Meeting Title: Brainforge AE Date: 2025-02-20 Meeting participants: Bruno Vendruscolo, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:06:44.910 ⇒ 00:06:45.800 Uttam Kumaran: Hey!
2 00:06:48.110 ⇒ 00:06:49.270 Bruno Vendruscolo: Hello!
3 00:06:49.270 ⇒ 00:06:50.639 Uttam Kumaran: Hi! How are you?
4 00:06:50.890 ⇒ 00:06:52.489 Bruno Vendruscolo: I’m good. How are you?
5 00:06:52.660 ⇒ 00:06:55.880 Uttam Kumaran: Good. It’s been a long time. I feel like it’s been like maybe 3 years.
6 00:06:56.490 ⇒ 00:07:02.800 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yes, it’s been yes, I think 3 years. Yes.
7 00:07:02.800 ⇒ 00:07:03.159 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
8 00:07:03.804 ⇒ 00:07:05.510 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah, yeah. How have you been.
9 00:07:05.510 ⇒ 00:07:10.129 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve been really good. I I I’m living in Austin now.
10 00:07:11.132 ⇒ 00:07:15.049 Uttam Kumaran: I was in New York before, and yeah, sort of the last
11 00:07:15.410 ⇒ 00:07:19.628 Uttam Kumaran: 2 years have sort of been busy with this company.
12 00:07:20.340 ⇒ 00:07:23.670 Uttam Kumaran: it’s been really good. I’m like, I’m still doing really like
13 00:07:24.150 ⇒ 00:07:31.969 Uttam Kumaran: normal data stuff. And we’re starting to do some AI work as well. I’m working with, like, we have an awesome team of people. And
14 00:07:32.700 ⇒ 00:07:34.100 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, it’s been good.
15 00:07:35.700 ⇒ 00:07:44.440 Bruno Vendruscolo: Cool. That’s exciting. Well, was working at data culture. And then
16 00:07:47.410 ⇒ 00:07:56.420 Bruno Vendruscolo: in 2023 just decided to shift things a little bit. So Gabby and we left for for Prequel right? And
17 00:07:57.120 ⇒ 00:08:04.520 Bruno Vendruscolo: they started a new company. Things changed a little bit at data culture, the way that we were running projects,
18 00:08:05.930 ⇒ 00:08:09.259 Bruno Vendruscolo: and overall, I would say the team morale.
19 00:08:09.390 ⇒ 00:08:15.410 Bruno Vendruscolo: And then I just moved to, because, you know.
20 00:08:16.150 ⇒ 00:08:17.300 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay.
21 00:08:17.610 ⇒ 00:08:24.099 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah. And here I am. So I’m working at this company. It’s a German company
22 00:08:25.740 ⇒ 00:08:33.730 Bruno Vendruscolo: construction industry. And as a sole full stack data analyst, trying to do my best.
23 00:08:33.730 ⇒ 00:08:39.672 Uttam Kumaran: Never heard that role before. So full stack analyst. That’s a new role.
24 00:08:40.130 ⇒ 00:08:42.909 Bruno Vendruscolo: That is, that is challenging for sure. So.
25 00:08:43.184 ⇒ 00:08:46.359 Uttam Kumaran: It come with 4 times the pay for every 4 words right.
26 00:08:48.240 ⇒ 00:08:52.020 Bruno Vendruscolo: So formally. That’s a beta analyst role.
27 00:08:52.020 ⇒ 00:08:52.560 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
28 00:08:52.917 ⇒ 00:08:57.210 Bruno Vendruscolo: So I was, I was hired as a data analyst because I’m
29 00:08:57.340 ⇒ 00:09:06.160 Bruno Vendruscolo: I’m working in the product team, helping them with some reporting data analysis.
30 00:09:07.077 ⇒ 00:09:14.189 Bruno Vendruscolo: We use looker. But I’m also responsible for our Dbt project. And sometimes
31 00:09:15.090 ⇒ 00:09:21.520 Bruno Vendruscolo: when when I joined we were using 5 trend, but I decided to migrate to S. 3,
32 00:09:21.740 ⇒ 00:09:26.020 Bruno Vendruscolo: as the ingestion tool. Right? Sometimes
33 00:09:26.910 ⇒ 00:09:31.360 Bruno Vendruscolo: I need to create some custom scripts to get data from one place to the other
34 00:09:31.570 ⇒ 00:09:35.540 Bruno Vendruscolo: that type of stuff, and that was very new to me.
35 00:09:35.730 ⇒ 00:09:39.470 Bruno Vendruscolo: So that was something that I really wanted to do.
36 00:09:39.920 ⇒ 00:09:47.659 Bruno Vendruscolo: add data culture. But I never had a chance. But here, since I’m the only one doing that stuff they need to get data from
37 00:09:47.920 ⇒ 00:09:53.619 Bruno Vendruscolo: bigquery to active campaign or to salesforce. Do some reverse. Etl
38 00:09:54.448 ⇒ 00:10:02.909 Bruno Vendruscolo: we could use a tool like census, but we want to keep them the free tier. So sometimes we need to create a custom script
39 00:10:03.400 ⇒ 00:10:15.030 Bruno Vendruscolo: that sometimes run on github actions. Sometimes I use app engine to get data from activecampaign
40 00:10:15.400 ⇒ 00:10:17.889 Bruno Vendruscolo: to bigquery and things like this. So
41 00:10:19.740 ⇒ 00:10:25.629 Bruno Vendruscolo: these were my 1st python projects which was really really exciting to me.
42 00:10:25.750 ⇒ 00:10:29.129 Bruno Vendruscolo: because I had a chance to learn a little bit more about those.
43 00:10:30.310 ⇒ 00:10:33.820 Bruno Vendruscolo: But this is 10% of my workload.
44 00:10:34.180 ⇒ 00:10:40.760 Bruno Vendruscolo: It’s mainly Dbt, looker and usual
45 00:10:41.010 ⇒ 00:10:45.949 Bruno Vendruscolo: analytics, engineering workflow. Yeah. Look, ml, all that stuff.
46 00:10:45.950 ⇒ 00:10:53.789 Uttam Kumaran: What is the team structure like? Are you supporting other analysts? Are you supporting directly like business folks like other other data people? Or is it just like.
47 00:10:53.790 ⇒ 00:11:00.850 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah, yeah, it’s just me. So I’m the only data person at the company. So I’m usually
48 00:11:01.350 ⇒ 00:11:08.209 Bruno Vendruscolo: supporting product managers, sales, team customer success team.
49 00:11:08.430 ⇒ 00:11:12.879 Bruno Vendruscolo: These are the main ones. The CTO reviews. My pull requests.
50 00:11:13.568 ⇒ 00:11:25.280 Bruno Vendruscolo: I mean, I have weekly one on ones with the Vp of product, because I report directly to him. So he’s the guy actually helping me business context.
51 00:11:25.570 ⇒ 00:11:32.732 Bruno Vendruscolo: But I’m usually very in contact with the product managers. They demand 80% of what I do.
52 00:11:34.010 ⇒ 00:11:35.140 Bruno Vendruscolo: Technically.
53 00:11:35.760 ⇒ 00:11:43.740 Bruno Vendruscolo: the CTO reviews my code because he knows everything about the database, about data, his bill to the product. So
54 00:11:43.930 ⇒ 00:11:46.709 Bruno Vendruscolo: no one better than him. To to understand
55 00:11:47.320 ⇒ 00:11:50.610 Bruno Vendruscolo: whether what I’m doing is is correct.
56 00:11:50.710 ⇒ 00:11:53.310 Bruno Vendruscolo: This is basically that.
57 00:11:55.320 ⇒ 00:12:04.429 Uttam Kumaran: So what do you? What do you think like? How how did you? How do you compare this to to data culture and sort of even curious. I mean, again, we’re
58 00:12:05.570 ⇒ 00:12:10.250 Uttam Kumaran: we’re similar. And like, you know, we’re we’re doing. We’re working with multiple clients. But
59 00:12:10.440 ⇒ 00:12:20.060 Uttam Kumaran: I would say, probably different in a lot of ways just interested about how you compare and contrast what you’re doing now to that. And then also like what what part of that? What.
60 00:12:20.060 ⇒ 00:12:22.689 Bruno Vendruscolo: I still don’t understand this. Okay? Sorry.
61 00:12:22.690 ⇒ 00:12:26.900 Uttam Kumaran: Like, what part of that was really tough, like, you know, at data culture.
62 00:12:27.520 ⇒ 00:12:34.050 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah. So I think the work here is dynamic, but but less dynamic than what we had a data culture.
63 00:12:34.270 ⇒ 00:12:36.659 Bruno Vendruscolo: because we are switching contexts.
64 00:12:39.050 ⇒ 00:12:49.119 Bruno Vendruscolo: in a very distinguished way, the data culture, right? We are changing customers. Sometimes we are working for 1, 2, 3 customers at a time.
65 00:12:49.560 ⇒ 00:12:51.739 Bruno Vendruscolo: And this is this could be tough.
66 00:12:53.580 ⇒ 00:12:57.729 Bruno Vendruscolo: Right here it is dynamic, because sometimes we are switching
67 00:12:57.920 ⇒ 00:13:04.360 Bruno Vendruscolo: from Project A to Project B, since I’m the only one working like as a data person on the team.
68 00:13:04.530 ⇒ 00:13:05.400 Bruno Vendruscolo: So
69 00:13:05.650 ⇒ 00:13:14.369 Bruno Vendruscolo: it is very dynamic. The data culture was a bit more challenging because you were changing industry. So here I’m learning about the construction industry
70 00:13:15.055 ⇒ 00:13:22.369 Bruno Vendruscolo: overall a data culture. We were working for e-commercy companies. We had a project.
71 00:13:23.370 ⇒ 00:13:29.441 Bruno Vendruscolo: I think it was year. That was a famous one, but like Bitcoin.
72 00:13:30.060 ⇒ 00:13:33.000 Bruno Vendruscolo: all that stuff so it can change a lot.
73 00:13:33.210 ⇒ 00:13:33.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
74 00:13:33.640 ⇒ 00:13:34.510 Bruno Vendruscolo: And
75 00:13:35.380 ⇒ 00:13:42.649 Bruno Vendruscolo: and you have to adapt. So it’s always something that it feels like you have to start from scratch
76 00:13:42.960 ⇒ 00:13:47.860 Bruno Vendruscolo: when you were starting a new project for a new customer you have to
77 00:13:49.020 ⇒ 00:13:54.550 Bruno Vendruscolo: like, do a deep dive into their business, understand more about their
78 00:13:55.110 ⇒ 00:13:57.610 Bruno Vendruscolo: yeah business, what they are doing. It’s just
79 00:13:58.443 ⇒ 00:14:07.489 Bruno Vendruscolo: which is nice, just saying it’s more challenging. But I like this part of the work learning different things from different industries.
80 00:14:08.136 ⇒ 00:14:12.730 Bruno Vendruscolo: But I think it can be very challenging if
81 00:14:12.910 ⇒ 00:14:22.180 Bruno Vendruscolo: if you’re not doing this right right, because you can overload it can be very overwhelming if you’re not managing things correctly
82 00:14:22.410 ⇒ 00:14:25.698 Bruno Vendruscolo: that can be very confusing and very stressful.
83 00:14:26.670 ⇒ 00:14:33.340 Bruno Vendruscolo: even if with a great culture which data culture have, if you were working in
84 00:14:33.560 ⇒ 00:14:40.149 Bruno Vendruscolo: 2, 3, and sometimes you hear that you should be working in 4 or 5 different projects because you have time.
85 00:14:40.430 ⇒ 00:14:47.270 Bruno Vendruscolo: I don’t actually agree with that, because it’s kind of impossible to work in 5 different projects at the same time.
86 00:14:47.600 ⇒ 00:14:51.690 Bruno Vendruscolo: but 2 or 3 that’s doable. But you have to know
87 00:14:52.240 ⇒ 00:14:55.239 Bruno Vendruscolo: how to manage your time. Does it make sense? I mean.
88 00:14:55.240 ⇒ 00:15:02.034 Uttam Kumaran: I mean dude. It makes a lot of sense. So I I’m working on 7.
89 00:15:02.880 ⇒ 00:15:04.150 Bruno Vendruscolo: So? Well, that’s that’s.
90 00:15:04.150 ⇒ 00:15:09.770 Uttam Kumaran: Well, that’s how we’re we have 7 clients. So I’m like, you know, I’m involved in some way or another on.
91 00:15:09.770 ⇒ 00:15:12.440 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah, but I mean, if you have to.
92 00:15:13.550 ⇒ 00:15:14.069 Uttam Kumaran: For our.
93 00:15:14.070 ⇒ 00:15:15.100 Bruno Vendruscolo: Hands, on.
94 00:15:16.600 ⇒ 00:15:26.469 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m not good. I’m not a good example, but we do have. So our team now is like about 15 people. We have about half of that is in data.
95 00:15:27.261 ⇒ 00:15:30.420 Uttam Kumaran: Some of people are also working on AI clients.
96 00:15:30.570 ⇒ 00:15:35.299 Uttam Kumaran: We’re really focused on e-commerce and b 2 b Saas on the data side.
97 00:15:35.650 ⇒ 00:15:46.080 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s like most of our customers, which gives us like, it’s a little bit more focus. We’re building out marketing marts, sales, marts, customer service marks things like that.
98 00:15:46.560 ⇒ 00:15:49.199 Uttam Kumaran: We, for the most part, I think, very similar to you, and that
99 00:15:49.950 ⇒ 00:16:02.389 Uttam Kumaran: I sort of engage from my background because I was I was an ae at done bi work for a long time. But I I know what it’s like to have context switching. And I think where we sort of arrived is like
100 00:16:03.100 ⇒ 00:16:08.850 Uttam Kumaran: at least one to one of like every client has someone who’s dedicated on the Ae. Side
101 00:16:08.960 ⇒ 00:16:20.660 Uttam Kumaran: for me, I think, for aes for our size clients. I think it’s healthy to be able to at least do 2 that way. We have redundancy right? Because who’s gonna review your Pr.
102 00:16:20.870 ⇒ 00:16:42.160 Uttam Kumaran: Who’s gonna like, also talk through issues. And you want to be able to bring value from our other clients to every other client right? And improve. And I think 2 is okay. I think what we’re gonna most likely do is, and I don’t know. This is the 1st time I’ve never seen people do this. I think I’ve seen people do this on the sales and
103 00:16:42.330 ⇒ 00:16:57.979 Uttam Kumaran: Pm. Side, but I want to create some incentive for people to say, Hey, if you’re able to work, you get more money, basically, you know. And so it’s it’s not like pressure. But it is like an incentive meaning. If we’re able to handle
104 00:16:58.170 ⇒ 00:17:02.030 Uttam Kumaran: multiple. Then that’s a benefit. Because one.
105 00:17:02.130 ⇒ 00:17:12.399 Uttam Kumaran: the the less people were able to do this with, the more I can pay people. And I do think I want to build up a rock star team. Of that. We’re able to deliver work. But
106 00:17:12.940 ⇒ 00:17:18.870 Uttam Kumaran: it’s you’re able to bring opinions from other clients in, you know, that’s what’s like most
107 00:17:19.030 ⇒ 00:17:26.239 Uttam Kumaran: interesting to me. But it’s totally tough. I mean, look, I’m working on several clients, and it is hard to context switch. I mean, I’m
108 00:17:26.470 ⇒ 00:17:55.169 Uttam Kumaran: I’m of course, like probably the most invested in the business. So I I’ll do whatever I need to do. But we are hiring, you know, we we are almost now at 3 other analytics engineers, including me. We’re trying to bring on you know, one or 2 more, and basically at least have one person associated with every single one of our clients. Which means some people will be stretched across 2. Likely, I think 2 is a number. Unless one client is like
109 00:17:55.990 ⇒ 00:18:01.960 Uttam Kumaran: massive, then it’s like there’s at least 6 h of modeling every day.
110 00:18:02.376 ⇒ 00:18:05.139 Uttam Kumaran: But for most of our clients looking like more like
111 00:18:05.510 ⇒ 00:18:09.369 Uttam Kumaran: there’s usually like 2 to 3 h of modeling every day.
112 00:18:09.590 ⇒ 00:18:10.180 Uttam Kumaran: So.
113 00:18:10.180 ⇒ 00:18:10.600 Bruno Vendruscolo: See.
114 00:18:10.600 ⇒ 00:18:11.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
115 00:18:11.180 ⇒ 00:18:11.930 Bruno Vendruscolo: Let’s see.
116 00:18:12.380 ⇒ 00:18:13.700 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah, I mean.
117 00:18:13.870 ⇒ 00:18:22.979 Uttam Kumaran: But also I get it because I I’m still dude. I I write like 4. I do like 4 h of development work every day like, I can’t so hard to context switch
118 00:18:25.000 ⇒ 00:18:39.680 Uttam Kumaran: And what I’m trying to do now is sort of build a great team of like amazing aes. And so we can nurture people to to learn from each other. But also, like we’re all consulting and clients. It’s like it’s like.
119 00:18:40.030 ⇒ 00:18:56.920 Uttam Kumaran: it’s like on hard mode. Right? I have 5 different boss. I have 7 different bosses. And within those there’s maybe 5 bosses, right? So it’s like, it’s like data. It’s like on really hard. However, it’s hard, because there’s money. And so for me, I really think about okay, how can I make compelling offers the Aes who can handle
120 00:18:57.160 ⇒ 00:19:08.729 Uttam Kumaran: context switching in an agency context, but not in like a, you have to go to 10 meetings. You have to talk to the client. It’s actually more of like. I want our a used to have 6 HA day of like
121 00:19:09.260 ⇒ 00:19:13.850 Uttam Kumaran: no meanings, and I’m pretty good at that, like we meet in the morning.
122 00:19:13.990 ⇒ 00:19:16.939 Uttam Kumaran: And then most of the time it’s like all slack, or
123 00:19:17.550 ⇒ 00:19:21.720 Uttam Kumaran: we’re just working right? So so we we’re working on a process where we have.
124 00:19:22.770 ⇒ 00:19:26.930 Uttam Kumaran: We’re building these like pods per client and trying to give the engineers a lot of space.
125 00:19:27.467 ⇒ 00:19:30.679 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s a work in. It’s a work in progress, like. I think
126 00:19:30.950 ⇒ 00:19:35.490 Uttam Kumaran: sometimes things are more urgent than others, and it’s hard. But yeah.
127 00:19:36.900 ⇒ 00:19:39.460 Bruno Vendruscolo: I mean, if if it can work
128 00:19:40.130 ⇒ 00:19:45.030 Bruno Vendruscolo: everything like working for multiple clients, that’s totally fine.
129 00:19:45.500 ⇒ 00:19:57.360 Bruno Vendruscolo: I guess. What bothered me sometimes was that we were trying to implement because we are working on multiple clients. So we were trying to reduce the time spent on
130 00:19:57.640 ⇒ 00:19:59.890 Bruno Vendruscolo: planning the best for that client.
131 00:20:00.310 ⇒ 00:20:09.719 Bruno Vendruscolo: So okay, 5 trends. The go to option for ingestion. Well, not necessarily right. Sometimes it can get quite expensive.
132 00:20:09.720 ⇒ 00:20:10.300 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
133 00:20:10.770 ⇒ 00:20:14.789 Bruno Vendruscolo: And if you just want to do things quick.
134 00:20:15.300 ⇒ 00:20:18.069 Bruno Vendruscolo: you will not deliver with quality.
135 00:20:18.930 ⇒ 00:20:26.850 Bruno Vendruscolo: It gets messy when the client actually realizes and feels things are messy right? There’s no issue.
136 00:20:27.820 ⇒ 00:20:34.960 Bruno Vendruscolo: with working on multiple projects as long as you have time to do things with quality and
137 00:20:35.120 ⇒ 00:20:45.389 Bruno Vendruscolo: like customize solutions for your client right? Because you can be working with a company that leverage millions of dollars, and you can be working with
138 00:20:46.070 ⇒ 00:20:52.670 Bruno Vendruscolo: another company that has no budget, you should be able to adapt and not force like.
139 00:20:53.240 ⇒ 00:20:59.199 Bruno Vendruscolo: 5 trend snowflake and sigma or looker, it’s not necessary.
140 00:20:59.200 ⇒ 00:21:00.810 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
141 00:21:01.080 ⇒ 00:21:18.430 Uttam Kumaran: I totally agree. And like, even for our clients, like, we’re the same mode like we have people that have budget that don’t. And I don’t care like. I have no, in fact, probably like. And then, where I was just talking about this today, I may decide that we don’t do any sort of revenue partnerships with any vendors, because
142 00:21:19.410 ⇒ 00:21:35.339 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want to be like known to be like, we always push these guys and 5 track kind of sucks like it’s so expensive. We we stopped implementing them because so expensive and prices go up and down, and we always have to have a conversation with clients about that.
143 00:21:35.510 ⇒ 00:21:42.020 Uttam Kumaran: Also the Bi side. Like some people they don’t want like. They don’t need a hundred seats on some bi they need like 2 people in there.
144 00:21:42.550 ⇒ 00:21:54.560 Uttam Kumaran: Why should they have to sign an annual contract for that? So we have options. And but also I I want to do what’s best for the client first, st ideally, that means we use the best tools because our job is easier.
145 00:21:54.850 ⇒ 00:22:04.869 Uttam Kumaran: and then it lines up right. But I’m also like I talk to every single tool like vendor, find everything. But I’m also very skeptical, like I.
146 00:22:05.080 ⇒ 00:22:10.210 Uttam Kumaran: I try to keep things very neat, and like as few things as possible like consolidate.
147 00:22:10.410 ⇒ 00:22:15.399 Uttam Kumaran: But for clients we have, we meet clients that have either tried to start their own data stuff and failed.
148 00:22:15.900 ⇒ 00:22:37.090 Uttam Kumaran: or they have no idea where to start, and everything’s new for those people. They don’t care really about Snowflake. They don’t care about 5 sharing. They care about like the dashboard, and whether they can use the data to go make decisions. Everything before that. They’re kind of like don’t care about. So for that to be the most expensive piece of it. It’s a hard for us. It’s hard for me to have that conversation.
149 00:22:38.490 ⇒ 00:22:43.539 Uttam Kumaran: you know. And so yeah, I’m really, really like cognizant of that when we go to clients,
150 00:22:45.150 ⇒ 00:22:50.339 Uttam Kumaran: and instead, we try to win through like being like, Hey, we have solved your problem before.
151 00:22:50.490 ⇒ 00:22:55.779 Uttam Kumaran: We’re gonna sort of methodically. Look at the things that you’re doing and sort of help you along the way. You know.
152 00:22:56.217 ⇒ 00:23:01.480 Uttam Kumaran: I think originally, you know, it was just me and a couple of people sort of doing everything. Now.
153 00:23:01.700 ⇒ 00:23:03.699 Uttam Kumaran: we’re trying to build a really great
154 00:23:03.830 ⇒ 00:23:09.190 Uttam Kumaran: team of analytics, engineers of analysts. I’m the only data engineer. So I kind of set everything up.
155 00:23:09.400 ⇒ 00:23:16.159 Uttam Kumaran: And then we also meet once a day for every client like we have different. We have just 2 groups.
156 00:23:16.420 ⇒ 00:23:25.249 Uttam Kumaran: So then we talk about 3 clients in one meeting 3 clients, another meeting that way. You meet with your core, you meet with like horizontally with your like ae crew.
157 00:23:25.800 ⇒ 00:23:29.810 Uttam Kumaran: and then you also can meet like vertically with your like client crew.
158 00:23:30.630 ⇒ 00:23:38.249 Uttam Kumaran: I think that’s like pretty good, like I think there’s stuff in that vertical meeting that you can’t talk about, because people like this is too much
159 00:23:38.820 ⇒ 00:23:46.280 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t care about like the Dbt structure, but then the A. Meeting it’s like everybody would be like. Oh, I was also thinking about that.
160 00:23:46.560 ⇒ 00:23:51.599 Uttam Kumaran: So I found that, like having those you build camaraderie.
161 00:23:51.910 ⇒ 00:24:05.979 Uttam Kumaran: and then also the but- but then the client still gets love every day. And so it’s tough because I come from a software background. So I want to do standups and spring planning and sort of do that, but it’s tough because some things change every day.
162 00:24:06.310 ⇒ 00:24:12.309 Uttam Kumaran: However, I don’t. Wanna. I don’t wanna have 5 meetings a day. So I think we’re we’re sort of landing on like.
163 00:24:12.630 ⇒ 00:24:16.650 Uttam Kumaran: and we meet as a client pod every day. And then we meet as like a
164 00:24:16.800 ⇒ 00:24:19.470 Uttam Kumaran: crew in your technical discipline.
165 00:24:19.770 ⇒ 00:24:26.740 Uttam Kumaran: Because today, for example, today, we spent like 30 min talking about like naming conventions and like decisions on, like how we want to do that.
166 00:24:27.200 ⇒ 00:24:36.209 Uttam Kumaran: And that was great. I was like we came to a great decision on how we’re gonna move forward on something previously I may. I had to think of everything. And so now there’s more people sort of thinking about how we organize.
167 00:24:36.320 ⇒ 00:24:42.859 Uttam Kumaran: And again, we’re running 7 different Dbt projects. They should all be similar. We should do documentation, similar
168 00:24:43.500 ⇒ 00:24:47.310 Uttam Kumaran: cause, then it’s like easy for the next person to come in. They know how we work.
169 00:24:47.600 ⇒ 00:24:55.840 Uttam Kumaran: and then for everybody to learn, because if we’re, for example, one, we have one client that they’ve already connected Amazon and shopify and built some like combined model.
170 00:24:56.020 ⇒ 00:24:57.859 Uttam Kumaran: Another client just asked for that.
171 00:24:58.250 ⇒ 00:25:03.379 Uttam Kumaran: I’m like guys. We can’t, don’t. We’re not. We’re not talking about like this logic. Go look
172 00:25:03.610 ⇒ 00:25:13.149 Uttam Kumaran: how we did it before. Let’s have a meeting about how we did that. But, like those are the learnings that the additional client will benefit from in speed and confidence from us. Right?
173 00:25:13.550 ⇒ 00:25:21.810 Uttam Kumaran: That’s why they bring us on that. We’re not like fresh faced, right? We’ve seen it every we’ve seen so many of it. And that benefit you don’t get unless you you talk
174 00:25:22.080 ⇒ 00:25:25.379 Uttam Kumaran: to the other folks, you know, in your horizontal. So.
175 00:25:25.380 ⇒ 00:25:30.290 Bruno Vendruscolo: 100%. Yeah, yeah, amazing. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
176 00:25:30.900 ⇒ 00:25:35.410 Uttam Kumaran: So tell me about like, what do you think about your current job like, where are you right like?
177 00:25:35.570 ⇒ 00:25:40.769 Uttam Kumaran: What do you think about next you work in sort of agency. You work sort of like
178 00:25:41.050 ⇒ 00:25:43.920 Uttam Kumaran: as a solo, which is, which is also hard
179 00:25:44.070 ⇒ 00:25:48.299 Uttam Kumaran: like, what do you think you wanna do next? Like, you know? Yeah.
180 00:25:49.730 ⇒ 00:25:50.783 Bruno Vendruscolo: Good question.
181 00:25:54.850 ⇒ 00:26:01.099 Bruno Vendruscolo: I have such great memories about my time at data culture. And last week
182 00:26:01.840 ⇒ 00:26:04.030 Bruno Vendruscolo: I had a quick chat with Mike.
183 00:26:05.040 ⇒ 00:26:07.199 Bruno Vendruscolo: No, wait, Mike Weinberg.
184 00:26:07.620 ⇒ 00:26:08.420 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yes.
185 00:26:08.420 ⇒ 00:26:10.139 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, of course, of course.
186 00:26:10.700 ⇒ 00:26:16.330 Bruno Vendruscolo: And we still chat because I feel he was
187 00:26:17.590 ⇒ 00:26:21.199 Bruno Vendruscolo: one of the people responsible to change the course of my career.
188 00:26:21.700 ⇒ 00:26:23.750 Bruno Vendruscolo: Really nice. Same you, too double handy.
189 00:26:23.870 ⇒ 00:26:24.623 Uttam Kumaran: You too.
190 00:26:25.000 ⇒ 00:26:27.462 Bruno Vendruscolo: So, yeah, I I was just like, Mike,
191 00:26:28.040 ⇒ 00:26:34.179 Bruno Vendruscolo: how’s it going? Let’s chat. I miss you. And I was just telling him how
192 00:26:34.610 ⇒ 00:26:36.569 Bruno Vendruscolo: data. Culture was special to me.
193 00:26:37.552 ⇒ 00:26:45.499 Bruno Vendruscolo: From like, people grow so many things. Perspective, right? I learned so much.
194 00:26:45.950 ⇒ 00:26:55.239 Bruno Vendruscolo: And he saw potential that I couldn’t find in in league and was such a great experience.
195 00:26:55.460 ⇒ 00:27:01.999 Bruno Vendruscolo: and I told him that I wish I I had it again. And he was like, Okay, but you cannot try to
196 00:27:02.730 ⇒ 00:27:06.420 Bruno Vendruscolo: recreate something that you didn’t plan and was great.
197 00:27:06.530 ⇒ 00:27:11.441 Bruno Vendruscolo: Things won’t work if you try to do this. I was like, Okay, that makes sense.
198 00:27:12.230 ⇒ 00:27:16.840 Bruno Vendruscolo: but I had such a great time, and I remember everything that that we had, and
199 00:27:17.030 ⇒ 00:27:20.409 Bruno Vendruscolo: the hard times and good times that we we spend together.
200 00:27:21.100 ⇒ 00:27:22.440 Bruno Vendruscolo: That said
201 00:27:23.380 ⇒ 00:27:28.629 Bruno Vendruscolo: I changed to Kazuno, and it’s it’s been challenging. But I also love working for their team.
202 00:27:28.850 ⇒ 00:27:35.049 Bruno Vendruscolo: But I also miss the dynamic and working with the people things that I had a data culture.
203 00:27:35.880 ⇒ 00:27:42.850 Bruno Vendruscolo: Today I start my work day at 6 30 Am. 6, 6 30 Am. Because
204 00:27:43.120 ⇒ 00:27:49.181 Bruno Vendruscolo: presumo is from Germany, so I try to have, like a good overlap with their team.
205 00:27:50.350 ⇒ 00:27:54.310 Bruno Vendruscolo: and I stop at 3 pm. My time zone 3, 30.
206 00:27:54.600 ⇒ 00:27:59.229 Bruno Vendruscolo: If anything I would like to have some part time.
207 00:28:00.750 ⇒ 00:28:01.580 Bruno Vendruscolo: Bing!
208 00:28:02.158 ⇒ 00:28:13.500 Bruno Vendruscolo: Little bit more flexible things that could give me a chance to learn new things, work with people. Things like this collaborate, you know, that make any sense.
209 00:28:13.500 ⇒ 00:28:13.940 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
210 00:28:14.253 ⇒ 00:28:16.759 Bruno Vendruscolo: So this is what I have in mind.
211 00:28:17.710 ⇒ 00:28:20.939 Bruno Vendruscolo: I also had a just had a baby, so I’m afraid.
212 00:28:20.940 ⇒ 00:28:22.110 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, congrats!
213 00:28:22.510 ⇒ 00:28:34.681 Bruno Vendruscolo: Thank you. So she’s 2 months old and also learning a lot with her. She’s learning a lot from us not sure about this one, but we are learning from her for sure.
214 00:28:35.160 ⇒ 00:28:43.200 Bruno Vendruscolo: And it’s it’s everything going well, going going on pretty well.
215 00:28:43.330 ⇒ 00:28:49.490 Bruno Vendruscolo: So yes, if anything, I was just thinking about this part-time thing
216 00:28:49.750 ⇒ 00:28:59.110 Bruno Vendruscolo: that allows flexibility and new learnings. So you told me that you are working with AI implementation, not only data stuff.
217 00:28:59.750 ⇒ 00:29:05.840 Bruno Vendruscolo: But I would. I would love to learn more about data engineering overall AI things, because
218 00:29:06.730 ⇒ 00:29:11.349 Bruno Vendruscolo: I should be learning and working more with with all of that. So
219 00:29:12.200 ⇒ 00:29:17.679 Bruno Vendruscolo: that would be. That would be amazing. That’s what I have in mind. If that makes any sense.
220 00:29:17.680 ⇒ 00:29:21.010 Uttam Kumaran: That makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think the one thing about
221 00:29:21.190 ⇒ 00:29:26.089 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, so one, Mike, yeah, Mike, I worked with them when I when my 1st job
222 00:29:28.100 ⇒ 00:29:31.880 Uttam Kumaran: and yeah, one of my close friends, we talk all the time. He’s actually in our slack
223 00:29:32.410 ⇒ 00:29:41.416 Uttam Kumaran: in our company slack, and we talk in there. And yeah, he had a lot of really great things to say about you as well. And
224 00:29:41.950 ⇒ 00:29:45.009 Uttam Kumaran: I. And of course Neil is a is a
225 00:29:45.460 ⇒ 00:29:53.580 Uttam Kumaran: amazing friend of mine, too. So lucky he’s helped me out so much in building this business, and like how to think about building the business
226 00:29:53.680 ⇒ 00:29:55.270 Uttam Kumaran: doing it the right way.
227 00:29:55.911 ⇒ 00:30:04.040 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, I mean, I again, I think where we are is it’s a little bit chaotic right now where we are. I don’t think it’s chaotic
228 00:30:04.240 ⇒ 00:30:06.310 Uttam Kumaran: because of
229 00:30:06.860 ⇒ 00:30:13.750 Uttam Kumaran: like the work is challenging. It’s chaotic because we didn’t hire for a long time, because I didn’t have any money.
230 00:30:14.607 ⇒ 00:30:17.190 Uttam Kumaran: So we just sort of like built the business.
231 00:30:18.250 ⇒ 00:30:23.599 Uttam Kumaran: We, a couple of us did everything until we reached. We just started growing a lot in the last month
232 00:30:23.920 ⇒ 00:30:29.220 Uttam Kumaran: to where I’m trying to bring on like a really solid team of aes and solid team of analysts.
233 00:30:29.627 ⇒ 00:30:35.170 Uttam Kumaran: Because I think we have a clear path of how to grow even bigger. However, I want us to have
234 00:30:35.460 ⇒ 00:30:43.350 Uttam Kumaran: aes who are excited to not only take on work. That’s like, yeah, maybe multi client but challenging stuff.
235 00:30:43.520 ⇒ 00:30:47.409 Uttam Kumaran: but also are interested in getting like rewarded for that increase in effort.
236 00:30:47.760 ⇒ 00:30:49.940 Uttam Kumaran: So one of the things that we’re gonna work on
237 00:30:50.341 ⇒ 00:30:54.990 Uttam Kumaran: and maybe it’s helpful for once we sort of settle it. I’m happy to share with you is like, how do we?
238 00:30:55.410 ⇒ 00:30:56.529 Uttam Kumaran: How do we
239 00:30:56.890 ⇒ 00:31:09.930 Uttam Kumaran: give more to people if they decide to take on more? And in the consulting context, I don’t know whether, and then in data and in work in general. I don’t think that’s always the case, like I think, in sales. Maybe
240 00:31:10.310 ⇒ 00:31:14.479 Uttam Kumaran: so. There’s other roles that you have that like sort of like, if you do more, you win more.
241 00:31:14.480 ⇒ 00:31:15.740 Bruno Vendruscolo: Commission.
242 00:31:16.280 ⇒ 00:31:27.650 Uttam Kumaran: For some reason in data, nobody’s smart enough to do that. I have no idea why. And I want to go do that because I always felt it’s tough like when I’m taking on more work than the person next to me.
243 00:31:28.210 ⇒ 00:31:29.090 Uttam Kumaran: Libel
244 00:31:29.250 ⇒ 00:31:36.850 Uttam Kumaran: what’s going on like right? And so when I think about from my company like, so I think about it both as like if I was an engineer in my company.
245 00:31:37.020 ⇒ 00:31:40.140 Uttam Kumaran: How would I feel about that? I also think about it, like I am.
246 00:31:40.380 ⇒ 00:31:55.599 Uttam Kumaran: I am the representative of the company, so I play like both sides. On one hand, if I was, if I was a representative of the company. Yeah, it’s so dumb, because then I’m just giving away money. It’s like my job as a representative company is not to not to do that because
247 00:31:55.720 ⇒ 00:31:57.110 Uttam Kumaran: it costs money.
248 00:31:57.360 ⇒ 00:32:11.909 Uttam Kumaran: However, as an engineer, I’m like, I know that how good I was. If I if people just gave me a little bit more. Oh, my God! I would have really went for it, and I still did, anyways, you know, and that’s who we are. But
249 00:32:12.492 ⇒ 00:32:17.819 Uttam Kumaran: it didn’t. But then you start building resentment right? And that sort of piece in your head that grows, which is like
250 00:32:18.180 ⇒ 00:32:22.869 Uttam Kumaran: I’m all I’m like not being valued here. Blah blah! Those things one you could talk
251 00:32:23.030 ⇒ 00:32:47.060 Uttam Kumaran: you could meet one on one and sort of talk about it. But then, after a while, nothing changes, and so I don’t know. There’s I can work on the thing where it’s chatting like I can talk all day, but I think the biggest thing is more about, how do we show? So either we’re gonna work on something that’s like a profit share incentive client, renewal, incentive client upsell incentive for the engineers. If you’re able to handle 2 clients
252 00:32:47.200 ⇒ 00:33:00.299 Uttam Kumaran: or 3 clients, then there’s some bonus like, I’m gonna implement those because we want to create, you know, in data, there’s like a difference between someone who’s just normal and someone who’s great. It’s not like 2 x, it’s like 5 x
253 00:33:00.390 ⇒ 00:33:05.250 Uttam Kumaran: right? And in our business. This is data on hard mode. This is very, very difficult.
254 00:33:05.648 ⇒ 00:33:24.430 Uttam Kumaran: Tons of competing requests. However, I want to make it an environment where we have people that are very highly paid, super highly skilled, and can go into any situation sort of dominate like this. And there’s no typically consultants come in. It takes a month or 2 to sort of get going. You have the. You have the
255 00:33:24.510 ⇒ 00:33:44.890 Uttam Kumaran: weekly reviews, you know, all this process, but then, ultimately, like no work gets done. We’re trying to sort of I don’t know I don’t. I don’t know really how to. I never ran these businesses before. I’m an engineer, but I think about it as like if I was coming into that company. We need to communicate like their best employee right, and we need to deliver, like their best engineer.
256 00:33:45.250 ⇒ 00:33:48.993 Uttam Kumaran: And how can we orient the company towards that?
257 00:33:49.720 ⇒ 00:34:03.179 Uttam Kumaran: you know I if if I was, I built data teams before, so I know how to do that. I’ve never built a data. And I built data teams that support multiple parts of one business never done it where we’re supporting multiple parts of multiple businesses.
258 00:34:03.320 ⇒ 00:34:28.800 Uttam Kumaran: But I can tell the evolution like we went from 0 to now, we have 6 or 7 people on data. It’s great, because I get to step back. And I get to teach and show people how we could do interesting things in Dbt, how we can do interesting things in slow fake. How? How we can implement cheaper solutions, faster solutions, how we can go meet with the teams and do harder analyses. That’s the stuff that I get a lot of joy from
259 00:34:29.305 ⇒ 00:34:37.809 Uttam Kumaran: and being able to now hire and put people in those positions, and then sort of hug them and like, take everybody to the next level is what I want to do.
260 00:34:38.314 ⇒ 00:34:52.840 Uttam Kumaran: And of course, like everybody on our team, I don’t. I’m hiring and data. People hire like analytics, engineer data engineer. I don’t think there’s like those roles ever really like I I had 10 roles in my career, and all of them I did some version of the same thing.
261 00:34:53.050 ⇒ 00:35:03.560 Uttam Kumaran: So I give people roles because people told me that you have to give roles in the company. I don’t know. I’m not sure. I told P. People are like, what what’s my role I’m like.
262 00:35:04.730 ⇒ 00:35:09.119 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I’m like, I’m CEO. I guess, so you could be anything you really want to be if you want.
263 00:35:09.120 ⇒ 00:35:10.130 Uttam Kumaran: that’s awesome.
264 00:35:10.130 ⇒ 00:35:13.779 Uttam Kumaran: So I think those mentality that puts you in a box
265 00:35:13.990 ⇒ 00:35:18.709 Uttam Kumaran: where you’re like, oh, if I. If I’m doing data engineering work, I have to hand it off
266 00:35:19.260 ⇒ 00:35:27.800 Uttam Kumaran: right. And the way I describe it is like when you’re walking around your house, and there’s like a there’s something on the floor, and you pick it up. How do I create that incentive right where.
267 00:35:28.070 ⇒ 00:35:38.490 Uttam Kumaran: just because it’s like in someone else’s world. You’re not like, okay. Maybe I shouldn’t do that. There’s a fear it’s more like, Oh, I’m gonna I’ll handle that, too. I’ll handle it, too. I’ll handle whatever right?
268 00:35:39.383 ⇒ 00:36:01.570 Uttam Kumaran: It just so happens that we have these different phases of work. But I do data engineering. I I still do. Meta based stuff I’m doing. Dbt, stuff. I’m still doing analyses. I’m talking to clients right? So we’re all capable. It’s more I I want to find out for everybody in the team, what they want to do, and what their current capabilities are, and how I can help bridge the gap.
269 00:36:02.178 ⇒ 00:36:07.890 Uttam Kumaran: So I don’t know. I’m not sure. You know I was reading recently about, you know. Do you know this company called Palantir.
270 00:36:08.460 ⇒ 00:36:09.240 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah.
271 00:36:09.360 ⇒ 00:36:36.169 Uttam Kumaran: They they had they? They were very similar company in that. They started as a big consulting company, and they just they. They didn’t have engineers. They didn’t have like data engineers back. And they just had forward deployed engineers, meaning, these are just engineers that are forwardly deployed. And then they had they had palantir platform people. So what would happen is, people would go work on the clients, and then they would talk to the engineers that were on the platform team and Palantir would build
272 00:36:36.470 ⇒ 00:36:40.870 Uttam Kumaran: all of those little things. They did one off. They would build it into software, repeatable software.
273 00:36:40.980 ⇒ 00:36:49.749 Uttam Kumaran: right? But I like the concept of like, you’re just a forward deployed engineer. Maybe I should just call like data engineer. Maybe we should say Brainforge engineer. But I don’t really like.
274 00:36:50.360 ⇒ 00:36:54.770 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t like putting the box, because I never felt like I was in a box.
275 00:36:55.240 ⇒ 00:36:59.170 Uttam Kumaran: So now that I have a company, why should I be doing that.
276 00:36:59.400 ⇒ 00:37:07.350 Uttam Kumaran: And so I don’t know. These are all like a lot of things that I think about. I think some things I will be able to do, and uniquely, some things. I’m sure there’s reasons why they’re where they are.
277 00:37:07.620 ⇒ 00:37:13.240 Uttam Kumaran: But my ultimate goal is to build the best team of of data. And AI folks
278 00:37:13.340 ⇒ 00:37:15.699 Uttam Kumaran: that can go into any company and sort of
279 00:37:16.067 ⇒ 00:37:29.460 Uttam Kumaran: move the needle for them, you know, and that’s that’s always been the goal. It’s it was a me for a while, then it was a couple of people, and now it’s a little bit more people. But we’re we. We’re we’re getting really good clients. We’re getting really tough problems.
280 00:37:29.996 ⇒ 00:37:34.869 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, I’m like, I, I want to try to work with people that same, you know, mindset. So.
281 00:37:36.590 ⇒ 00:37:41.349 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yes, I mean, that sounds that sounds very exciting, and I think in a very similar way. So
282 00:37:43.130 ⇒ 00:37:44.010 Bruno Vendruscolo: Hi! There!
283 00:37:44.440 ⇒ 00:37:48.809 Bruno Vendruscolo: I don’t think I have a role today. So it’s data and analytics stuff. Right?
284 00:37:49.560 ⇒ 00:37:57.170 Bruno Vendruscolo: That’s what is on my Linkedin. By the way, so it’s just like you could be data mechanic anything. I I really don’t care about roles.
285 00:37:58.630 ⇒ 00:38:02.169 Bruno Vendruscolo: I, the only thing I care about is making sure
286 00:38:02.340 ⇒ 00:38:09.426 Bruno Vendruscolo: I’m growing the sense I’m learning really good stuff and how to sew problems
287 00:38:10.940 ⇒ 00:38:24.676 Bruno Vendruscolo: and whenever possible I wanna learn from the best. And I was just talking to Max, and I was just like, well, when are we working together? When are you hiring me? Right?
288 00:38:25.610 ⇒ 00:38:27.210 Bruno Vendruscolo: that never happened.
289 00:38:27.380 ⇒ 00:38:33.572 Bruno Vendruscolo: I had for maybe 10 h of my sign when I was a data culture. And
290 00:38:34.080 ⇒ 00:39:00.618 Bruno Vendruscolo: and I think he talked about you. And just like, Yes, I wish I had this a little bit more than I have today, because I’m the only one pushing things right? Today. And I I wish I had. Sometimes I wish I had someone pushing and do this better you could do this. Yes, okay, I’ll learn and that’s great. Feel good about this. And I I mean roles, doesn’t. It? Doesn’t matter at all.
291 00:39:01.960 ⇒ 00:39:09.380 Uttam Kumaran: I think about client success. And I think about having the happiest people and giving engineers tough problems.
292 00:39:09.520 ⇒ 00:39:13.230 Uttam Kumaran: because nothing is worse than having, like dumb problems
293 00:39:13.360 ⇒ 00:39:17.730 Uttam Kumaran: clicking buttons in a ui like, nothing is more boring than that.
294 00:39:17.860 ⇒ 00:39:28.080 Uttam Kumaran: right? And for us, like we need tough problems. But also, it’s like you want. You want to feel like you are actually solving a problem that you’re not. You’re not the problem
295 00:39:28.320 ⇒ 00:39:32.939 Uttam Kumaran: right? I don’t know. I just felt as an engineer at many companies. I felt like we were always like.
296 00:39:33.070 ⇒ 00:39:34.440 Uttam Kumaran: oh, they’re just in the back.
297 00:39:34.820 ⇒ 00:39:43.509 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, blame the engineers! They’re they’re slow, blah blah now. It’s it’s hard because our company DNA, is like engineering, and
298 00:39:43.660 ⇒ 00:39:51.929 Uttam Kumaran: I’m work. I see the whole stack, so there’s no on one hand, there’s nowhere to hide. But, on the other hand, there’s a lot of empathy because I
299 00:39:52.540 ⇒ 00:39:58.400 Uttam Kumaran: there’d be people on the project management, and we don’t have many business people, I would say, like mostly engineers.
300 00:39:59.840 ⇒ 00:40:06.810 Uttam Kumaran: I I would like to use AI for a lot of the project management. But we have to. We we do a lot of, we do some project management stuff. And
301 00:40:07.356 ⇒ 00:40:11.900 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, it’s tough, because it’s easy for them. They don’t know our world. So they’re like, it’s just slow. And I’m like.
302 00:40:12.310 ⇒ 00:40:14.870 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, look, let’s break it down. And and.
303 00:40:14.870 ⇒ 00:40:15.270 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah.
304 00:40:15.270 ⇒ 00:40:19.130 Uttam Kumaran: And also for many people that haven’t worked in an agency mindset. It can be like.
305 00:40:19.460 ⇒ 00:40:21.820 Uttam Kumaran: you can feel that fear where you’re like.
306 00:40:21.960 ⇒ 00:40:37.019 Uttam Kumaran: where I’m gonna let this person down. I’m gonna let the client down. The client’s gonna yell at this person. I like that person. I don’t want them to get yelled at. It’s like but you, my job is to make everybody feel protected like nothing is gonna happen. If the client yells
307 00:40:37.190 ⇒ 00:40:40.140 Uttam Kumaran: I can get yelled at my business partner. Get yelled at
308 00:40:40.470 ⇒ 00:40:43.910 Uttam Kumaran: like, but like you create an environment for the engineers of like.
309 00:40:44.030 ⇒ 00:40:51.569 Uttam Kumaran: it’s it’s like what you call like a blameless culture, right? Where the only people that can take the blame is the company.
310 00:40:51.690 ⇒ 00:40:58.810 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like us collectively. Yeah, maybe there’s something everybody knows. Yeah, I could have done this, but I could have this better, but like it lowers the stakes.
311 00:40:59.000 ⇒ 00:41:02.369 Uttam Kumaran: So you don’t come to the work with like a fear mindset, right.
312 00:41:02.670 ⇒ 00:41:09.109 Uttam Kumaran: and it’s hard. It’s really hard. Some days, like I worked at many startups where that was the case where I wake up. And I’m like, I don’t want to check
313 00:41:09.610 ⇒ 00:41:11.879 Uttam Kumaran: my phone. I wanna check slack
314 00:41:12.855 ⇒ 00:41:21.984 Uttam Kumaran: and there’s still some days where I feel like that. But not from a fear more from like. I need to sleep sometimes, but
315 00:41:22.840 ⇒ 00:41:24.309 Bruno Vendruscolo: 7 projects.
316 00:41:24.310 ⇒ 00:41:27.856 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s getting better. It’s getting better.
317 00:41:28.410 ⇒ 00:41:38.810 Uttam Kumaran: But more from like you wanna be excited to be like cool. I’m gonna tackle these huge issues. And I’m gonna get paid for it. And like, we’re all gonna make a lot of money here like, that’s what I think.
318 00:41:39.279 ⇒ 00:41:39.750 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah.
319 00:41:39.750 ⇒ 00:41:45.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, no company I worked at ever said that, so they didn’t say it out loud. They had all this like other
320 00:41:46.030 ⇒ 00:41:55.010 Uttam Kumaran: way of saying things, and I don’t know. I feel like maybe I’ll get in trouble one day, or someone will talk. But like I feel ultimately, it’s like you want to work on hard problems.
321 00:41:55.430 ⇒ 00:41:57.909 Uttam Kumaran: and you want to try to make a lot of money doing it.
322 00:41:58.220 ⇒ 00:42:06.660 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s like, and for me, my tool set is data. And AI. So I wanna try to get other people to come. Do that with us, you know. So.
323 00:42:06.660 ⇒ 00:42:07.320 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah.
324 00:42:07.320 ⇒ 00:42:07.900 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
325 00:42:08.450 ⇒ 00:42:26.029 Uttam Kumaran: So I why don’t I see? If, like, there’s an opportunity, even part time, or even to join and talk to some more people in the company. I I definitely hear where you’re at, and I don’t. I I think you should. Also, I mean, I’m sure you are. But it’s definitely. We’re a new company. I mean, we’ve been around since 2023, but
326 00:42:26.260 ⇒ 00:42:37.019 Uttam Kumaran: you probably know a little, probably a little bit of the issues of data culture where you’re managing clients and stuff. But I do think that over the next 6 months we are building out a great foundational data team
327 00:42:37.160 ⇒ 00:42:41.509 Uttam Kumaran: where not only you’re learning from one client, and you’re sort of wake up. And you’re like this client.
328 00:42:41.850 ⇒ 00:42:49.379 Uttam Kumaran: We’re building camaraderie across the horizontal. Also, we will do things as a whole data team and a whole engineering team.
329 00:42:50.840 ⇒ 00:42:55.389 Uttam Kumaran: We have yet to use a lot of AI on the data team. But I bought everyone cursor.
330 00:42:55.520 ⇒ 00:43:02.450 Uttam Kumaran: I buy everyone any AI tool that they want to use for anything, so it’ll get better over the next 6 months. So I’m.
331 00:43:02.450 ⇒ 00:43:04.660 Bruno Vendruscolo: I was actually looking at cursor.
332 00:43:05.140 ⇒ 00:43:08.239 Uttam Kumaran: I gotta do. It’s so good. Oh, my God, it’s the best!
333 00:43:08.590 ⇒ 00:43:14.939 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a whatever the $2020, or whatever worth it I’m telling you.
334 00:43:15.560 ⇒ 00:43:24.179 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah, I tried that really quickly. A couple of months ago, just stopped using Vs code and started using cursors just like.
335 00:43:25.280 ⇒ 00:43:26.450 Bruno Vendruscolo: that’s amazing.
336 00:43:26.710 ⇒ 00:43:27.160 Uttam Kumaran: It’s okay.
337 00:43:27.160 ⇒ 00:43:28.899 Bruno Vendruscolo: Best thing, ever. Right.
338 00:43:28.920 ⇒ 00:43:29.660 Uttam Kumaran: I know.
339 00:43:29.840 ⇒ 00:43:33.650 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yeah, I mean all make sense to me.
340 00:43:33.910 ⇒ 00:43:35.849 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, okay.
341 00:43:35.850 ⇒ 00:43:38.019 Bruno Vendruscolo: Things that you were saying. And I think we
342 00:43:38.630 ⇒ 00:43:43.679 Bruno Vendruscolo: we’re on a very similar page because the culture part
343 00:43:44.310 ⇒ 00:43:51.299 Bruno Vendruscolo: makes a lot of sense. When I joined Kazuno I wasn’t feeling actually safe.
344 00:43:51.460 ⇒ 00:44:03.219 Bruno Vendruscolo: insecure about my choice. They were very different. They just wanted to make sure that I would deliver quickly, and I would be the best for the position.
345 00:44:03.780 ⇒ 00:44:13.189 Bruno Vendruscolo: And that’s not how it was with data culture data. Culture was like Mike interviewing me, running just writing
346 00:44:13.420 ⇒ 00:44:32.410 Bruno Vendruscolo: feel sequel lines in the browser just saying, Okay, that makes sense. And things like this right? And and they Leah Gabby and Mike, they all make me feel very, very safe, and if they yell at you no worries, you’re here to learn, and
347 00:44:32.550 ⇒ 00:44:41.780 Bruno Vendruscolo: that made me feel really really good and special. And I think this is what a this is, a type of environment and culture
348 00:44:42.140 ⇒ 00:44:49.279 Bruno Vendruscolo: that I would like to experience once again, pretty much open to chat
349 00:44:50.040 ⇒ 00:44:56.140 Bruno Vendruscolo: and to jump on projects. So problems and things like this. So, yeah.
350 00:44:56.680 ⇒ 00:45:03.769 Bruno Vendruscolo: yeah, how about I? How about I find out over the next week or so I would love for you to talk to someone else, to find out if I was lying about everything.
351 00:45:04.414 ⇒ 00:45:07.209 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll I’ll have you talk to someone else on the team.
352 00:45:07.642 ⇒ 00:45:16.550 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, like again, I I think we’re making some hires right now. But I want you to feel confident about us, but also again, even if it’s not the right time, like
353 00:45:16.860 ⇒ 00:45:32.119 Uttam Kumaran: life, life goes on, and we. If the business grows, we’re gonna need people forever. So I it’s no like no pressure. And I’ll just I would love to introduce you to just maybe one or 2 other people on our engineering team, and you can chat with them.
354 00:45:32.400 ⇒ 00:45:37.210 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, you have my number. So you can message me or whatever, and we’ll just like kinda
355 00:45:37.680 ⇒ 00:45:40.529 Uttam Kumaran: have conversations, and you let me know what you think.
356 00:45:41.390 ⇒ 00:45:43.930 Bruno Vendruscolo: Amazing. I mean, that works we can.
357 00:45:44.110 ⇒ 00:45:49.960 Bruno Vendruscolo: I can chat with anybody else. Okay on the team. And
358 00:45:51.170 ⇒ 00:45:58.600 Bruno Vendruscolo: I mean, I’m also open anytime or anything. If you wanna chat, discuss anything, be around
359 00:45:59.777 ⇒ 00:46:05.690 Bruno Vendruscolo: but yeah, I mean the part time thing. That’s something that would definitely work for me right now.
360 00:46:05.690 ⇒ 00:46:06.230 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
361 00:46:06.340 ⇒ 00:46:12.439 Uttam Kumaran: okay, yeah. If anything opens up short term on that, I’ll let you know we’re just again, we are. We’re onboarding 2 more
362 00:46:12.800 ⇒ 00:46:18.229 Uttam Kumaran: analytics engineers. And so we’re figuring out where we stop gaps.
363 00:46:18.636 ⇒ 00:46:22.890 Uttam Kumaran: So at that point I can probably let you know if there’s something where we just need like
364 00:46:23.030 ⇒ 00:46:26.260 Uttam Kumaran: 2 or 4 HA day, or something like that, and you can fill in.
365 00:46:27.230 ⇒ 00:46:28.810 Bruno Vendruscolo: Amazing, amazing.
366 00:46:29.730 ⇒ 00:46:31.640 Bruno Vendruscolo: That’s a very nice dog.
367 00:46:32.482 ⇒ 00:46:36.669 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, he’s very nice, and he’s very tired of doing nothing all day.
368 00:46:37.740 ⇒ 00:46:41.070 Bruno Vendruscolo: I mean, I mean, that’s that’s what they do right.
369 00:46:41.070 ⇒ 00:46:44.310 Uttam Kumaran: I tried to tell him to go outside, and he came back in.
370 00:46:44.420 ⇒ 00:46:50.299 Uttam Kumaran: but it’s so cold here I can’t leave the door open, but he doesn’t like he gets worried. If I close the door.
371 00:46:50.900 ⇒ 00:46:51.959 Bruno Vendruscolo: How cold is it.
372 00:46:52.420 ⇒ 00:46:54.900 Uttam Kumaran: It’s 30 degrees in Austin.
373 00:46:55.540 ⇒ 00:46:56.950 Bruno Vendruscolo: Okay, okay, that’s good.
374 00:46:56.950 ⇒ 00:46:57.620 Uttam Kumaran: Nevertheless.
375 00:46:57.620 ⇒ 00:46:58.280 Bruno Vendruscolo: 0.
376 00:46:58.490 ⇒ 00:46:59.059 Uttam Kumaran: 0 0.
377 00:46:59.060 ⇒ 00:46:59.580 Bruno Vendruscolo: That’s right.
378 00:47:00.410 ⇒ 00:47:02.170 Bruno Vendruscolo: This is. This is very cool.
379 00:47:02.380 ⇒ 00:47:10.829 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s and so. But if I leave I can’t leave the door open. But then, if he wants me to leave the door, but so you can come inside and out
380 00:47:11.310 ⇒ 00:47:15.709 Uttam Kumaran: if I but if I close the door, then he starts getting worried. He’s like, I don’t know where he is like.
381 00:47:16.170 ⇒ 00:47:20.122 Uttam Kumaran: and I’m like, I don’t know how to. How can I solve this problem for you?
382 00:47:21.182 ⇒ 00:47:23.620 Bruno Vendruscolo: It’s so beautiful.
383 00:47:27.471 ⇒ 00:47:34.460 Uttam Kumaran: The door locking. So I’m gonna go check, Babe.
384 00:47:35.800 ⇒ 00:47:37.439 Bruno Vendruscolo: And and why often.
385 00:47:38.565 ⇒ 00:47:42.304 Uttam Kumaran: I just. I was working in New York for
386 00:47:43.260 ⇒ 00:47:49.199 Uttam Kumaran: for a while. And you know, I actually, I originally worked with Lee and Gabby. At we work. I worked with Mike at wework.
387 00:47:50.020 ⇒ 00:47:54.079 Uttam Kumaran: I did some early work for data culture when they 1st started the company
388 00:47:54.559 ⇒ 00:47:59.199 Uttam Kumaran: and then, of course, I was at Prequel. I led Prequel for a while.
389 00:47:59.670 ⇒ 00:48:02.970 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, after that, I sort of just wanted a break
390 00:48:03.160 ⇒ 00:48:14.789 Uttam Kumaran: from like a lot of like in New York is a little bit crazy. I was working a lot, and during Covid I sort of was traveling a bit in the us, and I came to Austin, and I really enjoyed it. It was super super nice.
391 00:48:15.312 ⇒ 00:48:22.630 Uttam Kumaran: Just like very great quality of life, very peaceful and chill. I mean, I’m still working a lot so like outside of work. It’s like
392 00:48:23.260 ⇒ 00:48:32.860 Uttam Kumaran: very calm, you know, and which is really really nice. In New York. It was tough to like feel any sort of peace outside of work. Even at work, was like
393 00:48:33.120 ⇒ 00:48:36.299 Uttam Kumaran: kind of crazy. So it’s nice to
394 00:48:37.070 ⇒ 00:48:40.190 Uttam Kumaran: to sort of be able to sit and work, and I’m in a house
395 00:48:40.310 ⇒ 00:48:44.419 Uttam Kumaran: what it would cost me to have a 1 bedroom in New York, so.
396 00:48:46.240 ⇒ 00:48:55.509 Bruno Vendruscolo: I think people who live there like New York, they they want to enjoy New York as city right? So all that craziness.
397 00:48:55.990 ⇒ 00:48:57.879 Bruno Vendruscolo: So I think this is part of
398 00:48:58.040 ⇒ 00:49:04.030 Bruno Vendruscolo: living there, and I think they really love. They live there. They wanna love it. They have to love it.
399 00:49:05.900 ⇒ 00:49:08.780 Bruno Vendruscolo: But not everyone needs or wants.
400 00:49:09.270 ⇒ 00:49:09.850 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
401 00:49:10.170 ⇒ 00:49:11.569 Bruno Vendruscolo: Thing. Right? So yeah.
402 00:49:11.720 ⇒ 00:49:12.290 Uttam Kumaran: Definitely.
403 00:49:12.290 ⇒ 00:49:12.670 Bruno Vendruscolo: Yes, sir.
404 00:49:12.670 ⇒ 00:49:19.350 Uttam Kumaran: I I think it’s it’s good that I’m here cause like my girlfriend she doesn’t. She like, didn’t even doesn’t even know what I do for work.
405 00:49:19.560 ⇒ 00:49:22.019 Uttam Kumaran: Most people here don’t. Don’t talk about work.
406 00:49:22.570 ⇒ 00:49:26.080 Uttam Kumaran: which is great, because in New York the 1st thing people do is like, what do you do.
407 00:49:26.970 ⇒ 00:49:27.940 Bruno Vendruscolo: Oh, yeah.
408 00:49:28.220 ⇒ 00:49:31.109 Uttam Kumaran: Here. They don’t do that. It’s like, What are you doing later?
409 00:49:31.280 ⇒ 00:49:33.909 Uttam Kumaran: What do you like to do? That’s nice, you know.
410 00:49:34.120 ⇒ 00:49:37.668 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t need more pressure.
411 00:49:38.630 ⇒ 00:49:42.340 Bruno Vendruscolo: Cool. I I mean, that’s that’s okay. A little bit.
412 00:49:43.980 ⇒ 00:49:45.390 Bruno Vendruscolo: No work.
413 00:49:46.450 ⇒ 00:49:47.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
414 00:49:48.250 ⇒ 00:49:50.170 Bruno Vendruscolo: That’s good. That’s good. Well,
415 00:49:51.630 ⇒ 00:49:55.390 Bruno Vendruscolo: that’s amazing. It’s amazing. It was great.
416 00:49:55.770 ⇒ 00:49:57.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, really nice chatting with you.
417 00:49:57.020 ⇒ 00:49:58.029 Bruno Vendruscolo: To you again.
418 00:49:58.030 ⇒ 00:50:10.470 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, I appreciate the time, and I’ll love to connect you with another person, and let’s keep talking like. And anything I can do to help please let me know this for this or otherwise. Happy to.
419 00:50:11.730 ⇒ 00:50:14.730 Bruno Vendruscolo: Sure me, too. I’ll be always around.
420 00:50:15.150 ⇒ 00:50:20.860 Bruno Vendruscolo: Just reach out and thank you so much again for your time, especially.
421 00:50:20.860 ⇒ 00:50:21.230 Uttam Kumaran: Of course.
422 00:50:22.140 ⇒ 00:50:23.309 Bruno Vendruscolo: 7. Different, pro.
423 00:50:23.310 ⇒ 00:50:30.309 Uttam Kumaran: No, this is my favorite. This is what I was looking forward to all day. I don’t wanna go. I have to go back to go back into cursor right after this. So.
424 00:50:30.310 ⇒ 00:50:34.159 Bruno Vendruscolo: So yeah, that’s a nice friend as well.
425 00:50:34.160 ⇒ 00:50:35.426 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yes.
426 00:50:37.220 ⇒ 00:50:38.010 Bruno Vendruscolo: Thank you so much.
427 00:50:38.010 ⇒ 00:50:40.000 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Thank you talk soon.
428 00:50:40.000 ⇒ 00:50:41.000 Bruno Vendruscolo: Take care bye, bye.