Meeting Title: BF Interview: Clarence <> Sheshu Date: 2026-01-08 Meeting participants: Fireflies.ai Notetaker Sheshu, Sheshu Chandrasekar, Clarence Stone
WEBVTT
1 00:05:08.500 ⇒ 00:05:09.740 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Hey, Clarence!
2 00:05:10.250 ⇒ 00:05:12.549 Clarence Stone: Hey, sorry I’m a few minutes late.
3 00:05:12.550 ⇒ 00:05:14.780 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No worries at all. How are you doing today?
4 00:05:14.970 ⇒ 00:05:16.510 Clarence Stone: Good, good, how about you?
5 00:05:16.510 ⇒ 00:05:28.580 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Good, I was… I was just at the gym. My parents are trying to get in the gym right now, so they’re like, hey, you’ve been going for 9 years, so you might as well teach us something. So, just came back from that, and now I’m here.
6 00:05:28.580 ⇒ 00:05:32.339 Clarence Stone: Dude, that’s awesome. It’s great that, you’re getting them involved.
7 00:05:32.340 ⇒ 00:05:48.119 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, it’s really surprising. The arc has been uncanny in that way. Like, they’re always like, why are you going to the gym? Why are you looking big? And then now they’re like, you know what, we want to look big now. We want to be better, so… it’s, yeah, it’s crazy, but I’m glad to help them out.
8 00:05:48.360 ⇒ 00:06:07.220 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, don’t be surprised when they end up being stronger and faster than you, because, here’s the crazy thing, like, in his… like, my dad, in his, like, mid-40s, he was told that he was pre-diabetic, and then he just decided that he wasn’t gonna take any nonsense, went to a complete, like, restrictive diet.
9 00:06:07.220 ⇒ 00:06:07.550 Sheshu Chandrasekar: file.
10 00:06:07.550 ⇒ 00:06:11.560 Clarence Stone: He’s eating, and then started doing marathons and working out.
11 00:06:12.330 ⇒ 00:06:25.070 Clarence Stone: now, he… I mean, he’s 6’2”, and he’s skinnier than me, he’s more ripped than me, he can run fast. At, like, what is he, like, 57, almost 60 now?
12 00:06:25.070 ⇒ 00:06:25.980 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Wow.
13 00:06:25.980 ⇒ 00:06:37.280 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and he’s like, I feel better than ever, like, this is the second lease on life, like, this is a different version of me, like, I got fat when I was your dad, but now I, you know, have the time to put into all of this. I was like, damn.
14 00:06:37.280 ⇒ 00:06:52.709 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, that’s so inspirational, but you’re also… it’s so scary at the same time, it’s like, dang, is he actually gonna become faster than me, or stronger than me? So yeah, I mean, luckily for me, I have a 9-year head start, but I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised. Like, they… I told them, you’re gonna do 10 minutes of StairMaster, and they were like.
15 00:06:52.710 ⇒ 00:06:55.950 Clarence Stone: I’m going for 15. I was like, alright, like…
16 00:06:55.950 ⇒ 00:07:01.399 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Beavers. Yeah, so, it’s been good. But…
17 00:07:01.400 ⇒ 00:07:03.950 Clarence Stone: I mean, where are you based out of, man? Like, where…
18 00:07:04.140 ⇒ 00:07:18.650 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, so I’m actually in Houston right now with my parents. I travel extremely frequently between Austin and Houston, because it’s only a 2-hour drive. Just for this month and going to February, like, I’ll be more in Houston, but I’m actually based out of Austin right now.
19 00:07:18.900 ⇒ 00:07:22.430 Clarence Stone: Cool! Awesome to see another Texan. I’m in San Antonio.
20 00:07:22.430 ⇒ 00:07:23.660 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oh, awesome, okay.
21 00:07:23.660 ⇒ 00:07:28.370 Clarence Stone: And I know the feeling, once you’re in one of the cities, you’re pretty much traveling between them all the time.
22 00:07:28.370 ⇒ 00:07:28.900 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
23 00:07:29.700 ⇒ 00:07:33.599 Sheshu Chandrasekar: At this point, I can go to Austin, eyes closed, you know? Yeah, exactly.
24 00:07:33.600 ⇒ 00:07:35.810 Clarence Stone: It’s like a straight shot, so… yeah.
25 00:07:35.940 ⇒ 00:07:47.630 Clarence Stone: Cool! So, like, I, I think you got referred through Pranav, right? And it’s, it’s great to see, you know, people within Brainforge bringing others together.
26 00:07:47.630 ⇒ 00:07:48.290 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
27 00:07:48.470 ⇒ 00:07:54.229 Clarence Stone: I would love to learn more about you. So, what are your interests, what’s your background, you know, what’s up?
28 00:07:54.230 ⇒ 00:08:06.720 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, absolutely. So, prior to… I mean, I started my career out of Deloitte, in the government and public sector practice. A lot of my work I did there was, like.
29 00:08:06.720 ⇒ 00:08:24.360 Sheshu Chandrasekar: technology modernization, even got involved in some financial planning. Had no business in being in that realm of work, but it gave me exposure to understanding how to build Excel models and stuff like that. But a lot of my clients I work with are extremely large federal agencies, literally
30 00:08:24.360 ⇒ 00:08:26.199 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
31 00:08:26.200 ⇒ 00:08:35.090 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, it’s, it’s… it was wild, but yeah, you know, a lot of taxpayers, use the tools that we have built, in a way.
32 00:08:35.090 ⇒ 00:08:58.419 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And yeah, so I got involved in a lot of work that stemmed from, you know, building user onboarding, for system implementation that, to building dashboards, to acting as a quality assurance, kind of like engineer, or project manager, per se. And when it came to financial planning, like, I had to become a budget analyst at some point, building and managing,
33 00:08:58.420 ⇒ 00:09:12.309 Sheshu Chandrasekar: a $3.1 billion budget for a specific IT program. So a lot of my work has been technical, financial, but in addition to that, I’ve also… I have a huge passion for pro bono work. I had a nonprofit in high school.
34 00:09:12.310 ⇒ 00:09:36.079 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So for me, I’ve… it’s always hit home for me that I want to be involved in serving the community in whatever capacity, through nonprofits. So, during my pro bono work, I helped, this one large, Latin American youth education nonprofit, helping them expand into the North American market to get donations. And part of my work there was to build, donor KPIs.
35 00:09:36.080 ⇒ 00:09:38.410 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Figuring out, like, okay,
36 00:09:38.530 ⇒ 00:09:49.490 Sheshu Chandrasekar: there are 5 different types of personas in the North American market. Here are the, like, relevant data metrics that we want to start tracking. And then connecting them to that… connecting that
37 00:09:49.490 ⇒ 00:10:01.389 Sheshu Chandrasekar: To their systems that they currently use, and then helping leadership understand why this is the right way to go about things. Also helped out Austin Charter School, with their marketing plan. So…
38 00:10:01.390 ⇒ 00:10:26.090 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I’ve been a generalist throughout my career at Deloitte. I’ve… even towards the tail end of my career, I was helping the Office of the CTO organize programs and building, different type of programs that could help our practitioner, base, like, enrich their skills, or learn about different things that they’re interested in. So, yeah, like I said, my Deloitte experience was extremely.
39 00:10:26.800 ⇒ 00:10:43.320 Sheshu Chandrasekar: all over the place, but it gave me a different variety of the type of work I enjoyed and what I didn’t enjoy. So, that was where I was, and then I left Deloitte, then started working in startups, which I felt was more geared towards my interest of…
40 00:10:43.450 ⇒ 00:10:47.019 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Creating long-lasting impact, but also testing out things and…
41 00:10:47.020 ⇒ 00:11:05.329 Sheshu Chandrasekar: having less structure, just throw me into the fire, let me see what I can do. I always… I always appreciate that type of environment, and startups was kind of like a no-brainer for me. So, I briefly worked as a contractor at a GovTech startup, helping them with go-to-market systems, really filling up their,
42 00:11:05.330 ⇒ 00:11:28.110 Sheshu Chandrasekar: pipeline of who they can outreach to, even conducting a little experimentation of reaching out to other startups in the defense tech space, and the startup was basically helping proposal managers win more contracts in the government space. So, we’re like, why don’t we look at the startup space to see if they’d be interested in having that infrastructure to go after these huge government contracts that
43 00:11:28.110 ⇒ 00:11:42.570 Sheshu Chandrasekar: your typical primes, like Lockheed Martin or your Deloitte, would go after. So that was… that was a great experience, but unfortunately it came to an end, because the founder couldn’t fund me anymore. He was actually running a… he was…
44 00:11:42.610 ⇒ 00:11:51.619 Sheshu Chandrasekar: running this full-time, but he was also working at Lockheed Martin, and I guess it was, like, a conflict of interest of some sort, so they had to let me go, and then…
45 00:11:51.620 ⇒ 00:11:52.380 Clarence Stone: marriage.
46 00:11:52.380 ⇒ 00:11:58.440 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, so it was an unfortunate circumstance, but it gave me a huge, like.
47 00:11:58.890 ⇒ 00:12:16.569 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I guess, insight to saying, like, okay, you know what? I need to pivot away from government. Like, I don’t think government and I are, like, we’re not on the right track, and during that time, it was also the government shutdown, so that was also happening. Then I started working for another startup, because one of the founders was on maternity leave, or paternity leave.
48 00:12:16.640 ⇒ 00:12:28.570 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So, he needed help on the go-to-market side for outbound messaging and stuff like that. So, that contract has come to an end now. So… yeah, I guess I’m a free agent, in a way. So, yeah.
49 00:12:28.570 ⇒ 00:12:35.960 Clarence Stone: So, I spent probably the last 6 to 7 years as a director at EY, so I know.
50 00:12:35.960 ⇒ 00:12:36.400 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oh, okay.
51 00:12:36.400 ⇒ 00:12:48.709 Clarence Stone: about the whole bucket of all the things that they ask y’all to do. Coming out of it, the difficulty of realizing that you’re not, like, excellent at anything, but you could pretty much do everything pretty well.
52 00:12:48.710 ⇒ 00:12:50.610 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
53 00:12:50.610 ⇒ 00:13:04.579 Clarence Stone: But what… I guess, like, for people with that type of talent, I typically like to ask, what did you enjoy about that experience? What pieces of the projects or the functions that you performed really interested you and you have a passion for?
54 00:13:04.580 ⇒ 00:13:06.350 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Like about?
55 00:13:06.520 ⇒ 00:13:08.670 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, so,
56 00:13:09.020 ⇒ 00:13:15.410 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So for one of the engagements I was on, we were basically helping this federal agency,
57 00:13:15.650 ⇒ 00:13:20.750 Sheshu Chandrasekar: They had, like, I think, like, $7 billion worth of portfolio, meaning,
58 00:13:20.790 ⇒ 00:13:23.649 Sheshu Chandrasekar: they had different IT programs they were managing.
59 00:13:23.680 ⇒ 00:13:38.249 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And, you know, they wanted, like, a more comprehensive view to run executive, client executive reviews. Their way about going about things was, fill out the data through Excel sheet, then create a PowerPoint deck.
60 00:13:38.250 ⇒ 00:13:54.710 Sheshu Chandrasekar: then get it validated again by the leadership and other project managers, and then finally put it into some… some pretty graphs and stuff like that. And we’re working on ServiceNow, so a lot of things that we were doing was portfolio management. So all the data was already…
61 00:13:54.780 ⇒ 00:14:08.990 Sheshu Chandrasekar: being inputted, and all you had to do is pull the data, but problem was, a lot of the other Deloitte teams we were working with on the client account did not want that. Because, one, it would reduce their work and their control and influence to…
62 00:14:08.990 ⇒ 00:14:16.220 Sheshu Chandrasekar: you know, work with the client a little bit better. That was hard because it wasn’t even a technical challenge to build those dashboards.
63 00:14:16.220 ⇒ 00:14:30.590 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Because we had all the user requirements, and I had also scoped out, like, exactly how many dashboards we would want to build to conduct these executive reviews, but it was getting the buy-in from the Deloitte side, but also eventually the client side.
64 00:14:30.590 ⇒ 00:14:30.980 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
65 00:14:30.980 ⇒ 00:14:37.339 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Took a while, and… most, like.
66 00:14:37.470 ⇒ 00:14:42.730 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And the crazy part is they would love to build these wireframes and dashboards in PowerPoint, which is so cumbersome.
67 00:14:42.730 ⇒ 00:14:43.240 Clarence Stone: Guy.
68 00:14:43.240 ⇒ 00:14:59.940 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, so, me being a product design guy, I live in Figma, like, outside of work, I was like, you know what? I see ServiceNow has, like, a library where we can just build these dashboards in Figma, and it would look extremely realistic without going into test environment and spending a lot of time there.
69 00:14:59.940 ⇒ 00:15:07.269 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So, I built some wireframes, and surprisingly, that helped with a lot of the conversations I had with Deloitte, the other Deloitte teams, like.
70 00:15:07.270 ⇒ 00:15:20.179 Sheshu Chandrasekar: they’re like, oh, wow, I didn’t know you could even do this. Like, I didn’t know you can just click on a button, and it’ll just… it’s like prototyping, right? Yeah. And it made the conversations a lot more smoother. Obviously, from an operational side, I had to let them… I had to tell them, hey, like.
71 00:15:20.180 ⇒ 00:15:30.010 Sheshu Chandrasekar: listen, the way you’re doing about things, you’re having 2 or 3 steps extra. What I’m saying is, you’re still having control, but all I’m saying is the way you pull data will be a lot different and faster.
72 00:15:30.160 ⇒ 00:15:45.900 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Once I was able to ease their anxiety a little bit better, they were like, okay. Then I had buy-in, then they were able to go talk to their, respective client, point of contact, and be like, hey, we’re doing this now. We’re going about our way on how to build dashboards and run executive reviews this way.
73 00:15:46.040 ⇒ 00:15:46.370 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
74 00:15:46.370 ⇒ 00:16:01.049 Sheshu Chandrasekar: It worked, and it was such a proud moment for me, one, because I love designing, and finally I can show my true, like, talent, I guess, in a way, like, my true interest through a software I’m so, like, well-versed in.
75 00:16:01.050 ⇒ 00:16:01.820 Clarence Stone: And…
76 00:16:02.210 ⇒ 00:16:17.989 Sheshu Chandrasekar: you know, PowerPoint is the way to go, a way to do things, right? So, getting into Figma and showing them how to do it was awesome, and then, yeah, I think they still use certain libraries that I configured, and the dashboards are actually used in congressional hearings now, is what I heard recently.
77 00:16:17.990 ⇒ 00:16:19.359 Clarence Stone: That’s awesome!
78 00:16:19.360 ⇒ 00:16:23.389 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, so, yeah, it was a… it was an awesome moment,
79 00:16:23.650 ⇒ 00:16:28.899 Sheshu Chandrasekar: from that side, like, I learned a lot about myself, like, even the most, like, trickiest situations, like.
80 00:16:29.170 ⇒ 00:16:44.810 Sheshu Chandrasekar: even though, in the moment of things, you’re like, oh, how am I gonna do this? Like, how am I gonna, like, convince these? Like, how am I gonna tell my manager that I couldn’t get them on board? To figuring out, like, the… the means of way, and in your own way, it was so… so, like, you know… it was such a proud moment for me, but…
81 00:16:44.810 ⇒ 00:16:53.800 Sheshu Chandrasekar: even at Deloitte, like, I love working with the people. There’s a lot of people I work with. Even if we’re complaining about their project hours, like, you just learn from the best, and…
82 00:16:54.660 ⇒ 00:17:03.000 Clarence Stone: I’m still a consultant for a couple EY project teams, and…
83 00:17:03.000 ⇒ 00:17:03.610 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oh, okay.
84 00:17:03.610 ⇒ 00:17:14.030 Clarence Stone: the bits, they’re all my friends, so I still, you know, give them a few hours to help things out. So, I know that feeling. Like, it’s not the work, it’s the team that…
85 00:17:14.030 ⇒ 00:17:14.630 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
86 00:17:14.630 ⇒ 00:17:25.659 Clarence Stone: That made it a really great experience. So I guess, like, let’s do a quick pivot then. Like, you’ve got a really great background in, like, red tape-heavy ops environments, and having results.
87 00:17:25.660 ⇒ 00:17:43.000 Clarence Stone: And you kind of took a pivot into, like, startup world, where you’re kind of unchained from those red tape restrictions to, like, explore the market and grow GTM for a couple different, you know, defense contractors. So, like, I guess what’s on my mind is
88 00:17:43.140 ⇒ 00:17:44.880 Clarence Stone: What do you want to do next?
89 00:17:45.010 ⇒ 00:17:48.009 Clarence Stone: Like, what is the dream job for Sashu next?
90 00:17:48.500 ⇒ 00:17:54.699 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, so when… Especially with Brainforged, like, you know, and Utomo’s talking about
91 00:17:54.710 ⇒ 00:18:11.399 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I had no idea what I was going in for. I know it was probably like, hey, we’re hiring, like, an ops manager, you know, you’d be building systems from ground up, we’re growing fast. So those two things that he said, checked the boxes immediately for me, because I always wanted to be…
92 00:18:11.600 ⇒ 00:18:21.139 Sheshu Chandrasekar: With a company that was finally at the inflection point of growth. Like, they’re rapidly growing, and there’s full autonomy on how to do things.
93 00:18:21.160 ⇒ 00:18:41.289 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And also working with great people. When Pranav told me, he was like, hey, I think you’d really enjoy this place. And I was like, what makes you say that? He’s like, well, everyone is crazy smart, everyone loves working on things that excites them every day, and yeah, it’s a growth, like, there’s a lot of growth, like, there’s a lot of accountability that’s going on here, and…
94 00:18:41.290 ⇒ 00:18:44.740 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I think you would, you would enjoy it. So, when I was talking to Utom.
95 00:18:44.830 ⇒ 00:18:56.540 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I… the way the culture of Brainforge, the way he explained it, I was like, I resonated so… so much with it. So for me… yeah, so for me right now,
96 00:18:56.840 ⇒ 00:18:58.100 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I would love to…
97 00:18:58.670 ⇒ 00:19:17.360 Sheshu Chandrasekar: learn how to build systems from the ground up. I feel like being at Deloitte, and even at startups, there was still some ambiguity in startups, but at Deloitte, there was, like, there was, like, some hard North stars, right? Like, you had to follow certain ways. But with Brainforge, there’s finally that creative freedom to build something from the ground up, and
98 00:19:17.400 ⇒ 00:19:21.549 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Have some level of influence in the way to build things, right?
99 00:19:21.650 ⇒ 00:19:26.710 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And so for me right now, I’m just… I’m just there to, like, learn how to build systems, and…
100 00:19:26.950 ⇒ 00:19:37.800 Sheshu Chandrasekar: honestly, like, put everything I’ve learned these past couple years into fruition to, help a company like Brainforge, you know, get to the stratosphere. So, that’s kind of where my mindset’s at. I just want to…
101 00:19:37.910 ⇒ 00:19:40.849 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Be able to own them, yeah.
102 00:19:40.850 ⇒ 00:19:47.570 Clarence Stone: Let me give you some insight on where we’re at, then. So, I started helping Brainforge out
103 00:19:47.890 ⇒ 00:19:50.160 Clarence Stone: Towards the tail end of last year, like.
104 00:19:50.290 ⇒ 00:19:55.709 Clarence Stone: like, early December, and, I observed that there needed to be
105 00:19:55.950 ⇒ 00:20:09.360 Clarence Stone: tighter lanes on what each roles were doing, and more defined leadership roles, and more defined pods for each of the projects. So I actually rolled out an entire, you know, pod-style project,
106 00:20:09.890 ⇒ 00:20:12.219 Clarence Stone: Kind of, operational layout.
107 00:20:12.220 ⇒ 00:20:30.179 Clarence Stone: And we are within the first week of testing everything out, and people, you know, starting to create some really great work products, but what that exposed to me was that there wasn’t a lot of standards written on how, you know, what good looks like for a lot of these work products. So, from an immediate standpoint, like, you…
108 00:20:30.180 ⇒ 00:20:39.630 Clarence Stone: this is, like, one of the best places where you can start building something from ground up. Like, everything that we’ve decided is still experimental, and you’re gonna see, like.
109 00:20:39.760 ⇒ 00:21:04.689 Clarence Stone: my mentality on why it’s structured this way to this point. You’re gonna see whether my guesses are right or wrong, and you’re gonna get to join me in, you know, adjusting and, you know, growing ops for, you know, the delivery side, definitely. And then, I don’t want your GTM talent to go to waste either. You know, what we’re doing is creating automations around GTM as well, so you’re gonna have, you know, a lot of opportunities there if you want to, you know, focus
110 00:21:04.690 ⇒ 00:21:08.130 Clarence Stone: Projects around, you know, success with that.
111 00:21:08.260 ⇒ 00:21:27.400 Clarence Stone: And if you want to go out and sell and actually lead projects too, that’s always on the table, and there’s some really generous, you know, bonuses for winning you work, so that’s also going to be, you know, something that’s going to be available for you. So, if those three things sound like, you know, something you want to do, you know, this is probably the role for you.
112 00:21:27.420 ⇒ 00:21:30.530 Clarence Stone: Yeah, that’s sort of, you know, my take. What are your thoughts on what I know?
113 00:21:30.530 ⇒ 00:21:32.899 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oh, absolutely. I think for me,
114 00:21:33.410 ⇒ 00:21:43.740 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I don’t want one day to be the same, right? I want… you know, even though sometimes I hate the chaos of things, I also love it. It’s like, the aftermath of, like, finishing something, you’re like, hmm…
115 00:21:43.860 ⇒ 00:22:01.970 Sheshu Chandrasekar: that was awesome, you know? Like, so for me, like, the chaos is something I truly now… the uncertainty of the chaos is something I truly embrace now, but it’s also, like, yeah, like, I don’t want… if I want to eventually pivot to something different, like, you know, I’ve done my work, you know, I want to get more in the GTM side of things, like.
116 00:22:01.970 ⇒ 00:22:10.100 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And there’s a level of capacity where you guys can onboard me there, I’m… I want to help out, in whatever means possible, right? Awesome.
117 00:22:10.100 ⇒ 00:22:15.169 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and I think for your… to share with you, like, on terms of, like.
118 00:22:15.170 ⇒ 00:22:33.350 Clarence Stone: I always think we should, as leaders, explain where growth is. Like, where it’s possible for any role that you’re about to step into. So, as an ops lead, I do see, you know, this role having two capabilities on the growth level. One, you can say, hey, I just want to focus on GTM operational growth.
119 00:22:33.350 ⇒ 00:22:41.389 Clarence Stone: And, on the delivery side, and just own that piece, and just be head of delivery, and continue to optimize that path.
120 00:22:41.700 ⇒ 00:23:06.639 Clarence Stone: You can also decide, hey, I want to get involved in the platform that we’re creating, the more core aspects of, like, the financials, the legal side, and the regular things that we need to do in ops, and, you know, how everything is running on a cadence, and get involved in, like, the hiring process as well. So that, like, that’s like a vertical stack up into, like, a more HR ops role, or you can go into, you know, the GTM ops type role, so there’s so much
121 00:23:06.640 ⇒ 00:23:18.029 Clarence Stone: growth and capability there, but, you know, like, there still is no COO, so if you were to tell me, like, ask me, like, what is the maximum capability available for this role, that’s what it is, right?
122 00:23:18.030 ⇒ 00:23:18.520 Sheshu Chandrasekar: AI.
123 00:23:18.520 ⇒ 00:23:30.089 Clarence Stone: eventually, you know, as this organization continues to grow, there’s gonna be massive demand for more people like you. So, that’s really all I had to share from my side, and do you have any questions for me?
124 00:23:30.300 ⇒ 00:23:37.319 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, well, actually, I have… so, I just want to make sure, you’re the AI consultant, right? That’s the role that you’re…
125 00:23:37.460 ⇒ 00:23:38.130 Clarence Stone: So I didn’t…
126 00:23:38.130 ⇒ 00:23:40.150 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I’m still lost on that.
127 00:23:40.150 ⇒ 00:23:42.840 Clarence Stone: Sorry, is that me? Yeah.
128 00:23:42.950 ⇒ 00:23:49.800 Clarence Stone: Hey, that’s actually Utom. One second. Hey, Utom, I’m on the call with Sashu.
129 00:23:52.760 ⇒ 00:23:56.630 Clarence Stone: Oh yeah, no worries. Okay, cool. Bye.
130 00:23:57.670 ⇒ 00:24:01.510 Clarence Stone: I’m gonna…
131 00:24:01.630 ⇒ 00:24:15.069 Clarence Stone: an interesting role, because… just quick background, I left my role at EY, and I was a product innovation leader, owning the entire GTM pipeline for, wealth asset management and hedge funds.
132 00:24:15.070 ⇒ 00:24:15.840 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oh, wow, okay.
133 00:24:15.840 ⇒ 00:24:16.770 Clarence Stone: or AI.
134 00:24:16.970 ⇒ 00:24:17.790 Clarence Stone: So I would…
135 00:24:17.790 ⇒ 00:24:19.010 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Wow. Yeah.
136 00:24:19.010 ⇒ 00:24:31.080 Clarence Stone: And I had left in February of last year, started my own, private AI, local AI solution company, so it’s really leveraging, like, Mac minis and Edge devices, like,
137 00:24:31.170 ⇒ 00:24:38.669 Clarence Stone: the NVIDIA Spark and stuff like that, to create private AI instances for wealth asset management, financial services companies.
138 00:24:38.670 ⇒ 00:24:51.730 Clarence Stone: And then, funny enough, I got acquired by a… that base technology, not my entire company, like, the baseline technology for it got acquired by a manufacturing company that actually need a ton of edge devices to do image detection and quality detection.
139 00:24:51.730 ⇒ 00:24:53.350 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oh, wow. That’s awesome.
140 00:24:53.670 ⇒ 00:25:09.080 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and along with that, they wanted to hire me and the entire team, but I was just like, hey, you know, I can’t really just join your organization, and I didn’t want that deal to go away, so part of that deal was, like, hey, you have full licensing on our baseline tech, and you can take the two employees that I had.
141 00:25:09.090 ⇒ 00:25:10.080 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Right.
142 00:25:10.810 ⇒ 00:25:22.729 Clarence Stone: And, you know, the problem is I still have a couple, you know, clients on that side, as well as, like, a bunch of, like, bespoke strategic consulting clients, and then…
143 00:25:22.730 ⇒ 00:25:36.600 Clarence Stone: the tail end of November, Yutan tells me, hey, we’re growing super quick, we need to, you know, have better structure, and, you know, would you come on to kind of help formulate the strategy and, you know, help move things forward? Like, absolutely.
144 00:25:36.600 ⇒ 00:25:37.060 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
145 00:25:37.060 ⇒ 00:25:50.729 Clarence Stone: And now we’re, like, 2 months in, and I’ve started to take more and more of a larger chunk within the organization in terms of leadership, so I don’t know what exactly my official role is, but, you know, as I figure out, like, we talk about, you know, with
146 00:25:51.010 ⇒ 00:26:03.260 Clarence Stone: with Utam and Robert, where we’re gonna fit in the current services that I’m already running on my own company, and how we can bring that into Brainforge, I will somehow have some sort of more official role than.
147 00:26:03.260 ⇒ 00:26:04.910 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Gotcha. Okay.
148 00:26:05.250 ⇒ 00:26:13.829 Sheshu Chandrasekar: That’s… that’s awesome. I mean, how was that entire experience of, like, getting acquired? I always, like, hear about it, it’s like… it’s always, like, a flashy thing, right? Like, hey, I got my company.
149 00:26:13.830 ⇒ 00:26:30.329 Clarence Stone: For one, I didn’t make a boatload of money. It was, like, 400K. Got it. It was really just for the baseline technology, because I created a really ready-to-go, easy package that you just drop onto a Mac Mini or DJX Spark, and then start with AI inference right away.
150 00:26:30.330 ⇒ 00:26:45.909 Clarence Stone: So, they just wanted to be able to create that starting point for every, you know, machine that they wanted to monitor, and, you know, take the team with them. So, I said, hey, how about you just give me a price for the things that you want to take, right? And part of that deal is you have to hire my people.
151 00:26:45.910 ⇒ 00:26:50.590 Clarence Stone: Like, these are kids that, you know, just out of college decided to work with me.
152 00:26:50.630 ⇒ 00:26:55.940 Clarence Stone: I’ll be damned if they don’t get a job. So, you know, that’s what I cared about more than the payout.
153 00:26:56.220 ⇒ 00:27:00.010 Clarence Stone: But this is a great company, they’re actually in Shiner, Texas.
154 00:27:00.070 ⇒ 00:27:10.520 Clarence Stone: And they’re a family-owned PE that really cares for their employees, so I’m really glad to see them land in a great place. My experience, I guess, is, like.
155 00:27:10.520 ⇒ 00:27:28.110 Clarence Stone: you know, I think founders have, like, this perception that somebody’s gonna come and buy everything, or, like, they’re gonna get, like, a boatload of money, or X, Y, and Z. It’s really… one, the first half of my journey was understanding that a lot of this market still needed consulting, and I couldn’t just sell them product.
156 00:27:28.260 ⇒ 00:27:40.659 Clarence Stone: And then, like, giving in to that allowed me to make great relationships with a bunch of clients to be able to sell more of it, which ended up just being, I guess an acquisition of the Cortec, right?
157 00:27:40.660 ⇒ 00:27:41.320 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Right.
158 00:27:41.320 ⇒ 00:27:50.989 Clarence Stone: So, yeah, not the first time around that, you know, I’ve closed on a startup, so, it feels less joyful each time.
159 00:27:50.990 ⇒ 00:27:51.790 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
160 00:27:51.790 ⇒ 00:27:56.470 Clarence Stone: Unless, you know, the packages get bigger, so, yeah, like,
161 00:27:56.520 ⇒ 00:28:16.490 Clarence Stone: I can tell you that I’ll probably continue to have this much of a driving role at Brainforge, if not more in the future. I just don’t know how all those pieces fit in yet, but at the very least, I can tell you I’m owning this rollout of this new operational pattern, and it’s going to, you know.
162 00:28:16.490 ⇒ 00:28:19.799 Clarence Stone: Be a driver for the next two quarters, at least.
163 00:28:20.010 ⇒ 00:28:30.640 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, yeah, I saw how much influence, and I feel like the manifesto, in a way, was kind of your brainchild, because I saw a lot of your comments in there, so when I read through it, I was like, wow, like.
164 00:28:30.640 ⇒ 00:28:32.369 Clarence Stone: Oh, I wrote that whole thing, like, oh…
165 00:28:32.370 ⇒ 00:28:33.230 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oh, all of it.
166 00:28:33.230 ⇒ 00:28:34.560 Clarence Stone: Sure, it’s my write-up, yeah.
167 00:28:34.560 ⇒ 00:28:43.780 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Wow, yeah, no, I was so impressed, because I love it how you incorporate influence in there, like, the type of company you want to be from a DNA standpoint, like, you…
168 00:28:43.980 ⇒ 00:28:46.760 Sheshu Chandrasekar: pieced together all those things when I read through, I was like, wow, that’s…
169 00:28:46.910 ⇒ 00:28:54.240 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I was like, this is really well thought out. And then I also realized, like, this comes… this guy that wrote it, he definitely comes from a consulting background.
170 00:28:54.240 ⇒ 00:28:54.700 Clarence Stone: Yeah, because…
171 00:28:54.700 ⇒ 00:29:03.480 Sheshu Chandrasekar: like, you could tell, like, there’s no project managers, like, you eliminated that entire role, so, I was very impressed, and I think that’s, like, kind of my…
172 00:29:03.590 ⇒ 00:29:17.680 Sheshu Chandrasekar: it kind of wrapped me around, like, okay, you know, Brainforge is, like, a place I would love to work, because the old way of doing consulting, like, with these big four, you know, how they do things, like, and then how Brainforge is trying to reinvent that role is… I was really impressed by it.
173 00:29:17.980 ⇒ 00:29:24.650 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, I’m sure Pranav has already told you a lot about what it’s like working at Brainforge, but do you have any questions on what that’s like, or…
174 00:29:24.650 ⇒ 00:29:33.859 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah. I’m super curious, because, like, you know, in regards to the new model that you guys just created, like, what are some challenges that you…
175 00:29:34.010 ⇒ 00:29:42.430 Sheshu Chandrasekar: think… I know from the delivery side, like, the challenges that I would be foreseeing, in a way. What are some other challenges that you think is, like, gonna be super pressing in the next 6 months?
176 00:29:42.430 ⇒ 00:29:53.990 Clarence Stone: I love that question, because, you know, you and I coming from consulting backgrounds are automatically expecting different types of problems than what’s actually happening right now.
177 00:29:53.990 ⇒ 00:29:54.550 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yep.
178 00:29:54.550 ⇒ 00:30:03.139 Clarence Stone: Here’s what’s really interesting, Sashri. This entire group of talented people are extremely talented at the technical parts of things.
179 00:30:03.560 ⇒ 00:30:16.650 Clarence Stone: Which is, like, the complete opposite from your average consultant that you’re gonna see at a big four. There are, you know, your consultants are Type A’s that can, you know, pick up work and be dynamic in an environment. These guys are just really good at the things that they do.
180 00:30:16.650 ⇒ 00:30:17.060 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
181 00:30:17.060 ⇒ 00:30:41.760 Clarence Stone: And then understanding, like, the scope from a project level or a client relationship level is something that they are trying to grow into. I can tell you definitively that everybody wants to be really good at it, but they’re all growing in different ways and different paces, so I think that’s the biggest challenge I have right now. It’s like, I’ve got runaway, CSOs that are already crushing at writing SOWs.
182 00:30:41.760 ⇒ 00:30:45.559 Clarence Stone: And there’s also EPs that still haven’t given me my documents.
183 00:30:45.670 ⇒ 00:31:08.470 Clarence Stone: Right, right, and I need to feed them at the same rate, because I’m not gonna say, hey, you wrote an SOW, and I’m not gonna read that yet, because I gotta fix this fire over here. I’m like, no, you’re a different type of beast, and I’m gonna feed you. And, by the way, hey, you’re falling behind, so I gotta catch you up. So, you know, full transparency, I think that’s the biggest challenge. Everybody’s growing at a different rate, and they have
184 00:31:08.470 ⇒ 00:31:22.939 Clarence Stone: really great technical foundations, but, like, how they get active in managing a project, or active in managing relationships, or GTM, it’s just all over the place. And creating a framework for all of them to grow.
185 00:31:23.150 ⇒ 00:31:31.320 Clarence Stone: is sort of our biggest exploration task there is, and I think it’s a really fun frontier to take a look at, because
186 00:31:31.320 ⇒ 00:31:47.820 Clarence Stone: ideally, what I want this batch of leaders to be within the end of this year is to be full-on, like, full deploy engineers. Like, they should be able to figure out what the problems are, make their own tickets, and then execute on it in a pod of, like, no more than 3 or 4.
187 00:31:47.820 ⇒ 00:31:55.420 Clarence Stone: Project by project. And I see that capability happening, but, you know, it’s gonna be a slow and steady, you know, race to that content state.
188 00:31:55.780 ⇒ 00:32:01.210 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, absolutely, and I’m so glad you brought that up, because I imagine, like, in my mind, like.
189 00:32:02.220 ⇒ 00:32:18.250 Sheshu Chandrasekar: in the most optimistic and realistic case, it’s like, everyone becomes a full-fledged FDE, right? So it’s like, how do we support that? Like, what are some venues that we can take to achieve that? And I already know, Utam, like, you know, in this role, I’m understanding that delivery is such a critical piece to this entire foundation. Yeah.
190 00:32:18.250 ⇒ 00:32:24.130 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So that’s why I’m, like, trying to figure out if there’s other pieces that, you know, I need to be more aware of and more… and account for.
191 00:32:24.130 ⇒ 00:32:43.350 Clarence Stone: Nothing specific, but, you know, I think, just to reinforce your observation there, the way I actually broke down the top-level challenge of being an FDE is saying, okay, an FDE is good at three major things. One, they create and manage relationships really well.
192 00:32:43.450 ⇒ 00:32:54.070 Clarence Stone: Right. They are able to plan and execute to plan and adjust plans as necessary, right? And three, they have technical excellence and expertise.
193 00:32:54.500 ⇒ 00:33:05.459 Clarence Stone: Right. I think, like, you have those three things, you’re a really great FDE. Now, if you take a look at the leadership roles that I created, each one of them is one component piece of being a full-fledged FDE.
194 00:33:05.460 ⇒ 00:33:06.060 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
195 00:33:06.060 ⇒ 00:33:07.210 Clarence Stone: Right, so…
196 00:33:07.210 ⇒ 00:33:11.220 Sheshu Chandrasekar: eventually merges all together to become… Yes. Yeah. It’s like a video.
197 00:33:11.220 ⇒ 00:33:26.150 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah, yeah, finish your skill tree here, we’ll move you over there, you finish that skill tree over there, right? But, like, creating the structure for each one of those skill trees, and then, like, being able to anticipate these people who are going to be breakthroughs and already performing as an FDE by…
198 00:33:26.150 ⇒ 00:33:37.959 Clarence Stone: January or July, because they’re so freaking brilliant and smart. Like, it’s a lot to start to handle in the operational tipping scales, and and just to double up on that, like, we are…
199 00:33:38.280 ⇒ 00:33:48.310 Clarence Stone: there’s so much work coming in, like, pipelines packed to the first… end of the first quarter. So, I know you’ve come from a lot of startup environments with a lot of dynamics, like.
200 00:33:48.310 ⇒ 00:33:48.900 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
201 00:33:48.900 ⇒ 00:33:51.950 Clarence Stone: like, I just want to tell you, we are busy, and there is.
202 00:33:51.950 ⇒ 00:33:52.270 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
203 00:33:52.270 ⇒ 00:33:57.750 Clarence Stone: Coming in, and we’re actually trying to deal with the opposite of, like, how do we scale to meet this demand?
204 00:33:58.190 ⇒ 00:34:06.660 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Right. It’s more like, how do we support all this demand now? That’s, like, kind of the phase we’re in. No, that makes total sense. So, in a way, a good ops…
205 00:34:06.720 ⇒ 00:34:22.950 Sheshu Chandrasekar: system is, you know, it’s something that runs smoothly without any… any need for ad hoc tasks, because when I was talking to Eliza and Rico, I’ve kind of noticed that there’s a lot of ad hoc tasks and something of systems, right? Where you get slotted in. So, I guess…
206 00:34:22.949 ⇒ 00:34:27.870 Sheshu Chandrasekar: in your eyes, like, and I’m very curious, I ask everyone this, like, what is, like, a really good
207 00:34:27.969 ⇒ 00:34:32.950 Sheshu Chandrasekar: a really good day look like, and what does a frustrating day look like at Brainforge?
208 00:34:33.870 ⇒ 00:34:40.150 Clarence Stone: So if you ask me, it’s gonna be a little different, because, you know, I have client A,
209 00:34:40.469 ⇒ 00:34:43.380 Clarence Stone: client B, there’s a laptop over there.
210 00:34:43.380 ⇒ 00:34:43.770 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Right.
211 00:34:43.770 ⇒ 00:34:56.099 Clarence Stone: I, a typical day at Brain Forge, though, involves, stand-up. Each stand-up is grouped in by verticals, so I like to sit through and listen to every stand-up, so it’s about an hour and a half in the morning.
212 00:34:56.100 ⇒ 00:35:04.640 Clarence Stone: And then, I will probably spend the next hour and a half, like, squashing all of the operational bug issues that happen. Like.
213 00:35:04.840 ⇒ 00:35:20.470 Clarence Stone: Right now, I… like, I just realized that in a Gantt chart application, I can’t see people’s Gantt charts unless they actually share it with me. So I just created a spreadsheet, and I’m like, hey, submit your link, share it with these 3 people, you know, tell me when it’s ready, right?
214 00:35:20.520 ⇒ 00:35:34.409 Clarence Stone: Right. Blast it out to everyone, make sure they know. Check in with people that we haven’t really heard from actively, you know, things like that. Like, operationally kill the fires, and then I probably spend the afternoons having follow-on meetings with Utah. That’s why you got that right.
215 00:35:34.410 ⇒ 00:35:34.810 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
216 00:35:34.810 ⇒ 00:35:53.170 Clarence Stone: Because things kind of die down a little bit by noon, and then I pick up calls from other clients in the meantime, and then we have some other meetings that are about sales or operational refinement towards the end of the day. So that’s sort of my cadence.
217 00:35:53.630 ⇒ 00:36:10.219 Sheshu Chandrasekar: That makes sense, that makes sense. Okay. Yeah, because I’m writing up, like, a 30, 60, 90-day plan right now, because just based on all the interviews I’ve had, just, like, kind of thinking, like, how can I create the most impact and value to, like, you know, making sure the opposite works, so…
218 00:36:10.220 ⇒ 00:36:29.989 Clarence Stone: So, I would say 30 is, like, rapidly, assess everything that’s happening in this new op model, and start plugging in up the holes, and then, like, actually just, like, giving us insight and feedback that you’re seeing that I might not see on how we can just reformulate this plan, and continue to refine it as we go along.
219 00:36:30.900 ⇒ 00:36:40.779 Clarence Stone: So, if that’s in your first 30, I think you’re gonna crush it. Don’t, don’t think too hard about, you know, the other dynamics, because,
220 00:36:40.780 ⇒ 00:36:51.519 Clarence Stone: like, you will learn about how things are going as soon as you start here. You’ll get a sense of it, and then you can come back to that 30, 60, 90 and make those edits.
221 00:36:51.520 ⇒ 00:37:05.470 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, no, absolutely. It’s just something, you know, I’m just thinking through, figuring out, like, okay, where can I come in and be like, okay, this is what I’m noticing, here’s where I can fix it. So, I was thinking from a… I still don’t know, like, I was asking Eliza and Rico this, but I don’t understand, like.
222 00:37:06.290 ⇒ 00:37:15.079 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I guess, like, what is your version of definition of done, right? Like, every ops has, like, okay, this is what a completed piece looks like, so I’m curious to see, like.
223 00:37:15.490 ⇒ 00:37:31.209 Clarence Stone: So, for core deliverables, we do have very strong definitions of done, but there’s not a lot of core deliverables yet. So, that’s sort of the challenge, right? For example, like, your slide deck is ready for client presentation when you have,
224 00:37:31.210 ⇒ 00:37:36.279 Clarence Stone: Finished your draft, got that reviewed, and you’ve done a dry run with one of the leads.
225 00:37:36.920 ⇒ 00:37:37.780 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Got it.
226 00:37:37.810 ⇒ 00:37:50.550 Clarence Stone: Okay. Then you’re good to go and present it to the client. That’s a good definition of that. And same thing for, like, the other, you know, work items, like, your Gantt chart, your linear tickets and stuff. Like, we have very strong definitions for those things, but if…
227 00:37:50.550 ⇒ 00:38:05.099 Clarence Stone: you were to tell me, like, hey, this is an architectural engagement, and it requires architectural diagrams and other work products, like, I haven’t followed up to that level of service-level granularity to say, on these types of projects, you also need these work products.
228 00:38:06.250 ⇒ 00:38:13.220 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Gotcha. That makes sense. And that’s from… that’s specifically for client delivery, like, only client-facing, okay.
229 00:38:13.300 ⇒ 00:38:15.039 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I’m trying to figure out, like.
230 00:38:15.120 ⇒ 00:38:29.999 Sheshu Chandrasekar: from an ops standpoint, like, hey, what is, like, definition of done? Like, how do we ensure, like, you know, we face a problem, and it’s now done, and we can move on to the next problem? So that’s kind of, like, where I’m thinking about from an ops standpoint. And I have, like, a very…
231 00:38:30.200 ⇒ 00:38:49.239 Sheshu Chandrasekar: rough, you know, framework that can… I would love to share with you at some point. But yeah, I mean, I know I went on a tangent there. But yeah, that’s all the questions I have. I guess I… one last question, like, what do you love… what do you love about Brainforge right now? Like, what is something that you’re like, you know what, like.
232 00:38:49.550 ⇒ 00:38:52.260 Sheshu Chandrasekar: This is home, like, when it comes to working, in a way.
233 00:38:52.550 ⇒ 00:38:59.499 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so I can tell you confidently that my relationship with Big Four ended in a way that
234 00:38:59.640 ⇒ 00:39:01.299 Clarence Stone: Really pissed me off.
235 00:39:01.600 ⇒ 00:39:14.709 Clarence Stone: Yeah. Because these organizations stopped performing like a meritocracy, they stopped, you know, rewarding people who were actually driving results and had initiative, which caused me to have
236 00:39:14.710 ⇒ 00:39:25.150 Clarence Stone: you know, a really small team that I was trying to maintain with a bench that was not going to be great replacements at all.
237 00:39:25.310 ⇒ 00:39:32.660 Clarence Stone: progression that became a lot difficult because you don’t have that kind of backing. No matter how many partners love you, you know.
238 00:39:32.770 ⇒ 00:39:36.440 Clarence Stone: These kinds of things are going to stifle growth.
239 00:39:36.880 ⇒ 00:39:50.760 Clarence Stone: I see Brainforge as a way to unright all the wrongs that these institutions cannot reverse. They are, at the core, unable to respond to the dynamics of AI simply by the structure in which they operate in.
240 00:39:50.780 ⇒ 00:40:00.030 Clarence Stone: And it was done as a defensive mechanism to make sure that, you know, the firm lives forever. I get that, and if you want to continue operating that way, you know, we’ll come and eat your lunch.
241 00:40:00.780 ⇒ 00:40:10.089 Sheshu Chandrasekar: There you go. I love that. Yeah, absolutely. I feel the same way about, Deloitte. The way I… the way things ended,
242 00:40:10.410 ⇒ 00:40:15.080 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Just deep politics and not valuing work and meritocracy was just, like…
243 00:40:15.300 ⇒ 00:40:23.429 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so I’m just getting rid of all the roles that actually were just overhead, you know, waste of the revenue on my books.
244 00:40:23.430 ⇒ 00:40:38.199 Clarence Stone: Tons of PMOs that I was paying that I didn’t want to be. You know, this is just taking all those learnings, understanding what’s coming with AI and what’s possible with AI, and putting those two futures together to create an organization that has never existed before.
245 00:40:38.310 ⇒ 00:40:40.710 Clarence Stone: Because it couldn’t have existed before without AI.
246 00:40:41.890 ⇒ 00:40:53.440 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, absolutely, and it’s so funny, because I’m pretty sure you can second this too, but at Big Four, like, people talk about AI like it’s the new hottest gold rush, but no one knows what it’s about.
247 00:40:53.440 ⇒ 00:40:54.230 Clarence Stone: Exactly.
248 00:40:54.230 ⇒ 00:41:00.679 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, like, there’s no level of experimentation for such a novel technology that is great, right? And…
249 00:41:00.890 ⇒ 00:41:14.509 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I’m so glad Brainforge, you know, supports that. It’s like, you know, go experiment if this works, if this AI initiative that you want to build, like automation, whatever, solves our problems, then by all means, go for it, and that’s something I can… I know I’ll truly appreciate.
250 00:41:14.510 ⇒ 00:41:20.049 Clarence Stone: There’s gonna be plenty of that here. There’s been no spending caps on any AI tool or feature.
251 00:41:20.050 ⇒ 00:41:31.819 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oh my god, that’s music to my ears right now. That’s awesome. But I know, I know we’re well over our time, Clarence, and I really appreciate this conversation, so thank you so much.
252 00:41:31.820 ⇒ 00:41:37.489 Clarence Stone: Hey, you’re local, so, next time I’m up in Austin, it would be cool for us to connect as well.
253 00:41:38.760 ⇒ 00:41:46.970 Clarence Stone: I don’t know when I’m gonna be up next, but, you know, I think, you know, hanging out with you now would be pretty cool, so I’ll just keep that in mind, I’ll ping you about that.
254 00:41:46.970 ⇒ 00:41:52.170 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, no, I’m actually headed to Austin today. I’m actually getting dinner with Itam and Pranav.
255 00:41:52.170 ⇒ 00:41:53.930 Clarence Stone: Oh, perfect. Good.
256 00:41:53.930 ⇒ 00:42:00.759 Sheshu Chandrasekar: actually… so, my living situation in Austin is a little weird right now, because I… I was living in Austin, like, in…
257 00:42:00.910 ⇒ 00:42:18.960 Sheshu Chandrasekar: June, July, and then I moved back home in Houston, saved some money, because, you know, the environment of startups are very uncertain. So, yeah, I’m moving back to Austin, I’m out in Pflugerville. So in February, I’ll be more slated into Pflugerville, and I’ll be a full-time Austinite again, so…
258 00:42:19.440 ⇒ 00:42:28.850 Clarence Stone: Sounds good. Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. Yeah, and I think team will be following up on all the other specifics of bringing you on board.
259 00:42:29.080 ⇒ 00:42:31.489 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Absolutely, this is awesome. Thank you so much, Clarence.
260 00:42:31.490 ⇒ 00:42:32.190 Clarence Stone: Awesome.
261 00:42:32.410 ⇒ 00:42:35.170 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Have a good one. Yep, talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.