Most people think global expansion is strategy… but the truth is companies don’t get destroyed by bad strategy — they get destroyed by invisible operational decisions they didn’t know they were making. The only reason Tesla didn’t get burned is because Shan Nair had a repeatable process.

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Timestamps
0:00 — Introduction
1:30 — Why physics → business logic
7:16 — The Tesla origin moment
9:15 — What companies always get wrong when expanding abroad
14:29 — China expansion (and why it’s now reversed)
16:57 — How Nucleus is structured to scale
18:20 — Cultural nuance examples that actually matter
23:52 — The real “engine” behind repeatable delivery
32:23 — Client-sensitive, not internally flexible
35:45 — This is how you build trust
39:08 — The secret to a high-performing global team
47:55 — The ONE piece of advice before your first country
50:11 — A brutal $400K mistake

What you’ll learn
• why most international expansion fails (and why founders don’t realize it until it’s too late)
• the difference between technical culture and business culture
• the model behind “client sensitive — not internally flexible”
• how cadence + transparency eliminate politics
• what happens when you skip foundational compliance
• the painful compounding cost of cutting corners

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Find Dr. Shan Nair here:
https://nucleus-co.com/
shan@nucleus-co.com

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