Meeting Title: Weekly Book Club Sync Date: 2025-10-10 Meeting participants: Samuel Roberts, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:01:24.360 ⇒ 00:01:25.510 Uttam Kumaran: Hello?
2 00:01:30.440 ⇒ 00:01:35.600 Samuel Roberts: One of the things I’ve been loving about Granola is that it gives me that little notification a minute before the meeting.
3 00:01:35.790 ⇒ 00:01:36.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
4 00:01:36.640 ⇒ 00:01:40.149 Samuel Roberts: my calendar events are, like, 10 minutes before, and I’m like, that’s great, but I’m…
5 00:01:40.330 ⇒ 00:01:41.709 Samuel Roberts: That’s not helpful to me
6 00:01:43.310 ⇒ 00:01:48.529 Samuel Roberts: So I was trying to see if I could tweak it to be, like, at the minute of the meeting, because I’m always a minute early now.
7 00:01:48.530 ⇒ 00:01:52.660 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t, let it,
8 00:01:52.920 ⇒ 00:01:54.760 Uttam Kumaran: go, like, I let it sit there.
9 00:01:54.940 ⇒ 00:02:03.650 Samuel Roberts: I’ve done that a few times, but then I’m like, I’m gonna forget about it, and I’ve gone to a few meetings, like, 3 minutes late, because I’m like, oh, right, right, right, I had that sitting there, and I got distracted.
10 00:02:04.860 ⇒ 00:02:08.289 Samuel Roberts: But it only lets you do it a minute early, so I’ll have to work with it.
11 00:02:08.729 ⇒ 00:02:10.190 Samuel Roberts: Which is fine.
12 00:02:10.350 ⇒ 00:02:11.550 Samuel Roberts: How’s it going today?
13 00:02:12.020 ⇒ 00:02:13.819 Uttam Kumaran: Good, yeah, it’s going well.
14 00:02:15.690 ⇒ 00:02:16.360 Samuel Roberts: Cool.
15 00:02:19.320 ⇒ 00:02:31.110 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I was just getting the book club up a little… the book for the club up a little minute ago, and realized I read these for last week, I think, and I wasn’t… I didn’t get through all the next one, because it just… I wasn’t sure what we were actually talking about today, but…
16 00:02:31.110 ⇒ 00:02:41.839 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I may propose, and we’ll see if people join, I may propose that we just, like, fast track, because I don’t know, I don’t know, like, I guess I’m wondering your thought. Did you come to the… you came to the last one, right?
17 00:02:43.810 ⇒ 00:02:47.100 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, well, yeah, there was one that it was just, like…
18 00:02:47.350 ⇒ 00:02:53.719 Samuel Roberts: me, Rico, and Amber, and we just called it and delayed it to now. But before that, I was at that one, I think.
19 00:02:55.160 ⇒ 00:02:55.850 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.
20 00:02:55.850 ⇒ 00:02:56.940 Samuel Roberts: The one before that.
21 00:02:57.300 ⇒ 00:02:59.729 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, so I’ve been only one of these, because I missed the…
22 00:03:00.000 ⇒ 00:03:03.379 Samuel Roberts: First one, at least? Maybe another one? I don’t remember.
23 00:03:06.400 ⇒ 00:03:08.260 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
24 00:03:08.630 ⇒ 00:03:10.320 Samuel Roberts: Why is everything?
25 00:03:10.450 ⇒ 00:03:11.690 Samuel Roberts: Maybe there he is.
26 00:03:11.870 ⇒ 00:03:14.579 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, you wanna just, like, get through more of this at once?
27 00:03:15.280 ⇒ 00:03:20.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m almost like, well, one, I just, like, this is a pretty short book, and I’m like, we should just do weekly.
28 00:03:20.990 ⇒ 00:03:25.220 Uttam Kumaran: for, like… batch of more at a time, because I don’t know, like, it’s…
29 00:03:25.600 ⇒ 00:03:33.910 Uttam Kumaran: It’s… I mean, I tend to just, like, read… like, I mean, I’ve read it now, like, 2 or 3 times, but I… this is… I read it, like, almost, like.
30 00:03:34.180 ⇒ 00:03:38.609 Uttam Kumaran: month and a half ago, so I just kind of, like, I’m thinking about how to…
31 00:03:41.800 ⇒ 00:03:44.369 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I mean, weekly, I think, would be…
32 00:03:46.070 ⇒ 00:03:51.670 Samuel Roberts: good. Especially, you know, like, what is this? This is Infrastructure Part 4?
33 00:03:51.850 ⇒ 00:03:55.910 Samuel Roberts: It’s, like, less than… it’s, what, 12 pages? 10 pages?
34 00:03:57.420 ⇒ 00:04:01.789 Samuel Roberts: And they’re not dense pages either, so it’s not like some books, you know? So I feel like…
35 00:04:02.020 ⇒ 00:04:05.280 Samuel Roberts: 2 weeks for this, now 4 weeks for it, I guess, technically.
36 00:04:05.280 ⇒ 00:04:11.759 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to, like, make it so people who read slowly can’t do this, but I’m also, like.
37 00:04:12.700 ⇒ 00:04:18.879 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, I’m just like… I feel like if you’re… if you read, then we should just… we should get through, like, one of these a month, like, you know?
38 00:04:18.880 ⇒ 00:04:20.790 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I feel… I think, at least…
39 00:04:21.620 ⇒ 00:04:30.419 Samuel Roberts: weekly, and maybe we just have to figure out, like, how much per week that is, but I think a more frequent cadence is better.
40 00:04:30.810 ⇒ 00:04:32.729 Samuel Roberts: Just in general, to keep it top of mind.
41 00:04:32.730 ⇒ 00:04:38.510 Uttam Kumaran: We, like, have discussions in Slack, almost, and then, like, Friday’s more of, like.
42 00:04:39.370 ⇒ 00:04:42.780 Uttam Kumaran: we can just, like, I can come up with some themes.
43 00:04:43.380 ⇒ 00:04:44.419 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, that could work.
44 00:04:51.830 ⇒ 00:04:55.830 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, like, you don’t want it to be too much of a burden, because then it’s taking, you know.
45 00:04:56.010 ⇒ 00:05:00.769 Samuel Roberts: Energy away from other things, but you want it to be productive when it happens, you know?
46 00:05:01.330 ⇒ 00:05:02.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
47 00:05:07.520 ⇒ 00:05:08.500 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
48 00:05:09.760 ⇒ 00:05:10.890 Samuel Roberts: Oh, excuse me.
49 00:05:16.920 ⇒ 00:05:19.269 Samuel Roberts: Maybe it’s just us today.
50 00:05:20.280 ⇒ 00:05:23.330 Samuel Roberts: Who else is normally here? Amber, but she’s out.
51 00:05:27.240 ⇒ 00:05:31.010 Samuel Roberts: Let’s see… Henry and Zoran said yes, everyone else…
52 00:05:31.840 ⇒ 00:05:35.530 Samuel Roberts: Did not reply yet, so it’s hard to tell.
53 00:05:39.590 ⇒ 00:05:45.019 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, that’s the other thing about meetings is, like, sometimes I’m… I don’t want to just say yes to all ongoing, you know.
54 00:05:45.020 ⇒ 00:05:46.799 Uttam Kumaran: repeating meetings.
55 00:05:46.800 ⇒ 00:05:51.969 Samuel Roberts: But I want to make sure that I, like, give some notification about whether or not I’m gonna do it, like, within a day or two.
56 00:05:52.190 ⇒ 00:05:52.830 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
57 00:05:52.830 ⇒ 00:05:54.720 Samuel Roberts: And I wish Google had a better way to, like.
58 00:05:56.060 ⇒ 00:06:08.319 Samuel Roberts: not say yet. Like, I have to say, like, you know, just this one every time, but I wanted to, like, prompt… and I guess Slack does that a little bit per day. I should probably make more use of that, the calendar integration there, but…
59 00:06:11.210 ⇒ 00:06:15.320 Samuel Roberts: So yeah, I just don’t know, some people didn’t respond, and I just don’t know if that’s no or not, you know?
60 00:06:35.320 ⇒ 00:06:40.310 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, well, maybe it just might be us, but I guess, like, we could either talk about…
61 00:06:40.630 ⇒ 00:06:44.709 Uttam Kumaran: The book, or if there’s anything from today, or we can adjourn.
62 00:06:48.810 ⇒ 00:06:53.890 Samuel Roberts: I mean, I’m happy to talk about it, but I don’t know how productive it’ll be with just the two of us, but it might be.
63 00:06:54.010 ⇒ 00:06:59.320 Samuel Roberts: But we could also, yeah, a germ is probably fine, I guess it’s… I’m sure you do too.
64 00:07:00.430 ⇒ 00:07:04.050 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to not talk about it, but I also don’t want to just, like.
65 00:07:04.480 ⇒ 00:07:12.779 Uttam Kumaran: Well, like, I’ll just tell you a couple… I mean, one is, I think this… this was the info… did you… did you finish the whole thing, or are you just on the infrastructure restriction?
66 00:07:13.230 ⇒ 00:07:15.270 Samuel Roberts: No, I’ve been going along week by week.
67 00:07:15.690 ⇒ 00:07:22.810 Samuel Roberts: I definitely read… yeah, infrastructure up to this point. I don’t think I did… yeah, I didn’t go…
68 00:07:22.810 ⇒ 00:07:28.500 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I think basically… basically what you would have seen is, like, how we’re starting to do things.
69 00:07:28.970 ⇒ 00:07:29.809 Samuel Roberts: I’m feeling sorry.
70 00:07:29.810 ⇒ 00:07:32.999 Uttam Kumaran: So, one thing in particular that I think is…
71 00:07:33.170 ⇒ 00:07:39.590 Uttam Kumaran: It’s not… not very usual at a company our size.
72 00:07:40.100 ⇒ 00:07:44.060 Uttam Kumaran: in addition to, like, OKRs, is ARs.
73 00:07:44.220 ⇒ 00:07:53.479 Uttam Kumaran: And so this is something that I think would… will tie in directly into the AI team, because these responsibilities all have SOPs attached.
74 00:07:54.090 ⇒ 00:07:56.809 Uttam Kumaran: And those will end up being impacted.
75 00:07:57.060 ⇒ 00:08:02.810 Uttam Kumaran: So, that’s kind of, like, what I’m thinking.
76 00:08:07.260 ⇒ 00:08:09.390 Samuel Roberts: Okay, yeah, this… I see this.
77 00:08:09.750 ⇒ 00:08:10.770 Uttam Kumaran: This is interesting.
78 00:08:10.770 ⇒ 00:08:12.509 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, what do we… I haven’t actually seen… yeah, I don’t know if I…
79 00:08:12.510 ⇒ 00:08:22.990 Uttam Kumaran: I haven’t updated this, we’re supposed to update this once a week, but, like, for example, tell me your name. This is… we… I did the first draft of this, I think, just as you were onboarding, or maybe.
80 00:08:22.990 ⇒ 00:08:23.690 Samuel Roberts: Okay.
81 00:08:23.940 ⇒ 00:08:33.140 Uttam Kumaran: Right before, so, like, I put you as proposed, but basically, like, you want to just know all the responsibilities in the company, and who is the front person, and who is…
82 00:08:33.260 ⇒ 00:08:44.020 Uttam Kumaran: also trained on how to do that, in case you need a backup. And you basically can… you know that you have redundancy in your organization in case things change, and then also…
83 00:08:44.310 ⇒ 00:08:51.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, it talks a lot about, like, just having clean, organized stuff. Like, we do a pretty good… it could be a little bit better, but…
84 00:08:51.470 ⇒ 00:08:57.549 Uttam Kumaran: Those are, like, luxury problems, like, I will solve, like, eventually we’ll have to learn that all they do is, like, Notion organization.
85 00:08:57.550 ⇒ 00:08:58.860 Samuel Roberts: Right, yeah, yeah.
86 00:08:58.860 ⇒ 00:08:59.640 Uttam Kumaran: -Oh.
87 00:09:02.770 ⇒ 00:09:03.460 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
88 00:09:03.730 ⇒ 00:09:15.920 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, it’s tough to, like, maintain that without someone dedicated to it sometimes, or, like, to know the point person that is keeping an eye on everything. Because even when I was, like, onboarding, and I was looking through the Notion, I was like, I don’t know what’s…
89 00:09:15.990 ⇒ 00:09:26.920 Samuel Roberts: active and what’s stale kind of thing. Like, I want to just look at it, but then I’m seeing, like, things that I know are wrong, or just outdated, I should say, not wrong. And it’s hard to, like, know that.
90 00:09:27.010 ⇒ 00:09:28.999 Uttam Kumaran: Especially when you’re walking in for the first time.
91 00:09:29.000 ⇒ 00:09:33.459 Samuel Roberts: But it’s… I know just from previous experience that, like, some of that stuff just…
92 00:09:33.820 ⇒ 00:09:40.389 Samuel Roberts: Doesn’t get updated, because it’s, like, it’s thrown in there to, like, keep it as a repository of information, and then something changes, and…
93 00:09:40.630 ⇒ 00:09:44.830 Samuel Roberts: Whoever changed something didn’t know that was where it needed to be updated and stuff like that, like…
94 00:09:45.040 ⇒ 00:09:45.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
95 00:09:45.530 ⇒ 00:09:49.259 Samuel Roberts: That is a… potentially a big, like,
96 00:09:50.050 ⇒ 00:09:54.459 Samuel Roberts: Task or role for someone to be, like, maintaining all that.
97 00:09:54.790 ⇒ 00:09:55.989 Samuel Roberts: In a way that…
98 00:09:56.560 ⇒ 00:10:05.249 Samuel Roberts: You know, people can still use it and add to it and tweak it, but knowing that what’s there, or at a certain level at least, is current and active, you know?
99 00:10:05.880 ⇒ 00:10:06.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
100 00:10:07.270 ⇒ 00:10:12.920 Samuel Roberts: But that’s a… yeah, again, it’s a little bit of a luxury thing, because, like, yeah, if you can work your way through it with, you know.
101 00:10:13.760 ⇒ 00:10:17.670 Samuel Roberts: As is, is that worth the work right now, you know?
102 00:10:18.170 ⇒ 00:10:18.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
103 00:10:19.450 ⇒ 00:10:25.889 Samuel Roberts: But that’s a pretty… I feel like that’s a very common kind of thing in most organizations, like, across the board, size-wise.
104 00:10:26.170 ⇒ 00:10:26.860 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
105 00:10:29.930 ⇒ 00:10:30.480 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
106 00:10:30.480 ⇒ 00:10:31.409 Samuel Roberts: And then, yeah.
107 00:10:31.410 ⇒ 00:10:39.150 Uttam Kumaran: I guess that’s… those are the main things that I did when I read it. I’m like, okay, we… this is how we do OKRs, this is how we’ll do the AORs.
108 00:10:39.320 ⇒ 00:10:47.410 Uttam Kumaran: And we’ll kind of keep these up to date, hopefully, every week, and… yeah, I mean, it’s just… I think those are the kind of the primary changes that
109 00:10:47.580 ⇒ 00:10:50.680 Uttam Kumaran: that I tried to make infrastructure-wise.
110 00:10:53.010 ⇒ 00:10:55.699 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, where was I looking here? Company got it.
111 00:10:56.300 ⇒ 00:11:01.460 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, older system, like, goal tracking, yeah, AORs, right, right, right.
112 00:11:01.460 ⇒ 00:11:07.839 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, the tracking, like, right now it’s gonna be manual, but then this will all get into Omni, basically.
113 00:11:07.980 ⇒ 00:11:09.170 Samuel Roberts: Mmm, yeah, yeah, yeah.
114 00:11:09.170 ⇒ 00:11:09.830 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
115 00:11:12.310 ⇒ 00:11:14.350 Samuel Roberts: Okay, yeah, company folder wiki.
116 00:11:14.710 ⇒ 00:11:15.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
117 00:11:15.220 ⇒ 00:11:21.740 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, that’s what I was just thinking about a bit. Let me write twice right here. I’m just scrolling through as I’m trying to remember all the…
118 00:11:22.080 ⇒ 00:11:27.400 Samuel Roberts: Headings here. No single point of failure, that’s definitely huge, and I think that’s covered in that AOR stuff a bit.
119 00:11:27.970 ⇒ 00:11:31.700 Samuel Roberts: And then KPIs, yeah, yeah. I mean, I definitely see this as, like.
120 00:11:32.120 ⇒ 00:11:35.949 Samuel Roberts: What we’ve been working towards, so… It definitely feels…
121 00:11:36.710 ⇒ 00:11:41.509 Samuel Roberts: Timely, for… probably because it’s, you know, exactly why we’re reading it.
122 00:11:42.790 ⇒ 00:11:43.630 Samuel Roberts: But yeah.
123 00:11:44.990 ⇒ 00:11:47.210 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Cool, that’s all I have.
124 00:11:47.510 ⇒ 00:11:48.150 Samuel Roberts: Okay.
125 00:11:48.960 ⇒ 00:11:50.899 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, well, slap me if you need anything.
126 00:11:51.100 ⇒ 00:11:52.300 Samuel Roberts: Sounds good, likewise.
127 00:11:52.300 ⇒ 00:11:53.560 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, now you do.
128 00:11:53.810 ⇒ 00:11:54.430 Samuel Roberts: Yep.
129 00:11:54.430 ⇒ 00:11:55.210 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.
130 00:11:55.210 ⇒ 00:11:55.840 Samuel Roberts: Bye.