Special Report

Hari is a Senior Director of Engineering at Salesforce. He is part of the Einstein Analytics Group and his work involves empowering thousands of startups and successful companies at scale by democratizing big data, analytics, artificial intelligence. He is passionate about bringing positive change to society with the help of technology and business. Hari is a frequent guest at The Investors Podcast and share his thoughts on his blog bitsbusiness.com.

In this interview, Hari talks about his journey and experiences in self-learning and investing over the years.

Safal Niveshak (SN): Please share about your background and your education.

Hari Ramachandra (HR): I come from a small town (now it is a bigger city) Mysore. My father was a government employee, a civil engineer by profession and a musician by hobby, I grew up in an atmosphere where art and education were equally valued. My father is a staunch follower of Mahatma Gandhi and spent his evenings and weekends teaching “Bhagavad Gita” to adults and kids in Mysore and nearby villages. His principles and philosophy have had a lasting impact on me.

I started my career as a Mechanical Engineer. I was fascinated by robotics, however over time I was drawn towards software engineering. It was 1998 and Internet was the new big deal. I quit my secure job at Wipro Infotech as a design engineer in their printer division to join a small internet startup in my hometown. I had to take a large pay cut, but it was one of the best decisions I ever made. It gave me the experience of running a business from sales, customer relations to software development. I was exposed to the world of business and deal making through my CEO and founder. I got to travel with the sales team and present to key customers. I learnt first-hand the challenges in selling products and the importance of customer satisfaction. I had to present at multiple events to small and big audiences. I practiced intensely to overcome my nervousness. This experience has helped me immensely throughout my career.

After working for some time in the startup world, I realized the immense opportunity and promise the Internet had and wanted to play in the big league. Hence, I set my eyes on the United States of America. Thanks to some of my good friends, who encouraged me to pursue higher education in the US, I landed here in 2000 for my masters’ in computer science.

Timing wise, it could not be worse. Few months after I registered for my masters, the dot-come bubble crashed and with that my dreams and those of many students like me were shattered. There were mass layoffs and companies stopped sponsoring H1B visas, which was essential for immigrant students like me to work in the US. I was lucky to be selected for a fellowship offered by IBM in collaboration with my University, which helped me sustain myself till I found a IT consulting company to sponsor my H1B.

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Writing is not only a powerful tool for better thinking but a skill that’s soon going to become a must for every knowledge economy worker, including an investor. Consider Warren Buffett. He is one of the best writers ever in the business world. It is not a coincidence that he is also one of the best investors of all time. If you cannot write clearly, most likely you do not think very clearly. And if you do not think clearly, you are in trouble. If you are not consciously working on improving your writing skills, you are making yourself vulnerable to the threat of being rendered obsolete by machines.

I am always on a lookout for new opportunities to learn to become a better writer. Even a small piece of improvement every day will eventually add up to a significant transformation in the way I communicate.

Writing Routines is a tremendously useful website for people who want to hone their craft of writing. I have been reading the interviews (of accomplished authors) that they publish and have distilled out several ideas to share with you.

In Praise of Writing

Before I begin with the writing ideas, here’s a word from Anne Lamott who wrote an excellent must-read book called Bird by Bird:

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again.

It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.

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In our VIA Investor Insights section, recently we started asking interviewees about their favourite business person (apart from Buffett and Munger). The last two people who we interviewed (Saurabh Madaan and Jana Vembunarayanan) unanimously agreed on their choice. Here’s what they said –

Jana: “Jeff Bezos. He’s extremely focused, super-rational, and contrarian (right more often). Some examples of being a contrarian and right are free shipping for prime, kindle, and AWS. There were times he was wrong. For example, he didn’t like the idea of launching Amazon Studios. Even though Bezos disagreed, he committed to the plan. Writing about it openly requires a lot of humility, and Bezos scores full marks on that.”

Saurabh: “By far my favourite is Mr. Bezos. If you read his annual letters, they are also just like Mr. Buffett’s letters. They have a lot of lessons about life and thinking in life in general. When he says long term, he really means long term. It’s not even five or ten years. It’s really long term.”

In fact, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are also big fans of Jeff Bezos. They have acknowledged that they failed to see Bezos’ genius early on. Buffett called the

Amazon CEO as the most remarkable business person of our age. Munger, in his trademark style, said, “Jeff Bezos is a different species.”

So, I pulled out all the letters that Bezos has written for his shareholders (for 1997-2016), printed them and sat down with a marker.

In 1997, Amazon did $147 million in sales and Jeff Bezos opened his letter to shareholders with: “This is Day 1 for the Internet.” At the end of 2017, Amazon closed the books with a revenue figure of $ 177 billion and Bezos his annual letter with – “It remains Day 1.”

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