you bring in the specialists, right, growth marketing, or it could be, you know, sales in a particular region, and so on, right. And then finally, you also bring in, you know, operations people and, you know, scale so that they can really run it at very high scale without things breaking, right, everything sort of runs very, very precisely. So I think one is that's the mindset. You need different attitudes at different stages of company growth. I think the other is just, you know, at least what I've found is trying to maintain and hold on to your culture, right, as long as you can. For example, I talked about some things earlier. You want to be, at least at Gapshap, we want to be, you know, very innovative, very entrepreneurial, very collaborative, you know, apolitical, you know, to the extent it's possible. I think really focus on solving external problems rather than creating internal challenges. I think empowering people, right. If you want to bring in entrepreneurial people, you have to give them the freedom and the flexibility to do, you know, to experiment, to try different things, because no one has a monopoly on ideas and so on, right. So we operate in such a new, you know, it's a new area that there's green field opportunities in every direction. So there's, you know, you can offer entrepreneurial opportunities to people as well while maintaining, you know, structure. You don't want things breaking because we have existing customers and scale and performance and so on. So I think it really, so an important thing is it's not just the resume value alone, but the attitude. How do you measure that in an interview? What do you ask to measure that? I think, you know, you can tell very quickly if people are flexible, they have a growth mindset, they are open, you know, if you ask, you know, or even why, like why did you switch from one job to another to another or what was the narrative? What's sort of the, what makes you tick? What's the driving force, right? What's the common thread and therefore if you extrapolate from that, right? So some people, you can just tell, oh, I was curious and I really wanted to do this and I, you know, tried this and then I tried that versus, you know, or I had this set back and then I dealt with it and I overcame that. So that tells you, you know, you can, you can sense sort of the resiliency, the, you know, the ability to deal with changing things or, you know, curiosity or sense of inquiry and so on, right? And, and also, you know, being, you know, a sense of humor, it sort of says, you know, you don't take yourself too seriously, right? It's, it's not like your ego is wound up into, you know, everything you're, you're talking about because, because entrepreneurship is a very humbling experience. I mean, every day, right, somebody has a smart idea and you don't and if you get your ego, right? So, so, so a lot of these things, right? I think, and some people are very versatile and adaptive, but others, let's say if they've worked in large organizations where your identity is tied into your hierarchy, into your, the size of your office space, into, you know, sort of your title, then those are not the kind of, you know, that's not the kind of mindset that will work in a startup environment where you're really just like, look, let's just get on with it and who around the room is the best idea and they could be a junior person. It doesn't, doesn't matter, right? And so on. Another thing we try to encourage people to do is, you know, is, is creative conflict is good. There are different ideas and so on. You don't want people to be excessively deferential to the, you know, you have these fresh young kids coming from school going, yes, ma'am and so on. And, you know, so we have a no-sir culture in our office, right? Saying, look, I don't want, you know, I'd get more mad at you if you do what I said than what you think was right, right? So, it's really important. How much progress do you have now? Well, so until a couple months ago, it was 200. We are now touching 300 and we'll probably end up at 400, you know, within a month or so. So it's growing very rapidly. And I think by the end of the year, it may be much larger as well. So we're expanding also global, right? We are in many countries outside India and so on. So growing very rapidly. So does it mean that at some stage when the organization is in multiple countries, there are different geographies to manage and all of that. So, you know, when you think about the complexity, would it still be possible for you to maintain the culture and the dream that you have? Oh, absolutely. And it's kind of funny, right? Culture transcends language, right? It transcends geography. I think we, of course, you have to do the extra bit to engage with people in different places. Now, personally, I've had the luxury or the privilege of, you know, I've spent half my life in India, half my life in the US, right? And I think that already is very different, very different cultures and places. And also, you know, growing up in India, it's such a heterogeneous society that it's very hard to be very insular because you're always dealing with people who speak different languages, eat different foods and, you know, different traditional clothes and so on, right? So you've grown up with this diversity and diversity doesn't bother you. In fact, you can see the humanity and the personality through those differences, right? Saying, you know, whether it was at IT or other places, it didn't matter which part of the country you came from, you're really debating ideas and sort of concepts on its merit. You know, so I think dealing with people, I think, again, right? So if you approach it from first principles, as opposed to saying, oh, you know, this person is different. So they may be, I don't know, if you have a stereotype or a prejudice saying they must be bad or good, I think those are the things that can get you into trouble. What if you're really open-minded saying, look, you know, yeah, there may be some cosmetic differences, but we actually, there are more similar in really meaningful ways than different. So it makes a huge difference. So no, we're growing a lot in Latin America and Europe in the US as well. I'm in here in Palo Alto right now, right? So I think we are, it's not been a problem if you, you know, if you, and a lot of it is, it depends on the leader, right? I mean, if you project the right kind of culture and personality into the organization, then everybody knows that this is, you know, then they don't think about where we are or what culture or language it really is just here's what needs to get done. Perfect. So, you know, I just want to sort of say thanks to all of you for joining. Thank you, Beirut. We are at the end of the hour. So thanks a million for joining and I so appreciate all the comments and the questions and, you know, we'll keep this going. And next week again, we are going to be back at the same time with yet another really super interesting person. So just stay tuned, look forward to your questions. And if you have any questions, you can email me and connect with me on LinkedIn and we'll take that. So thanks a lot and goodbye.