Ep 50 : Masterclass with Jyoti Bansal

Every time we spot a hugely successful entrepreneur (either multi-billion dollar exit or an IPO), there’s a rush to analyse what went behind the success and whether there’s a playbook that can be replicated to create more successful exits for startups. Everyone from investors to existing and wannabe entrepreneurs are looking for “deep insights” that will catapult their idea into the big league. If you read some of the top learnings shared by Jyoti Bansal and even listen to the entire podcast, I bet you will get a feeling that none of this is something you haven’t heard before. However, if you can learn from Bansal’s insights by contextualising everything he says against his startup journey, the AppDynamics story, and so on, there’s a lot to learn. One of the things that stayed with me since I had this conversation with him, for instance, is what he said about the kind of people he will hire for his next startups. “I will try and avoid hiring people who have been part of big exits.” This is because exits and startup wealth creation also brings a certain comfort, risk averse nature. So whenever Bansal builds his next, he wants people with a lot more hunger than those who have already drank the nectar.