Why this CEO chooses discomfort over comfort every time

Most people build their careers by hunting for stability and a predictable path. But today’s guest has spent nearly 20 years doing the exact opposite. He calls himself the "Chaos Hunter" because he deliberately takes the jobs that are messy, broken, and have no template for success.

In this unfiltered episode, I sit down with Puneet Raj, the CEO of Fieldwire by Hilti. Puneet’s journey is wild. At just 25 years old, he took over a brand at Unilever that was losing $8.50 for every $10 it made. He shut down three factories and rebuilt the business from scratch. From there, his addiction to fixing corporate messes took him through INSEAD, Amazon, and eventually to Hilti, where he raised his hand to steer Fieldwire through a massive corporate storm after the founders walked out.

We dive deep into what it takes to lead through structural panic , the unique career compromises he makes with his spouse to relocate across eight countries , and why traditional business school curriculums are failing the next generation in the age of AI. If you want to learn how to blast through massive business obstacles, you need to hear Puneet’s framework.

Episode Chapters:

[00:00] - Introduction
[01:51] - Raised by Chaos
[03:52] - Rebuilding Unilever at 25
[11:57] - The Death of the 40-Year Career
[16:56] - Are MBAs Outdated?
[19:59] - Leaving Amazon
[25:26] - The 1.5 Career Household
[35:23] - The Post-Founder Exodus
[41:52] - Bouncing Back and Punk Rock
[48:49] - Firing with High Care
[55:46] - Working Backwards
[01:02:54] - The Lightning Round


#ChaosHunter #CorporateTurnaround #LeadershipMindset #ScaleUpCEO #BusinessStrategy #RadicalCandor #MorkUnfiltered

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

I can consume chaos and without simplicity.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I like to think of myself as delivering that for my team. I am very critical about in US culture and US business culture is how much avoidance there is of difficult conversation.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

And I would always hunt for something that's what's the cost to living now?

SPEAKER_00 0:19

I was just craving for feedback is to human beings uh in the same way that sunlight is to plants. I was always looking for stuff that others were hesitant to go after. Is it still worth getting an MBA given everything that's changing right now? Okay, welcome back to another episode of Mork Unfiltered Folks. Most people build their careers by finding stability, a safe track, a predictable path. But today's guest has done actually completely the opposite for almost 20 years. He calls himself the chaos hunter, someone who only takes the jobs that are broken, messy, and have no defined template for success. Buddhaj started at Unilever in India at age 25. Then he went to Insta, worked at Amazon, and spent three decades at Hilti, the global construction technology company that spans across eight different countries. When Hilti acquired FieldWire for over $300 million and the founders left the company, half the company started to head for the exits. That's exactly where Punit raised his hand. Today he's CEO at Fieldwire by Hilti and powering over 4 million construction projects worldwide. This is Morgunfiltered, and this is the Chaos Hunter. Welcome to the episode, Punit. Yeah, uh thanks.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

Thanks, Patrick. Uh it's good to be on the episode as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Thank you. And so, Punit, you know, kind of as we get started, you know, you told me something in our first conversation that, you know, I haven't stopped thinking about. You said you don't just like to take different roles. You kind of like hunt out for specific kinds of situations that are chaotic, that are broken, that don't really have like a predefined template for success. Walk me through about a little bit where that instinct came from. Is it is this something that you like, you grew up this way? Was there something that influenced you in your early childhood that made that that gave you this mindset?

SPEAKER_03 2:18

Yeah, I think uh uh, you know, uh my best childhood memory, uh Patrick, is actually I received an Atlas as a gift when I was, I think, uh seven or eight years old. And I just loved the world, man. Yeah. Uh I loved drawing it out on uh the floors of the house and the walls of the house. I probably draw my parents mad. Yeah. Uh but you know, from that early instant, I uh uh from the early stage I developed an instinct for uh just traveling and the love of travel and uh exploring different cultures. And that was actually something was a great early influence. But the other big early influence is that my dad was a serial entrepreneur. I think he had uh seven or eight different uh companies that he started in very different sectors. So at one point of time he was running a leather factory, the other uh point of time he was running a software outsourcing business. Yeah, and then at another point of time, he was actually uh running a business which uh was exporting uh incense ticks across the world. And at a very early stage, I started actually uh helping him out, doing all kinds of uh generalist uh things that he would do in an early stage uh startup. Many of those businesses did not uh work out, but actually, what I gathered from then is just an instinct to go into a situation where you do not know how best to move forward and just do everything that it takes to blast obstacles. Yeah. Um, and that's something that always uh stuck with me. So there's love for travel, love for exploring uh new things, plus this instinct of you know, I never had a the uh situation in my one of my dad's startups where everything was normal. It was always chaotic. So I just I guess I grew up around uh chaos. Once I uh started my career, I just started looking for you know, more or less the same feeling. Yeah, I wanted to explore new places. I would pick up jobs which are in countries which I haven't been to yet, yeah. And I would always hunt for something that's broken. Yeah, you know, uh uh anything that's templated uh gets me very bored uh easily. Yeah, so I was always looking for stuff that others were hesitant to go after. Yeah, in fact, one of my first sales roles in uh when when I joined Unilever, I actually joined in sales and I took over a team that hadn't delivered results for the past three years, where sales managers were changed so often. The one prior to me had just lasted for five months, and I said that's the kind of stuff that I want to do. So put me in places where others don't want to go uh and where things are broken, and I'll figure out my own way of fixing it. And it's in a way, it's almost an addiction, yeah, to uh go and hunt for the next high. Yeah. Um, but that's something that's kept me going ever since. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

So it's like you look for things that are broken to fix, and you seem to have this need for a fair amount of variety and challenge.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And uh that's also why, you know, I've shifted uh sectors quite often. Uh uh, I started my career in consumer goods, then I went to e-commerce and you know, uh ran a portion of the Kindle business. Yeah, then I went into construction uh because you know uh the Hilti group and I quoted for a while. I did not know anything in construction. But I thought, you know, it could be an interesting opportunity to get into uh construction tech. And I jumped right in. And even within the group, I started picking up roles that nobody would ever think of picking up. Yeah, uh, I never thought of myself as the smartest guy in the room. Uh I think there are others who are way smarter always. Uh, but I see myself as a guy who can craft a narrative when there's chaos around. I can consume chaos and spit out simplicity. I like to think of myself as delivering that to my teams. Yeah, and um then once I've honed in on something or honed in on a vision or a narrative, I see myself as somebody who can blast obstacles. Yeah, so uh that's essentially been the two driving factors in my career so far.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Now it's interesting because you know, in and of itself, this makes you very unique, right? The vast majority of mortals, right, they kind of like seek stability. You know, human beings are creatures of comfort, they want to be doing the same thing, they have their same latte every morning, they take the same route to work, you know, use the same toothpaste, right? So many people are like that. And you seem to have deliberately chosen to go in the opposite direction. But it does beg the question what's what's the cost to living that way?

SPEAKER_03 6:38

Yeah, I think it's a very important uh question. And I think there is definitely a cost to living uh in this manner. For instance, you know, I have uh shifted around six countries in the last 10 years, uh, but in my case, I was very fortunate to also uh find a uh partner who's my wife now, who also seeks more or less the same uh things. Yeah. So for instance, I have lived in eight countries in my life. My wife has actually lived in also in eight, yeah, uh, but in eight very different countries. So we don't always share the same uh uh set of uh countries. So just having that experience of having lived and worked and grown up in different kinds of places, I guess makes you just more open uh to uh experiences. Uh so while there is a cost, I think we have been able to mitigate it simply because I've found a life partner who's also pretty much in the same wavelength as I am.

unknown 7:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

And the funny thing is, you know, uh Patrick, I have a four-year-old kid. She was born in Singapore, spent the first two years of her life in Singapore, spent the third year in Switzerland, and now she's in the Bay Area. So she is also pretty much along the same on the same trajectory.

unknown 7:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

She's gonna be a chaos hunter, whether she wants to be or not.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

I hope so.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Take take us, you know, take us back to the beginning of your career, right? Take us back to Unilever. You're 25 years old, you know, you you take over this Knorr brand in Southeast Asia, right? I think it was like these like soups that were these little cubes in in these packages, right? I remember I remember I used to eat that stuff. And actually, that my father, coincidentally, at the beginning of his career, was also at Knorr.

SPEAKER_03 8:15

Well, well, you know, uh uh Noor was uh I think three and a half, four years into my career uh in Unilever. Uh yeah, I I was uh I was uh uh 26 at that point of time. Uh I started my career in Unilever at uh uh the age of 22. And uh I actually did not know what I was walking into. I just knew that uh uh Noor had just done a big launch in uh uh uh in India. Uh it already had an established business in uh uh Pakistan and Nepal. And it was a uh uh good business in those countries and it just launched in India. Uh and uh but very quickly, you know, uh I tried to redefine the role. Yeah, I tried to think of you know of uh myself as uh someone who's super malleable to the conditions. So I decided, you know, uh what is not required for me in this role is to be a standard marketing person because my role was that of a marketing manager or brand manager. And actually, I need to redefine this role completely because if this has to survive, I need to act as the business manager. I need to act as the person who owns this business, as the entrepreneur who has put money in, who's now bleeding money, and let's look at every element of the cost block of the various cost blocks uh to optimize. And that's actually uh uh what I ended up doing, which was actually a fantastic stint because uh it gave me a lot of gender managerial exposure. I was able to get into every aspect of the business, including how we manufacture, how we package, uh uh how the logistics are set up, how much we spend on advertising and promotions. And yeah, so it really gave me a uh very different perspective. And I credit that uh stint to date uh for having taught me everything I know about business or running a business.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

But but but what gave you, because so many people would step into a role like that, right? It's like your role is like product product brand manager or marketing manager, right? You step into a role like that, you don't have the experience to do the role, the role of big corporates is like very defined. It's like you're boxed into this role. What gave you the confidence to redefine your job that way and decide to kind of like widen the remit of your yeah, uh yeah, I think uh what gave me the confidence was possibly naivety.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

The stuff that you do when you're 26 years old and you uh feel you don't have uh a big base and a lot to lose. Um but but also it was uh just the genuine desire to make sure that uh the stuff that I've been handed over is in a better stage by the time I uh leave it. Yeah, and I thought the best thing to do for that brand at that moment was not to sell more, but actually just to fix the basics. Yeah. Uh and once the basics are uh fixed, you could always go about and sell more and make it a profitable brand. Uh because of course, one thing is to uh care for the customers, but I argue that caring for the business is also caring for your customers. You can only care for your customers when you are a healthy, profitable business, otherwise you would be making it taking shortcuts, which eventually would actually uh harm our uh customer base. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

Um so for me it was it was just realizing that I needed to become the person that the brand needed at that point of time versus the way in which my role was defined. And that's kind of what I also try to do uh each day uh uh today. Because when I wake up in the morning, I try to think of myself. So, what does Fieldwar need from me today? Do I need to be a product manager or do I need to be the best recruiter today? Or do I need to be the marketing person who's giving a speech? Yeah. Uh so what version of uh me does Feelware need today? And that I think has uh been a good way for me to uh run my day today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

That that's super interesting. I mean, transpose your decision to act and be wired that way to a 25-year-old who's watching this video right now. Do you think, given everything that's happening in the global economy and in the work economy, that more people need to start rewiring and thinking of themselves that way?

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Yeah, absolutely. Uh I think uh the days of uh 40-year old careers, yeah, you know, careers where you stick to the same function and same company for 40 years, I think is long gone. I think careers these days are more of a 18 to 24 month sprint in which you have to then redefine yourself every 24 months or so, uh, especially with the age of AI. And uh what we are also seeing is that uh uh generalization actually helps, especially in the early stages of your career. You can choose to become a specialist at a later stage of your career. So, my biggest advice for any uh 25-year-old is grab as many experiences as you can. Yeah, and uh don't pigeonhole yourself into one role or one function, at least at that stage, because you probably will redefine and reinvent yourself several times along your career. So just go for breadth of experiences at an early stage uh rather than for depth. Depth will come automatically at a later stage.

unknown 12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

I think that's great career advice. I mean, I I followed very much the same path. As a matter of fact, when I when I first interviewed you, you know, when we had a call a couple months ago, your career path has been strikingly and scaringly similar to mine. You know, I didn't go to Unilever, I went to PepsiCo. I ended up in Brazil in an operation that was, you know, also very messed up. Then they shipped me to Chile, where you know, they closed the plant and fired everybody except for me, and they left me there for two years. And my role was ostensibly marketing manager for the country, but I ended up having to do you know operations, field marketing, marketing, branding, you know, kind of like being the contact person for the franchisee. And and you know, it was it was a role that was much, much bigger. And nobody wanted to take that role because everybody's like, oh, Chile's a fucked up market, like we're getting our asses kicked by Coke. Who would want to go there? You know, it's a disaster zone. And I mean, when the opportunity came up, I'm like, yeah, man, I'll do it. You know, jump in. Yeah, yeah. And it was a tremendous learning experience. And it it just opens so many different doors for you, you know. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

So many people there's a certain amount of thrill in it as well, right? When you uh pick up roles that others would not uh dare to do so. Yeah. Uh and I think the learnings that you get from there are far better than any textbook uh learnings. Because you it's real world on the job. Uh I feel that I I perceive that I perform better when I'm under a little bit of stress, and picking up situations gives me that right amount of stress to actually just go out and uh hit it out of the park. Yeah. Um and I just get pumped up when I see such a situation. So uh, you know, I you know I like to run towards problems, not away from them. So uh it's good.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

I think that's I I think that's I think that's the only way to live, man. I think that's the only way to live. And then and then so so after Unilever, I think if I remember correctly, you decide that you know you're you're going to kind of like pause for a second and go back and do an MBA. What was your thinking behind that?

SPEAKER_03 14:46

Yeah, actually, though the reason why I wanted to pause is that I felt Unilever is old money. Yeah. Uh the uh consumer goods is you know, it's a business that has been around for a long time. And this was uh the year 2012, 2013. Uh social media was coming up in a big way, e-commerce was uh going up in a big way. And I knew that you know, more excitement is to be found in that domain in the world of uh e-commerce and social media and everything around tech and digitization uh that was happening in the world. And I did not want to be stuck in uh an old-scale consumer goods industry. I felt it had given me good learnings, but it's what it's time to move on. Uh and the other thing was uh, you know, I told you about my love for travel. I actually wanted to take a year off and travel. So I thought this is the right time. So that's essentially what I did. I took a couple of years off. I traveled for a year, hit 35 countries, yeah, uh, had a veil of a time, uh, did stuff that I would uh otherwise not be able to do if I did not have that much amount or time. Yeah. And uh then I applied to uh NCR. Yeah, I wrote my NCR essays from uh uh uh you know from a cyber cafe in uh uh rural Thailand and somehow managed to get and uh uh that was uh that was fun and NCR was actually truly transformational. Uh and the uh uh peers that I met uh were uh simply outstanding and they gave me a perspective that once again I would not have uh gotten without uh the program. Um and at the end of it I got what I wanted, which is I wanted to enter either e-commerce or social media or a sector that's starting to digitize, and uh um I ended up joining Amazon.

unknown 16:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

I mean, speaking to that same 25-year-old, right, who's watching, who's watching you now, um, with everything that's happening in AI and education changing and entry-level jobs changing or going away, what argument would you make for somebody who's considering an MBA? I mean, is it still worth getting an MBA given everything that's changing right now? Is is that is like investing a year of your life and that much money in an in a top MBA, is it still worth it?

SPEAKER_03 16:52

Yeah. Uh to be quite honest, I wouldn't consider a two-year MBA for any 25-year-old right now. I think one year with a very uh clear focus on what you want out of it. Yeah, which is either you wanna wanna change your sector and want uh uh to get into uh something new, uh or you want uh to s uh start a company and you want to pick up key entrepreneurship uh skills and uh just developing a network, I think that's the uh key value. Because at the end of the day, now that I'm uh it's 11 years post-INCH, and I was there at NCH uh uh uh late last week to actually recruit uh from the Central School hub. And I don't know, the one thing that always stands out is essentially the network. Yeah, uh, because even today I'm able to uh pick up the phone and call uh someone to ask for advice. Uh I think that's the uh uh key piece that uh sticks with you. So that definitely has value, but that can also be picked up in a one-year uh I think MBAs over time will actually get crunched for uh time. That'll be very difficult to pull out uh from a career uh from two years out of your career, especially at the because of the pace in which things are changing. Uh I think MBA schools also will have to rework their curriculum quite a bit to uh fit in the age of uh AI, which I'm sure most of them are at work to do so.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

What what do you think is the major thing that most MBA curriculums might be missing today in the age of AI? What are they missing?

SPEAKER_03 18:15

I think a lot of the MBA uh schools today are still very case-oriented, and but most of these cases were written in a pre-AI age. In an age where you had large-scale organizations, we needed managing. Today, you know, the organization of the future is gonna be much smaller than uh previous organizations today. 10% startup can deliver the same amount of uh output as uh 100% startup in uh pre-AI age, right? So I think uh the days of learning how to become a pure play manager, I think might be outdated. I think what what you need to do is become more of a generalist who's able to both think big as well as dive deep and get your hands dirty and just use AI as a companion and become the best uh version of uh human plus AI uh combination. I think that's the skill set that's required. And I'm hoping that most of the B-schools as well change their curriculum into uh uh just delivering that right tactical skill set. Yeah, the pure play strategic skill sets are perhaps not as valuable. Uh it's a combo of tactical skills, skill sets plus uh strategic skill sets that are now required.

unknown 19:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

And so, you know, you're at NCAT, you meet a whole bunch of people, learn a bunch of new things, you decide to take your career in a different direction. Um you start a new chapter, why Amazon?

SPEAKER_03 19:31

Uh once again, I think I had decided pre uh uh even before I went into NCA that I wanted to explore the area of uh e-commerce and digitization. Yeah, um, and uh that was an area of interest for mine. Yeah. Uh Amazon gave me an opportunity to work on the devices team, you know uh and they had the Kindle at that point of time, but I was also told that there's something cool that they are building on the side, which eventually ended up being uh uh Alexa and Echo. Yeah, so we're gonna be uh part of uh that ride and was just a thrill to watch the speed at which Amazon uh did device development. Yeah, uh that was a very clear key learning for me. Uh the part that really drew me to Amazon is were actually the uh working principles. Yeah, the fact that uh they had these, you know, uh at that point of time there used to be these 14 principles that Jeff Bezos had written down, and I'm a big fan of uh Jeff. Uh and I think they aligned very well with also how I wanted to work, yeah, which is uh uh you know uh be very data driven, you know, drive execution, not drag out drag out discussions forever, but disagree and commit and just move on because executing fiercely in any direction is better than actually not executing at all. Right. So I like some of those leadership principles that uh Amazon had put on. Uh that's something that I use even uh till date. Yeah. Uh so I'm pretty much a proud uh Amazon alumni. Yeah. Um uh and that's what actually uh drew me. The fact that it was first of all, it was Amazon, and I was uh Jeff Bezos fanboy uh uh at that point of time. And uh then the uh the gig with Amazon devices was actually uh something that was quite uh attractive for me.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

What do you think was your biggest challenge working at Amazon? Was there was there a particular moment in your career at Amazon that was very difficult where you where you kind of had to really push through something that you hadn't faced before? And what what what did that look like?

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Yeah, I think the biggest challenge for me at Amazon was I got bored. Because Amazon at that point of time was already a very big company. So it was very templated, which is actually what drove me while there were very good learnings, it drove me to look out, it drove me to seek a challenge, and uh, you know, if uh uh I don't want to uh you know, I I never publicized this, but I could have finished the work that I had in a couple of hours every day. I had to just drag it out to keep myself at work for eight hours. It it was very templated, and I didn't get enough. Of the uh uh I didn't get enough of uh you know the uh thing that I'm looking for, which is always a kick from uh handling a chaotic uh situation. I think Amazon was too big at that point of time. Yeah, probably I would have enjoyed Amazon more had it been a few years earlier. Yeah, I at that point of time, I think they were definitely more of a they had some elements of being a day two company instead of a day one company, yeah, uh, which I think Amazon has tried to fix over uh time with a lot of uh changes now, and you always keep hearing about yeah, uh Andy uh Jesse as well talking about all the layoffs and cuts in middle management to make it more of a day one company. So I whenever I hear that I do nod and I say, yes, that's exactly what I experienced, but it was very tempting, a little bit boring for me.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah. How did how did you knew how did you know that it was time to move on? Like what was the signal or series of signals that you interpreted, you said, this is not the place where I'm gonna stay to challenge myself. I need to find something else.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Yeah, you know, uh I actually tried to get myself into uh different kinds of challenges within Amazon. Uh, but I was always told that you know you had to wait for at least 12 months before you get something new. And I couldn't dream of a situation where I spend 12 months where I'm working for two months at uh two hours a day and my brain is robbing for the rest of the time. And uh I was I I was just craving for a challenge at the point of time, right? And uh then um uh fortunately for me, uh uh Hilti and I were actually quoting each other for a while at that point of time, and Hilti wanted someone to uh come in and uh take a fresh look at construction and take a look at how can this giant industry can be uh uh digitized. And I thought, hmm, you know, uh that could be something intriguing. Yeah. Um Hilti was also quite persistent, they kept it at and I also kept in touch, and uh then one thing led to another, and then uh uh September of 2015 I ended up joining joining the Hirti Group. Uh and it has been a fun ride. I think within the Hirti Group for the last uh 10 years now. Uh I've done six roles in six different countries. So I've actually uh managed to somehow pick and choose my roles very effectively. Uh once again, choosing stuff that nobody else would want to go into. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

And it has been a fun journey so far.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

And you told me something that stuck with me in our last conversation. You said, I think if I remember correctly, you said that you know the hardest part of your journey was not really kind of like convincing yourself about or getting excited about the next professional challenge. It was more about you know, convincing your your wife and partner, you know, to do these things every single time. Yeah. Walk us a little bit through that dance and and what that looks like, because you know, every single person that that is ambitious, I think recognizes that you know part of our success comes from our partner. Yeah, the person we choose to spend our life with has a huge impact on where we go, how how much we succeed or not. And obviously, sometimes it can be very challenging, particularly when that person and the family are in a good place, to convince them that you actually need a new challenge. How do you how do you go about doing that?

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think uh now so firstly, uh a lot of credit does go to Nia, my uh wife, um, who's also been uh part of uh this journey for the last uh 11 years with me, shifting six countries or so uh in the meanwhile. Uh and uh Nia inherity is also uh quite uh uh quite an ambitious uh uh woman when it comes to a career perspective. Uh but at some point of time we managed to develop an understanding that uh you know, if we have to really make this work, uh at any point of time we can have one and a half careers and not two. Uh because one of us has to compromise to make it work for the other. And that's okay because having one and a half careers still maximizes overall happiness for us as a family unit. Yeah, and we uh said that as long as we maximize happiness for our family unit, that's okay. Yeah, uh, we will do stuff that makes it makes it work. And there were times where we said, uh, you know, uh you know, for instance, uh I got an opportunity to travel uh to go to Malaysia and set up uh Hilti's, one of Hilti's earliest software development teams in uh Malaysia. Uh we were living in uh Switzerland at that point of time, and Nea managed to convince her company to move her to Singapore. Uh so we actually said it's for us to maximize both our careers as well as personal happiness at this point of time, it's okay if we live in different countries and we just travel. Yeah, which spectacularly did not work out because this was in 2019, uh October. And as you know, in 2020, oh my god, COVID happened. And on the day COVID happened, I happened to be in the day the borders closed, I happened to be in Malaysia and they happened to be in Singapore, so we spent 11 months apart, stuck in uh different countries. Uh, but we still made it work. And I think uh uh it just goes back to uh just us having that uh strong understanding that whatever we are doing needs to maximize family happiness for us. Yeah, and uh once you know uh uh the borders reopened, uh I managed to travel back to uh uh uh Singapore to be with her for a while. We then discussed that she listened. I think one and a half careers is the way to go. Yeah, uh at any point of time, uh one of us will compromise, and that's okay. Yeah. Um and uh fortunately for me, I think she has uh uh uh readily taken this journey with me where we have now gone on to uh many countries at the same point of time. It's a delicate balancing act. I think couples who work always face that uh delicate balancing act. But I guess it's just about having a very open uh conversation with uh your spouse and deciding what is of value for uh you yeah, and for us, we always said maximize family happiness, at least have one and a half careers at any point of time.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yeah, how how I think that's I think that's fascinating that you're able to do that. So many couples avoid those difficult conversations, and oftentimes that will build resentment over time in one of the people in the couple, and that resentment can potentially explode at some point and and destroy the the the relationship. Um what what rituals or what habits have you developed with your your wife to continue to have that ongoing dialogue even when the conversations are uncomfortable?

SPEAKER_03 28:19

Yeah, yeah. I think uh so first of all, we love spending time with each other and we just talk. Uh I think talking is the uh main thing, but there is a very specific ritual that we do every uh six months or so, wherein uh we sit down, it's typically in May and December. Uh somehow we always do it in uh these months, where we sit down and just take stock of where we are right now. Yeah, and uh where we are right now in terms of our careers, in terms of our lives, what is it exactly that we are looking for? All the big decisions that we tend to make are typically done in this uh time frame, uh uh in this uh discussion. Uh and we also track it. Yeah, so uh we actually have a tracking uh sheet of all the big decisions that we have taken, and we check to see if we have executed against it. Yeah, uh, and that has actually been uh quite helpful. It kind of imposes a little bit of rigidity onto uh this chaotic mess that we sometimes uh have going on, uh but it's actually a very grounding uh uh thing. So every May and every December we sit down, we just talk it out.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Yeah, uh and uh that actually That's a really healthy practice, actually.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's something that actually uh helps us quite a bit because you know it it could even be stuff like, you know, uh are we sure we are in the right neighborhood? Or do we need to move houses? Or now that we are for instance, and for us that's a very important conversation because most probably we are in a new place at that point of time, uh, which is what it has been historically. So are we sure we are picking houses in the right neighborhood? Are we sure that you know uh and most recently it was a choice of uh what kind of school do we send our uh kid to, who's now uh soon uh turning file later on this year. Right? So uh uh but we tend to make these big decisions in a very joint manner. We both sign off on it, it's almost like a ritual that we end up uh doing and then we are committed uh to it. Yeah, disagree and commit? Yeah, I disagree and commit beyond a point. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

You're done, you're dumpy Amazon principles at home. Yeah, exactly. Have you have you have you ever been in a situation where there was really a tension between maybe your career and her career? And and if so, how do you manage something like that? Because in so many relationships, it seems like oftentimes the man's career will take precedence over the woman's career. And sometimes if the woman's particularly ambitious and has a thriving career, that can cause some friction and that can cause some resentment. It seems that you guys with this yearly ritual and your constant discussion have found a way through that. But did you ever reach a situation where, like, oh my god, there is real tension, we're not exactly sure how to resolve this?

SPEAKER_03 30:55

Yeah, uh yeah, it's it's differently happened. And uh, I think the good part about how we have gone about tanks is there have been times where I have taken the half step in the one and a half careers, and there have been times when she has done it. Right. Yeah. So for instance, you know, uh uh when I first joined her team, we spent around four and a half years in Switzerland. And for the last two and a half years, I was bored out of my mind. I was seriously bored out of my mind. I was actually craving for a challenge. I could have very easily gone and picked up a challenge, I could have been in a different country, in a different environment. But at that point in time, Niha's career was moving. Yeah, and uh she was really on an accelerated uh growth path. And uh we talked it out and we said, see, listen, for the next two years, your career is in the driver's seat. You drive the decision, but at some point of time, an opportunity might come, which will be too good for me to uh uh walk away from, not because of you know what the title of the opportunity is, but it provides me with an element of chaos that I uh truly seek and desire.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

And another chaos hunter feels the pull.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Exactly, exactly. And we should be able to revisit that uh decision, which is exactly what happened, by the way. Yeah, when this opportunity to move to Malaysia came up, and uh also agreed. And fortunately, she also made it work with her uh company that she could get transferred. In fact, she even got promoted while she was in Singapore, so even her career actually did not end up uh taking so much of a backseat, but it was a very clear uh uh decision point where we had to decide as to whose career is now leading and who is now following. Yeah, and there have been there have been times where clearly her career has led and I've followed, and uh it's also uh uh been the other case vice versa. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Kudos to you, man. I mean, I I I give you hats off. I think a lot of a lot of guys could not do that. I think a lot of guys, you know, particularly the NCAT MBA higher hyperachiever types, you know, that it's always us, us, us. You know, I I had I I fell into that pattern. You know, it was with my with my ex-wife, you know, it was always me, me, me making all the decisions she followed. You know, she was a a good mother, a good wife, you know, and I talk about it very openly in my book until the day where it didn't it didn't work. And and she really felt that she needed to put her career forward, and that was that was unfortunately one of the things that led to the disintegration of our marriage. So I admire you for being able to manage that. I think it's incredibly hard for a lot of guys to to come to groups with that.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Um it is a hard thing. But I think the thing that has always worked for us is trying to maximize family happiness, yeah, even though that's a little bit of an abstract concept. Yeah, uh hard to put down objectively, but that's and there is always a bit of gut feel involved in trying to make that decision, but that's always the part that we are trying to maximize for.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yeah. Exactly. So then, you know, a couple of years later, Hilti acquires FieldWire. You know, the founders eventually decide to exit, and and you get tapped, you know, for that opportunity, right? So tell me, tell little, tell me a little bit about that transition, why you wanted to jump in that specific opportunity. What was the calling of that kind of a challenge?

SPEAKER_03 33:59

Well, you know, this was actually the dream job. I believe that everything else that I've done in my career was possibly leading up to uh this point. Uh, when I first heard about Hilti Acquire and Filva, and then Filva being on an immense growth journey post-acquisition, I knew that the day would come when the founders would move on, yeah, and which is natural. And I had also read up at that point of time that a lot of post-founder companies disintegrate. Yeah, and uh I thought that could be you know uh just the right kind of geek for me.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

The chaos hunter is fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

And uh, you know, I I kept dropping subtle hints to everyone at her tea, and that's exactly the kind of gig that I have should uh uh get. And it's also then uh I just got lucky that uh you know one final day uh uh you know uh Jandaji, who's the CEO of uh the Hilti Group, called me up and asked me, Do you want the gig? And I said, of course. But uh, you know, everything that they say about post founder uh uh companies, post founder scale ups, that's there in literature ended up happening at Feelware.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Yeah, which is uh Tell me more about that because like when we talked about that in our last call, like you literally I got goosebumps about that. Like, so so you joined, and like literally everything that you said like is in the literature starts to happen. What happened?

SPEAKER_03 35:26

Yeah, so I I was obviously prepared for it. So I had led a row of literature, and uh one of the people whom I follow quite a bit because I love his leadership style is uh Bran Halligan from uh HubSpot. And he has written a series of blogs which talks about you know the scale-up journey that he undertook once HubSpot was at a certain uh uh uh size. Yeah. Uh so I'd read a lot of that. I knew what was going to happen, and I knew that you typically you know founders leaving is a key signal for a lot of early employees, a lot of people who are cultural glues for uh the company to also look out and warn, and it's natural. It's a signal that you're no longer a startup, you have a scale up. Yeah. Uh so I was mentally prepared for it, but actually having it happen is a wholly different thing altogether. Yeah, and uh especially uh what astounded me was the speed at which it happened. I think in the first four or five months, we had a flurry of uh uh exits. Uh and each exit was, of course, uh you know, you can always replace the role, you replace the person in the role, but you can't replace the culture and you can't replace the uh uh knowledge that the tribal knowledge that the person has, and everything felt like a hit to the chest. Uh it was actually tough to uh take, yeah. Uh and uh uh however I think what worked well at uh Fieldwire was uh the founders had done a spectacular job in actually having a lot of uh junior resources who are high potential. So we're always able to promote up very quickly, yeah. And even Java did a spectacular uh job in uh uh this front. Um always grateful to them. Uh we so we always had a pool of people whom we could promote quickly. Yeah, um and uh uh that actually worked out uh quite well for us. Yeah, and uh uh then we what I also managed to do was identify a few key people whom we would keep no matter what. So I would go out and do extraordinary things for those extraordinary people. I mean, that was a key differentiator that you always needed to have HR policies which work well for the vast majority, but for a few extraordinary few, you need to do extraordinary uh things uh uh to retain them. And uh that I think worked out uh well. Uh now it's been uh 16 months in, and I think we are much more stable than what we were uh you know 12 months ago, uh uh uh post uh the founder's exit. Um and now we are in a place where we are just primed for growth. Yeah, uh and uh that's been a it's been a thrilling 16 months. Yeah, I feel well.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Was there was there ever a moment when all these exits started to happen, right? The first five months. Was there ever a moment talking with your partner where you thought to yourself, shit, you know, maybe I maybe I bit off more that I could chew on this one?

SPEAKER_03 38:08

Um not exactly that I bit off more than I can chew, but there were certainly moments where I felt that I was not winning. Yeah. And uh I remember very specifically, almost exactly a year ago, uh, in May of last year, we had someone who was who's super key to field wire, who came to me and said that they're not enjoying working in a larger organization and they want to move on. But I also knew that the person is just super important for fieldwater at that point of time because this was in May last year, Jan to April, we already had uh had seen a bunch of exits, and I knew that as fieldware, if we lose this person, yeah, uh, it'll actually be a tremendous hit to the mobile of the company. Yeah. Um, and when this person came out and said, you know, not enjoying the role, working in a scale-up, prefer to be in a smaller company. I think the company has changed since the acquisition, and I want to move on. That did feel like that that was a day where I did feel like I'm not winning. Yeah. Uh, but I did manage to turn it around and we still have uh the person with us today. So which is um uh it was a good outcome in the end. Yeah, it was it was a very tough conversation to actually create create and craft a position that the person would actually love doing, uh, even in a even though the fieldware at that point of time was not the fieldware that it was uh uh four years ago when it was a much smaller company.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

So I had to craft a role which the person would still love uh doing and have a lot of influence in. Uh so we did manage to retain the person, but that was a day when I remember I went back to my wife and said, you know, I really am getting the feeling that I'm not winning.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Yeah. Um can you can you can you dig a little deeper there? Can you can you walk us through a little bit how you felt? But more importantly, when you go through a feeling like this, and every every GM, every CEO, every founder that I've interviewed goes through many moments like this where it's like you just go home and you're like, Jesus, you know, it's like I'm not winning you get hit by a series of blows one after another. Yeah. Walk us through a little bit what you felt. But more importantly, um, you know, Pooney, what what did you do to bounce back from that? Because so many people, you know, when you take blow after blow after blow, you some people get to a point where they just can't get back up. How did you feel and how did you get back up? What did you do? What kind of rituals did you have that that helped you get through that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:31

Firstly, you know, uh, I did feel quite down for a couple of days. Yeah. Uh I I would also acknowledge that I'm also human, and it's also uh hard to take uh several blows all at the same uh point of time. Uh but then I I started thinking to myself, you know, uh firstly I just went back to the article. Uh this is one article by Bran Halligan, which really talks about this journey of from a startup to a uh scale up, in which he actually said that at Hubspot they changed management teams four or five times in their journey from uh zero to uh you know 500 million. So it's a natural thing. So I'm not the only person who's going through it. So it's something that every scale-up CEO has gone through. Yeah, so that's something that uh was actually reassuring. But the other thing I started thinking to myself was, you know, if I don't fix this, who else can? All my experiences and all my you know, hunger to seek out uh chaotic situations have led to exactly this. This has to be the Magnum Opus. So if it is not me, do I see anyone else at my company who can possibly fix it? And to me, it was very clear the answer is no, I have to fix it. Uh and uh then I actually started thinking to myself as you know, uh so whenever I'm in actually it might seem funny, but whenever I'm in a tough uh uh situation, I tend to think of myself as uh you know, the rock star on stage who's trying to control the audience. I somehow always have that visual, yeah. Uh yeah, and this is an audience which is not behaving, but you're the star on stage, you can actually control. You there's a lot of stuff that is in your power and you can control. And that's it's actually how I thought of myself that you know, uh I'm the CEO over here. If I can't control it, there is nobody else who can. Yeah, and I can actually do it. Yeah, and uh so it was a lot of uh self-reinforcement over the course of a weekend. But it was a wild fluctuation of emotions from oh no, I'm really not winning uh this battle, uh, to you know, there's nobody else who can fix it apart from me. Yeah. So and when I came back on uh Monday morning, I think I was once again gungo with energy, still quite nervous because I did not know how best to go about fixing it. But at least, you know, I had juiced myself up with a lot of uh uh uh lot of courage that it has to be me. There is nobody else who can do it.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

Yeah. Uh and where where does that energy, where does that energy come from? Because you you said something that's very interesting, and you know, Tony Robbins in a lot of his works talks about energy, and and he he talks about how when we're going through very difficult times, oftentimes our ability to manifest positive energy, like you know, to to stay in motion, um, can really help us get through tough times. Were there specific things that you did to kind of manifest that energy within yourself? Like some people do sports, some people go out for walks in nature. You know, I interviewed the founder of The North Face um a few weeks ago, and he was saying how like the thing that gave him energy that oftentimes allowed him to power defeat or the jaws of defeat was you know, he just spent a lot of time hiking. He was he was skiing, he was he was out in nature a lot, and that that kind of recharged him. What what was what recharges you?

SPEAKER_03 43:53

I blastered punk rock at maximum volume. Are you serious? I'm serious. That's my thing. Anytime I need a burst of energy, I just put on my headphones. Usually my go-to bands are uh Green Day or Blink 182, and I just blast them at maximum volume and I rock out, and there's nothing that fills me up with energy more than that. I think I guess I like the chaotic uh spirit of uh punk. You can see that there's a theme forming around chaos, right? I just went out for a walk. I just put on my uh earphones, I was at max volume. Yeah, I probably couldn't hear a thing going on in the world around me. But I spent a couple of hours just psyching myself up that there is nobody else who can do it apart from me. Yeah, and uh that's what really hurts. And even till you know, even till that, you know, even when when I have to go on stage and deliver a big speech, I don't spend time looking at the slides because I'm sure I can pick up the narrator. I'm the same. But I spend time juicing myself up. Uh so I spend maybe five or something as you uh blasting uh punk rocket and then I just get on stage and then I can just talk. Yeah, I I can make up the content on the fly, but I really need the uh juice and energy to come through. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Yeah, I think we're gonna have to we're gonna have to rebrand you from chaos hunter to chaos rocker, yeah. So uh I think I think I I can see a little graphic there in the uh in the thumbnail. Yeah. No, that's that's that's that's cool, man. I I you know it's um you don't play any instruments, do you by any chance?

SPEAKER_03 45:20

I used to, you know, uh while I was at NCR, you know, uh uh for our uh final Fairwall show, I actually played uh bass uh on the NCR rock band. So uh I used to play uh you know I used to play in a punk rock uh series of punk rock small time bands uh a long time ago. I haven't uh really played for the last five years or so, but it was a uh it's a hobby that I've lost and hope to pick up at some point of time. Uh yeah. But nowadays, whenever I pick up the guitar at Shopee, K-pop, demon hunters. Yeah, I have a four-year-old who's obsessed with uh K-pop.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

So uh different experience. Now you you you might uh do you know who Robert Trujillo is? Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, he's a bass player for Metallica. Yeah, of Metallica. So his wife, Chloe, was on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

I'll have to I'll send you the episode.

SPEAKER_02 46:10

Yeah, it seems a very interesting video because she also uh does a lot of uh artwork on uh surfing boards and and the likes.

SPEAKER_00 46:17

Yeah, yeah. She does. She's a fascinating person. Her story is amazing. I'll I'll I'll send you the episode if you're curious. But oh yeah, but it's interesting that you mentioned it. It's interesting that you mentioned how that music energizes you. I I'm the same. I like when I'm working, I have like, you know, study workflow music, right? When I'm writing a speech or uh, you know, preparing a keynote, I'll put on like progressive trance, right? Before getting on stage, I always have like a playlist of like very hardcore, like progressive house music. And so it's uh it's interesting how much music has an impact on our biology. Yeah, yeah, it can take us up, it can take us down. So it's interesting that you you you actively use that as a as a source of energy. Very cool. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

Very, very cool.

unknown 47:01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Um, you know, you you told me uh you described kind of the culture that you're trying to build, you know, at uh at Fieldware as kind of like you know, high performance, high care, right? And you take you know, a lot of those difficult conversations personally, you don't really outsource them. A lot of people do that. Like, as a matter of fact, one of the things that I am very critical about in in US culture and US business culture is how much avoidance there is of difficult conversations. Like when people have to have a difficult conversation, it's like they just go freaking running for the exits. Like they they don't know how to manage that. Tell us a little bit about first of all, why this is so important to you. And second of all, how do you actually have these difficult conversations?

SPEAKER_03 47:48

Yeah. You know, uh I don't tend to think of them uh as difficult conversations. I actually tend to think of them as it's part of the high care culture that I'm also trying to uh build. Because if I care enough about a person who's not performing well, I think I would be doing them a disservice if I didn't tell them. And I would much rather they just hear it from me. And if I care enough about my team, it's also a disservice to the rest of the team who's actually pulling weight to have someone who's not pulling weight who's still continuing uh continuing.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

Great, great point.

SPEAKER_03 48:18

Yeah, I love that. So I like to frame it as I care extraordinarily about my people. Yeah, and if I'm caring extraordinarily, I should not accept low standards, and I should be telling someone who's not performing well as early as possible. And I should be doing it myself. So they have a wake-up call and they are able either able to change themselves or we uh separate and move on. Yeah, and uh those are conversations that are best done yourself.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

Uh I actually did my first firing at the age of uh 23, which was a very tough one for me to do.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

Damn. You started early, man.

SPEAKER_03 48:50

Yeah, yeah, I had to start uh quite early. And it was a gentleman who had been with at this point in time I was with Unoleva. It was a with a gentleman who had been with the company for 15 years. Yeah. Uh and I had literally joined the company as a newbie a couple of years ago. And here I was trying to uh fight this uh gentleman, which was a super tough conversation. But uh uh I understood even at that point of time that the best way to do it is tell him the news and then frame the rest of the conversation as how can I help you? So we I actually ended up firing him, and I spent the rest of the one hour that I had with him in actually remaking his so that he could actually apply to a bunch of other companies, and I framed it in that uh construct that you know what, I'm here to help you. This job is not gonna work out for you. We are gonna move on. So there's gonna be a termination, but I can spend 55 minutes actually helping you land your next job. And I would much rather discuss that with you rather than discuss the what's and the whys, and because you already know it by the smartphone.

SPEAKER_00 49:50

Where does that come from, Pune? Why it's it's such an interesting perspective, and so few CEOs that I talk to or leaders that I talk to have that perspective. Um, I think it's so rare in this culture, and that the US desperately needs more people like you in that sense. I mean, I was reading about the Oracle terminations that have happened recently in Time Magazine, and what and the way that they are doing it to people is absolutely fucking awful. Like, yeah, excuse the language that I'm using, but it is just abhorrent, particularly in a company that financially is doing so well. Um, where does that need to care and help the other person come from?

SPEAKER_03 50:28

Uh I think it just comes from how I've always seen people being treated since the time I was a kid, which was uh, you know, even with when my dad was running his multiple uh startups, none of which ever actually worked out. Yeah. But it was always a very caring uh it was almost always a family environment. Yeah that you get to know people at a le at a basic human level, much beyond what they actually uh deliver for the company. And so you do develop a bond with them, and you generally would want to care for them. At the end of the day, all companies are invisible corporates, but it's actually the humans in them who are really the ones who are operating it.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:09

And I know that I am now in a privileged position where people can perceive that I am management, and management tends to be something which is so far away from the people, and that's something that I don't like. I guess I I'm just me. I bring the same version of me to work as the version of me that you'll find at uh home. So you can always have a conversation and just have a direct conversation. Uh and uh I I perceive that I'm what you see is what you get. I cannot hide an agenda, so I'd just much rather tell you that I care, but this is not working out. And so let's find another way.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

Yeah. You mentioned at one point, you know, that you started involving your leaders, you know, in the company in rewriting a little bit this idea of what great looks like, yeah, right, in in in the company. And and you mentioned that 90% of the time they figure this out on their own and they raise the bar on their own, which I find remarkable.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

Right. And and and Amazon talked a lot about this idea of raise the bar, raise the bar, raise the bar. So many CEOs that I interview and that I work with complain endlessly about like, my people are not doing enough, we're not moving fast enough, they're not, they're not experimenting with AI, they're like stuck in the past. I can't get them to be more proactive. How do you create a culture where people are constantly raising the bar?

unknown 52:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

What do you have to do?

SPEAKER_03 52:34

I think you'll have to have uh uh very consistent narrative.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:38

And for for us at FieldWa, the narrative has always been very consistent that we are growing tremendously year on year. So the version of Fieldwar that existed in 2025 is no longer the version that exists in 26. And the version that exists this year will no longer be the version that exists in uh 27 either. Uh so it's a growing company, so roles will evolve, so nobody can actually afford to be stagnant. Yeah, and uh that's a consistent narrative that they need to hear from me and also from my uh leaders. But also, what I've actually realized is if you co-op them into writing or into rewriting their own role definitions and to rewriting what great looks like, they tend to come along because it's them actually owning it rather than somebody from the top actually telling them. Yeah, uh, you know, you still have to tell them that they have to do it, but they can be the ones who actually take ownership of rewriting what great looks like. So we recently did this exercise, you know, in several of our organizations where several of my uh uh teams have gone about rewriting definitions of their role uh and to redefine what uh great looks like. Uh and every time the team members have taken it upon themselves to do the rewrite, it's actually uh I perceive it's working out uh quite well. There are a couple of organizations where that has not happened, yeah, and where I'm still having to be a little bit directive. And actually, I can see that those are the organizations where it has not landed well at all. Yeah. So it's a very clear correlation between the team members owning the change themselves versus being told to uh uh change from the top.

SPEAKER_00 54:09

Yeah. It makes me think of something else that you mentioned in our last conversation, which I think everybody need needs to hear on this podcast, which is this really unusual and cool technique that you have, where you have people write a forward-thinking press release about the desired state where they want to be. Tell us more about that and what what is that and why do you do it?

SPEAKER_03 54:33

Yeah, yeah, you know, uh uh, it's a funny thing because I used to do this for myself from the last uh 20 years or so. Whereas I would write a note of, you know, I would actually write, you know, I actually started by writing my own appraisals as if a super senior manager is writing an appraisal for me.

SPEAKER_01 54:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:51

So what would I want written in that appraisal? What would I want discussed about me in a room where I'm not there? Yeah, and uh and then eventually rolled it out to you know situations. So how what would, you know, for instance, this look like for uh this particular project? Yeah. Uh and then I joined Amazon where it is a practice. So you actually have this document called working backwards on Amazon, and uh uh where you actually is framed as a press release. Yeah, so I just rolled it up into uh the concept. So it's something that I naturally was doing, which is writing stuff that I wanted others to talk about, either for a project or for uh myself. And then I borrowed the concept of uh making it into a press release from Amazon, and that's something that we do till date. In fact, I wrote the last one just a couple of weeks ago about something specific that we are trying to do. So it's an exercise that we are doing uh quite well. And in fact, uh, what I'm very happy about is um one of my leadership team members actually wrote one last week. And he brought it to our uh leadership team meeting and he said, you know, you have to change some things in the way we uh uh run field wire, and uh this is a press release of what it would look like if we deliver all those changes, and uh that was a super proud moment for me so that it has landed. Actually, people who are uh also uh picking this up because I believe once you hone in on a very nice narrative, so press release is just an exercise for honing in on a narrative that you want to establish, right? Then I once I've honed in on a very nice narrative, I get into a mode where I'm just gonna blast obstacles. Anything and everything that comes in the way from me reaching that endpoint is something that I can just blast. Uh so I obsessively work on that narrative. Yeah, and I'm always consistently rewriting it, making it more specific, adapting it to whatever else is uh happening or new information that I might uh receive. But then once I'm holding on it, we just execute. Yeah. At some point of time, we stop worrying so much about is that the right narrative, we instead try to focus on execution, because once again, executing fiercely towards any objective is better than not executing at all. Yeah, so that's the other uh mantra that I have. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:00

I always I always I always remind the people that I work with that kind of like not taking a decision is a decision, right?

SPEAKER_03 57:05

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I value momentum and velocity. Yeah, and uh, you know, uh as long as we are moving forward, we are moving, we'll receive more information. And once we receive more information, we can always deal this course or much rather just move forward.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

Yeah. So when you think of your personal press release, where you would want to be in one year, what can you tell us?

SPEAKER_03 57:24

Yeah, I want to be known as the scale-up CEO in uh the valley, one of one of the best scale-up CEOs in the valley. Uh and I think SaaS and construction tech are in a very interesting uh space right now. Both of them are gonna undergo uh a lot of uh change in the future. Uh, and I want to be known as the guy who can uh lead through such a complex uh change. Uh in a in an external environment which is constantly uh changing, especially with AI. Yeah, uh where's you know SaaS fundamentals are constantly being disrupted, and I want to be known as the guy who can who's best suited to navigate all of this. Yeah, so I want to be the scale of person. Yeah. Very cool.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

What do you think it what is what do you think is missing for you to for you to be able to say that?

SPEAKER_03 58:12

I do not know what I do not know at the moment. I know the experiences that I've gone through, which is why I also kind of always hunt for breadth uh in terms of experiences, because the more I experience, the more stuff I'll just give. For instance, you know, I did not know anything about uh how to manage a post uh founder uh company until three years ago when I started researching and reading up. So I'm pretty sure there's a whole gamut of stuff that I do not know. And right now I know how to scale. I took over Fieldware when you know uh fieldwise roughly around uh uh 250 employees, it's now scaling up to roughly 400. Uh possibly in a year's time, it'll be roughly around the 500 employee range. So I know how to scale up companies from you know the 150, 200 to 500. I don't know the rest. I'm sure there's a whole new set of uh problems to uh learn, uh problems to solve and uh learnings to be had at that point of time. Uh so I'm just looking for uh well increased learning opportunities. Yeah. Want to be a student all the time.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

It's funny that you say that because you know Yeah, it's it's it's um it's funny that you say that, Penny, because I think most people, you know, when I was at Google, Eric Schmidt once said this. Um he said, most of us are never as good at seeing ourselves as others see us. And that was why, you know, when he joined Google, one of the first things that um John Doerr, who was the the partner at Kleiner Perkins, who invested in Google, the first thing John Doerr told him is you need a coach. And he was like, Well, why do I need a coach? I'm a seasoned and experienced CEO. I know how to run an organization. They were like, Why? Because you don't see what you don't see. You need somebody on the outside who can tell you what you're not seeing so that you can actually work on it, right? And and so oftentimes when I do when I do the work that I do as as a as a kind of like CEO transition advisor, when I'm helping people either pivot their organization or or exit their company or or or go to their next thing, oftentimes they they have blind spots that they don't see. And I have that too, which is why you know I've had coaching too. It's like you you just you have a bunch of things that you're like so used to doing in a certain way, you haven't considered other perspectives, you're trying to get to that next level, you don't realize kind of what's missing. And so, you know, having an external perspective helps a lot there. Um it's fascinating, you know. It's like clarity is is becomes all important the more and more successful you become.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:28

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:32

Well, listen, um, we're at the top of the hour. This has been an amazing conversation. You have shared so many nuggets and so many tips and gems that I think are I know our audience is really gonna love. So, you know, we're gonna do, we're gonna skip now to the lightning round of questions. Three quick questions, three quick answers, then we close. But this has been an amazing conversation. So, first lightning round question one question, one quick answer. If you could have one superpower, any superpower, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:01

Um go forward in time. The more information you have, the better uh you can actually act. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, question number two. If you could have dinner with any people person in history, alive or dead, who would you choose?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:18

I would actually use uh I I would I would choose uh Warren Buffet and Charlie Manga. Because I think their uh uh outlook on how to pick companies and what makes good businesses worth so much, yeah, uh that I would love to pick their friends. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

Very cool. Last but not least, if you had a piece of advice to give to that 25-year-old version of yourself way back when, or another 25-year-old who is seeking a career of meaning and purpose, what would you tell them? Breadth over depth at that age. Breadth over depth.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:52

Seek as many experiences as you can, the more the better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

Very cool. Brunei, man, this has been an amazing conversation. You know, thank you so much for you know your insights, your experience. You and I have so many similarities. You know, your story is so rich. There's so many different angles. I feel like I could have talked to you for like another two hours. Um, because it's really been, you know, that from from the forward thinking like press releases and the way that you manage your relationship with your spouse. I think that's it's a model for so many different people out there who are trying to go through their their own challenges and grow. And I think, you know, I especially admire your ability to be kind, you know, even in the toughest situations. I think, you know, I always say that feedback is to human beings uh in the same way that you know sunlight is to plants. Like human beings just cannot grow without it. Yep, yep. Even at times when you know they have to be let go because the role doesn't fit for them. And so uh thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you so much for the time, for the for the tips. And to everybody out there, if this conversation, if you've picked up a lot of stuff on this, please make sure to give the episode a like. Please drop a comment, any questions, any thoughts, uh, you know, it in the in the comments area. Make sure that you subscribe to the show. And of course, you know, if um if you're interested, make sure that also you you check out uh Pooneet. Where can people read more about you or know more about what you're doing? Oh uh just visit our website. It's uh www.feedbar.com. Sounds good. And you know, we will see all of you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in, and uh, we'll see you soon. Yeah, thank you, Patrick.