From Google Leader To Transforming Leadership Through AI

Sathya Smith: 0:00
Because here's the ugly truth of the situation. Everyone will say hey, you know, we care about great leadership. But when you go to them and say leadership in your organization sucks, what are you willing to do about it? They're like well, you know, for Jay-Z, I have 99 problems, that ain't one. That is basically their attitude towards leadership. So I started looking for solutions to help them and very quickly I realized there was no solution. I was like well, hang on, the technology exists, you know. There are language models that can do this. There's conversational analytics we can use to kind of measure human behavior. Like this is possible. As a founder, showing it to someone and seeing their eyes just open wide, like you can do that, like you know, if that's possible, that's a magical moment.

‍Amardeep Parmar: 0:48

Today on the podcast we have Sathya Smith, who's a CEO and founder of Pipe HQ. They're an AI platform empowering everybody to be better managers. Sathya's got a really interesting journey because she comes from an engineering technical background, initially started working in Montreal for Ericsson before working for several different companies and then spending a decade at Google, where she led some of the technology advancements on some incredible technology that all of us use today. She decided to take up a new challenge where she worked at a company just before they got acquired. After that, she was advised several companies, she was a venture partner and she looked at different ideas. She started Pipe HQ before AI was cool and has now grown it to a significant product with venture backing that's now really looking to push on. We're the Pipe HQ and I'm Amar, and this podcast is powered by HSBC Innovation Banking. So so far you've done incredibly well and you're continuing to grow. But when you were a kid, what was the ambition? What did you hope to be one day?

Sathya Smith: 1:46

You know, the interesting thing is when I hear people give answers to that, there's always something they say like I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to be an astronaut, I wanted to be something. For me, I don't actually remember anything that specific. It was always you had to be really good at studies. My dad was a professor, so there was a lot of emphasis on education, and my dad was a professor in engineering, so that means maths and sciences was the thing in our household and there was no could not not perform well at school. Let me put it that way you know, if you, if you got a 98, there was always what happened to the other 2%? That was the conversation. So it was always an emphasis on education and you had to become a doctor or an engineer, to be honest, like so I did not think of you know, what do I want to be? And and now, when I think about it, I feel like, oh, maybe I could, if I had known better, I could have explored other things or dreamt of doing other things, but I did not, and it was very much. I was either going to become a doctor or an engineer. When time came to apply for university. I applied to 2 universities. I applied for pre-med to McGill and engineering to Concordia. I got acceptance letters from Concordia one day, and so I decided to accept and go to engineering and, funnily enough, I got the acceptance for pre-med the following day. If I had been reversed, I might be a doctor today.

Amardeep Parmar: 3:13

So sliding doors moment there.

Sathya Smith: 3:17

So yeah, so I really didn't think anything about it. I wanted to do really well in school, you know, and I think just culturally as well, like you know, education was about having a good job. You studied well, you went to a good university, you were going to get a good job and you stayed in that job and I think that's all I wanted to do

Amardeep Parmar: 3:37

S o it's interesting interesting to see like that was your career choice was so defined by luck in some ways. Which one him first.

Sathya Smith: 3:43

Yeah.

Amardeep Parmar: 3:43

And at university, were you enjoying engineering, or was it that moment of like? Oh, I wish I went to pre-med instead.

Sathya Smith: 3:48

I enjoyed it, like I'd always enjoyed maths and sciences. So I think, regardless of what I had gone into, I would have enjoyed it. But I consider myself lucky to have gone into engineering and not into pre-med, because I do get squeamish around blood and things. So I think it was just luck as well, and you know, I mean, you know what they say where, yes, there is luck. But also I think if I had really wanted to go into pre-med, I may be able to wait at that extra day before I said yes to my engineering admission, you know. So I wouldn't have just jumped it. And so, like, right decision made, I did enjoy being an university. It was, It was a very interesting and very like tough experience was very different from being in high school. And, yeah, I studied computer engineering and got a job. I started working at Ericsson way back when Ericsson was a cool company they were the mobile providers and then decided, well, you know, if you weren't engineering, the place to be was Silicon Valley. So packed up my bags and went to the Bay Area. Didn't have a job. You know, when I think back to it, I think that was probably one of the bravest decisions I've ever done.

Amardeep Parmar: 5:04

I was going to say that because, obviously, when you were at Ericsson, where were you based?

Sathya Smith: 5:07

In Montreal.

Amardeep Parmar: 5:08

Okay, so it wasn't your work based in Sweden for that?

Sathya Smith: 5:11

No, no, no, I was in Montreal, yeah.

Amardeep Parmar: 5:13

And that move, because that's one of the things that is very difficult for a lot of people to imagine. Right. Moving home like like losing all of your support network, all of the people around you. And, as a young female engineer going into Silicon Valley, what was it like? Like how was, how did you make that decision? What was the trigger to actually do it?

Sathya Smith: 5:32

Yeah, so I. The way it came about was I was working at Ericsson and a project had come to an end and the reality was, if you went to school in in Montreal, there were four engineering firms you could go work at. So basically all my friends were working one of these four companies. So you graduated and you saw them. It was just it felt very small. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love Montreal, like that is home. I, you know, I would like, I absolutely love that city, but as as a place to be an engineer, back then it was literally the four companies and it felt very claustrophobic to a certain degree. And I had actually. So, as I said, like you know, a project had come to an end and I decided to visit some friends in in California who'd moved there. I went, I went there for a couple of weeks. The weather was great. Honestly, the weather was great coming from Montreal and they convinced me like why don't you come and, you know, move to California, see what it's like? So I decided to take the chance and quit my job and pack my suitcase, moved there and back then they used to have these job fairs where all these this was a long time ago. So the dot com boom was happening, so basically went to a job fair and just printed out CVs, you know, and handed out a whole bunch of them, had about like 20 interviews over like a three, four day period, got a bunch of offers and just kind of went through it and like, oh, this one sounds good, I'll pick it. And you know, like, honestly, again I think I've been like very lucky in my life where the decisions have made have led to bigger and better things. So the job that I I took on it was great. It was a, you know, I became a network engineer, worked for a great company that then opened up doors to me joining Google, and then, yeah, and then my, my whole life just kind of went in a direction where I could not have predicted it, you know. And it's just kind of no matter sitting here, you know, when I think about where I am today and what I am doing today, no matter how well prepared I had been or how I had thought about what I wanted my future to be like. This is not what I would have predicted.

Amardeep Parmar: 7:56

So you forget about that period where you were at Google, right, what was the environment like? So, did you thrive in that environment, because obviously you went into take on leadership roles and you expanded out that role there. But was that where you felt like this is the right thing for me, like this is what I want to do?

Sathya Smith: 8:12

Yeah, like Google is an environment. When I joined them, they were still a small private company. This was, you know, late 2003 or early 2004. And it was a. It was a very interesting work environment. Right, they were. Google as a company was building this culture which was unlike any other corporate culture. So I mean you might have heard like beanbag chairs and ping pong tables and lava lamps everywhere, but the interesting thing about that was it was not the things that they had, but the kind of energy that built, the kind of culture that built, which was all about problem solving, where when people would come up with a problem, they would find a group of others and say how do we solve it? So there was no set thing of like, your job is to do this and you know, have you done your nine to five to do solve this problem? And it just kind of impossible not to thrive in that environment. It was very chaotic to you know, because when you're not used to it, you enter that and you're craving that structure and that rigor and all of a sudden that structure is not there and you have to find your, your own way of getting things done and your own way of making your mark and your own way of identifying projects and you know those things, you need those skills and Google helped me develop those skills. So, yeah, so it was a, it was a great time worked on amazing products and problems and, you know, fundamentally changed the way the world works over my time there and yeah, I think back to it fondly. It was all of it roses, not really. There were some very tough parts as well, but but overall it is not positive.

Amardeep Parmar: 9:56

And can you tell the audience like where did you end up at Google, like before you left? your role, what were you overseeing?

Sathya Smith: 10:03

Yeah, so I, when I left Google, I was head of a partner technology and what that meant was we were building. So if you're looking, if you're using a Google product let's say you're using Google Maps. The data for the maps has to come from somewhere. In some cases, they'll go license the content, but in most cases, when you're thinking about the amount of information that is out there, you need to figure out ways of getting that content in. So I never worked on the front end of the product, so I never would have touched anything that has to do with YouTube or Google Maps or any of the Google products. But what we did, and my team was responsible for, was bringing all this content in. So if you're going and looking at, let's say, directions of how do I get from point A to point B that data, we were responsible for it making sure that data was accurate, that data was relevant, that data was being served up in a timely manner. So that was what I was doing. So we're working with a team of people where we were focused on the long tail data bringing that in, processing it, making it available for the different Google products. So, yeah, it was complicated, it was fun, we were doing these things before. You know, people were aware of things before smartphones even existed. Right, and that was the other interesting thing where there was a moment in time where you can look to the future almost because smartphones were coming in and you could almost predict how the need for data is going to change. So all of a sudden you have to figure out okay, we have access to all of this data, but how are we going to make it accessible? How are we going to make sure if someone is standing at a bus stop and waiting for a bus, they get the information, whether the bus is two minutes away or 20 minutes away, in real time? How do you solve that problem? So we're working on things like that. Exciting times.

Amardeep Parmar: 12:00

Yeah, because I guess everybody in the audience is going to have used that technology at some point in their lives, which is pretty amazing.

Sathya Smith: 12:04

Yeah, for me, I think, when I think back to my career, I think that is one of the things that it almost makes me feel really overwhelmed, because the things that I worked on are literally being used by millions of people every single day, and that is a scale where sometimes it's just impossible to go oh yeah. Like, if I see someone uploading a piece of content on YouTube, he go I worked on that, so it's a very it.

Amardeep Parmar: 12:34

And then like continuing undefined role. What was the next step back? What made you decide to leave Google in the end and go into?

Sathya Smith: 12:43

I you know the ups downs, everything. Every time I would think about leaving the company and trying something else. There'd be a shiny new product or project and you'd be like, oh, I want to work on that. And you ended up staying. And I remember I came back to my desk one day and there was this brown manila on loop. I opened it and it was a plaque congratulationing me on my ten years at Google. And I was taken aback at that moment because I hadn't realized a decade had gone by, because when you think about a decade, it's a very long, it's a significant piece of time in anyone's life, and I had thought I'd be at Google for a couple of years. But here I was, ten years later, getting this plaque. Like, wait, what? So you know, I, like I had to take stock of where I was and I realized the world had changed in the time. You know, like quite literally, had been part of making that change happen, but it had changed. And then, looking internally within Google, I realize that was not the place for me anymore. Things were changing, the culture was changing, the organization was changing and I realized it was time for me to leave and I took me another 18 months or so to convince myself to leave and then find an opportunity and then leave that. So, yeah, so I think it was more of needing that, needing to kind of satisfy that curiosity of what the rest of the world was like. Google is this big bubble, so when you're there you forget the rest of the world, and I did not want to be that person. I wanted to make sure that you know my reality was real. You know my experiences were real and it was not some, you know, kind of living in the future with access to all of the technology that organizations like Google have.

Amardeep Parmar: 14:24

It's amazing to just like 18 months to go and I think a lot of people resonate that listening to doing well in their careers but maybe think this is what I want to do forever. But then maybe they don't know what I want to and understand that people do take a bit of time of the decision. Hope is just a bit comforting, like you don't need to. Just okay, now we need to do it straight away. And if you take more than a day to decide and that means you're not an entrepreneur. It's scary thing to do to abandon that safety that you had and to go and try some. What was it that you went into afterwards? What did you try out?

Sathya Smith: 14:54

You know, once I decided to leave. It took me a while and I got a few like the interesting thing is, once you decide to leave, somehow the universe knows you're gonna leave, because you end up talking to a few people and, before you know it, there are people saying like, oh, I hear you're thinking of leaving Google, like you know, would you want to have a conversation? So I had a few conversations, which led to more conversations, and I ended up joining a company called one fine stay as their VP of product and technology and then became CTO. So, yeah, so I mean, when I saw what they were building, I had this, this thing of like oh my gosh, this product needs to exist, because I used to be a big fan of Airbnb. I you know, when I traveled, airbnb was a thing and I just loved staying in different properties, exploring like local, like a local, but I also Airbnb had a ton of problems at that time. Like this was back in 2015, 2016. And what one fine state was doing was just addressing all those problems right, and I was like this is great for someone like me who's slightly affluent, where I'm able to spend that extra money to get that dependability, that sense of security. This is exactly what I need. So that was a product that I would have used and it just really deeply resonated with me. So I ended up joining them, stayed with them for a little over a year, saw them through their acquisition and then decided to leave because, again, like when they're acquired by Ac cor hotels. Accor hotels great place to stay, but they're not a tech company and I needed to be in tech. So yeah, so decided to leave and then kind of lost in the wilderness for a couple of years, consulted for a few companies, and I think that was the point for me where I truly had to honestly think about what I wanted to do for the first time. Until that point I had very much just kind of taking opportunities as they came. If they fit me, great. If not, just ignore them and just kept going for the next thing, next thing. But when I left, one fine stay I didn't have anything planned. So that took about two years for me and I took a ton of time. I, you know, I took a pottery, I cooked a lot of meals, I got fit. I, you know, met up with friends on like random Tuesday afternoon to go to the museum. I did like a lot of things. And then I, you know, had a conversation with salt line at local globe, phoenix court and I have to say like that conversation just changed my life again. We had a conversation is like, well, why don't you try being a venture partner at local globe? And you nothing about the venture world, like literally nothing. I was a product builder, that's all I knew. I was happy about it, so I said yes and I, honestly, you know, when he said that, I was like, are you joking? I know nothing about VC. Like you learn and to have that kind of you know, like confidence and people will learn, like it was such a refreshing thing. And until that point I've always had to like prove I could do the job, like you know, three times as well as the next person before I could even apply for something. But here was Saul where he was like, oh, why don't you come try it? What is the worst thing that can happen? And that attitude was just so refreshing. So I joined them as venture partner and yeah, so decided I would become a VC because I love this, and somewhere along the way decided to start a company.

Amardeep Parmar: 18:28

We hope you're enjoying the episode so far. We want to give a quick shout out to headline partners HSBC Innovation Banking. One of the biggest challenges for so many startups is finding the right bank to support them, because you might start off and try to use additional bank, but they don't understand what you're doing. You're just talking to an AI assistant or talking to somebody who doesn't really understand what is you've been trying to do. HSBC have got the team they built out over years to make sure they understand what you're doing. They've got a deep sector expertise and they can help connect you the right people to make your dreams come true. So if you want to learn more, check out hsbc innovation banking. com. So locally, we've had a show on. We've had a few people on from there before. What is the environment like compared to working at Google, where you're obviously is one massive company versus now we're looking at a lot smaller companies and think how you can help them or how you can get involved. How is that switch for you?

Sathya Smith: 19:24

To be honest, that switch was exciting and thrilling. The thing that a lot of people don't realize is that Google ask big as of a company as it is. At least when I was there, it still had that startup mentality. We were constantly solving problems, and I think that was thing that I actually liked about working at Google. Where it was not, you worked on this one idea for five years and you worked on the same thing. You worked on so many different things and problems that were not one problem, kind of manifesting in different ways. But one day you could be working on how do you upload videos. Next day you could be working on how do you get electricity to sub-Saharan Africa, and the following day it could be something like how do you deal with cash-based society. So it was like constantly something new. When I went to local globe, I think that was the part that really hooked me. You were meeting all these companies coming in and solving such exciting problems. No, two companies were the same. It was not like, oh, today we're going to have a theme for the day and every company we're meeting is going to be solving the same problem. No, you never met two companies that were working on the same thing. It was so exciting and it was, honestly, it was just so inspiring. Just hearing all these people with these ideas and their beliefs and being able to change the world was very infectious. I absolutely loved it.

Amardeep Parmar: 20:52

And obviously from being a local globe. That's where you came up with your idea of here in Starship. You said what was it about this idea that hooked you, like this is the one that we're going to spend the next how many years of my life on?

Sathya Smith: 21:04

You know what, truth be told, when I was at local globe even before local globe or any point in time I never saw myself as an entrepreneur. I never saw myself as someone who had found a company. A founding company was what other people did. What I did was work in those companies. That's how I saw my life, that's how I saw my career. But I've always been a problem solver and the thing that happened at local globe was I was I would work with all these early stage founders and I saw them struggling with this concept of leadership, where they truly did not know how to lead their teams. These were, you know, like really intelligent founders who were now managing people by the mere fact that they had founded a company and hired a group of people and now they had to manage them. So they were just kind of doing things that were there was not setting them up for success right, as a leader, as a manager. So they would come to me and you know it would always the conversation would always start the same way like oh no, I need, I have some questions about product strategy or tech strategy, could you help us with this? And once they would build that rapport, once there was a relationship built, I'd be like so I have this problem with this one person, one engineer on my team. I need to give them feedback. I don't know how to. Could you give me some advice? And I started having these conversations over and over again. Right, it's like wait, hang on. This is like like, why is everyone having this, this problem? But I also knew, like you know, going from an engineer to an engineering manager is probably one of the hardest transitions because engineers, you know, for the most part, don't have those people, skills, or at least that's not what you prioritize in your work. So making that transition and going from I can solve the problem to I need to get these four people to solve this problem. It is, it is really difficult, and I went through that transition. So I could, you know, fully empathize with them and sympathize for the situation they found themselves in. So I started looking for solutions to help them and very quickly I realized there was no solution for how do you become a good leader? And especially given that, you know, most of these folks were very technically minded, they were looking for data, they were looking for metrics, and this was not how leadership training was done. And so basically, I was like well, hang on, the technology exists, you know, there are language models that can do this, there's conversational analytics we can use to to kind of measure human behavior. Like this is possible. Just because no one has done it before does not mean it cannot be done, you know. I mean, if there's one thing I learned at Google, it was that you know. And so I decided, okay, I'm gonna try and do this. And even with that it was not okay, I'm gonna do this. And then next week I decided to start this company. I thought long and hard about it. I talked to Saul about it and he was like, kind of that sounds like something good and you're talking about it quite passionately. Do you want to go and explore the idea and see if it has legs? So yeah, and thus I started Piper.

Amardeep Parmar: 24:15

Where does the name Piper come from?

Sathya Smith: 24:16

Oh gosh, I people asked me this question. To be honest, it was I'm a big fan of Silicon Valley, the show, and if you know the name of the company, it's Pied Piper, and and and also there's this concept of Pied Piper of, like you know, people leading people. There's that, and also it was just a short name. You know, we're kind of throwing around names for it and we had a few tested with some friends and Piper was the one that you know had the most votes, and so we decided to name it Piper.

Amardeep Parmar: 24:50

You've got the backing of Saul, and you know that the problem exists. You experience from yourself, you can see, you have these conversations. What are the first steps you do to actually try to build a solution for that?

Sathya Smith: 25:01

Yeah, talk to a ton of people. The very first thing we did we probably spent the first six months or so doing user research. We I had hired engineers, so we built a very scrappy first version of the product and we took it and we showed it to users. How do you use it? What is like? What does your day look like? You know where can like, what is the biggest problem that you're facing and how can we solve it? And we, very quickly we realized that for a lot of people and I think this is kind of the norm with, like any problem that you can think of, where people just kind of adapt to their reality they're like this is a problem. There is no solution out there. So I am going to adapt to this and just accept that this is the way of life. And so there was like there was almost, like you know, having these conversations with people telling them like, yes, I know you're traumatized by having to do this management job, but talk to us because we're here to try and solve your problem and we want to understand so that you know we can solve their problem and make your life better. Yeah, so we spent so much time talking to managers and employees, and we got so much valuable data from that just understanding how people manage. And for us, as we were if, because we wanted to build a product, we had to understand what the common denominator was, because if each person was managing in a different way, we couldn't build a thousand different ways of this product. So what was the common denominator? Where can we start? How do we get people to think about this particular problem? So we did that and we got enough information. So we built this first version of the product and and we took that to again, you know, to users, and we learned what worked, what did not work. There were things that we thought was insignificant, that people really valued, so we had to immediately click no, we're gonna make that into a feature, you know. So we did all of that and at this point, we had not introduced the AI component into our product, because the moment we said, hey, we're going to be using AI to measure your leadership capabilities, oh my god, every single matter like ran for the hills. You know why would I want to be told I'm rubbish at my job? And so there was a whole bunch of education that needed to be done there. So, yeah, so we launched the product and then, once we launched that, we went and did more research, customer conversations, and we launched two other versions of the product and the third version is the one where it's like fully baked with AI and also, in the last 18 months or so, AI has become more acceptable, so people are more open to discussing how AI could help them and help their make their lives better. So conversations have definitely gotten way, way easier in the last 12 to 18 months and, yeah, so we started building it and now we have a fully functioning product that people actually like using and you know, as a founder, showing it to someone and seeing their eyes just open wide, going like you can do that, like you know that's possible, that's a magical moment.

Amardeep Parmar: 28:24

So I used to be a CRM consultant, so I completely understand that bit about people have these weird work around the things because they don't realize the solution as possible. And they just keep doing things and you look at it. So why are you doing that for? But sort of by the user, research is so important. I just said, you've been, you've been building Piper for a while now. You've been doing very well. What are some of the big achievements you've had that you can share with us and the audience can celebrate?

Sathya Smith: 28:49

So one of the things we do at Piper is we are actually observing the behavior of managers, of leaders, and we're looking at whether like, we look at several things, but one of the key things we do is whether they're actually coaching their employees and whether they're giving feedback continuously and consistently and how they're doing that. So for us, as a product and a feature, to be able to do that is is is actually a huge thing, because what we've now done is taken technology and built a product that is capable of assessing human behavior, and you know the implications of that are you can apply it in so many other areas as well. Like you know, we've had people come in and go like, can you use that in therapy, in couples therapy particularly? Because, I want to know how my partner is responding, and things like that. So I think the implications are actually quite broad. But we're, you know, focused on one area where how leadership development is done and how employee engagement is done. What we believe is that, you know, employee engagement is going to see a new wave in the coming years and it's all going to be more real time than it's been in the past. And the only way for that to happen is to kind of be able to assess how things are happening in the moment, and you know, our technology is capable of doing that. So we're really proud, like we're a very tiny team and we have done things that larger teams have not been able to do or, you know, have not prioritized. Even so, that for me, from a product standpoint, getting it to a point where, you know, the first time we saw it working, I think all of us our engineers, me included were staring at it, going like, did we actually get this working? Because we've been, like you know, hitting our heads against the wall for the past nine months and all of a sudden it's working. So that was great. And the second thing is also for us is identifying the ICP, like who in the organization? Like, you know, because you build a product that's great, but you ultimately have to sell the product, and that took us a long time to figure out. Because here's the ugly truth of the situation. Everyone will say hey, you know, we care about great leadership. But when you go to them and say leadership in your organization sucks, what are you willing to do about it? They're like well, you know, I have a, you know, to put Jay-Z, I have 99 problems. That ain't one. That is basically their attitude towards leadership, because they are thinking about revenue, they are thinking about hiring, they are thinking about the global economic condition, they are thinking, you know, so the C-suite is not worried about whether managers are doing the right job or not. They know they have to, but they just don't have the capacity to do that. So for us to identify who within the organization cares enough about that particular problem and you know who's willing to kind of go to bat for us and say, hey, you know, this is a problem, we know this is a problem, you know. All you have to do is like open up any business magazine and there's some article about the state of leadership, the state of management, impact on the economy, et cetera, et cetera. So this is not something that people don't know, but until now there has not been a way to fix that, and I do think with AI, machine learning that's coming in, it's going to be possible. We're bad leadership, or like I wouldn't even say bad leadership because, let's face it, nobody becomes a manager and says like great, I'm going to become the world's worst manager ever. No one says that, but they do become that. So how do you help them be the best they can be? Technology can do that. So for us, identifying who do we sell to, that we cracked, you know, about four or five months ago. So since then it's just been great, honestly. So we just need to now look into the future and kind of, you know, accelerate or go to market and things like that. So now it's about. I think now truly like we are getting to the point where it is about business building as opposed to proving the need for the product or proving that this product is possible.

Amardeep Parmar: 32:46

So obviously now you've had long corporate career, you've got an engineering career and now you're a founder and it's a different skill set and you've had to learn things along the way as well. What's some of your biggest lessons been that you could share with us that from that adjustment?

Sathya Smith: 32:59

Oh my God, where do I start? Where do I start? The biggest lesson that I have learned is no matter how complex your product is, building product is the easy part, but selling that product is way harder than you can imagine. Right like, it's a thing of like yes, I see you struggling and I'm throwing your lifeboat and you know you are not grabbing it. How do you, how do I make you grab it? So it's like, so, selling it. So that has been my one of my biggest learnings as an engineer. I've always, you know, kind of taken pride in my ability to solve problems and build tech, but now I have a newfound respect for sales folks who are able to take that and get it into the hands of people who actually need it. So that, for me, was the biggest lesson from company building. The second thing is resilience. Like in a way that I had never thought about before. I've always been a pretty resilient person, but when you are a founder, you have to like, you have to be resilient. My team cannot see me doubt anything. My team cannot see me kind of question my decisions. Right Like, all of that has to happen in the privacy, without anyone seeing 'cause they need to see me kind of being very like really strong and capable of doing things. And when you're a founder, especially when you're fundraising, that is very challenging because you're getting told no so many times and you're going from no to no to no and then in between that there's a meeting where you have to be like full on and be like hey guys, look at us, we're changing the world. So like that it's just kind of it is very it takes a lot out of you, Like physically. It takes a lot out of you. Like the last round of funding cycle I went through. There'll be days where it feel like did I run a marathon today, Like what? Like I just feel physically exhausted. So that, for me, was something that I had not anticipated. And, yeah, something you learn and you go okay for the next time, I know.

Amardeep Parmar: 35:08

What's the dream for Piper in five years time, 10 years time? What do you hope? One day you can come on and say this is what Piper has achieved.

Sathya Smith: 35:16

The biggest dream for Piper is for it to become the future of employee engagement. Right, I firmly believe that employees deserve great managers. Every single employee deserves a great manager, and leadership needs to be like exceptional leadership needs to be the norm, not the exception, which is what it is right now, where you can walk into any company and go and have confidence that your manager is going to be there for you, they're going to be able to coach you and mentor you, which is especially given the world we are in with the incoming cohorts of employees. It's a very important thing when they're not used to being at work physically in the same location. They're working remotely, et cetera. So management has to be really intentional. So for me, I would like Piper to be that where it becomes the future of employee engagement and we become the brand for anything to do with leadership development. Today, I could ask you can you tell me the name of the leading leadership development product platform?

Amardeep Parmar: 36:22

Piper, obviously.

Sathya Smith: 36:23

Piper, obviously, but there isn't one. You could think of any other things. I could ask can you name a CRM? And you'd be like, oh, I know this name. Or I could say can you name a favorite banking product? There are leaders in different sectors, but when it comes to leadership, which is a very important thing, we cannot not have leaders. There isn't a gold standard. Nobody says I strive to be that, this is the standard we as an organization need to strive for. So we want Piper to be that.

Amardeep Parmar: 36:58

Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe.

‍

‍