2026-02-09_brainforge_cso_weekly_sync_561a37f7

Meeting Title: Brainforge CSO Weekly Sync Date: 2026-02-09 Meeting participants: Greg Stoutenburg, Clarence Stone, Uttam Kumaran, Demilade Agboola, Pranav, Pranav Narahari

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WEBVTT

1 00:00:33.470 ⇒ 00:00:35.489 Clarence Stone: What’s up, Greg? How’s it going?

2 00:00:36.420 ⇒ 00:00:38.089 Greg Stoutenburg: Hey, doing great, how are you, Pirates?

3 00:00:38.660 ⇒ 00:00:40.780 Clarence Stone: Good! It’s been busy.

4 00:00:41.840 ⇒ 00:00:43.340 Greg Stoutenburg: Yes, same.

5 00:00:43.770 ⇒ 00:00:45.030 Clarence Stone: What’s going on?

6 00:00:47.450 ⇒ 00:00:58.510 Greg Stoutenburg: Just, I’m all good, like, Eden has just been making a lot of requests, so, great to have. They trust our team and are asking for all sorts of stuff, so…

7 00:00:59.220 ⇒ 00:01:03.619 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, doing work, billing hours, that was the goal.

8 00:01:03.820 ⇒ 00:01:04.660 Clarence Stone: Nice.

9 00:01:04.660 ⇒ 00:01:06.039 Greg Stoutenburg: Maybe I should move.

10 00:01:07.500 ⇒ 00:01:15.109 Clarence Stone: how… how’s everything going on that front? Are you feeling overloaded, or is this exactly what you were hoping for? Like.

11 00:01:15.110 ⇒ 00:01:15.670 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.

12 00:01:15.670 ⇒ 00:01:16.420 Clarence Stone: the bike.

13 00:01:16.640 ⇒ 00:01:21.509 Greg Stoutenburg: No, that’s a good question. I think it’s the right amount of volume right now.

14 00:01:22.080 ⇒ 00:01:42.020 Greg Stoutenburg: it does have me thinking, like, you know, because there have been conversations around, like, what’s the… what’s the ideal number of clients to be managing, and it has made me go, like, man, if I had 4 Eden’s, that’s, like, that’s 2 jobs. So, I guess maybe it depends on… maybe it depends on what those clients are like. But yeah, I mean, for right now, it’s great.

15 00:01:42.860 ⇒ 00:01:43.380 Clarence Stone: Nice.

16 00:01:43.610 ⇒ 00:01:44.500 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep.

17 00:01:45.230 ⇒ 00:01:47.140 Clarence Stone: Are you on any other planes?

18 00:01:47.730 ⇒ 00:02:03.180 Greg Stoutenburg: I’m on default as well, for a product analytics implementation for them. They already have Post Hog, but haven’t really been using it much. Like, one person uses it a little, so I’m building on a tracking plan for them, and working with

19 00:02:03.490 ⇒ 00:02:09.480 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I mean, working with our team to get their analytics stood up and actually usable.

20 00:02:11.700 ⇒ 00:02:12.590 Clarence Stone: Nice.

21 00:02:12.590 ⇒ 00:02:13.310 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep.

22 00:02:17.220 ⇒ 00:02:18.450 Clarence Stone: What’s up, Wu Town?

23 00:02:19.600 ⇒ 00:02:22.110 Clarence Stone: Demi? Who else is here?

24 00:02:27.300 ⇒ 00:02:28.040 Uttam Kumaran: Guys.

25 00:02:29.490 ⇒ 00:02:30.550 Pranav: Hello!

26 00:02:37.510 ⇒ 00:02:47.279 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I didn’t send out a thing before this, but, we’ll probably go around the horn, maybe, unless anyone has any specific topics.

27 00:02:49.940 ⇒ 00:02:53.930 Uttam Kumaran: What’s our usual format for this? .

28 00:02:55.980 ⇒ 00:02:57.610 Greg Stoutenburg: Filling out your doc right now.

29 00:02:57.610 ⇒ 00:03:01.079 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay, okay, let’s do Doc, then, yeah, I would love to do that.

30 00:03:02.510 ⇒ 00:03:04.270 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let’s take 5 minutes.

31 00:03:04.770 ⇒ 00:03:05.340 Pranav: You bet.

32 00:03:27.000 ⇒ 00:03:33.579 Greg Stoutenburg: I put a little part at the top and just wrote template, so if you want to just grab that top block and copy and paste, maybe we just leave that there for future meetings.

33 00:03:33.580 ⇒ 00:03:35.160 Uttam Kumaran: Knife. Yes.

34 00:07:07.650 ⇒ 00:07:08.780 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, we ready?

35 00:07:13.010 ⇒ 00:07:13.400 Pranav: Almost.

36 00:07:13.400 ⇒ 00:07:14.300 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.

37 00:10:25.290 ⇒ 00:10:26.989 Clarence Stone: Alright, Pranav, you’re good to go.

38 00:10:28.120 ⇒ 00:10:28.650 Pranav: Yep.

39 00:10:31.410 ⇒ 00:10:32.190 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

40 00:10:32.350 ⇒ 00:10:34.200 Uttam Kumaran: Clarence, you want to lead discussion?

41 00:10:35.700 ⇒ 00:10:40.439 Clarence Stone: Sure. One sec. Let me just see what everybody wrote first.

42 00:10:44.190 ⇒ 00:10:47.770 Clarence Stone: If I can get that page to load… there we go.

43 00:11:01.780 ⇒ 00:11:11.839 Clarence Stone: Okay, so, Pranav, or actually… This one was from Utam, managing… Multi-work streams for clients.

44 00:11:12.350 ⇒ 00:11:22.799 Clarence Stone: I think this is a pertinent topic, because Greg was just talking about that, you know, when you have a client that’s doing a lot of different work. What specifically did you want to talk about with that, Tom?

45 00:11:24.070 ⇒ 00:11:27.190 Uttam Kumaran: Wait, where… where are you… where are you looking?

46 00:11:27.190 ⇒ 00:11:31.370 Clarence Stone: I’m looking at the CSO meeting agenda.

47 00:11:31.770 ⇒ 00:11:33.719 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, no, we’re way… we’re at the top.

48 00:11:33.950 ⇒ 00:11:35.290 Clarence Stone: Oh, you’re the top.

49 00:11:35.870 ⇒ 00:11:37.440 Clarence Stone: Okay, good.

50 00:11:37.620 ⇒ 00:11:38.570 Clarence Stone: Gotcha.

51 00:11:38.570 ⇒ 00:11:40.579 Uttam Kumaran: I’m still dealing with that issue, but…

52 00:11:45.110 ⇒ 00:11:54.549 Clarence Stone: Okay… You, you, you’re worried about hiring more CSOs. Okay, well, we can’t really do anything about that.

53 00:11:54.770 ⇒ 00:11:55.679 Uttam Kumaran: I hear ya.

54 00:11:55.680 ⇒ 00:11:56.150 Clarence Stone: Okay.

55 00:11:56.150 ⇒ 00:11:59.050 Uttam Kumaran: I asked me to be honest, so…

56 00:11:59.560 ⇒ 00:12:14.820 Clarence Stone: Demi, your topics are really good. Can you expand a bit more about potential members going into their role? How do we want to structure client interactions and default stalling? Tell us more about those three things. It’s a pretty big topic.

57 00:12:17.270 ⇒ 00:12:25.730 Demilade Agboola: So, I think, like, In terms of, like, potential members going into their role.

58 00:12:25.840 ⇒ 00:12:30.770 Demilade Agboola: I’m just, like, thinking about… how…

59 00:12:31.210 ⇒ 00:12:39.010 Demilade Agboola: over the past couple, like, the past week or so, with, like, Magic Spoon and, like, Being able to…

60 00:12:39.470 ⇒ 00:12:43.330 Demilade Agboola: Structure the roles in such a way that people can go into them.

61 00:12:44.010 ⇒ 00:12:46.980 Demilade Agboola: And be able to handle certain parts of it.

62 00:12:48.700 ⇒ 00:12:56.850 Demilade Agboola: Without it being, like, Like, without it affecting, like, the technical side of what they do, basically.

63 00:12:59.720 ⇒ 00:13:08.480 Demilade Agboola: and also just allowing them to platform their best selves. Like, I… like, I think of, like, Ashwini, like, again, Ashwini is, like, very good technically.

64 00:13:09.100 ⇒ 00:13:12.590 Demilade Agboola: But, like… the incident with Magic Spoon…

65 00:13:13.900 ⇒ 00:13:20.430 Demilade Agboola: didn’t necessarily put him in the best spot, based off, like, the role. So I’m just like, potential members going into that role.

66 00:13:20.430 ⇒ 00:13:29.110 Clarence Stone: So, Debbie, that’s such a good point, like, and this is something that I think we need to reiterate to everybody who’s a CSO and a leader here, that, like.

67 00:13:29.110 ⇒ 00:13:48.610 Clarence Stone: We should not see the operating piece or running piece of a project to be separate from your core technical competencies and skills. Those two things are entirely one job, because if you don’t know what’s happening on the client, you don’t know what your project is, you don’t know what’s happening in the linear, you can’t really push out great work.

68 00:13:48.610 ⇒ 00:14:00.309 Clarence Stone: Right? So, they are interconnected. They’re not separated as in, like, hey, this person’s really good at doing technical work, but they don’t know how to plan or analyze or keep documents up to date, right? Like.

69 00:14:00.310 ⇒ 00:14:15.220 Clarence Stone: if you don’t have one part, you can’t have the other. And I think reminding your teams that those two things are directly interdependent over and over again is what’s going to get us out of this mentality that, like, this is two separate, different things.

70 00:14:15.280 ⇒ 00:14:27.930 Clarence Stone: this is all part of one, you know, holistic role and a supporting piece that you’re playing as a leader here. Does that make sense? I mean, I’d love to have a discussion about this if anybody disagrees.

71 00:14:35.900 ⇒ 00:14:37.419 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, I think that’s fair.

72 00:14:38.840 ⇒ 00:14:59.040 Clarence Stone: Right? So, I mean, if there’s challenges on the planning and analysis, or, you know, keeping track of things part, Demi, like, I think it’s important to remind them, hey, like, if we can’t get tickets planned, and if, you know, the Gantt charts aren’t updated, or we’re not tracking our resources, or, you know, touching base with our clients every day.

73 00:14:59.200 ⇒ 00:15:03.729 Clarence Stone: That directly leads to an impact on project delivery success.

74 00:15:04.350 ⇒ 00:15:11.309 Clarence Stone: Right? Just as much as your core competency and your ability to be a good developer, right?

75 00:15:15.870 ⇒ 00:15:19.490 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. I’m just, like, wondering how we can…

76 00:15:20.150 ⇒ 00:15:24.950 Demilade Agboola: If there’s an easier way to, like, ramp up, or if there are, like.

77 00:15:25.650 ⇒ 00:15:29.190 Demilade Agboola: I don’t know, I’m just… I guess I’m just thinking about it, you know, in that term.

78 00:15:29.190 ⇒ 00:15:48.660 Clarence Stone: Dude, such a great follow-up question. That, like, you nailed it, right? Like, how do we ramp that up? How do we make this transformation real? How do we get people to understand these things are two interconnected things, right? That’s really what you’re asking. Like, what I need is communication from you guys on where it’s getting stuck.

79 00:15:48.700 ⇒ 00:16:11.890 Clarence Stone: what I need is for you guys to talk to each other and make sure everybody is exactly on the same page and agreeing on that as a team, as a project team, right? If you guys aren’t on the same page and aren’t looking at that same vision, then we… I’m more than happy to talk. If there’s processes that are missing, if there’s tools or capabilities we can build out for you, we can do that. But I think the challenge here is that

80 00:16:11.890 ⇒ 00:16:15.950 Clarence Stone: But if we don’t know how to help somebody ramp up.

81 00:16:16.210 ⇒ 00:16:28.619 Clarence Stone: then we can’t actually do the tactical pieces of helping them. So, like, I need to know, like, what is it that’s preventing them from ramping up, Demi? Does that make sense?

82 00:16:29.310 ⇒ 00:16:30.740 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, fair enough, fair enough.

83 00:16:31.380 ⇒ 00:16:46.810 Clarence Stone: Right? And I would love to help you guys ramp up, like, that is my entire function in life here, like, I want you guys all to crush it and succeed. So, like, I need to hear back, like, really tactically, like, just point exactly, like, hey, this is a problem. It takes me 2 hours to do.

84 00:16:46.980 ⇒ 00:16:49.679 Clarence Stone: And I got a code, so I can’t do it.

85 00:16:50.180 ⇒ 00:16:51.130 Clarence Stone: Right.

86 00:16:52.280 ⇒ 00:16:53.400 Demilade Agboola: Okay, that’s fair.

87 00:16:54.700 ⇒ 00:17:05.229 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think it was just clear that he… Akash Weini wasn’t doing, like, a lot of the things that I thought was happening on Magic Spoon, and we just caught it too late. So I think my feedback, Demi, was, like.

88 00:17:05.470 ⇒ 00:17:15.429 Uttam Kumaran: you should have a high expectation for anyone that’s, like, doing your EP work, and flag it to this crew as soon as their, like, folks aren’t doing what you need, basically.

89 00:17:15.619 ⇒ 00:17:18.540 Uttam Kumaran: Because your success kind of depends on them, right?

90 00:17:21.950 ⇒ 00:17:23.550 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, hey, I hate.

91 00:17:28.770 ⇒ 00:17:32.350 Clarence Stone: And then structure client interactions. Tell me more about that, Demi.

92 00:17:35.780 ⇒ 00:17:42.689 Demilade Agboola: like… So, like, the CSO is responsible for, like, generally interacting with the client.

93 00:17:45.220 ⇒ 00:17:52.080 Demilade Agboola: I think, ultimately… Part of where…

94 00:17:52.240 ⇒ 00:17:56.510 Demilade Agboola: the breakdown in Magic Spoon also happened, was the…

95 00:17:57.350 ⇒ 00:18:08.739 Demilade Agboola: I think Ashwini was put in a spot of interacting with the client in certain… like, I mean, he’s done some… he’s done the work, and so in client meetings, clients are asking him questions about the work.

96 00:18:08.940 ⇒ 00:18:15.000 Demilade Agboola: And then, you know, it’s… it’s one of those things where…

97 00:18:15.260 ⇒ 00:18:21.089 Demilade Agboola: You know, some of his responses, and just not necessarily being, like, Ready to, like.

98 00:18:21.350 ⇒ 00:18:26.259 Demilade Agboola: Go deeper and, you know, pass across the expertise to the client.

99 00:18:29.160 ⇒ 00:18:34.870 Demilade Agboola: So I’m guessing… so my point with that is just, like, how do we structure it in such a way that…

100 00:18:35.140 ⇒ 00:18:50.390 Demilade Agboola: any outgoing work, because we can’t necessarily… like, even though the CSO, yes, will be responding, you know, a lot to the client, there are still other technical people on the project who will need to reach out to the client for certain things.

101 00:18:52.300 ⇒ 00:19:08.610 Demilade Agboola: So, like, default, for example, Mustafa will need to ask questions about stuff, or he might, you know, do some work for the client, or they might have ad hoc requests, and he might, you know, send the CSV in, and then they might be like, oh, we were expecting something more detailed and all that stuff.

102 00:19:08.910 ⇒ 00:19:14.420 Demilade Agboola: So you can’t necessarily exclude other people from interacting with the client.

103 00:19:15.290 ⇒ 00:19:20.550 Demilade Agboola: But… You also want to ensure that whatever gets to the client is of…

104 00:19:20.960 ⇒ 00:19:27.440 Demilade Agboola: High quality, and it meets our threshold for what should go out to the client.

105 00:19:28.230 ⇒ 00:19:41.789 Clarence Stone: Yeah, Demi, another great one. I think you have, like, 3 really great bullets, because I want to know about your third one now. Because, okay, this one is really hard. It’s like asking, how should I have a framework to interact with Pranav?

106 00:19:41.790 ⇒ 00:19:53.909 Clarence Stone: versus how I interact with Greg, versus how I interact with you, Demi, versus how I interact with, okay, let’s pick someone who’s not a CSO, right? Let’s pick, Sesshu, right?

107 00:19:53.910 ⇒ 00:20:14.860 Clarence Stone: my framework on how I reach out to you guys, and my expectations, and, you know, how I may communicate with you, or, you know, expect things from you might be completely different based on your role, your function, and that’s the same thing that goes for your clients, right? We’re all adapting to the way they work.

108 00:20:14.860 ⇒ 00:20:27.510 Clarence Stone: Right? So, that’s what makes it really hard for me to give you a complete holistic playbook on client interactions, but what I do see is that you’ve done the analysis, right? You’re saying, hey.

109 00:20:27.510 ⇒ 00:20:43.990 Clarence Stone: We’ve got really talented technical people who are pushing out amazing work, but communicating the impacts of that, and the value of that, or asking follow-on questions to clients about that, is not, you know, coming off as professional or at the level of the quality of work that you’ve been creating.

110 00:20:43.990 ⇒ 00:20:44.840 Clarence Stone: Right?

111 00:20:45.220 ⇒ 00:20:51.449 Clarence Stone: So, what I would personally do is say, hey, for at least the next week, just…

112 00:20:51.450 ⇒ 00:21:06.119 Clarence Stone: you know, if you’re gonna reach out to the client, pass it by me, because I’m the CSO, I know the client, right? I probably have an understanding of how they would receive certain wording, certain quality of, like, slide decks or things, right? You’re gonna take a quick look at it.

113 00:21:06.120 ⇒ 00:21:31.009 Clarence Stone: And then give feedback to say, hey, remember last time the client said this is the formatting they wanted? Or the client said that they wanted more details on these things, or maybe we should reword the question in this way, right? And then have them pass along that message. So I wouldn’t stop them from sending a message, just be that filter in the middle between the client to say, hey, I just want to take a look, if you’re going to reach out to the client, just let me double-check everything.

114 00:21:32.080 ⇒ 00:21:39.500 Clarence Stone: Right? And Debbie, I promise you, if you do this for a week or two, right, and you give really strong points of feedback.

115 00:21:39.620 ⇒ 00:21:52.729 Clarence Stone: your team is going to be able to pick that up, because you have most of the sensory, like, experience with this customer. You would know exactly, you know, how to reformat it and translate it well. Does that make sense?

116 00:21:54.020 ⇒ 00:21:59.089 Demilade Agboola: Yes, but I wonder, like, how…

117 00:22:00.620 ⇒ 00:22:04.609 Demilade Agboola: So if… if there are issues with work that goes out.

118 00:22:04.740 ⇒ 00:22:10.659 Demilade Agboola: Is that, like, a thing where we have a structured, say, two-week two-week,

119 00:22:11.200 ⇒ 00:22:18.470 Demilade Agboola: Program of some sort, where it’s like, okay, before anything goes out for the next, like, in the next two weeks, like, it has to go by me first.

120 00:22:19.630 ⇒ 00:22:20.380 Demilade Agboola: Is that rude?

121 00:22:20.380 ⇒ 00:22:22.319 Clarence Stone: Okay, so I think…

122 00:22:22.320 ⇒ 00:22:23.339 Demilade Agboola: I’ll do it.

123 00:22:23.520 ⇒ 00:22:31.330 Clarence Stone: The difference with y’all is that y’all are systems thinkers first, and then environmental thinkers next. I need you to flip that when you’re doing client interactions.

124 00:22:31.460 ⇒ 00:22:38.369 Clarence Stone: Right, so the sensor that I picked up was, client is unhappy with format or type of communication.

125 00:22:38.410 ⇒ 00:22:50.030 Clarence Stone: Right? So then I diagnose that problem, and I say, what do I have to do as the gatekeeper between my team and the client? Well, I need to make sure that everything that goes to the client filters through me for a while.

126 00:22:50.030 ⇒ 00:23:07.669 Clarence Stone: Right? And I clean up that context, and I provide additional information to my team to increase the quality of that, and then once, you know, that’s done, and you’re getting a bunch of, like, message requests that are super good and clean, you can let go of that. Right? But I can’t guarantee you that this is the program that you gotta do every time.

127 00:23:07.670 ⇒ 00:23:10.260 Clarence Stone: Because sometimes, maybe it’s just one little mistake.

128 00:23:10.400 ⇒ 00:23:11.280 Clarence Stone: Right.

129 00:23:11.940 ⇒ 00:23:12.600 Demilade Agboola: Yeah.

130 00:23:14.700 ⇒ 00:23:22.400 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m interested, Pranav, how you’re handling this on Lilo. I have, like, a bajillion opinions about this, because I’ve sort of seen everything.

131 00:23:22.670 ⇒ 00:23:26.810 Uttam Kumaran: At this point, but, like, I’m kind of interested in, like, how you’re handling this.

132 00:23:27.160 ⇒ 00:23:34.040 Pranav: Yeah, for Lilo, I would say I’m the one just responding to probably, like.

133 00:23:34.500 ⇒ 00:23:51.369 Pranav: 80% of everything, and then the other, you know, 20%, mostly Sam, and then maybe Casey a little bit. Sometimes it’s me going into our internal channel to be like, hey Sam, could you respond to this? Hey, Casey, could you respond to this? Just because I know they would be able to

134 00:23:51.370 ⇒ 00:23:54.729 Pranav: they already have the context, I trust them too, to, like.

135 00:23:54.990 ⇒ 00:24:01.860 Pranav: send over, like, a message that I feel like, you know, Bobby and Zach would, they would…

136 00:24:02.470 ⇒ 00:24:13.500 Pranav: they would receive it well. I think, yeah, we just have not really had the same issue that it sounds like Demolade’s having. But I think I also…

137 00:24:13.850 ⇒ 00:24:18.330 Pranav: I’m just, like, the one to… it’s like a…

138 00:24:18.440 ⇒ 00:24:25.250 Pranav: it’s expected of me to just be able to… the first pass to respond, and then I’m the one that passes it off.

139 00:24:25.370 ⇒ 00:24:27.650 Pranav: like, to Sam or 2 Casey.

140 00:24:35.120 ⇒ 00:24:42.360 Pranav: So, like, if a message comes in, it’s, like, it’s expected that… that I’m going to send… that I’m going to respond, and

141 00:24:43.130 ⇒ 00:24:47.439 Pranav: it’s only expected that they’re gonna respond if I, like, let them know, like, hey, could you respond?

142 00:24:52.710 ⇒ 00:24:56.349 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think, Demi, you have, like, you have latitude to enforce

143 00:24:56.560 ⇒ 00:25:04.770 Uttam Kumaran: like, communication standards. So from… from, like, my side and from, like, the Brainforge side, there’s, like, minimums, right? So, like, for example, like.

144 00:25:05.130 ⇒ 00:25:13.550 Uttam Kumaran: if you’re in a meeting, and you don’t know what to do, probably just do a deck. Like, see how that works, right? So, we’ll sort of set the minimums, but if you’re like, hey.

145 00:25:13.670 ⇒ 00:25:21.950 Uttam Kumaran: I can’t reasonably do these calls without everybody on video, or I can’t reasonably do these calls without us meeting 15 minutes to prep.

146 00:25:22.100 ⇒ 00:25:24.110 Uttam Kumaran: You could just go do that, like…

147 00:25:24.270 ⇒ 00:25:27.940 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t care how further you take it, like…

148 00:25:28.070 ⇒ 00:25:46.269 Uttam Kumaran: But I care about a minimum, because what… what could have happened is if I’m like, okay, there’s no standards for meeting every week, then I don’t learn from the past year when I, like, when we started the company, that we, like, lost clients because I just didn’t call them, like, every week, right? So, I’m… I’m gonna set the minimum, which is, like, call them every week.

149 00:25:46.910 ⇒ 00:26:03.939 Uttam Kumaran: But I know that’ll get us to a B. It’s up to you guys on your teams to be like, okay, what’s gonna turn this to an A? Well, if we’re not able to get our shit together async, maybe we meet 15 minutes before every client interaction. Okay, if someone clearly, like, just sucks, or, like, gets put on the spot and is just not able to, like.

150 00:26:04.240 ⇒ 00:26:11.200 Uttam Kumaran: figure it out. They just shouldn’t talk. Or you give them, like, 5 canned responses, which is, like.

151 00:26:11.790 ⇒ 00:26:21.060 Uttam Kumaran: thank you for your question, I’ll get back to you. Or, if we’re not sure, I’ll follow up right after the meeting. You literally say, write these responses down and do not veer from script.

152 00:26:21.420 ⇒ 00:26:25.820 Uttam Kumaran: So you have to control, though, ultimately. Like…

153 00:26:26.460 ⇒ 00:26:42.949 Uttam Kumaran: if people aren’t prepared, and they’re not following what you’re saying, and you have to… you just have to take control, in no situation am I gonna… like, I’m not gonna go past you and tell your team what to do, unless it’s like… Magic Spoon is, like, it was… we’re about to die, right? So it was like, it was like last life, like…

154 00:26:43.040 ⇒ 00:26:48.850 Uttam Kumaran: So, in that case, I will swoop and try to figure it out, but…

155 00:26:49.060 ⇒ 00:26:53.270 Uttam Kumaran: it’s up to you. Like, I sort of told the same thing to Pranav and his clients. I’m like.

156 00:26:53.640 ⇒ 00:26:59.209 Uttam Kumaran: look, if you’re not… if you don’t think you can pass it off to people, and you want to run the whole thing, run the whole thing. But…

157 00:27:00.000 ⇒ 00:27:07.750 Uttam Kumaran: it is taxing. It takes a lot of energy to do that, and so if you’re running with 2, 3, 4 clients, like, you’ll see that it takes a lot of energy, but…

158 00:27:08.110 ⇒ 00:27:09.759 Uttam Kumaran: We all know that there’s…

159 00:27:10.390 ⇒ 00:27:15.359 Uttam Kumaran: If you want it done well, doing it yourself is a good option, but it is a…

160 00:27:15.560 ⇒ 00:27:20.200 Uttam Kumaran: It is also, like… tough, like, you have to scale you, so…

161 00:27:20.370 ⇒ 00:27:35.639 Clarence Stone: And a reminder for all of you, like, all four of you guys, like, you have me, right? If, like, reviewing slide decks is, like, getting heavy, or, like, reviewing certain things is getting too intense, or just, like, reviewing people with responses, have them forward to me.

162 00:27:35.940 ⇒ 00:27:37.630 Clarence Stone: Like, I’ll look at it for you, man.

163 00:27:40.470 ⇒ 00:27:44.970 Clarence Stone: But I don’t have your client contact, alright? So remember that.

164 00:27:47.430 ⇒ 00:27:48.760 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, that’s fair, that’s fair.

165 00:27:49.920 ⇒ 00:27:51.040 Demilade Agboola: Oh my god.

166 00:27:51.040 ⇒ 00:27:53.749 Clarence Stone: colleague is your last one, and then I want to go to.

167 00:27:53.750 ⇒ 00:27:55.690 Demilade Agboola: We have… for…

168 00:27:55.990 ⇒ 00:28:05.080 Demilade Agboola: For default stalling, that’s a much easier one to discuss. It’s just one of those things where, like, the client CTO is very slow with stuff.

169 00:28:05.630 ⇒ 00:28:11.619 Demilade Agboola: It’s clear, like, this isn’t his highest priority.

170 00:28:12.120 ⇒ 00:28:18.780 Demilade Agboola: Right? Like… And as a result, things like the ingestion that we need to do.

171 00:28:19.080 ⇒ 00:28:22.539 Demilade Agboola: He’s not set up the systems for that.

172 00:28:22.720 ⇒ 00:28:29.350 Demilade Agboola: He’s very security conscious, so we don’t have the access to do a lot of things we need to do by ourselves, so we’re just kind of like…

173 00:28:30.300 ⇒ 00:28:32.789 Demilade Agboola: Any day now, and…

174 00:28:33.010 ⇒ 00:28:43.390 Demilade Agboola: that’s kind of what’s going on with that. Like, even with, Polytomic, Polytomic has had to… Polytomic CO reached out to him, Polyatomic CTO reached out to him.

175 00:28:43.580 ⇒ 00:28:46.650 Demilade Agboola: And it’s still kind of, like, dragging.

176 00:28:48.960 ⇒ 00:28:50.859 Demilade Agboola: So it’s one of those things where, like.

177 00:28:51.840 ⇒ 00:28:57.650 Demilade Agboola: obviously, we’ve… we have, like, our Gantt chart, and, like, oh, we want to get this done by this week.

178 00:28:57.820 ⇒ 00:29:02.659 Demilade Agboola: But we are trying to just, like, do things, like, even for…

179 00:29:03.060 ⇒ 00:29:08.369 Demilade Agboola: the system access we’re getting, I’m having to, like, push back and say, hey, we need admin access, because…

180 00:29:08.580 ⇒ 00:29:13.399 Demilade Agboola: You know, we can’t… you can’t move data across systems without admin access, because, like.

181 00:29:13.460 ⇒ 00:29:16.159 Demilade Agboola: You don’t want regular users moving data across anyway.

182 00:29:16.170 ⇒ 00:29:30.209 Demilade Agboola: So, things like that, and then, obviously, he’s the one who has the power to, you know, give that, and if he’s sluggish about stuff, and if he’s… like, to be fair, I don’t know what he does on the daily. He could be fighting, like, a lot of fires every day, so, like, it might not be a thing of, like, oh.

183 00:29:30.210 ⇒ 00:29:39.469 Demilade Agboola: I just don’t care, I just have a lot on my plate. But being able to either, like, get things over the line, or just kind of decentralize some of what he needs to do.

184 00:29:39.490 ⇒ 00:29:41.930 Demilade Agboola: Is, like, priority, basically.

185 00:29:41.930 ⇒ 00:29:58.329 Clarence Stone: Okay, so Debbie, this is where, like, being a CSO has no, like, definite logic gates. I think you have two major options here. Like, you can pressure by saying these are the risks and impacts of delivery, if this continues, or two, you can make friends.

186 00:29:58.640 ⇒ 00:30:03.899 Clarence Stone: Right? And say, like, hey, we want to help you, this is why we need it, right?

187 00:30:04.440 ⇒ 00:30:10.370 Clarence Stone: But I won’t know, like, which way to go unless I know the client, right? So, I mean, that’s…

188 00:30:11.110 ⇒ 00:30:22.270 Clarence Stone: Yeah, that’s… this is… this is a tried and true challenge of every consulting project, even UTAM. UTAM has worked through so many different ways to get data for ABC.

189 00:30:22.950 ⇒ 00:30:25.589 Clarence Stone: Recently, right? How many times did you have to get…

190 00:30:25.590 ⇒ 00:30:28.909 Uttam Kumaran: But, yeah, and I, I chose friends.

191 00:30:29.210 ⇒ 00:30:29.610 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

192 00:30:29.610 ⇒ 00:30:30.370 Uttam Kumaran: approach.

193 00:30:30.960 ⇒ 00:30:35.520 Uttam Kumaran: And I had… for every single option, I had, like, 3 different backups, and, like.

194 00:30:37.330 ⇒ 00:30:42.839 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, but I also did escalate. I actually did both, because at some point, we weren’t getting an answer, and I was like.

195 00:30:42.980 ⇒ 00:30:45.119 Uttam Kumaran: This is derailing our project.

196 00:30:45.420 ⇒ 00:30:54.040 Uttam Kumaran: I can’t dedicate more than 2 months’ worth of resources here. And then Matt, the CFO, is like, put me on whatever email you want with whoever it is.

197 00:30:55.770 ⇒ 00:31:03.110 Uttam Kumaran: You know, but I was, like… in this parallel, I was, like, just trying to become friends with the vendor and, like, figure out how to do it, you know? So…

198 00:31:04.860 ⇒ 00:31:08.860 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s tough, like, I feel the frustration, too. I don’t know. At some point, I’m like…

199 00:31:10.870 ⇒ 00:31:18.719 Uttam Kumaran: Is this just, like, some companies are just slow like this, and we’re just okay with it? Because it doesn’t seem like any… it doesn’t seem like Caitlin’s, like, super pissed, right?

200 00:31:19.030 ⇒ 00:31:20.310 Uttam Kumaran: So, what do we do?

201 00:31:20.310 ⇒ 00:31:24.549 Demilade Agboola: She doesn’t seem super pissed, but, like, it’s one of those things where…

202 00:31:25.220 ⇒ 00:31:30.639 Demilade Agboola: I’ve been in consulting long enough to know that it’s… one week is fine, the next week it’s not. Like, it’s…

203 00:31:30.640 ⇒ 00:31:31.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

204 00:31:31.410 ⇒ 00:31:36.280 Demilade Agboola: It’s like a flip. It’s like a switch of those flips, because it’s just like, oh, we need this for this.

205 00:31:36.450 ⇒ 00:31:43.140 Demilade Agboola: And we’re way behind schedule. And it’s like, yeah, but that’s what we’ve been saying for the past 2-3 weeks, you know?

206 00:31:43.320 ⇒ 00:31:44.810 Demilade Agboola: I’m…

207 00:31:45.440 ⇒ 00:31:53.749 Demilade Agboola: that’s… that’s kind of the… that’s why I’m flagging it, because it’s one of those things where I want to get ahead of it. I don’t want anything where it’s like, oh, so they…

208 00:31:53.750 ⇒ 00:31:55.520 Clarence Stone: Have you talked to the board itself?

209 00:31:56.410 ⇒ 00:32:02.590 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, I mean, they’re fairly aware of everything, like, even today in conversations, I’ve, like, let them know, hey.

210 00:32:03.940 ⇒ 00:32:16.940 Demilade Agboola: this is what’s going on with this, we still need access to Polyatomic, we still need admin access to these systems, and, like, so they’re aware of it, right? So it’s not like I’m trying my best to ensure that they don’t lose sight of that.

211 00:32:17.230 ⇒ 00:32:19.789 Demilade Agboola: But I don’t want it to be, like.

212 00:32:20.620 ⇒ 00:32:22.479 Clarence Stone: A surprise back to you, eventually.

213 00:32:22.480 ⇒ 00:32:23.489 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

214 00:32:23.730 ⇒ 00:32:31.380 Clarence Stone: And living in fear of that should not… should not be the case. That’s not cool, right? So…

215 00:32:31.380 ⇒ 00:32:52.380 Clarence Stone: I feel like if you’ve already escalated and messaged that, you’re probably good for this week, but I think we’ve got to have some more light-touch strategies, and this is, like, good for all the CSOs to know. Like, think about all the layers that Utam said he built. He had backups to the backups of the plan, right? What I would do is try to start farming for it.

216 00:32:52.520 ⇒ 00:33:09.789 Clarence Stone: Right? It’s like, hey, I forgot what this person’s name is. Jim? James? Something? He’s busy. Oh, Victor. Victor seems pretty tied up, and we just need, you know, X, Y, and Z to continue the work. Do you know anyone else in the… or can… that can help us? Like, we don’t want to bother him if he’s tied up.

217 00:33:10.940 ⇒ 00:33:11.540 Clarence Stone: Right.

218 00:33:11.540 ⇒ 00:33:12.430 Demilade Agboola: Okay.

219 00:33:12.430 ⇒ 00:33:16.609 Clarence Stone: So, it’s not you saying anything except for, hey, like.

220 00:33:16.980 ⇒ 00:33:20.200 Clarence Stone: I’m looking for another way to continue doing great work for you.

221 00:33:21.670 ⇒ 00:33:22.839 Demilade Agboola: Okay, fair enough.

222 00:33:22.840 ⇒ 00:33:30.779 Clarence Stone: Right? So, this is what I’m good at, I’m really good at work life. So, if you guys ever need to, like, rephrase things, come to me.

223 00:33:33.660 ⇒ 00:33:37.869 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, look, you can push… you can put pressure on Nandica, you can put pressure on…

224 00:33:38.050 ⇒ 00:33:42.500 Uttam Kumaran: whoever you call that needs reporting, you can say it’s in Victor’s Court.

225 00:33:44.210 ⇒ 00:33:47.389 Demilade Agboola: Okay. Well, next time I talk to Caitlin, I’ll mention it.

226 00:33:48.160 ⇒ 00:33:49.090 Uttam Kumaran: But we’ll keep trying.

227 00:33:49.090 ⇒ 00:33:49.710 Demilade Agboola: Bye.

228 00:33:50.010 ⇒ 00:33:55.200 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, okay, like, again, I don’t… are you in the… are you in the Slack channel with,

229 00:33:55.540 ⇒ 00:33:56.630 Demilade Agboola: Potomac and…

230 00:33:56.630 ⇒ 00:33:59.239 Uttam Kumaran: I am, I am, I just… I have him muted, I think.

231 00:33:59.740 ⇒ 00:34:07.570 Demilade Agboola: And that’s fine. You don’t need to necessarily, like, keep tabs on it, because I’m keeping tabs on it, but it’s just one of those things where, like, I just find it amusing.

232 00:34:07.930 ⇒ 00:34:13.590 Demilade Agboola: But even literally today, like, on Friday, Nathan, the CEO of…

233 00:34:13.960 ⇒ 00:34:23.039 Demilade Agboola: Polytomic reached out. This morning again, he reached out and was like, yo, just checking in to see if I can be of assistance, feel free to at me.

234 00:34:23.159 ⇒ 00:34:34.429 Demilade Agboola: he’s still not responded, so… yeah, it’s kind of pending. His last message in that thread was on Thursday. They’ve reached out multiple times since then, so… it’s just one of those things where it’s like.

235 00:34:36.340 ⇒ 00:34:44.009 Demilade Agboola: it would be helpful if it’s just like, yo, I’m really busy, but you can schedule some time on Tuesday or something, and everyone go, okay, cool.

236 00:34:44.270 ⇒ 00:34:47.380 Demilade Agboola: Tuesday’s the day. He’s just, you know, quiet.

237 00:34:47.880 ⇒ 00:34:54.020 Demilade Agboola: So yeah, I’ll just keep buzzing the, default team, like, Nadica and Caitlyn.

238 00:34:54.230 ⇒ 00:34:56.350 Demilade Agboola: And I’ll try as best to…

239 00:34:56.670 ⇒ 00:35:04.019 Demilade Agboola: Just point out, like, you know, what we’re doing in, like, our message to the groups, and just let them know, like, you know, blockers.

240 00:35:04.240 ⇒ 00:35:05.030 Demilade Agboola: this.

241 00:35:05.160 ⇒ 00:35:05.890 Demilade Agboola: You know, so…

242 00:35:06.710 ⇒ 00:35:12.869 Demilade Agboola: I won’t necessarily mention his name, but I’ll just put it there, like, the blocker clearly is, polyatomic.

243 00:35:13.050 ⇒ 00:35:14.390 Demilade Agboola: ingestion access.

244 00:35:17.700 ⇒ 00:35:18.540 Clarence Stone: Sounds good.

245 00:35:18.970 ⇒ 00:35:20.650 Clarence Stone: Feeling better about it, Demi?

246 00:35:21.520 ⇒ 00:35:22.290 Demilade Agboola: Yeah.

247 00:35:22.290 ⇒ 00:35:27.510 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I just wanna… I wanna let everyone know, this… this is the meeting for you to offload that off your chest, like…

248 00:35:27.990 ⇒ 00:35:39.990 Clarence Stone: I know that you guys go through day-to-day worrying about, hey, is the client gonna drop me because, like, I can’t get the data? Like, this… this is the meeting for you guys to… to talk about those things, so I love that you brought that up, Demi.

249 00:35:40.630 ⇒ 00:35:41.929 Clarence Stone: Pranav.

250 00:35:42.390 ⇒ 00:35:43.969 Clarence Stone: You’ve got a couple items.

251 00:35:44.310 ⇒ 00:35:46.389 Clarence Stone: Two things on top of your mind you want to share?

252 00:35:47.250 ⇒ 00:35:51.460 Pranav: Yeah, I added another one, but so it should be 3.

253 00:35:51.460 ⇒ 00:35:52.230 Clarence Stone: But…

254 00:35:55.460 ⇒ 00:36:03.159 Pranav: Yeah, so one thing is, I think Casey’s gonna be moving off of… and then maybe this is maybe a topic for a different meeting…

255 00:36:03.420 ⇒ 00:36:05.179 Pranav: But Casey’s gonna be moving off…

256 00:36:05.380 ⇒ 00:36:08.920 Pranav: of, Lilo from as an EP, just to…

257 00:36:09.890 ⇒ 00:36:13.059 Pranav: I’m not just, like, as, icy, I guess. I see.

258 00:36:13.060 ⇒ 00:36:13.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

259 00:36:13.570 ⇒ 00:36:15.700 Pranav: Yeah, yeah. So…

260 00:36:16.290 ⇒ 00:36:20.880 Pranav: Will that… I guess that sounds like more of an EP question now that I think about it, so…

261 00:36:22.010 ⇒ 00:36:25.929 Clarence Stone: Feel free to ask, like, so what was… what do you want to know?

262 00:36:26.070 ⇒ 00:36:34.909 Pranav: I was just thinking, like, will I be taking that on? Is that a conversation that I should be talking to Sam about, how we just, like, split up that role?

263 00:36:36.240 ⇒ 00:36:39.410 Pranav: Yeah. Basically, that’s the two options, I guess I see.

264 00:36:40.060 ⇒ 00:36:46.929 Clarence Stone: Let’s… let’s frame it this way. You actually came out of recently doing that, right?

265 00:36:46.930 ⇒ 00:36:47.560 Pranav: Exactly, yeah.

266 00:36:47.560 ⇒ 00:36:56.319 Clarence Stone: was it for you? Are you able to survive for a few more weeks while Tom and Robert are getting through interviews to give you some backfill support?

267 00:36:56.740 ⇒ 00:37:15.069 Pranav: Totally, yeah, I can definitely do that. I think what would be beneficial for me is just to know, like, okay, this day, like, I take it over, and so, like, I can make sure I’m prepared, and, like, maybe even Casey’s, like, kind of in the loop of, like, knowing that, okay, like, no, you don’t need to worry about this anymore. But yeah.

268 00:37:15.810 ⇒ 00:37:18.630 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, fair. Yeah, I think that’s on us.

269 00:37:19.010 ⇒ 00:37:23.750 Uttam Kumaran: I can make sure that happens. Yeah, I think,

270 00:37:25.150 ⇒ 00:37:33.009 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, in terms of, like, longer term, yeah, I mean, for any open EP slots or CSO slots, like, we are actively going.

271 00:37:33.300 ⇒ 00:37:39.029 Uttam Kumaran: in terms of especially you, Pranav, like, I’ve… I kind of want you to start to scale your…

272 00:37:39.180 ⇒ 00:37:45.839 Uttam Kumaran: time as CSO across a few more clients, so we’re gonna continue to try to get more EPs and support under you.

273 00:37:46.290 ⇒ 00:37:46.890 Pranav: Perfect.

274 00:37:47.040 ⇒ 00:37:52.019 Uttam Kumaran: I can… I can send a more formal thing, to him,

275 00:37:52.690 ⇒ 00:37:56.510 Uttam Kumaran: About that, and then just kind of, like, formally assume that you’re gonna take that.

276 00:37:57.030 ⇒ 00:38:03.520 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, ultimately, like, if you need my help, or if you need Clarence’s help to fill, like, well, I’m here to fill.

277 00:38:03.650 ⇒ 00:38:06.680 Uttam Kumaran: So, what I don’t… what I don’t want to happen is, like.

278 00:38:07.580 ⇒ 00:38:15.019 Uttam Kumaran: you’re like, shit, I’m getting jammed right now, and like, there’s nobody here, like, you should just ping the CSO channel and be like, can someone help me?

279 00:38:15.570 ⇒ 00:38:21.609 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. …figure this out. We have a lot of other… we have a lot of people… people that can come and… come and assist, so…

280 00:38:22.580 ⇒ 00:38:23.140 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

281 00:38:23.140 ⇒ 00:38:24.709 Pranav: Yeah, I think,

282 00:38:25.370 ⇒ 00:38:41.149 Pranav: Yeah, because I think Casey’s still kind of doing some of the EP stuff, and so I’m just, I just want to make sure that he knows, like, okay, he is still EP as of right now, or if not, then, like, I can do that. Because, like, he did actually do, like, a lot of work on just, like, grooming the tickets,

283 00:38:41.150 ⇒ 00:38:46.969 Pranav: And so I was like, okay, is… did something change? Is he still going to be EP?

284 00:38:46.980 ⇒ 00:38:50.140 Pranav: I don’t think so, but yeah. Okay.

285 00:38:50.470 ⇒ 00:38:51.430 Pranav: Yeah, yeah.

286 00:38:51.580 ⇒ 00:38:54.789 Pranav: But, yeah, that seems like a small thing.

287 00:38:55.200 ⇒ 00:38:57.619 Pranav: Two things that are, like, kind of like a…

288 00:38:58.050 ⇒ 00:39:04.690 Pranav: outcome of just, like, I feel like things are going really well with Lilo, is that…

289 00:39:04.910 ⇒ 00:39:21.549 Pranav: as we end Phase 2, like, I’m sure, like, there’ll be… it seems like they could be interested in, like, additional work and stuff, and so, like, that’s top of mind for me, like, how do I kind of… and that kind of ties into, like, maybe a solution for, like, the third bullet point, which is, like.

290 00:39:21.840 ⇒ 00:39:30.630 Pranav: with just, like, extra time that I feel like I have with the client, because things are moving smoothly, like, how can I, like, maybe, like, plant seeds, or…

291 00:39:30.770 ⇒ 00:39:35.530 Pranav: You know, have more conversation about, like, what we can start working on next.

292 00:39:38.130 ⇒ 00:39:41.549 Pranav: Or is that a good piece of my time in, like, the weekly meetings?

293 00:39:41.550 ⇒ 00:39:47.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe this is Clarence, like, we don’t have a structured process for… like…

294 00:39:47.340 ⇒ 00:39:49.189 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, really, this is a dream.

295 00:39:49.350 ⇒ 00:39:56.460 Uttam Kumaran: I would say, is that you’re… you’re seeing a brand new use case, or you’re seeing the future,

296 00:39:57.050 ⇒ 00:40:08.409 Uttam Kumaran: to tell you, like, I’m currently working on this for both CTA and Element, and where I’m, like, working on the next, sort of, like, year’s worth of work for them, and, like, planning it out.

297 00:40:08.720 ⇒ 00:40:14.460 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah, I mean, I think, like, doing those in the CSO meetings could be a really good thing.

298 00:40:16.080 ⇒ 00:40:22.620 Uttam Kumaran: you can consider probably me… like, if I’m head of delivery right now, then me and you can collaborate on, like.

299 00:40:23.170 ⇒ 00:40:25.080 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, let’s just discuss, like.

300 00:40:25.240 ⇒ 00:40:34.619 Uttam Kumaran: just spitball, like, 5 things you’ve heard, and, like, let’s see if any of those, like, land, and if any of those are strategic for us, or I can help you paint the picture.

301 00:40:34.910 ⇒ 00:40:39.460 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, dude, like, you should totally go scope it out and then sell it.

302 00:40:39.930 ⇒ 00:40:44.180 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, Clarence, if you have any thoughts. I mean, I would prefer that we all do that as a group.

303 00:40:44.440 ⇒ 00:40:46.690 Clarence Stone: We can either grab more time to do that.

304 00:40:46.730 ⇒ 00:40:47.460 Uttam Kumaran: But…

305 00:40:47.620 ⇒ 00:40:58.360 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, we’re a small crew, so I want to show as much as possible how we’re thinking about scoping new delivery opportunities and help you prepare for that conversation.

306 00:40:58.800 ⇒ 00:41:10.130 Uttam Kumaran: I sent them a note this morning just saying hi, they ghosted me, so I assume that that’s good, because usually they respond fast saying, no, it’s not going well. So, I’m okay with that, actually. So, yeah.

307 00:41:11.290 ⇒ 00:41:29.110 Clarence Stone: So I think your approach is good, Utam. My workflow is to first go to the most senior leader that’s on that account and say, hey, we’re about to grow this account, like, like, these are the 3 or 4 or 5 directions that I think this could grow, this is what’s on my mind, this is how we might implement it. What do you think?

308 00:41:29.290 ⇒ 00:41:44.739 Clarence Stone: Right? And that’s gonna get scrubbed that first time around, and then I’ll huddle with the rest of the team, like EPs, SLs, and say, okay, this is our agreement, let’s create a good plan, right? Is this work already approved, or are you still going with the SOW?

309 00:41:46.880 ⇒ 00:41:52.460 Uttam Kumaran: Right now, this is, SOW, but this… I think he’s talking about net new work.

310 00:41:53.240 ⇒ 00:41:53.760 Clarence Stone: Okay.

311 00:41:53.760 ⇒ 00:41:56.600 Uttam Kumaran: SOW ends, like, next month, I think. I forgot, I don’t remember what the.

312 00:41:56.600 ⇒ 00:42:14.800 Clarence Stone: Alright, so if it’s net new work, go from UTAM to creating the SOW, and then share that SOW with your team and say, this is what’s coming up the pike, right? It might change in details as we lock in the SOW, and as you get close to locking in that SOW, start your planning exercise of finishing the Gantt.

313 00:42:14.800 ⇒ 00:42:30.190 Clarence Stone: logging everything in Notion to say, this is the SOW we agreed of, this is the milestones, these are the projects that we’re gonna do, based on the extension, right? And then, as the SOW gets signed, have that first meeting to say, hey, we’re gonna kick off phase one, let’s

314 00:42:30.210 ⇒ 00:42:36.009 Clarence Stone: Refine that Gantt, refine the tickets, right, and get into a week-by-week cadence.

315 00:42:36.770 ⇒ 00:42:43.110 Clarence Stone: Right. Do you see, like, how I went from the top of the funnel, which is UTAM, all the way down to the task level?

316 00:42:44.610 ⇒ 00:42:52.260 Clarence Stone: And as each time, like, it went from talking to UTAM, to creating SOW, all the way down to, hey, let’s get linear tickets out.

317 00:42:52.890 ⇒ 00:42:53.700 Clarence Stone: Right? Yep.

318 00:42:54.190 ⇒ 00:43:04.839 Clarence Stone: So that’s your happy pass. Obviously, there’s gonna be some loopbacks, right? There’s some changes to the SOWs, talk to Uten, right? Or your team says this SOW’s confusing, have a hug.

319 00:43:05.190 ⇒ 00:43:08.190 Clarence Stone: You know, fix things along the way, but that’s… that’s ideal.

320 00:43:08.530 ⇒ 00:43:09.210 Pranav: Yeah.

321 00:43:11.400 ⇒ 00:43:25.820 Pranav: One, one thing I’m thinking about, like, almost even before, like, the stage of, like, creating the SOW is, like, just talking more to the client, not about just, like, progress on the current phase, but just, like, more broadly speaking, like.

322 00:43:26.080 ⇒ 00:43:30.930 Pranav: how, like, how is this working, like, within your company? Like, what do you think is, like, missing?

323 00:43:31.030 ⇒ 00:43:35.850 Pranav: And just, like, kind of understanding, like, what they want this, like.

324 00:43:36.160 ⇒ 00:43:41.090 Pranav: What in, like, in a perfect world, like, what would this product, or whatever product they have, like.

325 00:43:41.260 ⇒ 00:43:56.130 Pranav: work for them. And so, it’s almost just, like, getting that information from them before we even just, like, create, like, just, like, a… like a Gantt chart or, you know, a scope of, like, a SOW.

326 00:43:56.660 ⇒ 00:44:00.790 Pranav: So I think that’s probably, like, the conversations I need to have now, unless…

327 00:44:01.110 ⇒ 00:44:06.749 Pranav: Yeah, so a couple good… a couple good ways is, one, you’re no longer on the back foot for this client, right? So…

328 00:44:06.750 ⇒ 00:44:13.830 Uttam Kumaran: That’s good. It’s always hard to go talk about future stuff when you’re, like, effing up The normal stuff.

329 00:44:13.830 ⇒ 00:44:14.330 Pranav: Yeah.

330 00:44:14.330 ⇒ 00:44:18.069 Uttam Kumaran: So, you’ve done… you’ve done the first job. There’s a couple ways of doing this. One.

331 00:44:18.180 ⇒ 00:44:20.949 Uttam Kumaran: like, we have… I have all the transcripts recorded.

332 00:44:20.950 ⇒ 00:44:24.590 Pranav: Where they described, like, all the kind of Holy Grail stuff they want.

333 00:44:24.740 ⇒ 00:44:28.500 Pranav: You could basically send a message to Bobby and Zach and be like.

334 00:44:28.520 ⇒ 00:44:31.089 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, like, we’re cruising.

335 00:44:31.340 ⇒ 00:44:37.190 Uttam Kumaran: I’m pretty confident we’re gonna get the rest done. You guys mentioned this, like, when you talked to Utam a while ago.

336 00:44:37.300 ⇒ 00:44:41.239 Uttam Kumaran: Like, can we chat to see, like, what else is on the roadmap?

337 00:44:41.410 ⇒ 00:44:44.280 Uttam Kumaran: And how we can support you guys the rest of the year.

338 00:44:44.990 ⇒ 00:44:53.450 Uttam Kumaran: And that conversation, you’re totally right. You don’t want it to… you don’t want it to be a Gantt chart progress conversation. You need to be, like, a vision thing.

339 00:44:53.620 ⇒ 00:44:57.329 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So you really want to drive that conversation to, like.

340 00:44:57.480 ⇒ 00:45:09.450 Uttam Kumaran: tell me what winning looks like, and craft a vision of, like, what this future looks like with them. They will just… they will tell you 100 ideas, but you’re gonna have to switch mindsets from, like.

341 00:45:10.100 ⇒ 00:45:12.199 Uttam Kumaran: What is it gonna take to get it done to, like…

342 00:45:12.360 ⇒ 00:45:15.009 Uttam Kumaran: What is the craziest thing we could build for you?

343 00:45:15.170 ⇒ 00:45:17.740 Uttam Kumaran: You know? And you have to do both those things.

344 00:45:17.970 ⇒ 00:45:24.020 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s what I do, like, with CTA, like, I talk to Catherine, like, once or twice a week about just that.

345 00:45:24.380 ⇒ 00:45:29.580 Uttam Kumaran: like, the next, like, year’s worth of work, and I’m sort of fleshing that out, and there’s, like, day-to-day stuff going.

346 00:45:31.370 ⇒ 00:45:38.779 Uttam Kumaran: And so, like, when you’re… if you’re in a pocket where you can go have that conversation, do it. Like, it’s not often you get the pocket to do that.

347 00:45:39.470 ⇒ 00:45:44.590 Uttam Kumaran: Because ultimately, like, They’re not gonna talk to other partners about that.

348 00:45:44.760 ⇒ 00:45:56.969 Uttam Kumaran: Because they’re not… they may not be shopping, or they know they’re gonna do it with you, and you just don’t want to have to rush that when it gets to the end of the contract. Like, for Magic Spoon, for example, I can’t have that conversation, so…

349 00:45:57.560 ⇒ 00:46:06.859 Uttam Kumaran: like, right now, Demi, I’m sort of like, alright, is this gonna renew? What’s gonna happen? Because we’re off contract, and I’m like… so I’m on the back foot, right? And so, for Element.

350 00:46:07.640 ⇒ 00:46:13.629 Uttam Kumaran: We’re kind of in the pocket, like, sometimes on the back foot, getting closer to on the front.

351 00:46:13.950 ⇒ 00:46:18.659 Uttam Kumaran: And for every… and then for… for Eden, it’s kind of a mix for default.

352 00:46:18.770 ⇒ 00:46:20.200 Uttam Kumaran: It’s kind of a mix.

353 00:46:20.510 ⇒ 00:46:25.779 Uttam Kumaran: And so, like, we always want to try to push to where, like, we’re crushing it, there’s no question.

354 00:46:26.020 ⇒ 00:46:34.229 Uttam Kumaran: let’s talk about the future, and everybody likes talking about the future, and likes talking about the vision. It’s very, very easy, fun, and it’s easy for us to scope.

355 00:46:34.490 ⇒ 00:46:37.830 Uttam Kumaran: So I think if you feel that way on your client, you should take advantage of this moment.

356 00:46:38.160 ⇒ 00:46:50.239 Uttam Kumaran: come to the table with stuff, because ultimately, like, that’s what they’re hiring us for. So if you want to work… if you want to call me and be like, yo, let’s just hash out for, like, 15 minutes the craziest stuff we can build for these guys.

357 00:46:50.360 ⇒ 00:46:56.949 Uttam Kumaran: It’s basically our roadmap for our platform, so there’s, like, 10 things you could easily get.

358 00:46:57.340 ⇒ 00:46:57.790 Pranav: Yup.

359 00:46:57.790 ⇒ 00:47:06.189 Uttam Kumaran: Then you just have the call with them and flesh it out, and they’ll tell you what they like, what they don’t like, they’ll give you a sense of how fast, and you… yeah, we’ll work on the scope, that’s it.

360 00:47:07.510 ⇒ 00:47:09.120 Pranav: Cool. Yeah, that sounds good.

361 00:47:13.220 ⇒ 00:47:16.089 Clarence Stone: Yeah, feeling good about that, because it’s.

362 00:47:16.090 ⇒ 00:47:16.600 Pranav: Yeah.

363 00:47:16.600 ⇒ 00:47:19.779 Clarence Stone: Conversation to start. Okay, good. Nice. Yeah.

364 00:47:20.710 ⇒ 00:47:23.000 Clarence Stone: You have a third one.

365 00:47:24.450 ⇒ 00:47:25.950 Pranav: Yeah, I think we kind of…

366 00:47:26.080 ⇒ 00:47:35.740 Pranav: I feel like this is kind of, like, an opportunity to, like, what Tom just said, to, like, discuss these things, right? Like, if meetings are ending early, and I have another 30 minutes, like, on their calendar.

367 00:47:35.960 ⇒ 00:47:41.530 Pranav: you know, I can just be like, hey guys, like, there’s a few other things that we could talk about,

368 00:47:42.040 ⇒ 00:47:51.160 Pranav: And it seems like more of, like, a conversation, too, that, like, you know, everybody doesn’t even need to be a part of. Like, Casey and Sam, like, these join these meetings, but, like…

369 00:47:51.210 ⇒ 00:48:03.319 Pranav: it might just be easier if it’s just, like, me and, like, the client. So I can just be like, hey, everybody can drop off, but, like, if you guys have a few more minutes, like, Bobby, like, Zach, do you want to, like, stay on? Like, I have a few, like, other things that I wanted to discuss.

370 00:48:03.320 ⇒ 00:48:07.359 Uttam Kumaran: out of the time, so… Yeah, so, like, that’s a great thing for, like, demos.

371 00:48:07.530 ⇒ 00:48:11.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, for it to show, like, yo, this crazy thing just came out.

372 00:48:11.630 ⇒ 00:48:15.239 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, look at this thing we built internally that’s, like, insane.

373 00:48:16.960 ⇒ 00:48:22.500 Uttam Kumaran: I was just hap… like, I know we’re kind of building this, but I just happen to think, like, this could also be important.

374 00:48:22.910 ⇒ 00:48:24.929 Uttam Kumaran: Industry news…

375 00:48:25.460 ⇒ 00:48:40.159 Uttam Kumaran: things like that. So, yeah, I mean, I would totally do that. If you have the time booked, and you’re… like, for example, there’s some clients where I have the time booked, and I’m like, I wish this could end earlier, because we’re sort of on the back foot, and I don’t… and, like, I’m like… we’re dancing too much.

376 00:48:40.440 ⇒ 00:48:45.189 Uttam Kumaran: If you… if you feel like you have the front foot, then yeah, like, for example, for CTA,

377 00:48:45.440 ⇒ 00:48:47.770 Uttam Kumaran: I… I’ll take every single call.

378 00:48:48.090 ⇒ 00:48:52.440 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll pick up every phone call, because they’re gonna work with us for, like, the next 3 years.

379 00:48:52.660 ⇒ 00:48:58.949 Uttam Kumaran: And so, like, it’s different, versus there’s some clients who call, and then I know, like, we’re just not in a great spot.

380 00:48:59.280 ⇒ 00:49:04.730 Uttam Kumaran: And I also don’t know what’s gonna happen, and so it’s almost like, let’s just end this early so we can keep

381 00:49:05.010 ⇒ 00:49:09.210 Uttam Kumaran: Working on getting on our… on the front, like, you know?

382 00:49:09.430 ⇒ 00:49:10.580 Uttam Kumaran: So… Right.

383 00:49:10.720 ⇒ 00:49:13.059 Uttam Kumaran: That’s, like, how I’m think… that’s how I think about it.

384 00:49:13.810 ⇒ 00:49:15.119 Pranav: Yeah, that makes sense to me.

385 00:49:15.720 ⇒ 00:49:25.110 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, it seems like you built a good rep with those guys, dude, and… like, quote… the quote they told me was, like, we wanna… we’ll… if this thing goes well, we’ll work with you guys for a long time, so…

386 00:49:25.220 ⇒ 00:49:34.560 Uttam Kumaran: I would just hold them to that. And it’s clear that they like, like, shiny things. I feel like we could build them a ton of stuff. I think what they asked us to build is, like, table stakes.

387 00:49:35.640 ⇒ 00:49:40.059 Uttam Kumaran: So, like… Yeah, this is the fun part, like… Yeah.

388 00:49:44.440 ⇒ 00:49:45.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

389 00:49:47.510 ⇒ 00:49:52.960 Uttam Kumaran: Like, they wanted to build, like, proactive alerting on stuff, they wanted to build more agentic things, like…

390 00:49:53.810 ⇒ 00:49:57.580 Uttam Kumaran: maybe they want some stuff internal, right? Like…

391 00:49:57.580 ⇒ 00:50:01.850 Pranav: You could go ask them, like, hey, where is your company spending the most money right now?

392 00:50:02.060 ⇒ 00:50:03.829 Uttam Kumaran: How can AI affect that?

393 00:50:04.020 ⇒ 00:50:07.099 Uttam Kumaran: like… What’s been the biggest…

394 00:50:07.340 ⇒ 00:50:11.890 Uttam Kumaran: You could just… and again, you just… there’s, like, 10 questions, you just ask people, they’ll tell you exactly.

395 00:50:12.140 ⇒ 00:50:13.900 Uttam Kumaran: Where the issues are, you know?

396 00:50:14.280 ⇒ 00:50:22.090 Pranav: Yeah. And like you said, I feel like when people are, like… like, you’re on the front foot, it’s, like, the best opportunity to ask. I feel like I’ll get, like.

397 00:50:22.240 ⇒ 00:50:26.119 Pranav: more… I’m not… there won’t be, like, oh, we’ll talk about it later, like, it seems like.

398 00:50:26.120 ⇒ 00:50:26.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

399 00:50:26.760 ⇒ 00:50:32.550 Pranav: to talk to them. So, I just want to take advantage of this now, because maybe, like, in a couple weeks, like.

400 00:50:32.780 ⇒ 00:50:33.300 Pranav: If they’re.

401 00:50:33.300 ⇒ 00:50:36.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, Greg, Greg, your project with… with Omni.

402 00:50:37.010 ⇒ 00:50:43.640 Uttam Kumaran: if you nail it, it’s gonna be a great example, while that’s working, to be like, what else? Yeah. Right?

403 00:50:46.270 ⇒ 00:50:47.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

404 00:50:52.450 ⇒ 00:50:53.200 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

405 00:50:53.780 ⇒ 00:50:54.550 Clarence Stone: Cool.

406 00:50:54.850 ⇒ 00:50:59.169 Clarence Stone: Let me just… do you want to talk about any of your bullet points, Utom?

407 00:51:03.880 ⇒ 00:51:04.220 Greg Stoutenburg: Guys.

408 00:51:04.220 ⇒ 00:51:04.720 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

409 00:51:04.720 ⇒ 00:51:06.230 Greg Stoutenburg: I actually… I have to drop, I gotta.

410 00:51:06.230 ⇒ 00:51:07.390 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, go, go, go.

411 00:51:07.420 ⇒ 00:51:10.420 Greg Stoutenburg: But, yeah, good, enjoy the conversation, everybody.

412 00:51:10.420 ⇒ 00:51:10.860 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yes.

413 00:51:10.860 ⇒ 00:51:11.410 Greg Stoutenburg: bum.

414 00:51:12.290 ⇒ 00:51:16.120 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like I’m still trying to figure out, like, how…

415 00:51:16.440 ⇒ 00:51:18.950 Uttam Kumaran: We all use, like, AI way more.

416 00:51:19.100 ⇒ 00:51:24.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

417 00:51:24.140 ⇒ 00:51:25.009 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know.

418 00:51:25.390 ⇒ 00:51:33.599 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like, I think, I mean, I feel like it’s maybe this group pushing it onto their teams, or, like, how do I incentivize this group to, like,

419 00:51:34.560 ⇒ 00:51:39.520 Uttam Kumaran: like, want to decide more on… on pushing AI. For example, Demi, like.

420 00:51:39.870 ⇒ 00:51:44.640 Uttam Kumaran: I realized, like, Ashwini isn’t using it a lot, and he could have got his stuff done way faster, and I’m like.

421 00:51:45.040 ⇒ 00:51:50.690 Uttam Kumaran: how could… how could that, like, push have come from somewhere else? Like, I don’t know. Sort of what I’m thinking about.

422 00:51:51.310 ⇒ 00:51:55.729 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, maybe… I mean, I don’t know, curious, Demi, like, what you think, like.

423 00:51:56.230 ⇒ 00:52:01.120 Uttam Kumaran: Do you feel like with this AI stuff, it’s more like… Seeing is believing.

424 00:52:01.450 ⇒ 00:52:04.980 Uttam Kumaran: Do you feel like you have to try it yourself to sort of get it?

425 00:52:05.270 ⇒ 00:52:10.289 Uttam Kumaran: like, what’s been your perspective, seeing how much I’ve been pushing it, like, what’s been your take on it?

426 00:52:12.180 ⇒ 00:52:15.210 Demilade Agboola: I think it’s one of those things where… Or is it just…

427 00:52:15.210 ⇒ 00:52:18.610 Uttam Kumaran: It’s annoying, like, you could even say it’s annoying, and I’ll try to think of it a different way.

428 00:52:20.740 ⇒ 00:52:30.249 Demilade Agboola: I think sometimes it feels like a proselytizing evangelist, like someone who’s just on the streets, like, use AI, use AI, ringing the bell.

429 00:52:30.250 ⇒ 00:52:32.820 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but dude, I believe, I’m a true believer.

430 00:52:33.310 ⇒ 00:52:34.219 Demilade Agboola: So, what do you mean?

431 00:52:35.190 ⇒ 00:52:35.800 Demilade Agboola: coming soon.

432 00:52:35.800 ⇒ 00:52:40.359 Uttam Kumaran: The rapture is coming.

433 00:52:44.610 ⇒ 00:52:48.919 Demilade Agboola: But yeah, I think it’s one of those things where…

434 00:52:50.490 ⇒ 00:52:57.199 Demilade Agboola: it’s about finding the use cases that work for you as a person, and so, like, if you’re talking, say, SOWs.

435 00:52:57.340 ⇒ 00:53:02.780 Demilade Agboola: and Ashwini’s not writing SOWs, he’s not really gonna use it, you know?

436 00:53:03.180 ⇒ 00:53:06.419 Demilade Agboola: It’s all singing here about, like…

437 00:53:07.500 ⇒ 00:53:12.090 Demilade Agboola: What are the use cases for… for engineers.

438 00:53:12.360 ⇒ 00:53:20.119 Demilade Agboola: Specifically, how are we able to utilize those, like, AI to be able to speed up the process?

439 00:53:20.440 ⇒ 00:53:23.349 Demilade Agboola: Across multiple use cases.

440 00:53:25.300 ⇒ 00:53:28.550 Demilade Agboola: And yeah, I think that does help a bit.

441 00:53:30.830 ⇒ 00:53:39.890 Demilade Agboola: And I think also there’s the risk of, I don’t know if he’s ever been burnt by AI code, so it’s also maybe a thing where it’s like, okay, I’ve used it in the past.

442 00:53:40.410 ⇒ 00:53:42.789 Demilade Agboola: It turned out like rubbish code.

443 00:53:42.980 ⇒ 00:53:51.069 Demilade Agboola: And I’d rather ensure that everything I do, or I put out, is brick by brick, done by me, so I know and feel confident of the quality that goes out.

444 00:53:51.900 ⇒ 00:53:56.540 Demilade Agboola: So yeah, I guess it’s just, like, figuring out what exactly

445 00:53:57.560 ⇒ 00:54:06.400 Demilade Agboola: he, like, is it that he doesn’t see utility in terms of, like, the things, the use cases he sees don’t really apply to him? Or is it just a thing of, like.

446 00:54:06.600 ⇒ 00:54:09.789 Demilade Agboola: You know, I’ve had a negative experience, and I would rather avoid that.

447 00:54:10.850 ⇒ 00:54:13.000 Uttam Kumaran: What is it, like, what’s working for you?

448 00:54:14.670 ⇒ 00:54:18.910 Demilade Agboola: For me, I would say a lot of the things… are…

449 00:54:20.410 ⇒ 00:54:23.349 Demilade Agboola: Coding, but, like, heavy prompting.

450 00:54:24.640 ⇒ 00:54:32.570 Demilade Agboola: being aware of, like, adding other context, so, like, if there are CSVs or documentation that I can, you know, put in there.

451 00:54:32.720 ⇒ 00:54:39.190 Demilade Agboola: And be like, okay, here’s the path to this file, take this into context when doing this,

452 00:54:39.630 ⇒ 00:54:43.469 Demilade Agboola: I kind of think of it like an intern, to be honest. It’s one of those things where…

453 00:54:44.600 ⇒ 00:54:47.700 Demilade Agboola: You kind of know what needs to be done.

454 00:54:48.670 ⇒ 00:54:55.610 Demilade Agboola: But you know that an intern can fuck up, like, a lot, so you’re just trying to be ahead of the curve, and just be like, yo.

455 00:54:56.010 ⇒ 00:54:57.440 Demilade Agboola: Be careful of this.

456 00:54:58.160 ⇒ 00:55:03.790 Demilade Agboola: When you get to this point, you need to, like, think of this this way, or use this this way.

457 00:55:06.090 ⇒ 00:55:14.400 Demilade Agboola: And also, just kind of ensuring that, like, whatever outcomes, like, whatever the output is, I ensure that I look at it as best as possible before the client.

458 00:55:14.860 ⇒ 00:55:15.990 Demilade Agboola: sees it.

459 00:55:16.560 ⇒ 00:55:23.250 Demilade Agboola: Because sometimes, yeah, you don’t want this situation where, like, it doesn’t make any sense.

460 00:55:23.390 ⇒ 00:55:29.979 Demilade Agboola: And then Clancy’s just like, what the hell is all this? So, I guess it’s just one of those things where, for me, it’s great for, like.

461 00:55:30.310 ⇒ 00:55:33.660 Demilade Agboola: quick documentation on stuff that I’ve done. It’s great for…

462 00:55:35.200 ⇒ 00:55:39.350 Demilade Agboola: quick, like, V1s of things I need to do.

463 00:55:39.800 ⇒ 00:55:44.249 Demilade Agboola: potentially V2, V4s, if the context is not clear enough.

464 00:55:44.900 ⇒ 00:55:49.489 Demilade Agboola: But yeah, I think those are, like, a lot… a lot of the use cases I use for, like, AI.

465 00:55:51.230 ⇒ 00:55:55.050 Demilade Agboola: Oh, and also, like, some… sometimes, like, Quick.

466 00:55:56.520 ⇒ 00:55:59.420 Demilade Agboola: Step-by-step guides on how to do certain things.

467 00:55:59.580 ⇒ 00:56:05.099 Demilade Agboola: But I end up finding out, like, sometimes Google searches is still superior.

468 00:56:05.100 ⇒ 00:56:08.210 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so maybe part of it is, like.

469 00:56:09.960 ⇒ 00:56:22.910 Uttam Kumaran: is, for me, is just thinking about ways that I can continue, because, dude, I’m just… I’m not yelling about it, about everything, but there’s things I find, because I’m now managing, like, 5 or 6 clients, and doing, like, so much stuff, so…

470 00:56:23.110 ⇒ 00:56:27.089 Uttam Kumaran: it’s working for me, but I’m just trying to find out ways that I can share, like.

471 00:56:27.330 ⇒ 00:56:30.320 Uttam Kumaran: easy tips and how I’m thinking about things, but…

472 00:56:31.380 ⇒ 00:56:39.130 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I mean, to hear that you’re actually… you’re taking it seriously and stuff is good, because that means it’ll… it’ll break everybody down soon enough.

473 00:56:40.120 ⇒ 00:56:41.520 Uttam Kumaran: Just keep yelling.

474 00:56:43.960 ⇒ 00:56:53.569 Clarence Stone: I, I don’t know. I, like, I would have thought that, being overloaded with work would have inspired people to try some automated ways,

475 00:56:53.730 ⇒ 00:56:59.660 Clarence Stone: I… I want to know what the hesitation there is, right?

476 00:57:00.700 ⇒ 00:57:07.900 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, because, like, I’ve probably dumped an extraordinary amount of time over the last two weeks creating automations for myself.

477 00:57:07.930 ⇒ 00:57:23.500 Clarence Stone: And it’s already paying off today for me, right? So I think maybe the problem is the initial investment, but here’s the problem. Utam, you’re doing all that work for them already. You’ve built all of these solutions, right? So it’s really an adoption aspect of it that’s the problem.

478 00:57:24.420 ⇒ 00:57:30.770 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, my… my take is that every time I’ve done… A small group demo.

479 00:57:30.990 ⇒ 00:57:32.830 Uttam Kumaran: Of a use case.

480 00:57:33.290 ⇒ 00:57:37.250 Uttam Kumaran: Everybody’s been like, holy shit. And then people start using it.

481 00:57:37.820 ⇒ 00:57:41.989 Uttam Kumaran: And… Maybe that’s just, like, what I… we have to do.

482 00:57:42.170 ⇒ 00:57:47.640 Uttam Kumaran: like… You know, and I’m okay with that, and…

483 00:57:48.130 ⇒ 00:57:51.769 Uttam Kumaran: We have to just go team by team, like, delivery team will have to think about it.

484 00:57:52.300 ⇒ 00:57:56.380 Uttam Kumaran: Sales team, Robert’s pushing it.

485 00:57:57.020 ⇒ 00:58:01.119 Uttam Kumaran: ops, like, I have to push it to Shayshu, and he has to push it down.

486 00:58:01.740 ⇒ 00:58:08.060 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine. I mean, I think this technology may just be so new that people have to learn that way for the most part, so…

487 00:58:08.990 ⇒ 00:58:10.630 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe that’s what we have to do.

488 00:58:14.330 ⇒ 00:58:15.590 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

489 00:58:19.410 ⇒ 00:58:25.700 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, ultimately, we get so much business that I, like, everybody has 4 clients, and then you’re kind of forced to do it, right?

490 00:58:26.310 ⇒ 00:58:32.389 Clarence Stone: But I feel like you’re already there. A lot of people are saying they’re overloaded, right? And they’re just not reaching for the AI solution.

491 00:58:33.290 ⇒ 00:58:35.330 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what I’m also saying, I’m like, dude…

492 00:58:36.120 ⇒ 00:58:40.819 Uttam Kumaran: the moment I wake up and do anything, I’m reaching for the AI solution, because it’s faster, like…

493 00:58:41.010 ⇒ 00:58:48.030 Uttam Kumaran: I just… I had to do so much, like, cleanup of Excel sheets today, and I literally, like, would not have been able to do it without

494 00:58:48.220 ⇒ 00:58:49.799 Uttam Kumaran: Claude for Excel.

495 00:58:50.690 ⇒ 00:58:53.679 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m, like, figuring these things out, and I’m like, okay, if…

496 00:58:54.140 ⇒ 00:59:00.999 Uttam Kumaran: But, again, I don’t know, maybe it’s just, like, a… you don’t know that it’s possible to do it until you’ve seen it.

497 00:59:02.570 ⇒ 00:59:03.480 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, I’m…

498 00:59:03.480 ⇒ 00:59:05.270 Uttam Kumaran: You don’t even know what you don’t know.

499 00:59:05.270 ⇒ 00:59:10.260 Clarence Stone: And show you guys this, check this out. This, this is my agent setup.

500 00:59:10.840 ⇒ 00:59:23.700 Clarence Stone: I’ve got an org chart, that’s me. I’ve got a primary orchestration agent. I’ve got an agent that does consulting analysis for PE and tax, I’ve got a technical analysis, I’ve got SCAP, who just monitors everything so sub-agents run.

501 00:59:23.700 ⇒ 00:59:36.149 Clarence Stone: I’ve got, my identification verification layer, which is really just making sure that I’m not… I’m scrubbing all my data points before I put it into these systems. And then there’s a workflow for how that happens. When you go to How We Work.

502 00:59:36.150 ⇒ 00:59:48.319 Clarence Stone: These are the processes, these are output templates that I’m using right now. There’s an approval method, right? And if you look at this agent, this agent’s loaded with frameworks for consulting methodologies.

503 00:59:48.730 ⇒ 00:59:49.570 Clarence Stone: Right.

504 00:59:49.890 ⇒ 01:00:01.329 Clarence Stone: and it goes through how to trigger a framework. It’ll actually walk you through step-by-step. First, you do this for this framework, right? And it has an RSS feed that’s picking up strategies all the time, every night.

505 01:00:01.570 ⇒ 01:00:12.040 Clarence Stone: And then there’s a Notion database for each one of these things, where, I have methodologies, design thinking workshops, and all that good stuff, and that’s all here in Lola’s Command Center.

506 01:00:12.330 ⇒ 01:00:16.360 Clarence Stone: You know, Templates, methodologies.

507 01:00:16.820 ⇒ 01:00:23.839 Clarence Stone: OKRs, whatever you want to do, right? This took time investment, sure, but it’s helping me so much now.

508 01:00:25.110 ⇒ 01:00:25.720 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

509 01:00:28.830 ⇒ 01:00:31.109 Clarence Stone: Oh, and I can just iMessage it, Debbie.

510 01:00:31.230 ⇒ 01:00:35.120 Clarence Stone: So I could just say, hey, can you do some research on X, Y, and Z?

511 01:00:39.310 ⇒ 01:00:43.479 Clarence Stone: Right? So, I mean… I want the team to get there.

512 01:00:45.180 ⇒ 01:00:48.400 Clarence Stone: And Fernab’s like, I’m out.

513 01:00:49.260 ⇒ 01:00:57.520 Clarence Stone: But yeah, we’ll continue that fight, Utam. By the way, Demi, you’re talking another… to another believer, clearly, so…

514 01:00:57.520 ⇒ 01:01:01.610 Uttam Kumaran: No, I think it’s just, like, what you’re seeing in Kersha’s working for you.

515 01:01:02.160 ⇒ 01:01:12.550 Uttam Kumaran: just imagine if, like, you’re the only person that saw it, like, 6 months ago, and so that’s the part of it, is, like, I’m using it for actual stuff every day, and I’m like, shit, I wish I could just show everybody, like.

516 01:01:13.060 ⇒ 01:01:16.470 Uttam Kumaran: And so I’m just trying to think about ways, but…

517 01:01:18.120 ⇒ 01:01:21.759 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, maybe I’ll come to these meetings with, like, clear things, yeah.

518 01:01:27.100 ⇒ 01:01:30.009 Clarence Stone: Yeah. We’ll work on it. We’ll brainstorm it.

519 01:01:30.640 ⇒ 01:01:34.850 Clarence Stone: I mean… Dude, these systems are getting so good.

520 01:01:35.370 ⇒ 01:01:37.890 Clarence Stone: Look, I just created that notion.

521 01:01:38.280 ⇒ 01:01:39.680 Clarence Stone: And it gave me…

522 01:01:39.960 ⇒ 01:01:41.359 Uttam Kumaran: How long it took.

523 01:01:43.450 ⇒ 01:01:45.450 Uttam Kumaran: No, it’s great. I think, like…

524 01:01:45.450 ⇒ 01:01:46.300 Clarence Stone: insane.

525 01:01:46.300 ⇒ 01:01:52.350 Uttam Kumaran: But people are… I mean, I’m just happy that, you know, even in our company, everybody’s on cursor, and everybody’s doing stuff, and…

526 01:01:53.170 ⇒ 01:01:57.179 Uttam Kumaran: It’s getting there. Like, most companies are still, like, really, really far, so…

527 01:01:59.380 ⇒ 01:02:00.090 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

528 01:02:03.580 ⇒ 01:02:04.090 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

529 01:02:04.600 ⇒ 01:02:09.190 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, guys, I’m gonna drop. I think the only thing, Demi, is I sent a note to Mary.

530 01:02:09.390 ⇒ 01:02:11.889 Uttam Kumaran: I think probably the only thing on Magic Spoon is, like.

531 01:02:12.480 ⇒ 01:02:18.939 Uttam Kumaran: I think the structure for the SPINS data pipeline is there, so that’s the last thing for us to deliver.

532 01:02:18.940 ⇒ 01:02:19.550 Demilade Agboola: Hello?

533 01:02:20.070 ⇒ 01:02:23.250 Uttam Kumaran: is the… end-to-end mark.

534 01:02:24.310 ⇒ 01:02:24.920 Demilade Agboola: Wonder.

535 01:02:26.330 ⇒ 01:02:30.619 Uttam Kumaran: So I basically sent her that, I was like, hey, I’m fairly confident we can get this done.

536 01:02:30.850 ⇒ 01:02:32.070 Uttam Kumaran: By Friday?

537 01:02:33.450 ⇒ 01:02:36.480 Uttam Kumaran: Like, are you gonna continue with us, or, like, am I gonna…

538 01:02:36.730 ⇒ 01:02:41.929 Uttam Kumaran: I didn’t say it, but I’m basically like, if you’re not gonna continue, then I can’t… we can’t keep working right now, so…

539 01:02:42.420 ⇒ 01:02:44.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, makes sense.

540 01:02:44.590 ⇒ 01:02:51.139 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, we have a QA session on Wednesday, so we will definitely have some of the…

541 01:02:51.920 ⇒ 01:02:54.719 Demilade Agboola: Like, some of the data in there,

542 01:02:54.870 ⇒ 01:03:03.930 Demilade Agboola: And part of the queue is we want to be able to think of, like, ACV and TDP, so my focus… because it’s, like, almost midnight here, I’m going to have a call with Mustafa.

543 01:03:04.190 ⇒ 01:03:11.250 Demilade Agboola: As well, and so I’ll probably, once I’m done with that, I’ll log off for the day, and then tomorrow my focus will be, like, Magic Spoon.

544 01:03:11.400 ⇒ 01:03:15.740 Demilade Agboola: getting the numbers in there with, like, TDP and ACV.

545 01:03:16.760 ⇒ 01:03:17.390 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

546 01:03:20.450 ⇒ 01:03:21.270 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

547 01:03:22.060 ⇒ 01:03:23.640 Demilade Agboola: Alright, sounds good.

548 01:03:23.980 ⇒ 01:03:26.960 Uttam Kumaran: Clarence, you wanna stay on? You want to talk about, Snowflake stuff?

549 01:03:27.310 ⇒ 01:03:28.279 Clarence Stone: Sure, yeah, yeah.

550 01:03:28.280 ⇒ 01:03:28.840 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

551 01:03:30.870 ⇒ 01:03:34.800 Clarence Stone: You got the… the deck. I’ve finally approved.

552 01:03:35.650 ⇒ 01:03:37.899 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, wait, I didn’t… wait, really? I didn’t get anything.

553 01:03:37.900 ⇒ 01:03:38.790 Clarence Stone: I sent it.

554 01:03:38.990 ⇒ 01:03:39.580 Clarence Stone: I think.

555 01:03:39.580 ⇒ 01:03:40.390 Uttam Kumaran: Josente?

556 01:03:40.390 ⇒ 01:03:42.340 Clarence Stone: No, I sent it earlier today, I think.

557 01:03:43.020 ⇒ 01:03:43.730 Clarence Stone: If you are.

558 01:03:43.730 ⇒ 01:03:44.510 Uttam Kumaran: What?

559 01:03:47.890 ⇒ 01:03:50.630 Clarence Stone: Did I say the wrong person? They’re in Clarence at Vicinity.

560 01:03:52.880 ⇒ 01:03:53.970 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I did.

561 01:03:54.520 ⇒ 01:03:55.190 Clarence Stone: Okay, go.

562 01:03:55.520 ⇒ 01:03:58.099 Uttam Kumaran: That’s weird. I don’t know why it did not even go.

563 01:03:58.100 ⇒ 01:04:02.449 Clarence Stone: But this is a great time for me to talk to you about it, so it all works out.

564 01:04:11.380 ⇒ 01:04:16.219 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. So for… yeah, for the one with Mike, I can just message and…

565 01:04:16.950 ⇒ 01:04:17.500 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

566 01:04:17.650 ⇒ 01:04:18.910 Uttam Kumaran: Give some slots.

567 01:04:19.180 ⇒ 01:04:20.550 Clarence Stone: Mike is a friendly.

568 01:04:20.550 ⇒ 01:04:21.140 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

569 01:04:35.140 ⇒ 01:04:40.720 Clarence Stone: And then the second one I sent you was a slide deck of, like, the actual problem space Claire was looking into.

570 01:04:41.820 ⇒ 01:04:43.070 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so…

571 01:05:45.250 ⇒ 01:05:46.859 Clarence Stone: Do you want me to pop it up and talk you through it?

572 01:05:46.860 ⇒ 01:05:49.259 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, I’m reading, I’m reading, I’m almost done reading.

573 01:06:02.260 ⇒ 01:06:07.440 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool, I mean, one seems fine… 2…

574 01:06:12.980 ⇒ 01:06:15.009 Uttam Kumaran: 2’s not… is that gonna be us?

575 01:06:16.770 ⇒ 01:06:19.109 Uttam Kumaran: For the orchestration and alignment?

576 01:06:21.990 ⇒ 01:06:26.890 Clarence Stone: Oh, I… did I erase something on my clearance notes, maybe?

577 01:06:27.200 ⇒ 01:06:33.470 Clarence Stone: So, for two, it’s, it’s more of… like…

578 01:06:34.830 ⇒ 01:06:40.139 Clarence Stone: So imagine you’re the client, and you have to pay off, like, all of these sub-jurisdictions, right?

579 01:06:40.480 ⇒ 01:06:49.489 Clarence Stone: If I were to put in an invoice request for each one that I have to pay for you, there would be somebody that has to sit there and hit approve on, like, $5,000.

580 01:06:50.670 ⇒ 01:06:52.450 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm… Right. Okay.

581 01:06:52.830 ⇒ 01:07:06.520 Clarence Stone: What Eli wants is to say, hey, Utah, I looked at your entire business, right, and for the category of AI, and all the companies you’ve set up for AI, these are all the payments that need to go out.

582 01:07:06.520 ⇒ 01:07:07.220 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

583 01:07:07.220 ⇒ 01:07:09.460 Clarence Stone: So, it’s like a package of 500.

584 01:07:09.910 ⇒ 01:07:14.090 Clarence Stone: Right, and then you just check the math to say, okay, like, the math adds up.

585 01:07:14.480 ⇒ 01:07:18.539 Clarence Stone: These are the right jurisdictions that you’re operating in. That looks right.

586 01:07:19.140 ⇒ 01:07:24.739 Clarence Stone: Right? And the UI shows the check values already, so, like, so all the tax work is already being done that way.

587 01:07:24.920 ⇒ 01:07:34.920 Clarence Stone: So what I was saying is we can’t send one payment at a time. It should be, hey, this is a package, right? And we need the client’s approval.

588 01:07:35.000 ⇒ 01:07:51.600 Clarence Stone: And that whole package is approved, one by one, you have to go through the payment flow. And by the way, there’s, like, three… I would categorize it in three ways, but you’re gonna… you’re probably gonna run into different situations. Like, there’s one where it’s fully online, like, you know, like, Austin.

589 01:07:51.730 ⇒ 01:07:52.310 Clarence Stone: Right.

590 01:07:52.310 ⇒ 01:07:52.780 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

591 01:07:52.780 ⇒ 01:07:59.220 Clarence Stone: well integrated. But then you have some that are partially online, giving you instructions, and then saying you have to mail it in.

592 01:07:59.680 ⇒ 01:08:00.350 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

593 01:08:00.350 ⇒ 01:08:09.079 Clarence Stone: Right? And then there’s, like, others that are like, you need to contact this person, and based on what that topic is, you need to, you know, file it a certain way.

594 01:08:09.160 ⇒ 01:08:26.890 Clarence Stone: That’s becoming rare, very rare, so I wouldn’t really, like, dev for that outcome, but there’s, like, tiny little towns that’s like, you know, Jim’s running this jurisdiction, like, you have to just email him, and Jim will give you a, you know, an account to pay, right?

595 01:08:27.460 ⇒ 01:08:34.429 Clarence Stone: And when you mail things out physically, there’s a, like, a certified mailed card that’s green.

596 01:08:34.439 ⇒ 01:08:35.679 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, I just did it.

597 01:08:35.680 ⇒ 01:08:37.880 Clarence Stone: Oh, there you go! So you know exactly what I’m talking about.

598 01:08:37.880 ⇒ 01:08:42.189 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I just did, I have it somewhere, because I had to file 83B for Brainforge stuff.

599 01:08:42.550 ⇒ 01:08:46.550 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah, so I think you should write that in your overview, too.

600 01:08:46.550 ⇒ 01:08:47.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I literally just did it.

601 01:08:47.689 ⇒ 01:08:48.289 Clarence Stone: It’s…

602 01:08:48.290 ⇒ 01:08:51.590 Uttam Kumaran: It’s… I mean, like, yeah.

603 01:08:53.399 ⇒ 01:09:10.889 Clarence Stone: Yeah, it is… it’s painful, right? And imagine doing that, like, hundreds of times, right? That’s the problem that they’re running into. And the thing is, like, if they estimate this wrong, and just say, like, instead of telling… you remember I said, hey, we’ve looked at your AI companies, this is how much you owe?

604 01:09:10.889 ⇒ 01:09:21.179 Clarence Stone: Like, if you did an estimate at the top level for all your companies, your data company, your MarTech company, all of those things, and just said, Utam, you owe, like, a million five.

605 01:09:21.539 ⇒ 01:09:24.069 Clarence Stone: Right? Your capital would be tied up.

606 01:09:24.439 ⇒ 01:09:25.189 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

607 01:09:25.430 ⇒ 01:09:33.260 Clarence Stone: And we really know for sure that you have to make that payment, right? So it’s like a couple months where you can’t actually tap into that money that’s messed up.

608 01:09:33.490 ⇒ 01:09:36.710 Clarence Stone: Yes. So that’s why we’re still batching it.

609 01:09:36.830 ⇒ 01:09:42.179 Clarence Stone: But it’s not fully batched, because it’ll block your income otherwise.

610 01:09:43.520 ⇒ 01:09:45.069 Uttam Kumaran: Okay…

611 01:09:49.840 ⇒ 01:09:50.660 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

612 01:09:51.100 ⇒ 01:09:58.649 Clarence Stone: Yeah. That’s why I said in Bullet 2, like, is this the kind of projects that you’d be interested in? Because, like, there’s a lot of…

613 01:09:58.820 ⇒ 01:09:59.890 Clarence Stone: nuanced.

614 01:10:03.790 ⇒ 01:10:07.300 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I’m not afraid of the nuance.

615 01:10:07.980 ⇒ 01:10:12.910 Uttam Kumaran: I guess one is, like, how accurate do you have to be?

616 01:10:13.240 ⇒ 01:10:20.040 Uttam Kumaran: And this is where, like, I’m not sure exactly until I see what the current solution is to get an estimate of, like.

617 01:10:20.180 ⇒ 01:10:22.819 Uttam Kumaran: Are you guys already… is the team already, like.

618 01:10:23.160 ⇒ 01:10:27.299 Uttam Kumaran: It’s already, like, really inaccurate, and there’s already, like, a lot of failures and issues happening.

619 01:10:27.300 ⇒ 01:10:32.899 Clarence Stone: Oh yeah, hella issues. Like, even if, like, you were able to do number one.

620 01:10:33.720 ⇒ 01:10:36.169 Clarence Stone: We’re just scraping all the jurisdictions.

621 01:10:36.530 ⇒ 01:10:37.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

622 01:10:37.180 ⇒ 01:10:46.130 Clarence Stone: you would be a champ, because, like, what happens sometimes is, like, you know, I think we were talking about Taylor, Texas, when we were talking, when we were hanging out last time, right? Like.

623 01:10:46.130 ⇒ 01:10:47.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

624 01:10:47.080 ⇒ 01:11:00.910 Clarence Stone: Ryan Holiday is a client, maybe, and he has to pay it, right? And we don’t have any other fucking clients in Taylor, Texas, right? Like, somebody, an EY person, is looking at the website, like, physically going there.

625 01:11:01.020 ⇒ 01:11:10.229 Clarence Stone: finding that information, right, and then filing it. And most of the time, because these are humans, they’re not going to go back to the main repo and update it.

626 01:11:13.000 ⇒ 01:11:13.830 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm…

627 01:11:13.830 ⇒ 01:11:20.080 Clarence Stone: Right, so what I told Claire is, like, there’s some interesting things that we can do here. We can look at prior payments and see how it was done.

628 01:11:20.280 ⇒ 01:11:22.010 Clarence Stone: And then backfill the log.

629 01:11:22.280 ⇒ 01:11:23.030 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

630 01:11:23.030 ⇒ 01:11:28.629 Clarence Stone: And then run a cron to just double-check certain things, from highest frequency to lowest frequency, maybe.

631 01:11:28.630 ⇒ 01:11:29.630 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

632 01:11:29.630 ⇒ 01:11:31.240 Clarence Stone: Right. Something like that.

633 01:11:31.240 ⇒ 01:11:35.439 Uttam Kumaran: So, dude, one, I’m not, like… I mean, one, it’s…

634 01:11:35.580 ⇒ 01:11:37.510 Uttam Kumaran: It’s really just gonna be, like.

635 01:11:38.570 ⇒ 01:11:44.640 Uttam Kumaran: A data engineering problem, and a mix of scraping, which… we’ve done this before a bunch of times, so…

636 01:11:45.100 ⇒ 01:11:50.340 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not as worried… I’m, like, I’m… I’m more worried about, like, 3.

637 01:11:52.460 ⇒ 01:11:53.610 Uttam Kumaran: Animal 2.

638 01:11:54.180 ⇒ 01:12:01.869 Clarence Stone: Okay, let me just double check 3 and 2. Okay. So, so 2, the batching, we already decide. It’s in, it’s in the platform I created.

639 01:12:03.090 ⇒ 01:12:03.670 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

640 01:12:03.670 ⇒ 01:12:16.950 Clarence Stone: like, at the top line, like, you already know how much you owe, but, like, tracking each certain payment is, like, impossible because, like, Teams just taking manual override. We can’t even build a UI or track it, because it’s just too manual.

641 01:12:18.130 ⇒ 01:12:22.830 Clarence Stone: Right. So, I will be able, from the system, tell you what the batch is.

642 01:12:24.250 ⇒ 01:12:25.369 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yes.

643 01:12:25.370 ⇒ 01:12:33.260 Clarence Stone: So, so, what we need to do then is say, like, take a look at that batch and say, do we have the process for all of them? How fresh is that data?

644 01:12:33.480 ⇒ 01:12:34.410 Clarence Stone: Right.

645 01:12:35.160 ⇒ 01:12:40.049 Clarence Stone: And then… say, okay, no, this, like, instructions for this batch, cool.

646 01:12:40.050 ⇒ 01:12:41.070 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.

647 01:12:41.070 ⇒ 01:12:47.019 Clarence Stone: Or even give the user a preview of, like, hey, all of these counties They have a web portal.

648 01:12:47.380 ⇒ 01:12:47.940 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

649 01:12:48.060 ⇒ 01:12:53.299 Clarence Stone: Right? These, you’re gonna have to mail in. These, we, we started an automation to look

650 01:12:53.940 ⇒ 01:12:54.950 Clarence Stone: For how to do it.

651 01:12:55.730 ⇒ 01:12:56.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

652 01:12:56.520 ⇒ 01:13:02.110 Clarence Stone: Right? And if anything’s stale more than 6 months, maybe we manually do it. But really, like.

653 01:13:02.300 ⇒ 01:13:08.460 Clarence Stone: Nobody, no big four, has a living document that keeps track of all this shit.

654 01:13:09.730 ⇒ 01:13:14.819 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm… And you sure you can’t buy this?

655 01:13:15.620 ⇒ 01:13:24.219 Clarence Stone: Because, like, literally, like, think about… so I, I, I filed something in Parasol. Dude, Parasols, I got podunk.

656 01:13:24.490 ⇒ 01:13:29.529 Clarence Stone: Backwater, you know, like, county. They just got a website.

657 01:13:29.890 ⇒ 01:13:33.109 Clarence Stone: I had to go into the office to do a bunch of things.

658 01:13:33.570 ⇒ 01:13:34.799 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah.

659 01:13:35.200 ⇒ 01:13:47.250 Clarence Stone: Right? And, you know, if I wasn’t close, like, I would have to keep spamming their phone, because maybe some… like, there’s, like, one lady that works there in the whole county office. She might be busy. She doesn’t pick up.

660 01:13:48.710 ⇒ 01:13:49.830 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm…

661 01:13:50.550 ⇒ 01:13:54.060 Clarence Stone: Right? So, like, that’s… that’s the difficulty.

662 01:13:55.130 ⇒ 01:14:00.020 Uttam Kumaran: So, when we talked last week, you said a good… Demo.

663 01:14:00.820 ⇒ 01:14:06.519 Uttam Kumaran: would be… just trying to do Brain Forge into Travis

664 01:14:07.560 ⇒ 01:14:10.359 Uttam Kumaran: Or I guess I should look not at the county level.

665 01:14:11.550 ⇒ 01:14:13.450 Uttam Kumaran: I should just look at Austin…

666 01:14:14.410 ⇒ 01:14:24.199 Clarence Stone: There were some interesting, jurisdictions that were tricky. I actually did… one of my agents did some deep research on this earlier, Hema.

667 01:14:32.910 ⇒ 01:14:33.830 Clarence Stone: above…

668 01:14:37.940 ⇒ 01:14:48.770 Clarence Stone: Okay, so, PA Act 32 means that you have to file things a certain way for every single county. This is a local income tax.

669 01:14:49.370 ⇒ 01:14:55.550 Clarence Stone: Right? And Act 32, Does it have a repo.

670 01:14:56.860 ⇒ 01:14:58.450 Clarence Stone: Of how to do it.

671 01:14:58.660 ⇒ 01:15:01.299 Clarence Stone: It does have rates by address, though.

672 01:15:03.990 ⇒ 01:15:05.129 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm, okay.

673 01:15:05.870 ⇒ 01:15:15.069 Clarence Stone: Right? Like, like, the number one… like, I’ll share the screen with you. Like, the number one button for this Act 32 is call your local tax collector.

674 01:15:15.420 ⇒ 01:15:16.909 Clarence Stone: Look at this bullshit.

675 01:15:18.150 ⇒ 01:15:21.539 Clarence Stone: There’s no button to say, let me send you that.

676 01:15:22.200 ⇒ 01:15:23.130 Clarence Stone: online.

677 01:15:24.710 ⇒ 01:15:26.400 Clarence Stone: Like, you can look up rates.

678 01:15:30.130 ⇒ 01:15:31.070 Clarence Stone: Right.

679 01:15:31.390 ⇒ 01:15:32.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

680 01:15:32.580 ⇒ 01:15:36.440 Clarence Stone: And then, like, you see all of this, but there is a website and an office

681 01:15:36.970 ⇒ 01:15:42.390 Clarence Stone: So then you can actually go to that page specifically, Right? And find the instructions.

682 01:15:44.110 ⇒ 01:15:45.080 Uttam Kumaran: Go to that one?

683 01:15:46.410 ⇒ 01:15:47.750 Clarence Stone: Let’s see, Adams County.

684 01:15:50.500 ⇒ 01:15:53.150 Uttam Kumaran: I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

685 01:15:53.150 ⇒ 01:15:54.770 Clarence Stone: This is the problem.

686 01:15:55.230 ⇒ 01:15:55.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

687 01:16:01.010 ⇒ 01:16:03.540 Clarence Stone: This is the problem.

688 01:16:06.580 ⇒ 01:16:09.659 Clarence Stone: Yeah, here it is. This is… this is the one you file here.

689 01:16:10.550 ⇒ 01:16:12.570 Clarence Stone: And then there’s more.

690 01:16:13.680 ⇒ 01:16:22.680 Clarence Stone: And then… here’s the form that they have to fill, right? And then the form booklet. So, like, you can say, like, here are the instructions, go to this site.

691 01:16:24.820 ⇒ 01:16:29.809 Clarence Stone: But, like, it’s different for every small locality, right? So let’s… let’s go to…

692 01:16:32.770 ⇒ 01:16:36.600 Clarence Stone: Well, let’s go to this one, or have ink.

693 01:16:37.300 ⇒ 01:16:38.190 Clarence Stone: Sure.

694 01:16:39.860 ⇒ 01:16:46.269 Clarence Stone: Well, this one looks like… Yeah, they’ll take online payments.

695 01:16:48.380 ⇒ 01:16:49.530 Uttam Kumaran: Mmm…

696 01:16:49.740 ⇒ 01:16:50.540 Clarence Stone: See?

697 01:16:51.450 ⇒ 01:16:55.809 Clarence Stone: It’s just, like, a complete circle jerk, but there you go.

698 01:16:56.340 ⇒ 01:16:57.730 Clarence Stone: That’s the challenge.

699 01:17:01.720 ⇒ 01:17:06.140 Clarence Stone: Right? Because, like, here they have to register their business, and then play that paid…

700 01:17:06.310 ⇒ 01:17:13.619 Clarence Stone: That flat rate filing, or if you want the payroll deduction, you have to file online for that payroll deduction.

701 01:17:19.190 ⇒ 01:17:24.020 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, fair. So we’ll have to build some type of agentic thing that, like, routes through these.

702 01:17:24.190 ⇒ 01:17:24.560 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

703 01:17:24.560 ⇒ 01:17:27.779 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine, though. I mean, these are all links, like, these aren’t, like.

704 01:17:30.780 ⇒ 01:17:39.150 Clarence Stone: I mean, I think it’s very doable. I just think that the data is so vast that it doesn’t make sense to scrape all of it, like…

705 01:17:39.150 ⇒ 01:17:42.909 Uttam Kumaran: I, I also… I also… I actually don’t think that… that…

706 01:17:43.330 ⇒ 01:17:47.329 Uttam Kumaran: They know how much we know about agentic scraping.

707 01:17:47.610 ⇒ 01:17:50.789 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, less deterministic scraping now.

708 01:17:51.520 ⇒ 01:17:57.180 Uttam Kumaran: Because a lot of these, also, they’ll block you from, like, doing normal, like, beautiful soup stuff and things like that, so…

709 01:17:58.780 ⇒ 01:17:59.640 Clarence Stone: Yup.

710 01:17:59.970 ⇒ 01:18:01.769 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool, so, like, in terms of…

711 01:18:03.590 ⇒ 01:18:06.449 Uttam Kumaran: In terms of this, how about I…

712 01:18:10.300 ⇒ 01:18:13.439 Uttam Kumaran: How about I talk about what it would take to do one?

713 01:18:14.150 ⇒ 01:18:18.679 Uttam Kumaran: And then for… 2 and 3…

714 01:18:23.090 ⇒ 01:18:27.070 Uttam Kumaran: If you can maybe… I think 2 is where I’m a little bit, like, I just need…

715 01:18:28.720 ⇒ 01:18:30.959 Uttam Kumaran: But 2 is also a scraping job, Ben.

716 01:18:34.710 ⇒ 01:18:38.610 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, so basically what this is saying is, like.

717 01:18:39.470 ⇒ 01:18:45.229 Clarence Stone: In this package of 500 returns or filings that you have to do for this client, right.

718 01:18:45.920 ⇒ 01:18:49.039 Clarence Stone: These 10 are things that the client can do through Portal.

719 01:18:50.290 ⇒ 01:18:57.360 Clarence Stone: These are the things that they need to cut a check for. These are the things that you can just do a bank ACH payment on.

720 01:18:59.400 ⇒ 01:19:00.260 Clarence Stone: Right.

721 01:19:00.410 ⇒ 01:19:09.329 Clarence Stone: That’s… that’s all we need to tack on to that information. Everything else on the package, the pricing, the amount, should all be calculated by the tax systems and the professionals.

722 01:19:09.480 ⇒ 01:19:15.450 Clarence Stone: That’s all we have to do. We have to identify from… from number one, what the cap… like, the…

723 01:19:15.690 ⇒ 01:19:17.489 Clarence Stone: Categorization of them are.

724 01:19:18.900 ⇒ 01:19:19.570 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

725 01:19:20.330 ⇒ 01:19:21.030 Clarence Stone: Right.

726 01:19:21.830 ⇒ 01:19:28.729 Clarence Stone: And that’s what I meant, like, back to the portal here, right? Like, this one’s a portal, the other one we looked at was Mail It In.

727 01:19:29.090 ⇒ 01:19:32.310 Clarence Stone: Right? And everything’s just different for each county.

728 01:19:32.760 ⇒ 01:19:33.560 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah…

729 01:19:39.140 ⇒ 01:19:40.350 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.

730 01:19:40.650 ⇒ 01:19:43.660 Clarence Stone: I see what you mean. You said, the other number was…

731 01:19:43.880 ⇒ 01:19:47.979 Uttam Kumaran: 3 was the workflow digitization, but this is all Snowflake.

732 01:19:48.940 ⇒ 01:20:00.389 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so this is less about you, but really just, like, you showing that, like, these are the events that we need to be able to track in order to give this visibility.

733 01:20:00.880 ⇒ 01:20:01.750 Clarence Stone: Right?

734 01:20:02.080 ⇒ 01:20:02.920 Clarence Stone: like…

735 01:20:03.650 ⇒ 01:20:11.720 Clarence Stone: like, I’d like you to be able to say, hey, because this is a check payment, right, we need to track the creation, the signature, the postmark, and the delivery.

736 01:20:12.040 ⇒ 01:20:12.750 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

737 01:20:13.090 ⇒ 01:20:25.880 Clarence Stone: Right. And we’ll get the creation event from the workflow system that we already have. The signature also comes from the workflow system. The postmark is manually updated and validated by a human.

738 01:20:26.150 ⇒ 01:20:32.129 Clarence Stone: Right? And the delivery is us saving that green USPS receipt.

739 01:20:33.190 ⇒ 01:20:34.290 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

740 01:20:35.220 ⇒ 01:20:39.720 Clarence Stone: Right. And then, like, 4 is optional, it’s like that… that stretch goal.

741 01:20:39.990 ⇒ 01:20:43.819 Clarence Stone: Did I write optional? I should have. I don’t know if I’m looking at the latest.

742 01:20:43.820 ⇒ 01:20:45.200 Uttam Kumaran: No, you did, you did, you did.

743 01:20:45.200 ⇒ 01:20:49.689 Clarence Stone: Production course optional, but, like, let’s say you paid the wrong amount.

744 01:20:50.470 ⇒ 01:20:58.629 Clarence Stone: Right? And the town, you know, sends a message to EY, because EY is the tax, provider.

745 01:20:59.170 ⇒ 01:21:03.239 Clarence Stone: We need to take a look at that note… notice that comes in the mail.

746 01:21:03.410 ⇒ 01:21:06.540 Clarence Stone: Right? And then match up to what we paid.

747 01:21:08.510 ⇒ 01:21:09.230 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

748 01:21:09.410 ⇒ 01:21:12.240 Clarence Stone: Right? And say, does, like, does this match?

749 01:21:13.420 ⇒ 01:21:17.580 Clarence Stone: Right, and if there’s a mismatch right away, you can say, hey, this high priority is a big issue.

750 01:21:18.580 ⇒ 01:21:19.429 Clarence Stone: Right, we pay the.

751 01:21:19.430 ⇒ 01:21:20.290 Uttam Kumaran: Wrong one.

752 01:21:22.220 ⇒ 01:21:35.629 Clarence Stone: Or, if it was the right payment, you can say, okay, based on the notice, you gotta do some language scraping on the notice. Like, the notice says this is the wrong amount that you paid because X, Y, and Z. Like, these tax regulations and codes.

753 01:21:37.770 ⇒ 01:21:38.799 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.

754 01:21:39.320 ⇒ 01:21:53.450 Clarence Stone: Right, so, like, if you were in an aggressive county, like somewhere in California, you might get a letter saying, like, all the employees that you have, even if they don’t work in California, even if they’re overseas, you’re supposed to pay payroll taxes for.

755 01:21:54.090 ⇒ 01:21:56.559 Clarence Stone: Right, and let’s say you didn’t account for that.

756 01:21:56.780 ⇒ 01:22:08.120 Clarence Stone: and they come back and say, you owe payroll taxes for all of these things. I, you know, the purpose of the system is that they get an alert saying, hey, you know, California gave you a notice because of this

757 01:22:08.300 ⇒ 01:22:09.410 Clarence Stone: tax code.

758 01:22:10.750 ⇒ 01:22:11.630 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm…

759 01:22:11.630 ⇒ 01:22:16.940 Clarence Stone: We validate that the amounts match. You paid what you intended to pay, but this is the reg.

760 01:22:17.450 ⇒ 01:22:31.030 Clarence Stone: Right? Because the more advanced version that everybody’s been trying to build that UI that, like, they’re not talented enough to do, is actually take that tax code and then look at all the tax data we have in the workflow to validate it.

761 01:22:32.200 ⇒ 01:22:33.160 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah.

762 01:22:33.160 ⇒ 01:22:36.719 Clarence Stone: Right? Because that’s the actual tax person’s manual job now.

763 01:22:38.120 ⇒ 01:22:39.159 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, I agree.

764 01:22:41.760 ⇒ 01:22:47.109 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so I wouldn’t… like, I don’t think you should build anything, I don’t want you to work too.

765 01:22:47.110 ⇒ 01:22:47.999 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

766 01:22:48.000 ⇒ 01:22:52.970 Clarence Stone: I just think of, like, one, two, three slides about, like, here’s the end-to-end workflow.

767 01:22:52.970 ⇒ 01:23:16.370 Clarence Stone: right? Here’s what we would do, and here’s some examples of things that we’ve already done that show off that we could do it, right? Like, we’re so much… we’re so good at… here’s why. We’re so good at scraping, because we know about all the bot issues that come up, right? Like, we have to use the right tools, like, if you try to use Selenium, sometimes it kicks you out. I experience that all the time, right?

768 01:23:16.690 ⇒ 01:23:27.189 Clarence Stone: And then in something in workflow, say that you understand the holistic process, right? Like, you ask me to help you with payments, but I don’t think payments are done until they are delivered.

769 01:23:27.480 ⇒ 01:23:28.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

770 01:23:28.140 ⇒ 01:23:32.319 Clarence Stone: Right? And on top of that, like, we think about the life cycle as a whole.

771 01:23:33.350 ⇒ 01:23:38.920 Clarence Stone: So, if you get a notice back, we think we need to pick that up, too, and match it to the data we have.

772 01:23:41.090 ⇒ 01:23:41.660 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

773 01:23:43.000 ⇒ 01:23:43.810 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

774 01:23:46.370 ⇒ 01:23:49.399 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, let me work on 3 slides, then sometime…

775 01:23:49.570 ⇒ 01:23:53.390 Uttam Kumaran: So, I’ll go ahead and respond to Mike, just being like, let’s catch up sometime.

776 01:23:53.400 ⇒ 01:23:54.110 Clarence Stone: Yep.

777 01:23:54.140 ⇒ 01:23:57.349 Uttam Kumaran: In terms of 3 slides, like.

778 01:23:59.200 ⇒ 01:24:03.150 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll try to get you something maybe by Wednesday, and then you let me know.

779 01:24:03.400 ⇒ 01:24:09.470 Clarence Stone: Yeah. It’s half decent. Slow as a snail around here, so you have time. Don’t pressure yourself.

780 01:24:09.690 ⇒ 01:24:16.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, but that’s also, like, our advantage, right? So, I want to be the only person that gets anything done within, like, a week.

781 01:24:17.190 ⇒ 01:24:21.899 Uttam Kumaran: But I also don’t wanna… yeah, so I’ll just think about getting you something to look at, and then…

782 01:24:21.980 ⇒ 01:24:41.520 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll probably spend an hour with Mustafa on something, like, a little demo of something working using browser… because we have… we have some background doing a lot of, like, agentic scraping, using a lot of these, like, really modern, headless browser tools, that if they were to go Google, they’d be like, oh, okay, yeah, this is, like, legit.

783 01:24:44.450 ⇒ 01:24:46.499 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and then, like.

784 01:24:46.800 ⇒ 01:24:58.560 Clarence Stone: I love that you’re talking about your experience. Also, like, just tack on the fact that you guys build a shit ton of agents, like, this is an established part of your workflow, like, you know, and then say, like, here’s a case study, right? Like.

785 01:24:58.560 ⇒ 01:24:59.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

786 01:24:59.090 ⇒ 01:25:03.320 Clarence Stone: That kind of stuff, because, like, I want you to win all the agent work.

787 01:25:03.320 ⇒ 01:25:04.369 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.

788 01:25:04.570 ⇒ 01:25:07.190 Clarence Stone: Right? Because the next thing Claire’s gonna want

789 01:25:07.190 ⇒ 01:25:25.629 Clarence Stone: or you can even propose it, is, like, this database shouldn’t just be an Excel spreadsheet. We’ve seen organizations fail because, like, they’re treating Excel like a database. We think this needs to go into your snowflake and be actively tracked, right? And we think that there should be an agent on top of it so that people can ask questions.

790 01:25:25.630 ⇒ 01:25:28.149 Clarence Stone: like, how do I pay taxes in Travis County?

791 01:25:28.520 ⇒ 01:25:29.160 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

792 01:25:37.720 ⇒ 01:25:38.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

793 01:25:42.140 ⇒ 01:25:45.139 Uttam Kumaran: And dude, I just got… I just got put on a…

794 01:25:45.260 ⇒ 01:25:47.609 Uttam Kumaran: Bread with, like, a bunch of the Snowflake folks.

795 01:25:47.740 ⇒ 01:25:51.810 Uttam Kumaran: For, like, Snowflake Intelligence, so I’ll do a one slide on that, like, what we learned.

796 01:25:52.010 ⇒ 01:25:54.689 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, nice. It’s only been out for, like, 2 weeks, so…

797 01:25:55.340 ⇒ 01:26:06.379 Clarence Stone: Dude, if you did all that and you put in a loom, Claire would be over the moon. Like, we get beat up and fucked around with, like, salespeople that really just don’t care. Like…

798 01:26:07.370 ⇒ 01:26:20.149 Uttam Kumaran: No, I know, these guys are stupid too, but, like, I… I really push them, and they’re… these guys, like, are, like, they’re, like, fiends. So the moment I tell them, like, they’re so sale, they, like, treat me like I’m a… like a real boy.

799 01:26:21.120 ⇒ 01:26:21.790 Uttam Kumaran: You know?

800 01:26:23.710 ⇒ 01:26:39.400 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah, I think when you do the Snowflake thing, like, everything comes from having really good data governance and strategy or something like that, and that’s why, like, I’d also like to follow up and talk to you about, you know, how you hope to implement Snowflake, right?

801 01:26:39.400 ⇒ 01:26:40.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.

802 01:26:40.230 ⇒ 01:26:40.820 Clarence Stone: Dude.

803 01:26:41.210 ⇒ 01:26:42.050 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

804 01:26:43.650 ⇒ 01:26:48.360 Clarence Stone: They were very serious, because Claire was just like, send you the example.

805 01:26:48.470 ⇒ 01:26:51.070 Clarence Stone: And have Mike talk to you.

806 01:26:51.260 ⇒ 01:26:56.189 Clarence Stone: Means, like, we need to be sure that, like, we can put them in, like.

807 01:26:56.190 ⇒ 01:26:57.149 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

808 01:26:57.150 ⇒ 01:27:02.930 Clarence Stone: I think she’s passed the decision of, like, can we go with this vendor or not? It’s… Can I?

809 01:27:02.930 ⇒ 01:27:03.370 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

810 01:27:03.370 ⇒ 01:27:04.480 Clarence Stone: peace of mind.

811 01:27:04.480 ⇒ 01:27:07.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, I mean…

812 01:27:08.520 ⇒ 01:27:11.170 Uttam Kumaran: I’d love to… I can talk about Snowflake all day.

813 01:27:11.450 ⇒ 01:27:12.080 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

814 01:27:12.500 ⇒ 01:27:26.370 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I think you’re gonna crush it. But I just wanted to show you an example of, like, the kind of crap that I’m dealing with on the UI side. Like, these are all the types of projects that I do. It’s, like, data, AI, but also, like, on a financial services tax bend.

815 01:27:27.630 ⇒ 01:27:31.100 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I’m just surprised that, like, you guys don’t have the people.

816 01:27:31.290 ⇒ 01:27:34.180 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, I guess I’m also not surprised, like.

817 01:27:34.630 ⇒ 01:27:35.690 Clarence Stone: So.

818 01:27:35.690 ⇒ 01:27:48.329 Uttam Kumaran: I haven’t heard a single person talk about EY. Like, I mean, I only… the only people I know is the people you’ve introduced me to, and a lot of them have been, like, pissed. A lot of them are leaving.

819 01:27:48.330 ⇒ 01:27:54.080 Clarence Stone: Oh, by the way, nobody at EY can use Claude, because Claude, they audit for Claude.

820 01:27:55.300 ⇒ 01:27:55.880 Clarence Stone: They do that.

821 01:27:55.880 ⇒ 01:27:57.500 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay.

822 01:27:57.500 ⇒ 01:28:15.330 Clarence Stone: So, like, all the coders are already pissed off, but I think EY’s problem is they have the opposite problem as you. They have so much, like, processes and red tape and approvals that are baked in to the nature of the organization that’s, like, reducing risk, right, and self-preserving.

823 01:28:15.490 ⇒ 01:28:16.070 Clarence Stone: that…

824 01:28:17.610 ⇒ 01:28:25.160 Clarence Stone: Doing some innovation like this just doesn’t, like… it’s not easy for someone internally to even do it if they understood.

825 01:28:26.570 ⇒ 01:28:27.290 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

826 01:28:27.900 ⇒ 01:28:33.479 Clarence Stone: like, this is why I’m a bully sometimes, because I just know, like, you’re red tape, I’m gonna get rid of you now.

827 01:28:36.950 ⇒ 01:28:41.300 Uttam Kumaran: No, but dude, it’s also, like, if you’re in that company, like, what motivates you to, like…

828 01:28:43.210 ⇒ 01:28:45.289 Uttam Kumaran: Go figure it out, I don’t know.

829 01:28:45.460 ⇒ 01:28:49.929 Clarence Stone: I mean, some of these SMs, They’re probably making $250,$300.

830 01:28:50.400 ⇒ 01:28:56.400 Clarence Stone: They’re… they’ve got families, and they’ve probably bought too many cars, They’re stuck.

831 01:28:58.120 ⇒ 01:29:03.700 Clarence Stone: That’s really, like, the kind of mentality I see right now. Like, people are just trying to survive.

832 01:29:04.240 ⇒ 01:29:09.569 Clarence Stone: Like, let’s not do anything to rock the boat, let’s not call any attention, hit your KPIs.

833 01:29:09.680 ⇒ 01:29:13.230 Clarence Stone: Keep your head low, you know, that kind of mentality right now.

834 01:29:14.210 ⇒ 01:29:14.940 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

835 01:29:16.240 ⇒ 01:29:16.680 Clarence Stone: like.

836 01:29:17.030 ⇒ 01:29:23.549 Clarence Stone: Like, you’ll never get rid of us, because we’ve literally run the technology for, like, half of your clients.

837 01:29:24.300 ⇒ 01:29:26.919 Clarence Stone: You, you will not know what to do without us.

838 01:29:28.350 ⇒ 01:29:30.219 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s crazy.

839 01:29:30.220 ⇒ 01:29:30.770 Clarence Stone: Yep.

840 01:29:34.150 ⇒ 01:29:37.169 Clarence Stone: Yeah. Yeah, anything else?

841 01:29:37.620 ⇒ 01:29:40.109 Clarence Stone: did I outline it well enough? Like, should I have dug in a bit?

842 01:29:40.110 ⇒ 01:29:43.659 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, that’s good, I need to sit with it for a bit.

843 01:29:43.660 ⇒ 01:29:52.969 Clarence Stone: This slide is really just me explaining this is not a problem for federal and state taxes, because it’s all been digitized. It is a local issue.

844 01:29:53.150 ⇒ 01:29:55.360 Clarence Stone: Right? So, like, in federal and state…

845 01:29:55.360 ⇒ 01:29:59.250 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I know, it’s… and it’s… and it shouldn’t be so slow, but this is, again, like.

846 01:29:59.650 ⇒ 01:30:05.450 Uttam Kumaran: We were talking about this, like, anything that’s… can be populated on the web is an endpoint that I can go find and get.

847 01:30:05.570 ⇒ 01:30:06.950 Clarence Stone: Yeah. So…

848 01:30:07.000 ⇒ 01:30:11.030 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I feel okay. I feel okay doing it. Yeah, my… yeah.

849 01:30:11.030 ⇒ 01:30:12.760 Clarence Stone: You know what you should have Luke do?

850 01:30:12.870 ⇒ 01:30:21.170 Clarence Stone: Take that data for all those jurisdictions that don’t have an active website, and have them go say, we’re gonna build you a fucking website and AI agent.

851 01:30:23.140 ⇒ 01:30:25.659 Uttam Kumaran: I agree, I agree, that’d be sick.

852 01:30:26.480 ⇒ 01:30:29.420 Uttam Kumaran: We’re gonna build you a website, and, like…

853 01:30:30.770 ⇒ 01:30:33.950 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe, yeah, just, like, all the information, so…

854 01:30:34.160 ⇒ 01:30:37.850 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t know. But again, who ca- like, who’s gonna care on the other end?

855 01:30:40.630 ⇒ 01:30:42.430 Uttam Kumaran: Do you think it directly affects their tax?

856 01:30:42.430 ⇒ 01:30:47.099 Clarence Stone: Yeah, because if it’s hard to pay, they’re probably not collecting all of it.

857 01:30:47.320 ⇒ 01:30:49.310 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, fair.

858 01:30:49.310 ⇒ 01:30:50.090 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

859 01:30:51.560 ⇒ 01:30:58.880 Clarence Stone: And by the way, when you start this, like, you’ll have access to, like, you know, rejection rates and things like that.

860 01:30:58.880 ⇒ 01:30:59.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

861 01:30:59.600 ⇒ 01:31:02.440 Clarence Stone: We target, like, certain jurisdictions.

862 01:31:06.170 ⇒ 01:31:07.040 Uttam Kumaran: True.

863 01:31:08.210 ⇒ 01:31:16.950 Clarence Stone: Right? It’s like, hey, you keep kicking this back to everybody, it seems like people don’t understand, you know, how to do this on your website. We want to come and help you fix it.

864 01:31:19.080 ⇒ 01:31:19.860 Uttam Kumaran: True.

865 01:31:20.570 ⇒ 01:31:25.910 Clarence Stone: Like, last year, we just noticed, you know, that you were losing a lot.

866 01:31:27.000 ⇒ 01:31:28.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, true.

867 01:31:29.480 ⇒ 01:31:34.619 Clarence Stone: Right? Because, like, at the end of the day, these little towns, they have, like, maybe 3 to 5 people working.

868 01:31:36.220 ⇒ 01:31:42.370 Clarence Stone: they can’t keep up with all of this. Like, you know, a company like Starbase shows up to your tiny-ass town.

869 01:31:42.550 ⇒ 01:31:47.760 Clarence Stone: yo, think about that county tax assessor going, like, I don’t know, like, what am I supposed to do with this? Like…

870 01:31:49.300 ⇒ 01:31:52.159 Clarence Stone: How do I handle Starbase’s taxes?

871 01:31:53.110 ⇒ 01:31:54.270 Clarence Stone: Yeah, that’s true.

872 01:31:54.270 ⇒ 01:31:56.249 Uttam Kumaran: Crazy, or like, you’re, yeah, you’re doing, like.

873 01:31:56.280 ⇒ 01:31:57.600 Clarence Stone: You can hear, you know?

874 01:31:57.600 ⇒ 01:32:01.510 Uttam Kumaran: you’re doing Colossus as, like, Taxes.

875 01:32:01.840 ⇒ 01:32:08.219 Clarence Stone: And think about it, like, in Memphis, there’s probably some podunk backcountry, like, you know, county that’s, like.

876 01:32:08.480 ⇒ 01:32:11.540 Clarence Stone: what the fuck is this? We have a data center.

877 01:32:14.230 ⇒ 01:32:17.750 Clarence Stone: Right, and that’s why, like, this has become a bigger and bigger issue, dude.

878 01:32:18.970 ⇒ 01:32:24.220 Clarence Stone: Because, like, these companies are starting entities all over, like, In, like, Bumblefuck.

879 01:32:25.030 ⇒ 01:32:26.760 Uttam Kumaran: No, I know, this is insane.

880 01:32:28.520 ⇒ 01:32:29.110 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

881 01:32:29.390 ⇒ 01:32:34.640 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so the other piece is, I messaged Mustafa, being like, can you EP another project?

882 01:32:34.750 ⇒ 01:32:37.690 Uttam Kumaran: He’s down, so my thought is, like.

883 01:32:38.600 ⇒ 01:32:41.809 Uttam Kumaran: Again, continuing to, like, do what we’re talking.