Meeting Title: Uttam - Pranav Weekly Sync Date: 2026-03-16 Meeting participants: Pranav Narahari, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:02:10.949 ⇒ 00:02:17.530 Uttam Kumaran: Hey dude, I’m just getting out of the house to go get some coffee, but I’m… of AirPods, so…
2 00:02:17.820 ⇒ 00:02:19.150 Pranav Narahari: Perfect, perfect.
3 00:02:20.390 ⇒ 00:02:21.419 Uttam Kumaran: How’s everything?
4 00:02:21.830 ⇒ 00:02:25.129 Pranav Narahari: Things are good, things are good. How’s your morning been?
5 00:02:26.110 ⇒ 00:02:27.690 Uttam Kumaran: Good.
6 00:02:28.040 ⇒ 00:02:35.360 Uttam Kumaran: we are just planning next quarter. Yeah. Like, bro, this is so funny, because, like, I literally, over the weekend, I was like.
7 00:02:35.480 ⇒ 00:02:40.970 Uttam Kumaran: wait, why do we… why am I so paying for, like, ChatGPT for everybody? So I cut, like…
8 00:02:41.360 ⇒ 00:02:46.960 Uttam Kumaran: $350 worth of ChatGPT licenses, because, like, people can use Cursor now.
9 00:02:47.090 ⇒ 00:02:52.499 Uttam Kumaran: Right. And then I went into Figma today, and I cut out another $250 worth of licenses.
10 00:02:52.800 ⇒ 00:02:53.380 Uttam Kumaran: And, like.
11 00:02:53.380 ⇒ 00:02:54.610 Pranav Narahari: Is that, like, a traversing?
12 00:02:54.950 ⇒ 00:02:58.390 Uttam Kumaran: Well, it’s just, like, there’s some people that no longer are using it, like.
13 00:02:58.390 ⇒ 00:02:59.060 Pranav Narahari: Right.
14 00:02:59.060 ⇒ 00:03:07.440 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning 250, like, per month. Like, it’s probably, like, 7 or 10 licenses. Yeah. And…
15 00:03:07.610 ⇒ 00:03:10.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s just… it’s funny, because in this business.
16 00:03:11.330 ⇒ 00:03:21.990 Uttam Kumaran: for… you could just kind of find… you literally can find money just sitting… just sitting there. And, like, I’m pretty sure by the end of the week, I would have found another $1,000 a month.
17 00:03:22.100 ⇒ 00:03:23.140 Uttam Kumaran: Thus. Yeah.
18 00:03:23.390 ⇒ 00:03:27.100 Uttam Kumaran: through that, and it’s… I don’t know, it’s sort of like…
19 00:03:27.640 ⇒ 00:03:35.120 Uttam Kumaran: It’s just funny now, like, being on this side, I always felt like, yeah, big companies, they just waste money, and I’m like, yeah, but I think, like…
20 00:03:35.390 ⇒ 00:03:54.319 Uttam Kumaran: Also, I just cared. I’m like, yo, I wonder why… I literally was, like, sitting, like, why are we… is anyone even fucking using ChatGPT anymore? I’m like, why? And then Clarence was like, dude, why are your… Clarence was like, people are still using that? And I’m like, no, I just feel like we keep… I never told people this…
21 00:03:54.670 ⇒ 00:04:01.840 Uttam Kumaran: I just didn’t make it more formal to the operations team so anyone joins, because things just change in, like, 4 months, you know?
22 00:04:02.020 ⇒ 00:04:02.380 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
23 00:04:03.480 ⇒ 00:04:06.220 Pranav Narahari: ago, only the engineers were probably using Cursor.
24 00:04:07.030 ⇒ 00:04:09.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, now everybody’s using it, but it’s,
25 00:04:09.890 ⇒ 00:04:14.399 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s just interesting, and we, I mean, I think,
26 00:04:14.460 ⇒ 00:04:30.609 Uttam Kumaran: you’re gonna see how we think about Q2 planning, but we’re really, really tight. Like, I feel super, super pumped. We… we basically found that, like, one… I mean, we have… we’re… we’re doing… we’re… we have pretty healthy margins, but I think what we’re gonna…
27 00:04:30.710 ⇒ 00:04:44.040 Uttam Kumaran: what we’re finding is, of course, I think that we’re slightly understaffed, so our delivery budget is gonna go up, but we also found that, like, I think people are just in a lot of, like, internal meetings, and so we kind of got guidance that, like.
28 00:04:44.250 ⇒ 00:04:49.929 Uttam Kumaran: Internal meetings should be closer to, like, 10-15%, versus now it’s, like, 20-25%.
29 00:04:50.410 ⇒ 00:04:57.249 Uttam Kumaran: Of time. And so, that’s also good, because I think everybody… like, who isn’t a fan of that?
30 00:04:57.860 ⇒ 00:05:09.150 Uttam Kumaran: And then, I think we have to… we actually also have some, like, really clear indicators that, like, we can use AI for a lot of things. Like, I originally thought we were gonna have to have, like.
31 00:05:09.320 ⇒ 00:05:16.879 Uttam Kumaran: tons more operational staff, and it’s actually, I think, fairly clear that, like, as long as we have one person that can, like, lead
32 00:05:16.990 ⇒ 00:05:25.240 Uttam Kumaran: a function, like, for example, partnerships. We don’t need, like, a partnerships manager and, like, a bunch of partnerships people. We could probably just have, like, that one person.
33 00:05:27.150 ⇒ 00:05:41.349 Uttam Kumaran: You know, so we’re doing some interesting planning, I think, for Q2, and then also, I think we’re gonna see how we can increase, like, the travel budget, so that we can get people together, and people can travel to kind of see each other, and then…
34 00:05:41.550 ⇒ 00:05:48.060 Uttam Kumaran: like, I think we’re gonna end up adding another, like, 2 people in LA, so LA will have, like, probably the most people
35 00:05:48.260 ⇒ 00:05:53.250 Uttam Kumaran: And I told Robert that we should… we’re gonna try to… we should try to get people here, you know, next, so…
36 00:05:53.610 ⇒ 00:05:54.390 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
37 00:05:54.780 ⇒ 00:05:59.179 Pranav Narahari: Sick. One thing when I was, like, scoping all these,
38 00:05:59.480 ⇒ 00:06:02.890 Pranav Narahari: additional projects for ABC was just…
39 00:06:03.400 ⇒ 00:06:14.959 Pranav Narahari: I just had the idea, I was just like, yeah, every single ticket that we write, like, we should think about what percent of it could be done with cursor. Because I think going forward, like, if we can.
40 00:06:14.960 ⇒ 00:06:15.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
41 00:06:15.650 ⇒ 00:06:29.509 Pranav Narahari: It’s, you know, in linear, and then we just have it, you know, spin up a cloud agent to just get it started, and then someone like Mustafa, Casey, Sam, or I can just, like, take it to the finish line. Like, that’s gonna cut our costs as well by so much.
42 00:06:30.310 ⇒ 00:06:45.900 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and actually, this is where I’m, like… I think you’re spot on, and if I can take it, like, one layer further, I think we’re gonna have two steps. We’re gonna basically have, like, tickets that get created, and then we’re gonna have another AI that sort of judges whether a ticket
43 00:06:46.010 ⇒ 00:06:48.760 Uttam Kumaran: Has enough information to get handed off.
44 00:06:49.060 ⇒ 00:06:59.010 Uttam Kumaran: And then, totally, I think we should be able to assign the easy and medium ones to AI. I mean, really, we’re gonna be more in the loop on reviewing, did it actually work?
45 00:06:59.160 ⇒ 00:07:04.010 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, we’re still gonna… we’re still gonna add headcount to the AI team, but I think…
46 00:07:04.210 ⇒ 00:07:14.269 Uttam Kumaran: it’s… you’re just gonna… what we’re gonna see on the business side is you’re just gonna see, like, revenue per employee go higher, but I think on the… on the team side, also, I just think, like.
47 00:07:14.430 ⇒ 00:07:23.999 Uttam Kumaran: We’re hopefully gonna move from, like, okay, we’re strapped, and, like, it’s just gonna be, like, a really solid team of, like, 5 or 6 that you can work across multiple clients pretty easily.
48 00:07:25.660 ⇒ 00:07:36.209 Uttam Kumaran: And instead, spend your time, like, roadmapping the next thing, or, like, just planning out features, versus, like, spending a ton of time… or working on the hardest thing, basically, you know?
49 00:07:36.990 ⇒ 00:07:42.200 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, I mean, that makes a ton of sense, and last week, right, like, how I was…
50 00:07:42.470 ⇒ 00:07:52.590 Pranav Narahari: I was a little bit worried, because I was just like, oh, I’m spending so much time on ABC right now. But I was realizing, too, is like, okay, but I’m prepping for the next 3 months.
51 00:07:52.620 ⇒ 00:08:11.409 Pranav Narahari: And so, once things are actually in place, like, we actually create the linear tickets for everything, we just get the go-ahead from, you know, internally, but then also ABC is like, yeah, let’s work on these things. Yeah. It’s a lot smoother for me, I’m just gonna be like, okay, weekly, where are we at? If there’s certain fires, just putting that out, but it doesn’.
52 00:08:11.410 ⇒ 00:08:22.719 Uttam Kumaran: Well, that’s what also, like, your… your feeling on we’re spending too much time has to cascade to the team. Like, meaning you have to go to Casey and be like, dude, where are we… how are we spending 30 hours on this?
53 00:08:23.410 ⇒ 00:08:39.249 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And then you can go… you can go do what I do, which is, like, to break it down, like, why are you spending 30 hours and we’re only getting this month? And, like, that’s… that’s what I want, sort of, the team leads to start… to start to feel that pressure, because I’m gonna show you how…
54 00:08:39.250 ⇒ 00:08:46.840 Uttam Kumaran: you can use cloud agents, and we’re gonna develop all these things, but I can’t go to everybody on the team, and it’s…
55 00:08:46.880 ⇒ 00:09:00.360 Uttam Kumaran: like, you’re gonna have a fixed amount of hours to do damage on a client, and so, really, your point would be like, hey, dude, you’re spending, like, 20, 30 hours here, and I’m getting… I’m getting asked… we’re gonna have, like, two other engagements spin up, and…
56 00:09:00.430 ⇒ 00:09:05.349 Uttam Kumaran: you need to be more efficient with your time, you know? And I…
57 00:09:05.350 ⇒ 00:09:06.449 Pranav Narahari: I want… I want…
58 00:09:06.450 ⇒ 00:09:11.000 Uttam Kumaran: I want team leads to feel that sort of, like, same feeling that I’m feeling, which is, I’m like.
59 00:09:11.400 ⇒ 00:09:15.580 Uttam Kumaran: Hey guys, like, I think you could have done all of what you did in 10 hours, you know?
60 00:09:15.700 ⇒ 00:09:27.439 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, maybe… so maybe it’s a time management thing, maybe it’s, like, you just need to hand more things off to AI type thing, but, like, getting… starting to question that is… is what’s gonna be really, really fun, you know?
61 00:09:28.030 ⇒ 00:09:29.470 Pranav Narahari: Yep, totally.
62 00:09:30.190 ⇒ 00:09:39.389 Pranav Narahari: And I think what happened probably with ABC, like, for the last, like, 3-4ish months was just… there was too big of tickets with not.
63 00:09:39.390 ⇒ 00:09:40.100 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
64 00:09:40.530 ⇒ 00:09:59.159 Pranav Narahari: And so, weekly, we would be getting insights from… maybe it’s internally, maybe it’s also from… or, I mean, feedback, I mean, from internally, or from the client, and then it’s just like, okay, now it’s another pivot for the same ticket, now it’s another pivot. It’s like, once they’re written, they should just be getting done. There shouldn’t be any…
65 00:09:59.610 ⇒ 00:10:03.499 Pranav Narahari: Left or right, it should just be like, okay, I get to bang this out now.
66 00:10:05.000 ⇒ 00:10:13.429 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I totally agree, and it’s like, if you can’t do it, then, okay, what part of the system doesn’t have an API or a CLI that we need to, like.
67 00:10:13.760 ⇒ 00:10:14.410 Pranav Narahari: Yes.
68 00:10:14.410 ⇒ 00:10:27.820 Uttam Kumaran: harness the AI, you know? So, that’s why, and that’s why I’m like, dude, your team… your team should be leading the way with, like, what’s possible with fewer people. The data team is gonna be harder, because…
69 00:10:27.910 ⇒ 00:10:33.279 Uttam Kumaran: Like, it’s… it’s not… it’s not as clean. Like, the artifacts we’re developing are, like.
70 00:10:33.310 ⇒ 00:10:48.919 Uttam Kumaran: data models, and… because most of the AI tools are all built for, like, software engineering. So we’re gonna be building a lot of great tooling for the data team, but I’m expecting their adoption to lag you guys. But when I see that, like, this team is…
71 00:10:48.920 ⇒ 00:10:56.089 Uttam Kumaran: working on one client, like, I’m starting to ask for some help on some platform stuff, but, like, that stuff’s not moving, and I’m like.
72 00:10:56.120 ⇒ 00:11:13.269 Uttam Kumaran: yo, guys, you guys should be pushing me to, like, try new shit, like, this is the AI team, right? And so that’s… that’s sort of my… my hope in the odor of Operations, is that, like, still, I’m gonna try and, like, bring whatever the latest technology is to the table, but…
73 00:11:13.290 ⇒ 00:11:20.089 Uttam Kumaran: Your… your team should be also trying to show, like, what’s… what’s really possible in running, like.
74 00:11:20.150 ⇒ 00:11:22.719 Uttam Kumaran: you know, an AI delivery team.
75 00:11:22.790 ⇒ 00:11:36.300 Uttam Kumaran: Because then every other team is gonna lag you guys. Like, the data team is gonna lag you guys, the strategy team is gonna lag that team, marketing, operations, sales are gonna lag them. So that’s how I think about the ordering.
76 00:11:38.290 ⇒ 00:11:45.510 Uttam Kumaran: You know, because ultimately, you guys are selling… you guys are going to go sell the things that you learn, you know?
77 00:11:45.730 ⇒ 00:11:52.280 Uttam Kumaran: So, you have to see that firsthand, versus… I just want to make sure that, like, Okay.
78 00:11:52.380 ⇒ 00:12:01.290 Uttam Kumaran: like, the Slack example… a version of Slack is working, or, like, open code is working, or cloud agents are working, and then I’m like, okay, it’s working now, like…
79 00:12:01.430 ⇒ 00:12:05.899 Uttam Kumaran: rip it for your client, and then see how we can go sell this thing. Yeah.
80 00:12:06.530 ⇒ 00:12:07.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
81 00:12:07.310 ⇒ 00:12:13.320 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, so, and ABC is interesting, too, because we have this tiered type of, like.
82 00:12:13.320 ⇒ 00:12:13.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
83 00:12:14.190 ⇒ 00:12:17.419 Pranav Narahari: And so, it’s not a fixed amount where it’s like, oh.
84 00:12:17.870 ⇒ 00:12:24.040 Pranav Narahari: now, like, what I feel like I’m incentivized to do now is, like, condense all the timelines for,
85 00:12:24.040 ⇒ 00:12:24.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
86 00:12:24.700 ⇒ 00:12:25.440 Pranav Narahari: that I scop.
87 00:12:25.440 ⇒ 00:12:26.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
88 00:12:26.090 ⇒ 00:12:37.040 Pranav Narahari: And so, I mean, unless you have, like, a minimum amount of time that you want, you know, Casey Mustafa to be working on the platform, then I could… I honestly feel like we can have them working
89 00:12:37.480 ⇒ 00:12:38.349 Pranav Narahari: Whatever, like…
90 00:12:38.350 ⇒ 00:12:43.370 Uttam Kumaran: No, I mean, I will… I’m gonna get… I’m gonna give you the maximum time, but this is where I’m curious, like.
91 00:12:43.510 ⇒ 00:12:46.550 Uttam Kumaran: And I don’t know… I’m curious about, like.
92 00:12:46.940 ⇒ 00:12:54.790 Uttam Kumaran: how do I incentivize the behavior that you’re talking about with everybody on the team? Meaning, like, I mean, everyone on the leadership side.
93 00:12:54.910 ⇒ 00:13:01.669 Uttam Kumaran: You know, which is, like, I don’t think we’ve… I don’t think we’ve… we have any, like, CSO-related
94 00:13:01.910 ⇒ 00:13:09.970 Uttam Kumaran: metrics or service-leader metrics to delivery, but, like, what if… what if it’s like, okay, if I’m able to run this
95 00:13:10.860 ⇒ 00:13:16.459 Uttam Kumaran: 50% margin, then I get a piece, right? So I’m… I’m down to, like, even think about that, because yes.
96 00:13:16.460 ⇒ 00:13:16.840 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
97 00:13:16.840 ⇒ 00:13:21.179 Uttam Kumaran: what you’re about to say is exactly what the fuck I’m talking about, like…
98 00:13:21.180 ⇒ 00:13:21.770 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
99 00:13:22.070 ⇒ 00:13:31.889 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, actually, we’re getting paid on adoption, so I think not only we could get the adoption earlier, I can actually probably hand half of this to AI,
100 00:13:32.030 ⇒ 00:13:36.400 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, also cut the margin, and so it’s double trouble. It’s great, right? And, like…
101 00:13:36.630 ⇒ 00:13:40.979 Uttam Kumaran: I… that’s exactly, like, the conclusion I was kind of hoping that… that you’d reach.
102 00:13:41.500 ⇒ 00:13:48.560 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, and this is, what’s interesting, maybe down the line, is just, like, once we get the highest tier, like.
103 00:13:49.420 ⇒ 00:13:56.499 Pranav Narahari: how do we… oh, then we get amount… we get, like, a certain amount per user or something? Yeah. Yeah. So there’s still, like.
104 00:13:56.500 ⇒ 00:14:00.939 Uttam Kumaran: And again, like, we can always renegotiate and do more work, and so, like…
105 00:14:01.710 ⇒ 00:14:06.139 Uttam Kumaran: that’s… that’s the reason I signed this type of deal, because I felt like…
106 00:14:06.350 ⇒ 00:14:12.060 Uttam Kumaran: Something was gonna click where our delivery costs weren’t gonna stay… were gonna stay flat.
107 00:14:12.450 ⇒ 00:14:22.410 Uttam Kumaran: or ideally go down, but, like, we’re gonna continue to get more revenue, and these are the types of deals that we want to sign with future clients. I think what I’m interested in is, like, how do I set up
108 00:14:22.660 ⇒ 00:14:28.729 Uttam Kumaran: the incentives for the leadership team, like… and this is where I think we’re still not completely ironed out, like.
109 00:14:29.310 ⇒ 00:14:38.160 Uttam Kumaran: For example, should the service lead for AI be thinking about how AI how the AI engineers
110 00:14:38.380 ⇒ 00:14:43.500 Uttam Kumaran: Like, optimize their time versus should you be thinking about revenue?
111 00:14:43.600 ⇒ 00:14:58.690 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And this is also where I’m, like, I’m still not sure yet about, like, if Sam is actually… and it’s probably mostly my fault, but, like, I had to think about Zoron, Sam, Demi, and what goals to set for them.
112 00:14:58.810 ⇒ 00:15:04.420 Uttam Kumaran: And so, I know I’m kind of, like, hijacking this call a little bit, but what do you think, like, as a CSO,
113 00:15:05.500 ⇒ 00:15:10.099 Uttam Kumaran: What do you want… what would you want from your service lead?
114 00:15:10.420 ⇒ 00:15:13.819 Uttam Kumaran: that, like… because I think what you’re thinking about is actually, like.
115 00:15:14.010 ⇒ 00:15:16.460 Uttam Kumaran: Some part, they should be thinking about that, which is.
116 00:15:16.460 ⇒ 00:15:17.090 Pranav Narahari: Yes, I agree.
117 00:15:17.090 ⇒ 00:15:17.520 Uttam Kumaran: We didn’t talk.
118 00:15:17.520 ⇒ 00:15:18.070 Pranav Narahari: I was working.
119 00:15:18.070 ⇒ 00:15:19.260 Uttam Kumaran: Quality, right?
120 00:15:19.260 ⇒ 00:15:19.820 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
121 00:15:20.120 ⇒ 00:15:27.460 Pranav Narahari: I’m… what I kind of… See the service lead being as a little bit of, like, an engineering manager.
122 00:15:28.750 ⇒ 00:15:36.710 Pranav Narahari: They basically manage the engineering resources, but I wonder if that’s supposed to be me?
123 00:15:37.160 ⇒ 00:15:45.240 Uttam Kumaran: No, no. Okay. Meaning, right now, we have no formal, like, people management structure, on purpose.
124 00:15:45.480 ⇒ 00:15:46.610 Pranav Narahari: Because… Yeah.
125 00:15:46.760 ⇒ 00:15:56.969 Uttam Kumaran: Because everything rolls to me, and that’s fine, because I don’t want you to manage… I want you to manage the client, not, like, people’s emotion and people’s day-to-day.
126 00:15:56.970 ⇒ 00:15:57.760 Pranav Narahari: Bye. Yeah.
127 00:15:57.760 ⇒ 00:16:06.309 Uttam Kumaran: this is where I’m, like, I’m also thinking about collapsing roles, meaning, like, okay, service lead, a mix of, like, tech lead and engineering manager?
128 00:16:07.610 ⇒ 00:16:15.290 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Because I’m not interested in just them being… they need to be two, right? Similarly, like, I think CSOs are both…
129 00:16:15.460 ⇒ 00:16:20.289 Uttam Kumaran: project managers and account managers, right? Almost?
130 00:16:20.520 ⇒ 00:16:25.730 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, you know, so I’m like, okay, if I agree with you on, like, there’s some type of… there’s some level of, like.
131 00:16:25.860 ⇒ 00:16:27.990 Uttam Kumaran: people… people metrics.
132 00:16:28.100 ⇒ 00:16:30.240 Uttam Kumaran: But I also am thinking about, like.
133 00:16:31.040 ⇒ 00:16:36.130 Uttam Kumaran: Development speed-related stuff, and development quality.
134 00:16:36.360 ⇒ 00:16:37.350 Uttam Kumaran: You know?
135 00:16:37.740 ⇒ 00:16:38.610 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
136 00:16:38.910 ⇒ 00:16:39.580 Uttam Kumaran: That’s two…
137 00:16:39.580 ⇒ 00:16:39.960 Pranav Narahari: things.
138 00:16:39.960 ⇒ 00:16:43.220 Uttam Kumaran: Like, maybe the CSO you shouldn’t have to think about.
139 00:16:44.020 ⇒ 00:16:52.100 Pranav Narahari: And I think what I remember when we talked about Forging the Future, like, it was supposed to be a push and pull, and so I would like.
140 00:16:52.100 ⇒ 00:16:52.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
141 00:16:52.550 ⇒ 00:16:58.749 Pranav Narahari: Sam and be like, hey, like, let’s get all, like, bang out all of these projects this month, you know?
142 00:16:59.800 ⇒ 00:17:03.339 Pranav Narahari: Because that’s what I’m most incentivized to do, right?
143 00:17:03.340 ⇒ 00:17:04.030 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
144 00:17:04.300 ⇒ 00:17:10.510 Pranav Narahari: And we have to, I guess, talk about that incentive… like, I wanted to talk about that incentive as well, but let’s just go off with, like…
145 00:17:10.510 ⇒ 00:17:15.190 Uttam Kumaran: I assume there’s gonna be one, so, like, I just have to figure it out, and, like, it’s also.
146 00:17:15.190 ⇒ 00:17:15.780 Pranav Narahari: yup.
147 00:17:15.940 ⇒ 00:17:24.059 Uttam Kumaran: what do we have the operational capacity to, like, track and pay out? But yes, like, assume that there’s gonna be, like, hey, if you run your client
148 00:17:24.480 ⇒ 00:17:26.519 Uttam Kumaran: But the thing is, there also has to be, like.
149 00:17:26.710 ⇒ 00:17:30.669 Uttam Kumaran: another side, which is, like, I don’t want people to understaff things.
150 00:17:31.050 ⇒ 00:17:34.950 Uttam Kumaran: So there has to be, like, a customer satisfaction metric that balances it out.
151 00:17:35.130 ⇒ 00:17:38.290 Uttam Kumaran: But this is helpful, like, I can… I will… I will think about it.
152 00:17:38.840 ⇒ 00:17:42.549 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. But yes, assume, like, yes, there is, like, if you continue with the hypothetical.
153 00:17:42.890 ⇒ 00:17:49.660 Pranav Narahari: Perfect, yeah, so then I… that’s… that’s my incentive, right? I want to push as quick as possible, because that’s what incentivizes
154 00:17:49.770 ⇒ 00:17:56.480 Pranav Narahari: my… that’s what… that’s what’s my incentive. Then I go to Sam, though, and, like, he probably has to hit, like…
155 00:17:56.730 ⇒ 00:18:15.340 Pranav Narahari: if things don’t get… like, he mismanages, like, the complexity of a project, that’s on him, right? I’m talking about the deliverable, which should be, like, what we want to make for a client. He’s supposed to manage, like, okay, to make this, we need to do… we have to build out, like.
156 00:18:15.460 ⇒ 00:18:31.370 Pranav Narahari: XYZ on… on the technical… like, from the technical standpoint of things. And so it’s basically just scoping hours. He has to do the… he has to be kind of responsible for the hours amount that each ticket, or each.
157 00:18:31.820 ⇒ 00:18:32.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
158 00:18:32.510 ⇒ 00:18:35.879 Pranav Narahari: what higher level is going to take, right? And then…
159 00:18:36.070 ⇒ 00:18:41.510 Pranav Narahari: how he will do that is like, okay, well, that’s the metric that I’m gonna be evaluated on.
160 00:18:41.790 ⇒ 00:18:51.129 Pranav Narahari: So, I’m going to have a little bit of a push-pull here, but then there should be, like, an overall metric that both me and Sam are aligned on, which is, like, hey, if we…
161 00:18:51.320 ⇒ 00:18:53.700 Pranav Narahari: If this is, like, the…
162 00:18:54.160 ⇒ 00:19:00.030 Pranav Narahari: like, for ABC, for example, right? Like, say we do get to that next tier, how does that affect us?
163 00:19:00.340 ⇒ 00:19:01.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
164 00:19:01.050 ⇒ 00:19:07.590 Pranav Narahari: That should… that should be an incentive that we’re both aligned on, so we both do have the… the push to move faster.
165 00:19:07.850 ⇒ 00:19:14.099 Uttam Kumaran: Well, the other thing is, like, one thing I’m gonna say is that there’s… there’s gonna be a customer satisfaction, something called CSAT.
166 00:19:14.200 ⇒ 00:19:17.220 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re gonna have a customer satisfaction score.
167 00:19:17.360 ⇒ 00:19:30.100 Uttam Kumaran: So, that’s gonna be part of the balance. Ultimately, though, if you can run a client… like, I want to create some, like, margin tiers, where it’s basically, like, if you can run your client, like, between…
168 00:19:30.380 ⇒ 00:19:32.410 Uttam Kumaran: 0 to 30%.
169 00:19:32.520 ⇒ 00:19:36.620 Uttam Kumaran: Right? 30 to 50, and then, like, 50 plus margin.
170 00:19:36.970 ⇒ 00:19:39.660 Uttam Kumaran: There’s gonna be some kicker that goes your way.
171 00:19:39.870 ⇒ 00:19:51.699 Uttam Kumaran: And right now, we’ve proved that, like, I think our business can run steady state with no trying at 30, so I think it’ll be everything post 30, there’ll be some bonus.
172 00:19:51.700 ⇒ 00:20:00.330 Uttam Kumaran: But this is where I’m also trying… what I’m kind of interested in is, like, what… how should I do this for the service leads? Because here’s a… here’s a couple of ideas ahead. One is incidents.
173 00:20:00.470 ⇒ 00:20:01.260 Uttam Kumaran: Right?
174 00:20:01.440 ⇒ 00:20:04.259 Uttam Kumaran: So, incidents, outages, right?
175 00:20:05.490 ⇒ 00:20:09.490 Uttam Kumaran: The second piece is, I’m gonna say, adherence to,
176 00:20:09.740 ⇒ 00:20:24.199 Uttam Kumaran: expected timeline. Like, for example, I would say that Sam completely… they missed the boat on this thing, on the migration. It’s been running way too long. So he didn’t do a good enough job at doing that. So, meaning, there has to be some kicker that says.
177 00:20:24.310 ⇒ 00:20:35.139 Uttam Kumaran: hey, you totally missed the forecast that you said. That way, they’re pushing to set a more accurate forecast on, like, how long… how many hours and how long things are gonna take.
178 00:20:35.290 ⇒ 00:20:43.349 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly. And… I mean, then… then I also… I may think about one final thing, which is…
179 00:20:43.630 ⇒ 00:20:53.459 Uttam Kumaran: something around, like, AI usage, because what I don’t want to do is, like, people find other ways, like, they just get accurate on forecasts.
180 00:20:53.650 ⇒ 00:21:05.250 Uttam Kumaran: the client is happy, but then you’re not able to… you’re not able to bring your margin down without them using AI, so I actually want there to be, like, a… this is typically what they say not to do, which is, like.
181 00:21:05.630 ⇒ 00:21:15.089 Uttam Kumaran: have a metric on, like, doing… like, what’s common in engineering is, like, oh, how many pull requests per day? Like, that stuff is stupid to me. What I’m more interested in is, like.
182 00:21:15.630 ⇒ 00:21:23.009 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe how many tickets… like, what percentage of tickets gets assigned to AI?
183 00:21:23.700 ⇒ 00:21:29.520 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Or, like, Let’s say you were to take a certain project, and there’s 100 tickets.
184 00:21:29.940 ⇒ 00:21:34.140 Uttam Kumaran: you’re incentivized if 30% of it gets handed off to AI.
185 00:21:36.070 ⇒ 00:21:36.530 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
186 00:21:36.530 ⇒ 00:21:40.879 Uttam Kumaran: by nature, I know that that will get better, and it’ll help you
187 00:21:41.000 ⇒ 00:21:45.180 Uttam Kumaran: it’s like, it almost forces them… I don’t think… I don’t know if that’s the right one.
188 00:21:45.290 ⇒ 00:21:46.100 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s a good.
189 00:21:46.100 ⇒ 00:21:51.340 Pranav Narahari: I made it a track, but I don’t know if it’s, like, necessarily the metric you want to hit exactly, because…
190 00:21:51.340 ⇒ 00:21:57.519 Uttam Kumaran: If I could tell you, like, previously, the way people do these is they’ll do, like, number of tickets completed.
191 00:21:57.900 ⇒ 00:22:00.710 Uttam Kumaran: Because it’s… tickets are hard to game, meaning, like.
192 00:22:01.190 ⇒ 00:22:05.490 Uttam Kumaran: If you were to say, like, number of story points, it’s easy to game.
193 00:22:05.610 ⇒ 00:22:11.059 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, it’s non-standard, but tickets, there’s, like, a smallest unit of a ticket, right?
194 00:22:11.400 ⇒ 00:22:20.949 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s why I was kind of like, okay, maybe I do one that’s, like, percentage of tickets handed to AI, which, honestly, you should be a fan of, too, because…
195 00:22:21.250 ⇒ 00:22:27.560 Uttam Kumaran: Your assumption is that those tickets get done faster And… like…
196 00:22:28.160 ⇒ 00:22:29.039 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, I don’t mind at all.
197 00:22:29.040 ⇒ 00:22:32.550 Uttam Kumaran: The more that incentivizes them to do that, the…
198 00:22:32.990 ⇒ 00:22:40.070 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, I feel like everybody, everyone who’s a CSO should be like, fuck yeah, like, 90% of the tickets to AI, right? Like…
199 00:22:40.070 ⇒ 00:22:41.260 Pranav Narahari: Yeah. Yeah.
200 00:22:42.360 ⇒ 00:22:43.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
201 00:22:43.800 ⇒ 00:22:48.109 Uttam Kumaran: But I, yeah, so… this is kind of how I’m thinking about it.
202 00:22:49.670 ⇒ 00:22:51.859 Pranav Narahari: one… so, I mean…
203 00:22:52.580 ⇒ 00:23:04.330 Pranav Narahari: I feel really confident about ABC going forward with, like, what we scoped out. Like, I talked to Yvette and Janiece today, like, every single thing that I talked about… I didn’t show her… show them the actual, like, PRD or anything.
204 00:23:04.490 ⇒ 00:23:13.869 Pranav Narahari: wanted B to look at that first, and then tomorrow, the three of us will also talk about it. But then after that, on Thursday, I’ll, like, present them in detail, get their…
205 00:23:13.870 ⇒ 00:23:14.320 Uttam Kumaran: Buh.
206 00:23:14.320 ⇒ 00:23:21.540 Pranav Narahari: Like, hey, this is the problem we’re seeing, these are potential solutions, this is the solution we recommend.
207 00:23:22.050 ⇒ 00:23:37.759 Pranav Narahari: And then, yeah, then we kind of just get their, you know, thumbs up. But, one thing that I kind of just want to get your thoughts on are just, like, there’s a lot of different clients that we’re talking to now. At some point, we’re going to be managing more than just one. So…
208 00:23:38.700 ⇒ 00:23:42.520 Pranav Narahari: how… what do you think that… I don’t know, just, like, what are your thoughts.
209 00:23:42.520 ⇒ 00:23:43.490 Uttam Kumaran: What happens?
210 00:23:43.800 ⇒ 00:23:44.150 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
211 00:23:44.150 ⇒ 00:23:44.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
212 00:23:45.090 ⇒ 00:23:53.279 Uttam Kumaran: So, I mean, I think what was really tough for me is that Demi and Zoran want to move out of CSO stuff.
213 00:23:53.910 ⇒ 00:23:54.430 Pranav Narahari: Mmm.
214 00:23:54.430 ⇒ 00:24:06.759 Uttam Kumaran: That makes it tough, because then it’s really, like, you and Greg and, like, me and Robert. So, part of it is, like, we need to get more CSOs.
215 00:24:07.080 ⇒ 00:24:14.479 Uttam Kumaran: Second, though, is, like, I would like to see how you can take 3 at a time.
216 00:24:14.640 ⇒ 00:24:21.689 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and like, I want to see you do that, and I want to give you the opportunity, but also kind of give you the…
217 00:24:21.880 ⇒ 00:24:35.989 Uttam Kumaran: spotlight to do that. I’m giving that to Greg right now. Like, Greg is gonna have an opportunity to be CSO for Eden, and for Default, and he’s already the CSO for, VetLink.
218 00:24:36.250 ⇒ 00:24:44.049 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, can you, like… Can you deal with that, right? I think, 100%, you totally can, because
219 00:24:44.360 ⇒ 00:24:51.149 Uttam Kumaran: Robert and I have been doing it part-time on more clients than that, so I know it’s not physically impossible, but…
220 00:24:51.150 ⇒ 00:24:51.890 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
221 00:24:51.890 ⇒ 00:24:54.530 Uttam Kumaran: I want to kind of see it, so my point is that
222 00:24:54.650 ⇒ 00:24:58.129 Uttam Kumaran: I would like to see you, CSO, like.
223 00:24:58.160 ⇒ 00:25:09.520 Uttam Kumaran: two large clients, or anywhere from 2 to 4 clients, depending on the size. Like, I actually think, and I think you know this, that you can do ABC work
224 00:25:09.520 ⇒ 00:25:19.509 Uttam Kumaran: probably with half the time you’re currently spending, if things were just, like, shit was set up and you were using AI to the fullest. Is that an accurate, like… okay.
225 00:25:19.880 ⇒ 00:25:23.000 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, I feel like Going forward, yeah, it’ll be like that, for sure.
226 00:25:23.000 ⇒ 00:25:24.150 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yes, yes.
227 00:25:24.280 ⇒ 00:25:27.949 Uttam Kumaran: I think Eden, you’re also gonna see. So, then I’m like.
228 00:25:28.090 ⇒ 00:25:37.339 Uttam Kumaran: what I want to challenge, and this is, again, this is where, actually, I would also appreciate you coming back to me and being like, hey, if I take 3 clients.
229 00:25:37.530 ⇒ 00:25:46.150 Uttam Kumaran: can I get, like, a bonus, or can we think about a bonus? And if I take 4, can I get something? Like, that’s sick. I would love to set that up.
230 00:25:46.500 ⇒ 00:25:47.460 Uttam Kumaran: You know?
231 00:25:47.730 ⇒ 00:25:51.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And so this is where… but then I also want you to… I also want…
232 00:25:52.040 ⇒ 00:25:54.910 Uttam Kumaran: I also want to tell you that, like, it’s…
233 00:25:55.050 ⇒ 00:26:08.449 Uttam Kumaran: tough. It’s like, you will have to get a lot better at, like, compartmentalizing and managing and using all the AI tools, but, dude, I totally think that you could probably run 3 ABCs at a time.
234 00:26:08.750 ⇒ 00:26:09.430 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
235 00:26:09.640 ⇒ 00:26:15.530 Uttam Kumaran: And I… I would like to see you do that. Like, I don’t want… I would like… I don’t want to hire another…
236 00:26:16.250 ⇒ 00:26:20.219 Uttam Kumaran: AI CSO right now. Like, I would love to give that scope to you.
237 00:26:21.040 ⇒ 00:26:21.680 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
238 00:26:22.080 ⇒ 00:26:32.839 Pranav Narahari: No, that sounds great. I think I can do it, too. Abc was just interesting because of just, like, whenever you’re ramping up, I think there’s just, like, so much to learn.
239 00:26:32.840 ⇒ 00:26:33.460 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
240 00:26:33.460 ⇒ 00:26:34.140 Pranav Narahari: Yikes.
241 00:26:34.920 ⇒ 00:26:41.980 Pranav Narahari: But it’s just gonna become easier too, right? It’s just gonna become easier. If, like, it happens again, like, I know the steps now.
242 00:26:42.130 ⇒ 00:26:50.580 Pranav Narahari: I know what’s important, I know what’s, like, you know, not as important, and for the important things, I know how to, like, absorb the information the quickest, so…
243 00:26:51.270 ⇒ 00:27:01.080 Uttam Kumaran: So, given that, let’s say that, like, I’ll certainly want to think about some bonus around margin, but, like, how would you… what are some ideas you think about handling
244 00:27:02.290 ⇒ 00:27:06.040 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, maybe it’s based on the amount of revenue that, like.
245 00:27:06.370 ⇒ 00:27:10.699 Uttam Kumaran: you’re bringing in. I don’t know, like, you know what I mean? Like, I’m trying to think.
246 00:27:10.700 ⇒ 00:27:11.089 Pranav Narahari: It’s not normal.
247 00:27:11.090 ⇒ 00:27:12.260 Uttam Kumaran: normalization.
248 00:27:12.740 ⇒ 00:27:21.600 Pranav Narahari: Yeah… Yeah, I mean… Also, part of compensation comes down to hours worked, too.
249 00:27:21.700 ⇒ 00:27:22.260 Pranav Narahari: Right.
250 00:27:22.260 ⇒ 00:27:35.900 Uttam Kumaran: That’s why you only have, like, this is the thing, you’ll never be able to get more hours in the day. But this is also where, like, I want… if you’re like, yo, I’m down to work 50 hours a week, I want you to make… I don’t… I personally, like, we’re gonna move
251 00:27:35.900 ⇒ 00:27:45.829 Uttam Kumaran: and this is something also broadly next quarter, we’re gonna move, like, as many core U.S. people to W2 as soon as we can, like, stabilize a lot of cash.
252 00:27:45.880 ⇒ 00:27:51.270 Uttam Kumaran: So, assume that you will move to a salary, like, in the next, like…
253 00:27:51.340 ⇒ 00:27:56.970 Uttam Kumaran: 3 to 4 months. So that’s, I guess, given that, that’s why I want you to think a little bit more about
254 00:27:57.120 ⇒ 00:28:00.270 Uttam Kumaran: I… I don’t… I’m not gonna care whether you do…
255 00:28:01.500 ⇒ 00:28:07.040 Uttam Kumaran: 30 or 50, like, I want to set incentive up for you to drive the most revenue at the highest.
256 00:28:07.040 ⇒ 00:28:07.360 Pranav Narahari: That’s.
257 00:28:07.360 ⇒ 00:28:09.050 Uttam Kumaran: profit for the company, and you’ve…
258 00:28:09.190 ⇒ 00:28:15.959 Uttam Kumaran: you figure out the rest. Like, you do whatever you want to do, and I’m gonna… and you’ll see that there’s…
259 00:28:16.130 ⇒ 00:28:22.030 Uttam Kumaran: In my life, I’ll tell you there’s a cap, and so you’ll find that cap, and then we’ll hire more CSOs.
260 00:28:22.140 ⇒ 00:28:26.720 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, that’s… that’s sort of, like, what I kind of want to share is, like, I want… I want you to…
261 00:28:27.310 ⇒ 00:28:32.879 Uttam Kumaran: I want you to find that cap naturally, and continue to challenge yourself to take on
262 00:28:33.060 ⇒ 00:28:44.760 Uttam Kumaran: and deliver for more revenue. And that’s the path up. And to even go one step further, what’s gonna happen is, at some point, we’re gonna have a lot of AI CSOs, and someone is gonna go out to lead those people.
263 00:28:44.760 ⇒ 00:28:53.400 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So then there’s, like, there’s one step above that, and as usual, like, I want to give that shot to everybody that’s here. And so…
264 00:28:54.030 ⇒ 00:28:59.899 Uttam Kumaran: that’s… I think you could see, like, that’s probably how the next year or so is gonna go, you know?
265 00:29:00.420 ⇒ 00:29:01.210 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
266 00:29:02.300 ⇒ 00:29:07.569 Pranav Narahari: So, yeah, I’m thinking, because, like, There is a…
267 00:29:08.180 ⇒ 00:29:12.239 Pranav Narahari: Like, how do we incentivize me creating these three, like…
268 00:29:13.140 ⇒ 00:29:18.050 Pranav Narahari: Additional projects that are specifically going to, like, increase our…
269 00:29:18.460 ⇒ 00:29:23.129 Pranav Narahari: increase the tier that we get to for ABC, and so… Yes.
270 00:29:23.130 ⇒ 00:29:23.640 Uttam Kumaran: Shtt.
271 00:29:25.440 ⇒ 00:29:30.719 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, like… So, ABC’s unique because it has, like, that tiered thing.
272 00:29:30.720 ⇒ 00:29:37.310 Uttam Kumaran: But this is the thing, like, you as a CSO should push more clients to do that. Like, I don’t.
273 00:29:37.310 ⇒ 00:29:37.670 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, exactly.
274 00:29:37.670 ⇒ 00:29:41.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, because felt like, I was like, oh, let me fuck around and see…
275 00:29:41.490 ⇒ 00:29:58.229 Uttam Kumaran: Also, we… dude, we haven’t made that much money on this client, and we… I’m sure we’re, like, pretty even, but I knew that, I was like, one day, it’s gonna work out, and so that’s why you should… you should also be incentivized when sales puts an SOW that’s, like, fixed cost, you should actually say, fuck it.
276 00:29:58.470 ⇒ 00:30:07.139 Uttam Kumaran: lower the cost, and put in, like, a usage kicker, because I’m gonna go make that. Like, that’s… and that’s what I’m saying, that’s… you… you can go do that now.
277 00:30:07.620 ⇒ 00:30:17.450 Uttam Kumaran: Like, you can look at the Eden deal and say, like, it’s 40K, what if we did 30K, but then, based on this usage thing, we can get… we can eventually get our way, make our way to 50?
278 00:30:17.770 ⇒ 00:30:19.900 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I don’t care.
279 00:30:20.280 ⇒ 00:30:23.589 Uttam Kumaran: And the incentive is for you to do that, right?
280 00:30:26.870 ⇒ 00:30:31.320 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, so how do we make that my incentive? Because, like, how does that affect what…
281 00:30:32.550 ⇒ 00:30:39.660 Pranav Narahari: How does that incentivize me to essentially, like, ship faster, ship more? I’m just thinking.
282 00:30:39.660 ⇒ 00:30:46.169 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, that’s why I think it has to maybe be something around margin, and something around total revenue managed.
283 00:30:46.930 ⇒ 00:30:48.580 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah. That’s what I’m maybe thinking.
284 00:30:48.580 ⇒ 00:30:51.160 Pranav Narahari: I think that’s exactly right, yeah.
285 00:30:51.160 ⇒ 00:30:53.450 Uttam Kumaran: I guess I care less about…
286 00:30:54.000 ⇒ 00:30:59.960 Uttam Kumaran: 40 hours. I also care very little about… like, if you’re like, yo, I’m able to do 5 clients.
287 00:31:00.530 ⇒ 00:31:06.279 Uttam Kumaran: go do it. I don’t, like, it doesn’t… you know, or if it’s, like, I’m able to do 3, like, I don’t really like…
288 00:31:06.530 ⇒ 00:31:10.040 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t really want to be, like, two smalls and a large and whatever.
289 00:31:10.590 ⇒ 00:31:19.659 Uttam Kumaran: we’ll have some guardrails, but I would… if you’re like, yo, I think I could manage half a million dollars worth of delivery revenue, that is how the big companies do it.
290 00:31:20.030 ⇒ 00:31:27.210 Uttam Kumaran: Like, someone will be like, my book of business, my portfolio of clients that I manage is… X big.
291 00:31:27.850 ⇒ 00:31:30.310 Uttam Kumaran: So, I want, like, a piece of that, you know?
292 00:31:31.880 ⇒ 00:31:32.700 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
293 00:31:33.110 ⇒ 00:31:36.739 Pranav Narahari: And then, does it make s- like, how do we then…
294 00:31:36.740 ⇒ 00:31:44.340 Uttam Kumaran: Because you know what I’m gonna tell you next? Then, you’re gonna say, cool, I manage… let’s say I’m managing, let’s say you’re managing…
295 00:31:44.600 ⇒ 00:31:52.779 Uttam Kumaran: $500,000 worth of client projects, and then you’re like, dude, but I’m spending 50 hours a week, I’m gonna say, cool, you need to go higher.
296 00:31:53.290 ⇒ 00:31:54.190 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
297 00:31:54.190 ⇒ 00:32:03.859 Uttam Kumaran: And then I’m gonna say, how do we get you from 2 million worth of business? And how do I start to put CSOs under you? That is the jump.
298 00:32:03.980 ⇒ 00:32:14.539 Uttam Kumaran: But you can see the whole way, I want you to… I don’t want to go do this for you. That’s… this is how we’re gonna drive towards, sort of, like, oh shit, I own a piece of this, like…
299 00:32:14.760 ⇒ 00:32:16.880 Uttam Kumaran: The revenue stream that’s coming in here.
300 00:32:16.990 ⇒ 00:32:17.920 Pranav Narahari: Right?
301 00:32:17.920 ⇒ 00:32:33.749 Uttam Kumaran: Because eventually, yes, like, each… some core services are gonna get bigger and bigger, but I want you to be like, cool, hey, I was the CSO for, like, a year, year and a half, and then ultimately, like, I was able to hand off two of my smaller clients to another CSO that works under me.
302 00:32:33.950 ⇒ 00:32:37.269 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And then we kind of create these mini-businesses within the business.
303 00:32:38.310 ⇒ 00:32:39.070 Pranav Narahari: Right.
304 00:32:39.170 ⇒ 00:32:42.229 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, I can see that. So, one thing, and…
305 00:32:42.520 ⇒ 00:32:47.900 Pranav Narahari: Of course, I’ll have to, like, push the team a little bit, but then how do we also incentivize the team?
306 00:32:48.090 ⇒ 00:33:05.730 Pranav Narahari: for me to, like, you know, push faster, deliver, deliver more. Like, what part of the incentive then goes to, like, the… the engineers? That, like, you know, they’re… if they’re just not getting any incentive, then they’re almost disincentivized to take longer, right?
307 00:33:08.400 ⇒ 00:33:13.429 Uttam Kumaran: This is where, I don’t know, like, I… I… I would do… I do want to nail…
308 00:33:14.170 ⇒ 00:33:15.969 Uttam Kumaran: The leadership first.
309 00:33:16.100 ⇒ 00:33:16.780 Pranav Narahari: Okay.
310 00:33:17.230 ⇒ 00:33:19.669 Uttam Kumaran: Because ultimately, and I think Clarence will…
311 00:33:20.050 ⇒ 00:33:22.310 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, I’ve thought about it, like…
312 00:33:22.560 ⇒ 00:33:30.759 Uttam Kumaran: I think, you know, let me give you, like, a corollary. In the dealership world, in the car dealership world, like, let’s take a Ford dealership.
313 00:33:30.810 ⇒ 00:33:49.190 Uttam Kumaran: There’s not only, like, team level, like, for example, anyone that works in a car dealership can participate in the bonus that year. But if you’re on sales, then you get to participate in, like, your quota and your team. And then guess what? If you hit a certain thing, then Ford gives you, like, a bonus, right? So…
314 00:33:49.390 ⇒ 00:33:50.070 Pranav Narahari: Hmm.
315 00:33:50.430 ⇒ 00:33:58.430 Uttam Kumaran: there’s kind of two things I want to push. One, I want to push more of our engineers to want to go towards either SLs or CSOs. So part of me, I’m almost like.
316 00:33:59.150 ⇒ 00:34:07.189 Uttam Kumaran: No, there’s no incentive. Maybe you can part… you get to participate in our company bonus program, but ultimately, if you want to make money here.
317 00:34:07.490 ⇒ 00:34:10.799 Uttam Kumaran: you need to go become a CSO or as an SL, right?
318 00:34:10.800 ⇒ 00:34:18.050 Pranav Narahari: But for ABC, like, how would that work? Like, we need to have… we already have a CSO, we already have an SL, like…
319 00:34:18.409 ⇒ 00:34:19.719 Uttam Kumaran: Well, dude, if you… if…
320 00:34:19.899 ⇒ 00:34:30.519 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, there’s… so there’s no… but, like, dude, there’s slots right now. Like, if Casey and Mustafa woke up, and they were like, I want to have a bigger role in this company, they can go become CSOs right now.
321 00:34:31.080 ⇒ 00:34:34.609 Pranav Narahari: But it wouldn’t be for ABC, right? So they still wouldn’t get that incentive.
322 00:34:35.659 ⇒ 00:34:40.739 Uttam Kumaran: Well, no, but there’s other… well, one is that, yeah, you’re… you’re, like, yes, literally in the next week.
323 00:34:41.159 ⇒ 00:34:41.629 Pranav Narahari: Sure.
324 00:34:41.630 ⇒ 00:34:48.019 Uttam Kumaran: But assume that, like, we have… assume that the AI business looks a lot like our data business in, like, a few months.
325 00:34:48.679 ⇒ 00:34:51.439 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning there is room for more CSOs.
326 00:34:52.239 ⇒ 00:34:57.369 Uttam Kumaran: Do you see what I mean? Like, assume a slightly bigger team, like, assume we had 5 people.
327 00:34:57.600 ⇒ 00:34:58.130 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
328 00:34:58.130 ⇒ 00:35:01.659 Uttam Kumaran: more than just Casey Mustafa, but, like, one of my question is.
329 00:35:01.760 ⇒ 00:35:07.219 Uttam Kumaran: Should I incentivize Casey and Mustafa to just do better at their existing job?
330 00:35:07.390 ⇒ 00:35:09.910 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, like, and I… I…
331 00:35:10.020 ⇒ 00:35:19.020 Uttam Kumaran: part of me thinks that the incentive should be you need to move up in the business. Just coming in and being a great engineer is not enough. Like, that’s table stakes.
332 00:35:19.300 ⇒ 00:35:20.219 Uttam Kumaran: Well, we already…
333 00:35:20.220 ⇒ 00:35:20.890 Pranav Narahari: It is not…
334 00:35:20.890 ⇒ 00:35:21.250 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
335 00:35:21.250 ⇒ 00:35:31.459 Pranav Narahari: another AI client, right, then they have the opportunity to be a SL or CSO there. But the incentive should be on a per-client basis, right? Not just for the AI team in general.
336 00:35:32.950 ⇒ 00:35:33.550 Pranav Narahari: So it’s funny.
337 00:35:33.550 ⇒ 00:35:34.560 Uttam Kumaran: quite differently.
338 00:35:35.260 ⇒ 00:35:36.140 Pranav Narahari: What?
339 00:35:36.140 ⇒ 00:35:37.720 Uttam Kumaran: Say it, say it slightly differently.
340 00:35:37.720 ⇒ 00:35:42.550 Pranav Narahari: Sure. Yeah, so, let’s say for ABC, we’re…
341 00:35:42.730 ⇒ 00:35:45.710 Pranav Narahari: we’re doing, like, a great job. We hit our…
342 00:35:46.220 ⇒ 00:36:04.469 Pranav Narahari: I hit the… whatever incentive that we have in place. Even if Mustafa, let’s say, for example, is a CSO for, let’s say, XYZ, a different company, he won’t benefit from the incentive that we just had, because he’s only an engineer for… he’s only an IC for ABC.
343 00:36:05.910 ⇒ 00:36:11.419 Uttam Kumaran: Correct, yeah. But, like, this is the thing, if he should go become… he should go be a CSO.
344 00:36:12.970 ⇒ 00:36:18.490 Pranav Narahari: But then he’s less incentivized to then do… good delivery work for ABC.
345 00:36:18.490 ⇒ 00:36:21.380 Uttam Kumaran: No, but you are. You are. That’s yours, like…
346 00:36:21.770 ⇒ 00:36:22.110 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
347 00:36:22.110 ⇒ 00:36:24.860 Uttam Kumaran: You will… you will prevent him from doing shitty work.
348 00:36:25.030 ⇒ 00:36:25.770 Uttam Kumaran: Right?
349 00:36:26.920 ⇒ 00:36:31.199 Uttam Kumaran: is he gonna do sandbag, then he’ll kick Sam’s alerting off, right?
350 00:36:31.770 ⇒ 00:36:33.199 Uttam Kumaran: Or you think, like, you think…
351 00:36:33.200 ⇒ 00:36:37.999 Pranav Narahari: My thing is, like, if you’re both incentivized, then you’re both gonna be… It’s gonna be better.
352 00:36:38.650 ⇒ 00:36:41.409 Uttam Kumaran: I do, no, no, I do agree, but…
353 00:36:41.870 ⇒ 00:36:52.879 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’m also, like, if you… now… now put… put your Brainforge business owner hat on, if we’re gonna… if I’m gonna get the same behavior, why would I add more incentive?
354 00:36:53.780 ⇒ 00:37:00.339 Pranav Narahari: I don’t think you’d get the same behavior, though, because at the end of the day, I can only pull or push somebody so much,
355 00:37:00.340 ⇒ 00:37:07.230 Uttam Kumaran: This is where I think our… my debate is that you… it’s already enough incentive across two different angles.
356 00:37:07.230 ⇒ 00:37:07.580 Pranav Narahari: Gotcha.
357 00:37:07.580 ⇒ 00:37:22.450 Uttam Kumaran: like, across both the SL angle and the CSO angle, like, I think there’s marginal incentive for me to give to every engineer. It’s not only gonna be more expensive, but operationally more intensive, and I don’t think we’re gonna get, like.
358 00:37:23.040 ⇒ 00:37:41.290 Uttam Kumaran: let’s say I add another 10% of incentive, I don’t think we’re gonna get 10% efficiency. I think I would just rather give the money to you and Sam, and I do think we’d get the 10%. Like, and there’s also a limit, like, I’m not talking about… we don’t need to run things at, like, 98% efficiency, right? Like, we’re just talking about, like.
359 00:37:41.530 ⇒ 00:37:49.850 Uttam Kumaran: I think there are small changes in behavior that are gonna allow you to hit your bonus, but it’s not gonna be, like, extreme.
360 00:37:49.900 ⇒ 00:38:07.889 Uttam Kumaran: So, I do hear you, and I do… but here are other ways in where those folks are already incentive, and let me, like, tell you, because this is just a game of driving behavioral change, and so there’s two things. One, we already pay above market in every place that we hire, so there’s already incentive to stay
361 00:38:07.890 ⇒ 00:38:20.820 Uttam Kumaran: at Brain Forge second, and you can… you can agree or disagree, I think that this is a pretty chill place to work. So there’s already, like, there’s already incentive there to want to stick around.
362 00:38:21.170 ⇒ 00:38:35.040 Uttam Kumaran: Like, third is, like, we’re just gonna offer more benefits and things like that, so I’ve already offered a lot of incentive for people to want to do their best work here through other means. Bonus is on top of that, you know?
363 00:38:35.160 ⇒ 00:38:40.100 Uttam Kumaran: So, I think about bonus has to be used very strategically, because
364 00:38:40.360 ⇒ 00:38:43.710 Uttam Kumaran: Like, you make the mistake of setting an artificial floor.
365 00:38:43.970 ⇒ 00:38:44.850 Uttam Kumaran: Right?
366 00:38:44.960 ⇒ 00:38:52.160 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning, like, You set the mistake of saying, cool, people can now expect that by just doing nothing.
367 00:38:52.340 ⇒ 00:39:11.210 Uttam Kumaran: they can make, like, a shitload of money, and I always have to make sure that both the business and the person can win, you know? And that’s what I want to try to do here. And I think, like, my guess is that by incentivizing the core leaders in the company, they will, in turn, drive everybody.
368 00:39:11.210 ⇒ 00:39:26.179 Uttam Kumaran: And I actually don’t think it’s gonna take much from you to do that. Like, I think you’re gonna say, holy shit, I think I have… it’s clear that if I just do one, like, these couple of behavioral changes, I push the team on AI more, we’re gonna hit it.
369 00:39:26.600 ⇒ 00:39:33.520 Uttam Kumaran: And this is another incentive, is that by not giving it to them, I’m driving them to go become leaders, right?
370 00:39:34.110 ⇒ 00:39:34.450 Pranav Narahari: Okay.
371 00:39:34.450 ⇒ 00:39:38.419 Uttam Kumaran: Otherwise, they may say, like, well, I’m already getting a bonus just by chillin’ here.
372 00:39:38.550 ⇒ 00:39:39.550 Uttam Kumaran: like…
373 00:39:39.660 ⇒ 00:39:51.360 Uttam Kumaran: I… I want to… I, like, don’t want that. I want people to look at you, and look at how much money you’re making, and look at, like, the shit you’re getting to do, and the access, the experience, and be like, I want that.
374 00:39:51.360 ⇒ 00:40:01.569 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I want Casey, and I don’t want to pay people more if they’re just gonna sit and chill and just do engineering work. Because, dude, the cost… the need for that is going down right now.
375 00:40:02.020 ⇒ 00:40:08.810 Uttam Kumaran: So I want more people who want to be in front of clients, who want to actually, like, plan and scope great outcomes.
376 00:40:09.000 ⇒ 00:40:09.350 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
377 00:40:09.350 ⇒ 00:40:16.160 Uttam Kumaran: just being an IC, you’re not gonna have a spot in this world in, like, 5 years, so why would I…
378 00:40:16.330 ⇒ 00:40:20.090 Uttam Kumaran: You see what I mean? So all of those factors are sort of at play.
379 00:40:20.710 ⇒ 00:40:21.350 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s…
380 00:40:21.350 ⇒ 00:40:26.629 Pranav Narahari: I’ll play notes for, like, ABC specifically, though. Sure. I think, though, it would actually drive…
381 00:40:26.770 ⇒ 00:40:32.390 Pranav Narahari: more… more money? Just because… For Brain Forge is what I’m saying.
382 00:40:32.610 ⇒ 00:40:33.800 Pranav Narahari: Because… Yeah.
383 00:40:34.300 ⇒ 00:40:43.679 Pranav Narahari: let’s say, you know, the timeline for these next 3 projects are gonna take 2 months, but I feel like if…
384 00:40:44.860 ⇒ 00:40:48.379 Pranav Narahari: we had an incentive in place for Mustafa and Casey.
385 00:40:48.710 ⇒ 00:40:55.080 Pranav Narahari: then we can probably get… we can… let’s… I think, unless you say, hypothetically, we would get it done in 6 weeks versus 8 weeks.
386 00:40:55.080 ⇒ 00:41:00.130 Uttam Kumaran: So then… so then let me… how about I give you another option? What if I was to say.
387 00:41:00.240 ⇒ 00:41:06.080 Uttam Kumaran: On… on your clients, you have a $500 discretionary…
388 00:41:06.270 ⇒ 00:41:06.700 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
389 00:41:07.040 ⇒ 00:41:12.010 Uttam Kumaran: like… fun, where you can use it as, like.
390 00:41:12.320 ⇒ 00:41:15.430 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, like, you can set bounties, or set, like.
391 00:41:16.390 ⇒ 00:41:27.099 Uttam Kumaran: basically ways you could be like, hey guys, if we get this done in 6 months, I’ll give everybody, like, 200 bucks. That’s something I’m more interested in than locking in
392 00:41:27.730 ⇒ 00:41:31.389 Uttam Kumaran: Like, a global policy, and then it’s up to you. Because this is, again.
393 00:41:31.780 ⇒ 00:41:42.790 Uttam Kumaran: I fucked with that energy. And I’m like, okay, I do want you to drive that. Ultimately, though, I want to know that you can’t do it without that $500.
394 00:41:43.040 ⇒ 00:41:53.800 Uttam Kumaran: Right. For example, if you come to me and you said, hey, I pulled every fucking lever I have, and if you give me this 500, I think we’re gonna get it out, alright. Like, sold.
395 00:41:54.170 ⇒ 00:41:56.349 Uttam Kumaran: Sold. You know what I mean?
396 00:41:56.560 ⇒ 00:41:56.990 Pranav Narahari: I like that.
397 00:41:56.990 ⇒ 00:42:02.739 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe do that ad hoc, like, because maybe we should just… maybe I should make that more…
398 00:42:02.800 ⇒ 00:42:17.840 Uttam Kumaran: maybe we should make, like, a discretionary bonus thing. I don’t want to put a dollar amount, because ultimately, I want you to go do a little bit of the math and, like, think about what it is, but yes, that is a lever that you could pull.
399 00:42:18.170 ⇒ 00:42:18.550 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
400 00:42:18.550 ⇒ 00:42:20.329 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s how I…
401 00:42:20.330 ⇒ 00:42:25.559 Pranav Narahari: That incentive to, like, you know, push a little bit more, like, let’s say, you know, like, something breaks, like, you don’t wait.
402 00:42:25.560 ⇒ 00:42:26.780 Uttam Kumaran: Totally, totally.
403 00:42:26.900 ⇒ 00:42:31.049 Pranav Narahari: And so, I think something small like that would be a big difference.
404 00:42:31.050 ⇒ 00:42:44.390 Uttam Kumaran: Well, dude, in another way, you know how I’m gonna do things? I’m thinking about doing, like, an internal bounty program, where I’m gonna put… I’m gonna put, like, a bulletin… a virtual bulletin board internally for, like, features.
405 00:42:44.520 ⇒ 00:42:47.169 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, projects. And I’m gonna say…
406 00:42:47.450 ⇒ 00:42:54.119 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna say these are the… if you build it to these specs, and you submit it, you’ll get paid this amount.
407 00:42:54.400 ⇒ 00:42:59.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And I think the platform team, I want to run much more, like.
408 00:42:59.500 ⇒ 00:43:02.390 Uttam Kumaran: As… kind of, like, super, super async.
409 00:43:02.570 ⇒ 00:43:06.419 Uttam Kumaran: And just be like, there’s a bulletin board of, like, things that we want to build.
410 00:43:06.670 ⇒ 00:43:11.720 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. If you build it, if you’re a random engineer at Brainforge and you build it, you can just make money that way.
411 00:43:12.080 ⇒ 00:43:21.540 Uttam Kumaran: But again, I think you’re thinking about it exactly the right way, I’m just gonna say that’s up to you. And so I wanted to make much more of a two-way street of, like.
412 00:43:21.950 ⇒ 00:43:27.299 Uttam Kumaran: You could have a lot of different things, tools you can wield, to basically achieve the outcome.
413 00:43:27.530 ⇒ 00:43:28.640 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm.
414 00:43:28.880 ⇒ 00:43:33.320 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m down to play games and think about, like, what’s the best way to do it, you know?
415 00:43:33.960 ⇒ 00:43:43.190 Pranav Narahari: Cool. So, I mean, I had another question on incentives, actually, was for, like, the sales stuff that I’ve been doing. Yeah. And so…
416 00:43:43.370 ⇒ 00:44:02.509 Pranav Narahari: you know, we talked about with, like, in Forging the Future, like, 10% if you, like, bring in a new, like, a net new client, per the first 6 months, or whatever. How does that work? Because a lot of the stuff that I’ve been doing has been in tandem with somebody else, right? Like, I’m doing it with Robert, or I’m doing it with Luke.
417 00:44:03.110 ⇒ 00:44:12.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so typically the way it works, and the typical, like, in most companies, they do… they have, like, sales engineering motion, where you’re on the deal, but you get… just get a smaller percentage.
418 00:44:12.610 ⇒ 00:44:24.660 Uttam Kumaran: I think what we’re gonna basically… the salesperson is going to evaluate your contribution and give you, like, an appropriate, like, scaling for that. Like, if any of those deals go through, you will get a piece of it.
419 00:44:24.730 ⇒ 00:44:38.920 Uttam Kumaran: But I think… and I need to go read what we wrote a little bit ago, but basically, it’s gonna be dependent on, like, your contribution. Like, for example, if you just, like, if you came in last second and just edited an SOW, like.
420 00:44:39.300 ⇒ 00:44:40.829 Uttam Kumaran: Bruh, like, it’s… it’s…
421 00:44:40.830 ⇒ 00:44:41.790 Pranav Narahari: Right.
422 00:44:41.790 ⇒ 00:44:57.470 Uttam Kumaran: But, yes, you are really, like, helping on these, and so, like, there will be something. But really, again, the reason why we’re so aggressive is net new logos are the toughest things. And so if you refer them in, even if you don’t work on the deal.
423 00:44:57.640 ⇒ 00:45:03.540 Uttam Kumaran: we wanna… we wanna give you a piece. Because I care much more about bringing in net new deals right now.
424 00:45:03.710 ⇒ 00:45:09.100 Uttam Kumaran: then I… I care also about expanding and having people help on deals.
425 00:45:09.190 ⇒ 00:45:25.490 Uttam Kumaran: But, dude, if you’re, like, walking around the screen, you bump into someone that wants a business, and you bring them in, you don’t even have to work it. Like, I’ll pay you 10%. And that’s what we do for the market, too. Like, if someone calls me, and they’re like, hey, a friend of mine wants to work with you guys, I immediately offer them 10%.
426 00:45:25.770 ⇒ 00:45:28.680 Uttam Kumaran: And so, I want to make that same incentive open here.
427 00:45:28.950 ⇒ 00:45:30.239 Pranav Narahari: Oh, okay, okay.
428 00:45:30.240 ⇒ 00:45:34.039 Uttam Kumaran: 10% of the first 6 months, so it’s, like, almost like referral. Yeah.
429 00:45:34.520 ⇒ 00:45:40.939 Pranav Narahari: Okay, so then… okay, so that’s how the incentive works for just bringing someone to the door? Okay. So then…
430 00:45:40.940 ⇒ 00:45:41.360 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
431 00:45:41.360 ⇒ 00:45:45.079 Pranav Narahari: For what I’m doing, how does… what is, like, the incentive structure?
432 00:45:45.330 ⇒ 00:45:57.519 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so now… so now I… I should… I’m gonna… I’m about to go talk to Robert, so I should… I could ask him what he confirmed. But basically, they’re thinking about, like, some involvement-based sales engineering commission. So…
433 00:45:57.620 ⇒ 00:46:09.410 Uttam Kumaran: like, yes, of course, like, people are gonna get paid for the hours you do it, but they’re gonna… I think they’re basically gonna determine, like, some percentage of the deal if you… if you’re an assist, and typically they call it, like, an assist.
434 00:46:09.530 ⇒ 00:46:11.689 Uttam Kumaran: So, if you’re, if you’re an assist.
435 00:46:11.920 ⇒ 00:46:16.630 Uttam Kumaran: that there’s gonna be some peace. Similarly, like, I mean, again, right now we don’t have, like.
436 00:46:17.000 ⇒ 00:46:30.879 Uttam Kumaran: we don’t have many salespeople, right? So it’s, like, due to Robert… Robert and I don’t get any commission, and so it’s just mainly, like, it’s mainly Luke. So we have… everybody who’s on the sales team also has, like, a certain commission amount, and so…
437 00:46:31.200 ⇒ 00:46:38.830 Uttam Kumaran: Another way that people have said to do it is, like, there’s basically, like, X percent available, and it’s split between these two groups, depending on
438 00:46:39.120 ⇒ 00:46:40.620 Uttam Kumaran: Who did how much work.
439 00:46:40.760 ⇒ 00:46:45.160 Uttam Kumaran: So, we’re gonna think about, like, for example, let’s say there’s 5% available.
440 00:46:45.280 ⇒ 00:46:49.549 Uttam Kumaran: then it’s up to them… it’s up to, like, Robert, who leads sales, to determine
441 00:46:50.130 ⇒ 00:46:55.569 Uttam Kumaran: Three and a half goes to this person, one and a half goes to this person, call it a day, you know?
442 00:46:55.840 ⇒ 00:46:58.130 Pranav Narahari: Yeah. Okay, gotcha.
443 00:46:59.340 ⇒ 00:47:00.690 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, that makes sense.
444 00:47:01.550 ⇒ 00:47:04.069 Uttam Kumaran: We’re trying to pay as much as we possibly can.
445 00:47:06.020 ⇒ 00:47:06.530 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, yeah.
446 00:47:06.530 ⇒ 00:47:11.109 Uttam Kumaran: I’m trying to make you some money, you can move out, you can get a 3-bedroom to yourself.
447 00:47:11.110 ⇒ 00:47:12.080 Pranav Narahari: Exactly, yeah.
448 00:47:16.930 ⇒ 00:47:18.190 Pranav Narahari: Sick. Okay, cool.
449 00:47:18.550 ⇒ 00:47:28.069 Pranav Narahari: Okay, I did wanna… let me just make sure I… I wrote down some stuff I wanted to talk about. The incentive thing was one… yeah, no, I think we talked about everything. Cool.
450 00:47:29.140 ⇒ 00:47:34.199 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, keep slacking me as you think about these things, dude. Yeah, you don’t have to wait until this meeting, even if you’re…
451 00:47:34.390 ⇒ 00:47:39.199 Uttam Kumaran: Slack me or text me, like, I’m thinking about this stuff all the time, so… Okay.
452 00:47:39.680 ⇒ 00:47:55.710 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and I think in the next two weeks, we’ll have a lot more clarity on, like, formal CSO responsibilities going into Q2, and service lead, and the metrics, and B is actually going to be owning a lot of those, also, so… I think things should get really clear over the next few weeks.
453 00:47:55.810 ⇒ 00:48:02.990 Uttam Kumaran: And then you’re… we’re also gonna let people, like, peek into, like, the entire P&L. I think just the leadership group.
454 00:48:03.300 ⇒ 00:48:06.509 Uttam Kumaran: Sick. I think I’m gonna run a meeting…
455 00:48:06.900 ⇒ 00:48:16.340 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, like, where people are free to join, where we do an overview of, like, our financials for the quarter, and then talk about, like, how we’re looking at changes.
456 00:48:16.900 ⇒ 00:48:17.530 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
457 00:48:18.840 ⇒ 00:48:19.380 Uttam Kumaran: But…
458 00:48:19.380 ⇒ 00:48:24.030 Pranav Narahari: Actually, one other question I had, too, was just, like, with, like…
459 00:48:24.760 ⇒ 00:48:38.099 Pranav Narahari: Or I guess, you know, we talked about, like, W-2 in, like, 3-4 months. Do you think, like, in the next few months, it would make sense to, like, change payroll so it’s not, like, delayed 30 days? Or is that too difficult with this business structure?
460 00:48:39.700 ⇒ 00:48:47.289 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s… it’s just gonna be working with Kayla. It’s… that’s all, like, she’s owning… he’s owning all of the…
461 00:48:47.710 ⇒ 00:48:52.430 Uttam Kumaran: Payment and structure, so if you have an asked, it’s gonna… it’s gonna go through her.
462 00:48:52.990 ⇒ 00:48:54.219 Pranav Narahari: To Kayla, you said?
463 00:48:54.550 ⇒ 00:48:55.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
464 00:48:55.500 ⇒ 00:49:01.100 Pranav Narahari: Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, cool. Yeah. I just want to, like, understand that a little bit more,
465 00:49:01.810 ⇒ 00:49:07.880 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, but then we also can’t increase just, like, the operational load, right? Because then that’s just more money down the.
466 00:49:07.880 ⇒ 00:49:16.169 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, look, I think… I think one thing to just think about is at any moment, we’re getting a lot of asks around it, so part of this is, like.
467 00:49:16.960 ⇒ 00:49:29.310 Uttam Kumaran: Part of this is, like, we’re just growing, and so the problem with that, and working at, like, just being a smaller company is, yes, this is hard, and so everybody is, like, making a little bit of a sacrifice here and there.
468 00:49:29.430 ⇒ 00:49:40.379 Uttam Kumaran: So, as you can tell, like, we are changing very, very fast. So one is, like, yes, I think it’s worth discussing with Kayla anytime you have any concerns, but… Yeah.
469 00:49:40.530 ⇒ 00:49:41.480 Uttam Kumaran: like…
470 00:49:41.680 ⇒ 00:49:53.599 Uttam Kumaran: at the same breadth that I’m trying to set up these, like, strong incentives, yes, we’re already… we’re also just, like… there’s just a lot of load on the company right now, like, we’ve grown… we, like, tripled in, like, 3-4 months.
471 00:49:54.060 ⇒ 00:49:54.520 Pranav Narahari: And so…
472 00:49:54.520 ⇒ 00:49:58.200 Uttam Kumaran: So, we’re just figuring it out. So I think that’s something that I want to also
473 00:49:58.340 ⇒ 00:50:14.579 Uttam Kumaran: share with all the, like… I’ll probably invite the whole company to come listen in, but that’s what I’ll share, is, like, you’ll see, sort of, where it impacts us, but you’ll also see that we’re, like, a very healthy business, and you’ll see the irony in the… in, like, the way that payments work. And you also… we’ll talk about, like, some ways that we’re…
474 00:50:14.730 ⇒ 00:50:18.510 Uttam Kumaran: gonna combat a lot of delays or, like, anything like that, so…
475 00:50:18.730 ⇒ 00:50:23.890 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s worthwhile to have the conversation, and again, Kayla is gonna be the owner over…
476 00:50:24.010 ⇒ 00:50:26.009 Uttam Kumaran: I love that.
477 00:50:26.010 ⇒ 00:50:26.560 Pranav Narahari: Hello.
478 00:50:27.880 ⇒ 00:50:28.580 Pranav Narahari: Cool.
479 00:50:28.880 ⇒ 00:50:33.980 Pranav Narahari: And do, like… Does data engineering, like…
480 00:50:34.370 ⇒ 00:50:41.599 Pranav Narahari: like, for our client, like, Eden, like, Element, like, for all the data work, is it very similar in terms of, like.
481 00:50:41.820 ⇒ 00:50:44.539 Pranav Narahari: the… the contracts for… Yes.
482 00:50:44.540 ⇒ 00:50:45.380 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
483 00:50:45.380 ⇒ 00:50:46.490 Pranav Narahari: Oh, shit.
484 00:50:46.960 ⇒ 00:50:51.250 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning, it’s not usage, meaning it’s actually more… more traditional.
485 00:50:51.480 ⇒ 00:50:53.930 Uttam Kumaran: Like, it’s all hourly or a fixed amount?
486 00:50:54.670 ⇒ 00:50:55.030 Pranav Narahari: Okay.
487 00:50:55.030 ⇒ 00:50:56.680 Uttam Kumaran: The way, the way the, like.
488 00:50:57.200 ⇒ 00:51:00.140 Uttam Kumaran: The way our business works is the same across it all.
489 00:51:00.250 ⇒ 00:51:04.440 Uttam Kumaran: Gotcha. Everything I’m telling you is gonna be open, and that’ll… Blair.
490 00:51:04.770 ⇒ 00:51:06.670 Uttam Kumaran: What type of client? Yeah.
491 00:51:07.340 ⇒ 00:51:15.719 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, again, I’m telling you, dude, the AI clients, like, I feel like you’re gonna have a much better opportunity at structuring deals like this than on the.
492 00:51:15.720 ⇒ 00:51:16.040 Pranav Narahari: data.
493 00:51:16.040 ⇒ 00:51:16.720 Uttam Kumaran: side.
494 00:51:17.270 ⇒ 00:51:17.660 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
495 00:51:17.660 ⇒ 00:51:21.960 Uttam Kumaran: And I think that’s the way the industry is going, that’s the way our business is going, so…
496 00:51:22.460 ⇒ 00:51:22.840 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
497 00:51:22.840 ⇒ 00:51:36.880 Uttam Kumaran: Like, the data… the data stuff is just… we… it’s our bread and butter, and… but that… for that reason, there’s not a lot of, like, games you can play. Versus the AI side, I’m telling you, like, that’s why I’m just, like, kind of disappointed that, like, Casey and Gustafa both, like, don’t want to…
498 00:51:37.140 ⇒ 00:51:43.540 Uttam Kumaran: Or they’re not, like, super… Gung-ho about moving up, because they’re gonna miss out on a fat opportunity.
499 00:51:43.940 ⇒ 00:51:49.099 Uttam Kumaran: Like, one of your friends is gonna join, or someone else I meet is gonna join and take all that money.
500 00:51:50.850 ⇒ 00:51:51.260 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
501 00:51:51.260 ⇒ 00:51:52.910 Uttam Kumaran: It’s just the way it is, I don’t know.
502 00:51:54.000 ⇒ 00:52:04.269 Pranav Narahari: But I will say, though, like, I am, you know, coding a lot less, I am doing more of, like, the higher level, like, okay, project design type work, and so…
503 00:52:04.660 ⇒ 00:52:08.410 Pranav Narahari: I can see why, like, it is a different type of word, right? It’s not like…
504 00:52:08.410 ⇒ 00:52:10.360 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but dude, you’re gonna get paid for it.
505 00:52:10.360 ⇒ 00:52:11.559 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, I mean, for me.
506 00:52:11.560 ⇒ 00:52:12.929 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, this is growth.
507 00:52:13.390 ⇒ 00:52:14.350 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
508 00:52:14.700 ⇒ 00:52:15.630 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
509 00:52:15.970 ⇒ 00:52:19.350 Uttam Kumaran: That’s growth, you know? Like, if you’re not growing, you’re dying.
510 00:52:19.900 ⇒ 00:52:20.990 Uttam Kumaran: So, I…
511 00:52:20.990 ⇒ 00:52:21.480 Pranav Narahari: I don’t know.
512 00:52:21.480 ⇒ 00:52:28.989 Uttam Kumaran: I want to make it so easy for people to raise their hand and move up in this company, and it’s hard sometimes. Not everybody cares.
513 00:52:29.250 ⇒ 00:52:33.089 Uttam Kumaran: And I don’t… as I’ve probably quoted before, I don’t understand that, like…
514 00:52:33.380 ⇒ 00:52:37.979 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t get it, but I understand that people feel that way.
515 00:52:38.320 ⇒ 00:52:40.520 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like, doesn’t compute in my brain.
516 00:52:40.710 ⇒ 00:52:41.280 Uttam Kumaran: But…
517 00:52:41.280 ⇒ 00:52:51.419 Pranav Narahari: And for me, too, like, I don’t even mind it, because I… yeah, I don’t operate that way either, but when I think about, like, Casey Mustafa, too, I’m like, oh, like.
518 00:52:51.890 ⇒ 00:52:56.489 Pranav Narahari: Mustafa does, like, work a ton, like, I see his cursor usage, like, Casey.
519 00:52:56.490 ⇒ 00:52:56.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
520 00:52:56.990 ⇒ 00:53:07.959 Pranav Narahari: on shipping things, like, I noticed with Lilo and for ABC now, and so it’s, like, I’m happy, like, in some ways that, like, oh, they’re just focusing on coding all the time.
521 00:53:07.960 ⇒ 00:53:12.690 Uttam Kumaran: No, totally. For you, I think it’s, like, you’re not gonna feel the pain as… but I’m telling you, I’m gonna go find…
522 00:53:13.070 ⇒ 00:53:17.850 Uttam Kumaran: we’re gonna have more engineers, and I want the people who have been here for a while to step up, you know?
523 00:53:17.850 ⇒ 00:53:18.400 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
524 00:53:18.400 ⇒ 00:53:25.210 Uttam Kumaran: Start to lead shit, and… Yeah, like, put their neck out and try to do shit, like, you know?
525 00:53:25.330 ⇒ 00:53:28.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And they need to… they need to figure that out, like, that’s growth.
526 00:53:29.130 ⇒ 00:53:29.820 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
527 00:53:29.960 ⇒ 00:53:32.030 Pranav Narahari: They’re both pretty young, too, right?
528 00:53:32.030 ⇒ 00:53:34.750 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, they’re both really, really young. Yeah.
529 00:53:34.860 ⇒ 00:53:36.380 Uttam Kumaran: Who cares? Fuck it.
530 00:53:36.380 ⇒ 00:53:37.679 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, that’s right, yeah.
531 00:53:37.680 ⇒ 00:53:42.629 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t care, and I’m the only one that needs to care, so it’s…
532 00:53:43.170 ⇒ 00:53:47.989 Uttam Kumaran: Right. Like, you’re getting the opportunity of a lifetime right now, I feel like, in… I don’t know.
533 00:53:48.360 ⇒ 00:53:48.960 Uttam Kumaran: But…
534 00:53:50.560 ⇒ 00:54:02.239 Uttam Kumaran: I can… that’s why I’m like, to hear that you’re really leaning in… Like, I’m gonna lean in as far as you… as you want to. And also, dude, Greg is a great person to kind of be alongside. Try and spend time with him.
535 00:54:03.820 ⇒ 00:54:10.880 Uttam Kumaran: Because he gets it, and we’re gonna start to model a lot of the people we bring on in the CSO role around some of the success that he’s had.
536 00:54:11.270 ⇒ 00:54:12.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
537 00:54:14.350 ⇒ 00:54:15.340 Pranav Narahari: Sick, okay.
538 00:54:16.330 ⇒ 00:54:17.639 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I gotta run.
539 00:54:18.270 ⇒ 00:54:21.470 Pranav Narahari: Perfect. Yeah. Good talk. Talk to you soon.
540 00:54:21.940 ⇒ 00:54:23.089 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you, dude. Bye.