ONE thing that will help you grow FASTER than anybody | FuelEd Unfiltered | Episode 10

I can Cod 10 12 13 15 hours straight without even a sip of water post my masters I joined a company and left within 2 months like a company could be good for everybody else but it might not be good for you everybody was good with lead code and everybody will think the exact same way and the product will look exactly like every other product so what are some things that people should consider while thinking of switching the day you are not getting is the time you switch best cribbing in your 30s that a education system is bad then something's wrong with you I did a tweet another day talking about LinkedIn and another person took my tweet copy pasted it on LinkedIn and they got more reach than me because I don't want people who are good at cracking interviews and really bad at making real world [Music] impact hi arpit welcome to the podcast thank you so much for joining us today how are you doing yeah all good Live's great amazing before we start um for somebody who might not know you would you like to give a a short intro about who arpit bani is what he does what he stands for okay so uh my name is arpit I'm the co-founder and C of dug up we have not launched yet we are still in stealth uh trying to build a non- nonsense social platform for people in Tech um but apart from this um I basically what I love doing is I love to spark engineering curiosity so I've been writing on LinkedIn Twitter through my newsletter since last 8 years every single day uh two to three post every single day all know nonsense basically that's who I am I don't like to put out very fluffy stuff I want to keep it crisp very focused on knowledge and all so that's who I am um really curious really passionate engineer from inside I can code 10 12 13 15 hours straight without even a sip of water so yeah really really passionate about engineering okay that's your tagline no fluff engineering it's everywhere so this is what we will try to do in this episode no fluff we'll talk talk about engineering because you've been a staff engineer at Google and you've had more than a decade of experience in the same um and we'll also delve into entrepreneurship uh because that's what you're doing at dug up right now we will also get some general career advice from you and we'll also delve a little into social media as you mentioned you're super consistent with it so to the listeners if this is what interests you you should keep watching um arpit I want to start from the very basic so uh let's talk about from the perspective of somebody who is just starting out engineering or is probably U looking at engineering as a field of study as a field of practice um what like how do you know that this is a career field where you can Thrive now everybody seems to go for engineering because it pays well and there is again a lot of fluff around it but how do you know that this is a field where you can do good at is it about innately having that passion innately having talent or can it be built um over time so I want to know what your opinion is that's a really good question now if I were to look back on U what made like like why I chose this field or like how did I realize that hey I want to do this uh one thing was problem solving right I like I used to solve a lot of math questions in school I loved maths I gave a lot of competitive exams around that around basically speed distance time time and work all these questions bunch of puzzles has to solve a lot of books by basically shakuntala Devi all of that stuff so I had that Knack of solving problems um but when I entered this field um I realized that this is exactly what we do and that resonated with me really well um so one thing that I realized for someone to have a thriving career uh or to know if this field is for them or not first basic preliminary thing is you should be a good Problem Solver and it does not mean to just write code to solve a problem but given a problem how do you approach it do you approach it in a structured way do you or or or you or you basically Panic right if you panic then this field might not be for you because you would be thrown problems every single day in some of the other capacity some problem would be relatively simpler some problem would be relatively tougher that's one and second is you need to be a constant learner so these two according to me are the bare minimum criteria for which you would know that this domain is for you given how rapidly the field changes you have to constantly keep learning new stuff be it architecture system design new programming language new framework new way to write code whatnot right so according to me the two things that would like to summarize two things would be problem solving skills and you being a constant learner okay so problem solving uh let's talk about that for a sec so that's do you think that's something that a person in has that's like a part of their character in some way soft skill or can it be built over time let's say if a problem is thrown at me let's say I panic but I have enrolled for an engineering course now I have to be a good Problem Solver so how can I build that I'll give you a very nice analogy um the people who choose to become a doctor have they started operating when they are born or when they are kid no right they learn right same thing goes for us right it's not that you have to be a problem solver from Day Zero or like as a kid but you should have that attitude to learn and which is where the constant learning part comes in because because you because you can learn anything and and you over time you would build that Knack build that you would build that habit to solve any problem right right but and again with respect to uh like basically people panicking it's a very common thing but over time when you are thrown into that situation like almost every single day you you get habituated yeah right over time you would build uh you like you would you would get your you would get your basically calmness you would be you would get your composure over time so not a roadblock road block like you need to be talented from your childhood but you can but have that attitude to learn which is why I believe like ability to learn and being a problem solver goes hand in hand right you need to have the right attitude and have an act of learning and you would be able to right okay now rolling back to my uh main question which was how to know if you're thriving uh in engineering okay it's a mix of having problem solving skills and being willing to learn constantly throughout your career but um let's say if somebody has just started out with their first job and um as you said it's important to like learn on the go learn on the job and when you just start out with corporate you really don't know much about it you have zero experience you are in this you're being thrown into this real world all of a sudden so there comes a lot of uh lot of problems and difficulties that a lot of um new joines face so one of these problems are like having bad work culture having uh not having uh good leadership at the workplace how do you advise people to deal with that so when you are just joining a company no one knows what's good what's bad that's given right so whatever is thrown at you yeah it's thrown at you you be the judge if it's good for you or not right there is no like I like post my masters I joined a company and left within 2 months yeah it was not because of a bad manager or bad days it was just not meant to be like for me I do a very simple how did you know it was not meant to be I know I it's very simple I'm I'm really a very simple guy for me it's very simple um if I lose the smile on my face I stop doing what I'm doing Simple okay simple like for example if let's say if if let's say I'll go home after recording this and um I have to write a LinkedIn post but while writing if I'm not having a smile on my face I don't write because I know I'm doing it forcefully same thing when I was at job my first job which I left in two months I was not feeling happy going to that place I'm like is this place right for me I don't think so I'm not finding that Vibe right and that happens like something and it's not that the place was not good it's still India's one of the best employers out there but not meant to be not meant to be right but that decision looked very abrupt my parents reacted very differently at that time but then seeing me join a startup and then build a thriving career they are now happy yeah because eventually having the right attitude does just magically does the Wonder for you yeah that that's true having a right attitude is so important not just for your career but for everything in your in your life and yeah like a company could be good for everybody else but it might not be good for you right um you switched your first job in two months that's uh I haven't seen a lot of people do that and also it's said that you shouldn't um stop working in an organization uh before a year like it doesn't look good on your resume at all so I've seen a lot of people work their jobs for at least a year just to like keep their resume looking neat so how do you know when to switch like okay you said that you lose a smile on your face and you stop working but that might not be the case for everybody and also uh there are a lot of things to consider like their need for the job their uh like the economy if the market is too bad you can't leave your job so what are some things that people should consider while thinking of switching okay so uh the example I gave you about not losing the smile on my face was the way I judged it when I was young right today I I apply that not for my career most but I apply it for my day-to-day like basically when I write on my post or I record a YouTube video and whatnot but the way I look at it is or when I if I look at it like the factors that affect this is obviously Market if Market is good then a lot of decisions are simpler if Market is bad stay wherever you are right for example if if we were to talk about this today don't leave your job don't Market is really bad unless you have a better offer unless even if you have better offer you don't know if that company would be surviving or not for a month and it's and because you don't know like you see you see a lot of big companies firing but then giving out let we are hiring basically firing from one geography hiring in another another geography and from there where we saw a hiring post then you you in few months you see they have basically fired a few teams yeah promises just it's weird don't hold but we understand that business is important uh companies there to survive they they are quite accountable to their shareholders and all so it's there but on the personal front it's important to know that uh the biggest factor of you having the privilege to switch is a good Market first right if good Market is not there even good Engineers stand no chance right after good Market come you as a person like how value like how much of a value are you adding mhm that comes so for example if you know you have always had a past impactful career you made real world impacts wherever you worked and people recognize you for that then the switch becomes relatively easier right but if you were just a coder sitting in the corner then it becomes more tougher for you right because you don't have proven impact you were just surviving and not thriving yeah right so these these factors affect a lot but now assuming that uh the market is good you are also good engineer having the right attitude now how do you decide I have a very gliche 3p formula I you know you know after you after 10 years you you you become a philosopher yeah that that kind of stuff I'm inan I'm in that I'm in that state so I have a very simple formula to judge uh three p formula uh first piece PESA money second piece power which is your core competency and third p is position which is growth right so at a company where you're are working you should get at least two out of this three mhm at least two out of this three if you get three then you are the luckiest person on Earth don't leave but you should get at least two at least for example if you are not getting money then you should get at least the career growth right or basically your core competency should become high so that you are basically it's okay to sacrifice money yeah because you getting good because because you are growing in your career with respect to positions like you you basically taking up more responsibility right then it's okay to sacrifice on money right on other case if you don't want to sacrifice on money or rather if you are being paid well and let's say you are not GR in your career then what's the point of having very deep expertise yeah right so this is how I judge like whenever I see diminishing returns where I have two out of like where I'm just getting one out of this three I make a switch mhm and but again you very rightly said that you should not be switching too often like I switched my first job in 2 months because uh the other opportunity was exciting it was not meant to be that's why I left but now after that whenever I switched I always thought about this but now I've given it a name 3p but uh earlier it was more about uh hey I'm getting money and I'm getting growth that's how I used to think but now it's a now it is something that I have that I always tell to folks like think of your switch like basically think of your switching criteria is 3p out of this three the day you not getting uh two out of this three is the time you switch uh and that's an easy way to look at it you should aim for two you should you should be getting two you okay should be getting two and like aiming for three three is very difficult to get three is like Ideal Company imagine the company that pays also well gives you core competencies also right plus is giving you career growth also it's it's they are they are like unicorns not not in terms of valuation but they are like really mythical animals hard to find but do but but there are companies who are in very early stage solving really tough problems and you join them early and in a month or sorry in a year or two the company grows you grow you have grown technically like imagine early days of Google like first three years of Google those those were the time you would have gotten all three as a power position right but obviously over time a lot of things change and true for every company but that has been my criteria of judging and whenever I speak to people this is what I give them a structure to think about are you getting to out of this like for example if I switched from I switch from let's say Amazon to an academy MH so Amazon to unacademy I took a pay cut oh because unacademy was a startup I took a pay cut so obviously I would be maximizing on core competency and and growth right so I joined them as a technical architect very quickly there right from technical architect principal engineer senior em and director engineering right career growth sorted and core competency because I now know how startups operate that it's not about writing really good quality code when you don't have a product Market fit it's about Scrappy Solutions like finding all sorts of hacks to sort it out right I optimized for both yeah from unacademy to Google when I switched it was money so at unacademy I was director of engineering at Google I was a staff engineer yeah so I gave up on my position but what would I have maximized on money and core competency because at Google scale I got to know how spark works the kind of deep Tech problems Google solve and I learned a lot there just although I left it within a like I basically left it in a year and two months but I learned a lot I went for core competency and money and I left position there that's a really good way to think about it uh one of my friends also uh mentioned these three PS but his three PS are different it was PESA project and people so it's like give some importance to the culture as well I think it depends um on a person's character also like if they value culture at all because there are a lot of people who are um they like to contribute to their workplace autonomously like they don't care if the culture is good like I'm here to get money get position and get career growth I don't care about people but if someone if basically someone does care about working with people a lot more than other factors then obviously yes but if you keep adding more P to it it will become highly comp keep it simple because this according to me this three is something that that a lot of people would relate to because people as although it's a good point that you don't want to work with like really weird people but uh what are the chances because I would leave it to like if I'm like now that I'm building a company I would never be hiring people who are not good not just technically but even with good good behavior good people in general what do you look for when you hire when I hire for me the most important criteria is bias for Action really high MH I don't want someone to just procrastinate and say hey I'll do it I'll sort it out so for me curiosity and like curiosity and bias for Action is what I look for the most and then proven track record because I don't want people who are good at cracking interviews and really bad at making real world impact MH right yeah so I I want to have proven experience so whenever I speak to people when I uh when I had hired and now that when I'll hire in future this is a non-negotiable for me does that mean that you are not open to hiring freshers who have not worked a lot this is a very uh this is a very weird thing like when we think of impact real world impact we suddenly discard freshes right it's not that freshes don't have real world it's in that in their case you can go for curiosity and high bias for Action MH you can drop down real world impact yeah right because they don't because they not worked at the workplace before so obviously they don't have that sort of exposure but you can see how you can see how people are curious because for example I would not hire a fresher who's just good at solving code like who sorry who is just good at solving let's say basically lead code I would not go for that I want someone who sees like oh let me try to build my own language let me try to go into database internal stuff I I found this I I found this I am playing songs every day but how does this MP3 file look like oh I want that Curiosity because the person who is curious because I'm a huge uh like I believe in serendpity like you look for something you are going in that direction but you suddenly stumble upon something else which you have never thought of right and that's basically serend p and I want diverse people who can think of something that I'm because if I'm everybody is good with lead code then everybody will think the exact same way and the product will look exactly like every other product right but if I'm bringing something new like for example I met a person named aush last week uh he's building a programming language which captures the sound of violin and creates code out of it see oh my God that's so beautiful right right and exciting this this kind of stuff I like and now how why do these people reach out to me they don't reach out to anyone else because they know that you'll value this I value this right and this is important like when you are curious years and it's not you cannot just always say hey I don't require this at my job I won't do this that's a very wrong attitude like according to me again other people can have different opinion but I value I value curiosity a lot because it just makes you it just like imagine people like imagine this person who has tried building this programming language goes in a Meetup and would have such a beautiful story to tell yeah you are amazed when you listen like how how is this even possible right and that's the kind of people we want who can who can add value in in in a discussion who have seen other stuff who like you just don't want to be surrounded by a bunch of Yes Men or bunch of homogeneous people you want heterogenity you want you want diversity yeah it it should be a it should be a very diverse mixture like I I value that so I value curiosity plus bias for Action that's non-negotiable real world impact if experience otherwise for freshes no how the more Curious the person is more likely I'm going to hire that person and that's where you can drop on Real World Experience because they fresh right they've not seen plus I really think four years graduation time massive amount of time to do a lot of fancy stuff yeah I'll tell an example in 2010 um we had a subject I was in my third year we had a subject of database management system I hated that now I love database but I hated that subject I did not understand why table why ER diagram and this and that so we had to do a project everybody did and I hated it so why would I do that project like I did not like it so me and two of my friends we teamed up and they were like let's do a traditional project I'm like I'm not going to create this table wable part so you know what I did I created a speech recognition I speech controlled quizzing software people can control quiz application with voice commands oh because I hated creating tables I did not want to do that ER diagram fancy stuff so what happened was I created this I I knew it was a basic prototype it was working I took it for the demonstration um My teacher asked uh and I was the only one who was demonstrating it like me and my two teammates we were demonstrating with headphones we went with our headphones on and he just said hey why are you basically why are you wearing your headphones remove it show me the demo ma'am I said ma'am this is the demo I gave her the headphone and asked her ma'am say something she said a and a option got selected she said next and it went to the next question now this is what I value like you need like although you don't like that sing it's okay but can you like you need to have that Kira in you you need to do that jugar and that is really important like and I'm talking 2010 when no llms no NLP stuff you know what I did I just was using Windows operating system Windows had inbuilt speech to text recognition although that was very average really very average uh so what happened like well I'll just I'll just basically paint a small picture so when I used to say a it used to detect as way w g h but I was saying a I'm like it's a why are you printing way then I said a and for some reason he wrote AE E I don't know what that word even is right so what did I do I did not say I would not use it I said if it says a way a all the things when I said a in different tones whatever word it detected I made it into a list and said if it detects anyone of this Mark it it's a jugar but it works now imagine I just converted a really boring project into something that I'm sharing after what 14 years yeah 14 years yeah it is 14 years now right and that's what I love I want people to be curious I want people and again I'm not saying I'm the best one out there obviously there are many many like superb Engineers uh in the world but if I can just spark curiosity in few I win my my my life is good so two questions there arpit how hard has it been for you to find people who are curious a b how do you spark curiosity Engineers you've said that multiple times so I want to know what's your process okay so to answer the first one first one is super question question how hard it has been for me to find Curious people so one thing that I've done well is I've tried to put out my curiosity out and like attracts like they reach out to me like like how like how aush reached out to me uh he took my course and he blocked one-on-one and when we were discussing he said that hey I'm building this language uh and I'll show you a demonstration next week he blogged one-onone next week also and he showed me the demo and basically that's how I uh spoke about it so from sound to code so that is one but one thing that I realized was uh when I was at Google at Amazon at unacademy I realized everybody's curious on some level in most cases the curiosity is curbed because of education system and I'm not one who cribs about education system a lot because you can possibly cannot crib about education system after 10 years right you are you're you're way past that if you're still cribbing in your 30s that a education syst system is bad then something's wrong with you so that's one and uh because of the work or the ratas that we are put into right so some of the brightest Engineers I've met they were all curious who did not curve their curiosity M they were they were really curious about how this things work not just going into internals but just hacking a solution out or building something fun right and a lot of them uh in uh in a recent leadership Meetup where I went I figured out that a lot of senior leaders are actually curious but in separate domains they have they have interest in history they have interest in science they they have interest except coding and accept work now curious Engineers like with which is where the Curiosity part comes in like do you have something else than the work that you did the school you attended to talk about like for example even when I gave you my intro did I talk about the places I worked at no yeah no because that's not the most like that's not the most interesting part about me and I go by this that people like a lot of people did not even know I work at Google like on other hand if you see a lot of people just put out X Google this Google I work at Google on their video thumbnail they put Google photo and this and that right but that's where the difference is like the I I always believe that uh the place that to work at should not be the most interesting thing about you it should be much more than that right now this curiosity part just circling back to this the Curious people are someone who are Beyond this who are just they look Beyond work even if they're working they find something more interesting like they're like kind of slightly crazy but in a good way U but they are to find them in interviews what I do is I probe them I go into that side of thing that is hidden or rathers basically that is hidden between their lines on resume the things you don't expect to mention in an interview yes in most cases I talk I speak to them about their college projects okay because very likely they were their their their curiosity was like you could see they are curious about something when they speak up when they speak passionately about something and in most cases it is their college projects or their time at College because after that you enter this Rat Race lead code this that that and that a lot of things falter and very few people are able to sustain given the commitments and all but the college time is the one where I spoke about like for example with respect to curiosity I ask hey did you participate in in any event where let's say uh there are some entrepreneurial events that happen did you participate in that how did you make money in case there is some right or an interesting project or even if you have not done interesting project which is the most interesting project you found or one question I asked very recently was uh what like which is the most interesting YouTube video you watched oh that's a good question right and you YouTube is a heaven for people who are curious yeah so there are so so so many interesting things that people just look past and this is this looks like a very weird question to ask what is the most interesting video I watched in most cases to be honest in most cases people don't have an answer to this which means it's not that you have to constantly work but are you curious or not yeah it's from this like if you ask me this question I can talk about 10 videos that I watched that were that blew my mind mhm they were all around coding or around interesting hacks but they work like I again that shows curiosity and so to summarize the projects college or any interesting project that they saw it shows that how Keen are you in observing things because if they have a Keen Eye they might not have gotten that opportunity to code due to any reason right and an interesting one which is a last YouTube video you watch yeah that's a brilliant question but you found aush right but how many people do you other than aush how many people have you been able to find who are as curious or do you find just like a general crowd doing lead code so most of them are there but again there is nothing wrong but the key thing is like they are there to get the job or to make the switch or make their lives better but uh as I always say like uh like it's a it's it's an old saying that uh uh philos phos ophy is done by people with filled stomach mhm if you are good if you're doing well then you have time and luxury and privilege to explore be curious and whatnot right but uh there are people who are curious who have done this sort of fancy stuff who I meet but to be honest there are not many not many like I would want more people to be curious and it's not a bashing against India but I've seen very few Indians to be doing it I've reached out I've been reached out by a lot of folks from the West they're much more Curious and again it's the difference in economy and a lot of factors but uh when I tweeted about it a couple of days back I I got a lot of backlash on this right that I said that people in India don't love engineering much but I was just trying to spark that Curiosity like you need to be little more Curious and look Beyond interviews how long like people keep just preparing for interviews like waste like people say like for upsc people waste 5 years of their life and end up doing nothing interviews are no like interviews are very similar to that you always in a constant thing of interview interview interview and just grinding that same stuff again yeah in most cases after a certain it's waste of time you could do so much more like imagine as an interviewer if I talk about that I built a programming language that converts sound to code would that company not be hiring me even at least they would listen this guy knows something different than others that's the classic case of when people can just hire on the basis of potential like oh this guy is curious yeah he thinks like that I'll we tell you one more incidents of my life my first job that I got first job was uh my college placement 2011 and uh I was not asked any technical question I was just doing normal conversation with interviewer so it was a company called Sava softwares um uh interview happened at 10 p.m. five interviewers in room right in front of me and I was once sitting here mhm and they asked me arpit uh tell us about an interesting project the project I spoke about was something that I built uh called uh audio touch okay it was very nent stage of Android 2010 was Android was just getting introduced MIT media workshop happened in India uh in my college so and that was their first India basically MIT media lab Workshop or something happened and I was I was one of the few people from my college who got selected for and there we learned Android programming and it was very ni so all people from West they came and we were having this workshop and um they were all research they were all PhD holders so uh Mr Ramesh rasar came we had a live session with uh basically PR Myst brilliant like he he is my idol like the way he spoke about sixense technology it it was a it was a viral video of 2008 and 9s sorry 2009 and in 10 so U so just getting that opportunity to speak to the researchers who are working on that cutting ad stuff and that time Android was The Cutting head stuff like no one imagined that I think you ended up working with them no no no that was someone else I think they are big big big people you are now also big big big people so pram my uh headed uh uh Samsung Think Tank division brilliant guy brilliant guy his like just folks who who are watching this please search for sixense six Sense Technology pronom mystery he made me curious about computers like he what he did at the time he augmented real world into digital world before it was school so in his video he spoke about how he broke the computer mouse with the ball and created a hand glove out of it so that he could track hand movement over there brilliant video and like this is what I want to do and uh so when their their workshop was happening in India and it was happening in my college and I was one of the and I wrote a very detailed application for that want to be part of this and there I got exposure to Android and in 3 days we built a prototype called and I called it audio touch so but I just when I was explaining to the interviewers it I spoke about uh how it happened so the way we got that idea was about I saw my I saw my nephew he was writing he he was writing a BCD at that time he was writing a and drawing it like he was writing a and then saying a and then B and so on so forth so I got this idea that what if when I write or rather when I draw on Android what if I capture the sound that is happening at that time let's say when they write a that sound gets captured in that shape mhm and then when I retrace it it UT the same sound oh I spoke about this project no technical question like imagine me being this curious and showing that I have a working prototype of it and I showed them they like you are in and it's a classic and I'm not saying like like companies do value diverse mindset yeah and I brought something else onto the table I brought curiosity I brought out of the box thinking I'm not saying like a lot of obviously companies have their processes and all you need to follow that but it does not take a lot of effort to go toas on the side and do it right but if you come up with something interesting then why not right it just gives your life a spark so that's what you try to do with your courses atly engineering I I try to do that like I try to make them curious about stuff instead of saying this is the question this is the answer I take them through the thought process like why did they make a decision like this why not some other decision what happened like what would their thought process be like what are the trade-offs that we are taking right like asking those wise and the house and the whats right like going slightly deeper because job is there but if you look at it we spend most of our life at work like basically working why can't we make it fun yeah why does it have to be like this is the work why why why do you have to talk about Monday blues imagine you're having a very fun side project because love the domain you would be happy because you know even if your work is okay okay you're still making money but you are looking forward to something much more interesting again I might look psycho to a lot of people but that's how I am that makes complete sense because Monday blues mostly would probably just occur because you are not curious enough to dive deeper into what you're doing because when you dive deeper is when you realize how things are actually working and that's what like it gives you back the passion it does so you you are a curious person and you you try to give it to everybody who takes your course or through a YouTube videos and everything um while I was researching while I was like going through a profile I came across uh rine or which you're trying to Rebrand as uh Arbok uh that's a programming language that you're building it's it seemed pretty interesting it's for children I um I gathered so could you talk more about it what is it my daughter was born in August so while we were expecting I thought that the first programming language my daughter should learn would be my the one his dad the the one her dad created and I and I always wanted a girl so my wife was like why are you so sure it would be a girl I'm like me I want a girl I want a baby girl so I used to always call her her her every time so I like I want her to learn a programming language which her dad created so that was my and it was a very it was a very random idea that came but I'm like this with them like I can build my programming because I had I loved uh I love creating some prototype languages earlier so I had that thing in mind that I can create one so then um um August she was born August 24th 2020 and uh 10th of October is when I made my first commit when I'm like after staying up whole night for 2 months and then the first phase was over uh that I now I can sleep because my daughter will let me sleep now then I 10th of October as I made my first commit on that to test the Prototype that can I write a parser for a like basically can I define a language write a parser which converts it into a JavaScript code runs in the browser and can people can create games out of it so that N2 prototype was working then I was researching through and figure out there were lot of languages and at that time uh which was that company that chintu company which was acquired by by uh this one I forgot J whiteart Junior so I went through that had and figured out that they are all teaching it through scratch uh the MIT scratch tool which is a Blog based programming language and uh what it does is the children drags and robs stuff and they create logic out of it and like n coding is about writing I don't want my daughter to do drag drop because it does not build logic because when you code real world there is lot of Errors uh indentation error syntax mistake you have to read the error understand what happens right that sort of thing is missing and I realized that because I coded from a very young age I realize that that helped me right when I made mistakes uh so I'm like I want to build a visual programming language and it needs to be very easy to write uh but it needs to help people like it it should help children create games out of it mhm so when I met first I'm like what should I name it screw it rewind I just gave it a random name but now that I know what I'm doing like now I have time now that I don't have a job like uh like a really designated job job uh I can spend some time thinking about it so I'm rebranding it to Arbok Arbok is a name of a Pokemon mhm Arbok is a snake Pokemon reverse is cobra that's why it's called Arbok and mine is the syntax will be very similar to python oh so that's why Cobra and Arbok this is the name you so I would want so I'm going on that so the language is pretty simple it will transpile python into JavaScript and run in browser and create games out of it how far are you into this I have a working prototype if you if someone goes to rewind. b. me I'm basically building a chrome dinosaur game that we have a very primitive version of it so jump and it moves and it counts that part is working how how old is your daughter has she started no she's just three okay so she's she's learning to type because it's it's difficult to write but it's easy to type easy to type easy to type so she's learning to type I'm not forcing the language yet 5 years later I'll do it when she'll be in her fifth standard five six years six seven years later so when she'll be in fifth fourth or fifth standard where she would be genuinely interested when she sees me code and all she still asks me Papa what are you doing she sees ID Papa that black screen is good so I play around with this so she day before yesterday told me Papa what is that black screen you work on she's already very curious then she she's curious she's uh like she's very curious she asks a lot of questions so that is my motivation like you you need to have an intrinsic motivation so my intrinsic motivation for this thing is to build a language for my daughter if no one else uses I don't mind my daughter should use it she should be proud that her dad build a language that she can learn what if she doesn't want to it's okay I it's okay it's okay but eventually the way I look at it is she will have to learn coding because it's a must have skill because more it's not about coding and doing software engineering but the way coding helps is it gives you a very structured way to think yeah about anything and everything M you can break it down into smaller problems you take step by step right so given an given a tough situation in your life you would always want to tackle it in a structured fashion yeah and coding has given me that framework okay how to tackle any ambigous problem not just coding or at work or even in life how do you tackle it structure in a structured fashion and learn anything and everything so she would need to learn in some of the because we don't know how the landscape would look 10 years down the line but she would need to learn some of the other parts of it where you can code in computers or something yeah I've seen this thing in a lot of people who are actually thriving in this industry who are like founding technical um founding members of a company that they have a lot of curiosity and like they have a structured way to think about things and also as you mentioned they have things Beyond work that they're more interested about like like a good engineer could be like interested in farming also like right because it's just curiosity in general not just about tech just look at the founding team of cred yeah they're not just someone who just codes codes codes or just works works works you were in a music band like wow like just look at all the all like all sorts of cool people you you you aspire to be they have a personality outside their work yeah and that's what and I really want like people to not just be stuck with the work even if they are working like for example ATP only talks about studying and working and all but even while doing it I'm not just talking about the work I'm doing for a company I still have although I'm deeply technical but I would still want to but I still touch upon different fragments of work like of the domain not just limit to one so just that Curiosity and bias for Action com perfect now um as I said in the introduction that we're going to talk more about entrepreneurship as well and I'm very curious to learn more about dug up which is the recent um Venture that you've started so could you talk more about what dug up is what you're trying to do with it and why uh what we are trying to do it's an interesting problem to have uh like what we realized is um LinkedIn is slightly weird like LinkedIn has become weird LinkedIn is trying to become a Content platform content platform and it is promoting engagement yeah and this is a place where it be it is becoming really difficult for people to be authentic everyone is wearing a mask on LinkedIn absolutely they just follow the same uh format a picture and a hook and some content and conclusion you don't even want to read that anymore so good people who have good stories to tell good knowledge to share are they putting out on LinkedIn not really because they are just the same repurposed content no even if like I'm saying like someone new who wants to start and put out stuff for LinkedIn are they like is the content is the quality of the post justed by the content or by the engagement by the engagement by the engagement right and which is why you see selfies and photos and all and all even like the way I say it's that the worst photo of their goes on LinkedIn the best one goes to Instagram stories then on then on Instagram post then Snapchat and then the worst one goes there right the picture which is rejected by all social platforms goes to L right I believe that's where the problem is that you like and when we still see people commenting hey LinkedIn is not Instagram but this but that gets engagement so what we are trying to do is we want to be an authentic platform so way way we are putting it is as like we always like we say that u a company's reflection of the founders right if I am no fluff my company will be no fluff yes right so my co-founder Krishna is also no fluff he also puts out genuine stuff about career growth right he was head of engineering at Amazon he was VP engineering at betterup before starting up dug up so we both are no fluff we both resonate really well so because we both are no fluff the plat we create will be no fluff yeah right because that's how it works so given that uh we said that what is something that people in Tech would want it's being authentic like everybody would need have something that they can share like I shared so many stories today everybody has some of the other story to tell interesting project interesting work that they did how they thrived sometime a time that they broke production so many stories why can't there be a platform to share it m so no nonsense low regret social network for people in Tech specifically for people in Tech because you know our audience is Tech it's easy for us to put in their sh and understand what they would want we might expand but uh for now we aim to solve it for Tech because we understand the psyche of the people we understand the value addition that they would need to get and whatnot so it's easier to to put ourselves in their show right and we don't want 1 million post a day we want authentic post so it will be really authentic platform where people would share and it would be low regret so it would not be like on Instagram you spend 30 minutes watching reals and you like right you feel guilty of doing it right this is a place where we want to have low regrets you should not be feel regretful why why did I spend time it should give you value and value and when I say this people always say hey I just don't want Gan I just don't want only knowledge stuff I want something else also what's better than stories yeah that's right um and you can't really judge the stories a person has based on their content because everybody is performing on these social media LinkedIn wants a certain kind of content you're creating that um I see my friends some of them have really interesting stories to tell one of my friends got um um admits from two IV leagues couldn't uh take that for some reason and then he started uh building in no code so that's a very interesting story according to me like right it's a very interesting story but when I see like what what they're doing on different socials is trying to feed the algorithm yeah Linkin wants a certain kind of content they're putting that out because whatever it takes to go viral or get engagement they will do that so that's why dug up is very interesting to me also you talked about low regrets and I've never seen somebody talk about that because whenever you want to build a social media platform you want to just make it as addictive as possible because the more the time people the the more uh time people spend on the platform the more money for you yes right so um it's interesting that you're thinking about it um in a way that can positively impact people it again boils down to how Founders are so we don't spend a lot of time on social network like doing nonsense stuff h right and again nonsense is for us that's nonsense for others it might be good right so we don't do that so we even we try we don't like we want platform to be engaging and we don't want but we don't want people to be addictive to it also it should be low regret and obviously when it's slightly information heavy I'm not saying knowledge heavy I'm saying it's slightly information Heavy after sometime you would automatically stop but imagine you reading three Amazing Stories like people watching this podcast they would be curious by now this is an interesting project like I also build a programming language now right now imagine if this story they read on Daga would they not be inspired they would be inspired and it's not false motivation it's authentic stories so what we are going for is authentic Q where content wins and not engagement engagement will happen but it's how the found like it's who the founders are how they think are they trying to build platform for Millions if they happen it happens we are not saying we don't want to build for Millions we want to build we want millions of people to tell their stories but more importantly be authentic on the platform yeah where you put forth your vulnerabilities also like for example the time you broke production yeah right it's okay everybody learns from their mistakes y right now this is how we thought of that we need a platform like this need a platform where people can tell their stories a lot of people say why not a Blog I can start a medium blog it's a it's it's a very valid point right mhm but does medium block serve that purpose imagine just one place Med there a lot of fluff right now it's all chity content yeah but authenticity is something that truly inspires because you can ask again Char GPT to give you a really um motivational inspirational madeup but that doesn't have any real impact it's just like putting things in the void impacting nobody they are words are not they they are basically syntactic words having no semantics oh that's a good way to just words that is being put out but no soul no no no meaning to them it just bluntly return obviously no matter how good AI becomes when a person speaks their heart out like the way I was talking about I'm very passionate about this stuff and when we speak the and when we speak our heart out people relate to that and people know when it's true and when it's not when you um so usually what I do is I write things on my own I I love to write so so even if it's just a tweet or a LinkedIn post or whatever it is I like to write and people know that when it's not charp generated they're like we love it that you write on your own I was like wo I didn't even mention that but and I I've gotten uh I've talked to my friends a lot about this and they're like when you write um authentically and when you write in your own style it doesn't have to be too different from any what anybody else is doing but people can still tell that apart yeah so true yeah that's what we are trying to solve again we don't know how it would pan out either we would be the most stupidest people on earth or we would be the genius ones out there so we would be we would be getting a polar reaction either this or this and we are fine with either because it's okay to be misunderstood because but if the platform helps people or if people get value out of it then why not I'm honestly very excited about it uh my another question is that social media is a very difficult space to build in I feel because it's difficult to get people to shift from one social media that they're heavily using like let's say if you try to build another Instagram that is going to be insanely difficult right so building social media in general is very difficult so why did you decide to delve into this space specifically so one thing we realized was uh again as you very said like we need to we need to get the slice of people's time the slice will come from existing social media right few minutes from Twitter we take few minutes from LinkedIn we take but then why would people give us few minutes of their time there has to be a differentiating factor yeah right now one thing that we see a lot of professional social networks coming in a lot of social networks coming in they are trying to feed on the hate for LinkedIn MH and it's and it's not hate for L but more importantly like people have realized that it's slightly going on a cringier side and false and and other fake side of things and again nothing against LinkedIn I built a massive audience there uh but thing is that a lot of people that when someone on LinkedIn criticizes LinkedIn the number of the engagement that post gets is insane yeah I did a tweet another day um talking about LinkedIn and another person took my tweet copy pasted it on LinkedIn and they got more reached than me so like so it's very weird it's a it's literally a love hit relationship yeah you hate this but you're still doing it yeah right so there has to be reason behind this like people are using LinkedIn because they get both the stuff they get Entertainment also because it's not just knowledge knowledge knowledge gan gan G and they get G also because there are some accounts which post good stuff right so it's a very nice blend and Linkedin has cracked it with their algorithm yeah right but if you see if the most if the if an engaging tweet or engaging post is about on that platform is about that platform being bad tells something that there is a need mhm we are not saying what type of need it is there is some need yeah right now which is where we said that it's easy to take out someone share of time from LinkedIn because it is possible given there is some hate can we fuel into it we are not going to say that LinkedIn is bad that's that's never going to be our pitch our pitch will be about how we are different from others yeah we never say choose for we'll never say that this is one thing that you have to come to or this is anti- LinkedIn no we will be working with each other because LinkedIn is a good place for you to get jobs it's a good place for you to show your professional work perfectly fine but there has to be a place where you can tell stories yeah right so we we are not anti- Twitter anti- LinkedIn we are just trying to take some share from LinkedIn some share from Twitter when I say share sometime some time share from there and build and add something which is authentic IC which is uh differentiation that people should see that this is something different because I because if we just created yet another social network like for example Snapchat why did Snapchat win Snapchat came up with stories no one had that when Snapchat came right Snapchat did that one you view the photo once and then it vanishes they added that new part and that became a hit because that was something new for example B real got a very nice traction because it just opens your phone camera at once it gives you notification you open that and you you click a photo and you just post it right so when unless you add into social network that is adding a differentiation you would not win so for us the differentiation is story right and why social network because there was like we are like I have built social following 250k across socials I like and I've realized that people like some people like me the way I approach things the way I speak the way I communicate the way I spk curiosity and all I'm like this is a good place to be in because we could build a SAS but is it that exciting not really like because you as a Founder you don't play your weak cards you play your strongest suit right which is our strongest suit social media following my ability to do YouTube videos so content is where I thrive social media is what I know how to build with my experience I can build scale stuff so it looks like some nice place and again our idea might falter like two years down the line no one would have heard of dug up it crashed it could happen that we go we go berserk like we go really big or we go bust right but is is this the shot that we would want to take yes do we have what it takes yes do we have the clarity at this stage yes but we don't know how people would react and that's where the uncertainty of startup comes in high risk High reward so that's something that you can figure out later that you can't really figure out right now of course unless you have users if not this will go without some other idea yeah entrepreneurship is like that itself like you you do you don't marry an idea unless it unless you find a product Market fit you are open to anything and everything but it we'll see where it goes but hearing this much about dug up I have a positive feeling about it because um as you mentioned every social media main social media platforms that we see they have something core uh to it like if I uh have five social media apps on my phone there is a purpose related to each I go to WhatsApp for chatting I go to Instagram for posting pictures on Twitter to just write out any thought in my mind LinkedIn to find job Snapchat to just record a moment and send it to somebody right so there is some core purpose add to that blind Grape Wine solving anonymity being brutally honest so dug up is solving a very real problem so well it's ex we have a like soling real problem is a question mark we have a differentiation right but it totally depends on how people react if they want it because we don't know if you're building a vitamin or a painkiller people don't pay for vitamin we all have vitamin D deficiency I can't everybody has it right but do we pay for vitamin D tablets we pay it when we see the negative effect yeah is this a painkiller for people we don't know you'll figure out when you get users arpit now I want to dive um more into how do so much that you actually do uh I've gotten some questions from Twitter so I'm going to I've chosen three of them so I'm just going to ask you those uh the question that they ask is how do you wake up in the morning and find motivation to do everything under the uh real engineering umbrella asly engineering that's a hashtag that came you know that also has an interesting story again now you see we when we have a conversation we always start with that right we always say with stories and now you see why we relate so much with dug up right so uh 2020 when I was like sorry 2021 when I was thinking of something I used to write a lot on LinkedIn and all I'm like yeah like why other thing is not and at that time I watched uh I watched basically Gully boy second time uhhuh so if you look at asly engineering font it is very similar to Gully boys font oh the font of Rebel right right that thing right as if you basically spray painting a wall so that's how I chose that logo and basically there's a red patch behind it it used to be pink and then I change it to Red because that's how wall grati would look like like someone just smashing it and just writing a engine so that's the story behind it and why I chose that word because I want I wanted people because I realize that people rally behind a mission and your mission cannot be to crack interviews like it should be much bigger than that right so I'm like what is that word that people were like asly engineering because I wanted to hit the nail on the head so that's I chinging as a word now what motivates me to be honest it's again circling back to the first thing it's I want people to experience the joy that I had when I first uncovered those Concepts I'm not even kidding uh uh 2021 when I started my course um I do a lot of prototypes so I was building my own load balancer as a small prototype on my local machine uh I was at my in-law's house um and I was prototyped being load balancer goang create bunch of go routines and so how it is balancing the load implemented consistent hashing hey did it like did it balance or not it worked I was so happy I explained it to my mom-in-law my dad-in-law everybody whoever I could fight it's working they now I they don't understand I I did a control C on one window and they saw the load moving to other good good beta good but I like like people get kicked some people get kicked by drinking by smoking and all I get kicked by knowing stuff by understanding why it works I like that and again it's not that I want every everybody in the world to be curious but I'm just putting out myself I don't I I'm not here to gain lot of followers people relate they follow MH if I would be craving followership I would be putting out stuff that is meant for that platform on that platform I would be putting out selfies there on LinkedIn all for me I'm really authentic I'm I'm and I'm a really simple person I want the joy that I experienced there has to be a way for me to channelize it into something now it is YouTube earlier it was blogs every day I read something because I cannot like every day I put out something interesting on LinkedIn and Twitter if I was not reading it how would I be writing it because it's not chat GPD generated I've been writing it for eight years there has to be something that motivates me and for me it's literally my passion to learn my curiosity to know my bias for Action to write hey that's very good why I'm talking my bias for Action to write and uh in a way it inspires people and that's a byproduct I never see inspiring people as my primary purpose my primary purpose is to uh quench my thirst to know to understand to share because that's how I'm built if other people relate they follow and if you see people follow authentic people yeah if if someone is made up like the way the way the Kardashian sister we are going from here to here okay the way the Kardashian sister became famous because they were very authentic when they started their when they started vlogging in the first place they were really very authentic right the way the way Lily sing became famous again I'm talking old time the Emma Chamberlin is a huge vlogger and she started daily vlogging and she was just raw she was just showing her daily life like I'm eating an orange yeah like that's how people started following her and now she's so big yeah and that's how like if you see basically tb's reaction his Vlogs so authentic he does not like he is very natural and it's not that he's acting but you relate to people when they are authentic if they're makeup if you if you just put a mask every time and throw on people like that now um I have heard people talk about this like I've also heard this in other podcasts when somebody start wants to start a personal brand uh the big creators usually what they recommend is niching down yeah right so when you're talking about tanai bat tanai bat you can't really Define him he's a comedian yes he does ADS he's now on podcast he's on every other nil Kat's podcast so nikil so so tanay like can't be put into a word but now that's the case for somebody who's gone so big but when somebody is just you know um somebody is a nobody they're just starting out they are recommended to Niche down so that's why they have to sacrifice on their authenticity why would you need to sacrifice on authenticity when you Crea because you want to feed the algorithm you want to get engagement you want to grow that's what I see a lot of people doing but this cont with this contradicts are earlier point where you be authentic and people will follow yeah so that's why it's it's you need to strike a balance right you need to you still need to follow the algorithm of the platform right but not succumb to it yeah right and that's the thing people succumb to algorithm and that's where the problem happens you don't need to like for example I put out stuff on LinkedIn without adding a photo still get decent engagement but what kind of people am I am I engaging with that also matters the quality of your followers also matters I'm not saying others are bad but do I want to talk to those people the way I am I might not I might not want to yeah because they are not relating they have different priorities and it's perfectly fine eventually if they like my stuff that I put out they would follow right and one thing that people do is they think of personal brand when they're putting out you should not think of building a personal brand I'll tell One More Story I wrote really weird stuff where I was at Amazon I was getting bored um I wrote I created a character so I'll start from beginning so what happened I was at Amazon Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon post lunch I had a paper Cup in which drank water uh some water got spilled on my desk small water and I had that cup empty I drew eyes on it drew a face on it and uh I put it there it looked really nice I clicked the photo this is really nice and I made a Instagram post about it right and I just wrote uh Mr cup I gave it a name Mr cup weird name Mr cup was sad because something bad happened what happened to him we'll find out next random stuff totally random I'm Tech person writing this random stuff right I did not do it for algorithm I just posted it and then next day I did the same thing I made a very small paper plane put it in the water that he spilled water on the paper plane and it got mushy now he's sad the plane was of his friend his friend would be angry so he he got lot of papers and created a plane out of it that so that he was lonely he want to make friends he had few friends he he he he did not want to disappoint them so and so I built like 10 11 part story around it right but here did I do it to get followers no I but I wrote about it mhm because if I try to think hey I want people to think about me a certain way then I would be doing that again I realized that I'm not a good writer but I still give my best right and then I put out my today I learned post today I learned where I shared atmology facts uh Science History maths atmology astronomy and mislan facts yeah I shared that then I went into technical part now the thing is if you think of personal brand from day one you are again trying to put a mask yeah that this is who I am and people should not think about me in any other way mhm I would choose not to do that but again while suum like while uh while respecting the algorithm yeah and that is slightly important because you cannot just put let's say deep Tech stuff on Snapchat yeah that wouldn't work like deep Tech stuff on Instagram because people are not on Instagram to learn deep Tech stuff that's why I don't even have an Instagram active like an active Instagram account based on the type of content you put out um you will attract the kind of yes specific like if you are just pushing pictures on LinkedIn then you will attract that kind of people it's okay if you want to engage with those kind of people well and good right if but if you want to engage with uh let's a senior engine like in my case I love to have deep technical conversations with people how do I attract deep technical people by putting out deep technical stuff right if I put that's how you meet other people who are interested in the same right so in last one week I met six Founders because I want to talk to them I want to know how they think when I speak about my idea passionately I see passion in them I see the Same Same by bye right and that's what matters right at the end if the kind of stuff I'm putting out is the kind of people I would attract right if I I put out engineering stuff deep engine stuff I attracted senior Engineers if I put out if I suddenly start putting out product stuff I would attract product people right now when you're talking about Niche yes you need a niche to start like this is how startups work like for example PTM was a wallet mhm they found a gap vegged their solution and then expanded Amazon was a book shop they wedged their solution and expanded that's how every startup works every person work even when you join a friend Circle you add a new thing in the value be friend with one person and then expand and make friends with other and that's how the world works yeah right so finding a niche having a niche is important but be authentic rather than forcing uh the stuff to that that hey I want to build an engineering brand I'll just put out engineering stuff but if it is not authentic if it is not real you m people would really copy paste it yeah and that's when people would run away people don't run away from my post because of this like one of the reason being that uh they know that I'm not copy pasting it from chat GPT I'm writing it on my own I'm putting my heart and soul every word matters I wrote a bunch of one liners back in the day I call it smarter chimp see I did so much of stuff I call it smarter I have a Twitter handle called the smarter chimp where for 2 years I posted one liner and that one liner had just five words six words that's it like like basically Banger off one liners that and I used to think a lot so for example I have a good one which says um don't limit yourself with someone else's curation oh that's if a person says read this 10 paper you read this 10 paper if person says read this why not why why why are you not reading 11th paper yeah why are you limiting yourself to someone else's curation yep why is people just blindly following hey what did this person do I just do that stuff right so I have many such onliners and I've just I think a lot uh I I observe a lot there's so many of them and I love writing this one and which is why my post are quite crisp I try to say a lot of stuff in very few words yeah so again you see a lot of like I have a personality outside work yeah and over time and this is what your like it's a it's a it's something that a lot of people said like your personal brand is not what people say in front of you but behind your back behind your back for sure so when people talk about me they don't talk about they just talk about he puts out some good stuff although they might not be actively consuming it so um another question that I got from Twitter was about imposter syndrome now when we look at you we see somebody who has U worked who has had this amazing experience over uh the time of a decade who's now working in their own startup who has um who's having basically a really positive impact on people but are you also susceptible to imposter syndrome somewhere because I've seen this in a lot of people and in myself whatever I'm doing in career and personal life there is always someone doing uh better there's always someone one step ahead of me and I don't look back I look ahead and I see okay this person is doing better than me and I'm not so that's when like that imposter imposter syndrome comes in and have you faced that if I said no then I would be like ly everybody faces it and it's see it's good and bad both uh imposter syndrome especially like so long as it is not it is not damaging you it's okay so long as you can take it in a positive way it's okay because there might be a case where let's say you shot for the Stars you went to a really awesome Place really awesome place or be surrounded by really awesome people but you know you are a misfit you know you did like you are not at par and if it damages your confidence it then it becomes traumatic yeah right so imposter syndrome everybody gets it especially when they join a new job change their text tack see someone really smart and it's a very known thing that we typically take a negative thing uh like the impact of a negative thing is 3x versus a positive thing so when you hear a negative stuff it impacts your brain thce as more yeah uh than a positive thing for sure so because of that we always think that hey I don't know stuff although like obviously that other person might not know the stuff that you know you had you had your own Journey yeah you know your own stuff like you like there are something that that person doesn't know but we typically focus on things because we see it in context like hey it work he's doing really well or she is doing really well I am not yeah but this in one specific in one specific thing and which is okay so which is where so long as it is not damaging your confidence or it is not rather it is rather basically shattering your confidence it's okay yeah so long as you're able to cope up brilliant but imposter syndrome should be there like even right now I have imposter syndrome that hey how how will I build this company there are so many good people and they can crush us and this and that but or or like am I good enough to lead a team of let's say 50 100 people right that happens but if you have the right attitude that I or and the confidence thaty I'll be able to do it might just take a month here or two then it's okay but if it is shattering my confidence and that is where you see people stepping down MH that it is not it is like I'm like it's deep inside it's like I'm not good enough to lead when someone else might be better to lead if you have confidence go for it some impos syndrome is also essential for you to go because that's how you know you are going to the next level right otherwise you are just stuck in your own bubble it just means that you you care and you're reaching for something that's bigger than you biger than and I think over a period of time impos as you said doesn't go away so you have to find a way to work around it I have this but I also have to do the thing that's bigger than my size so I have to work around it okay um another uh this is the last question this is what we do with every uh episode in our podcast I ask for an advice for a young person if you could go back to your late teenageers what is something that you would do differently if at all so uh few things is if I look back uh with the with the with the kind of context I have I know that I was curious I know I was meant to be working in this field that is all good one thing that I did not do and I'm still not doing often is uh networking I'm really good I'm really bad with people that is one thing that I would change and I would be networking more I in case of fight versus flight I fly I fly really fast I don't want to deal with stuff right so that is one limitation that I have that I I I try to run away like I used to run away far more than what I do now now I still face adversities but uh in Flight versus fight I fly and uh because of which also I shy away from talking to people like when I want to talk to someone I'm like hey why why why am I bugging this person because I like to keep my conversations Crisp And if I'm not adding any value why should I just give of give this give or basically will call this particular basically call this particular person I have I I fumble even like now speaking I fumble because it sparked that it sparked that insecurity within me yeah and it happens I Rel I'm I'm really bad at it like uh yesterday I got a call from a really solid founder and I'm like I should how how did I forget to wish him happy New Year oh and this is these are people skills that you need to have like for example anush keeps calling me and I I like I should call him sometime this is one thing that I don't have and this is one thing that I should work on right now but if I were to change it I would do it right from my college days or like my late teens time that uh I should be networking more but again I always believe that networking is not just about meeting people it's about when you have when you have like you need to bring more to the table than you take yeah right so I shouldn't just go hi by what are you doing this that but is this conversation meaningful enough is the other person getting enough value from me so I would still continue to maintain that but in a way that I'm still maintaining healthy relations with people that dropping them messages giving them a phone call I'm really bad at like I have very few friends now uh I a lot of followers but very few friends and again I'm happy with the friends that I have but I would still want to build better longlasting relationship with a lot of people a lot of good people which is what is missing so I Network more uh because technically it's all good because you can learn engineering stuff it's you and the book or you and the code here are people you humans you are dealing with so that is one thing that I would that's a really solid advice and I can say that because I have practiced that so I'm also a very similar person as you said I would um I'm really bad at uh you know maintaining relations even so I have uh some I have very few friends and those are the friends that understand that okay she's not going to call me so they call me yeah right but that's not the case with everybody so and also fight or flight because my first instinct whenever like there's an opportunity to meet people and talk to people i' be like no no no no I would ra much rather not do it I would stay at home but then I've had to build this over uh the last uh 2 three years that okay that's my first instinct that's that's the thought that comes to my mind but that you have to get over that first thought because as they say you don't get to choose your first thought you get to choose your second so you have to sort of train your brain like that it pays off and I'll be honest I had second thoughts for this podcast so scared oh God because I was thinking and which is why when we were on that call I said uh can we delay it to next month I was in that mode can I avoid right and again that happens because I know I'm not good at it but I still forced you're amazing at it by the way because um we got to know that we're doing this podcast 2 days ago you also and uh me too and usually we know like 2 3 weeks beforehand that we're going to shoot with this person so we also have some context I didn't have any context about you right yeah I didn't have any context and you didn't know about this podcast so it was like both of us taking a leap of faith and I enjoyed this conversation a lot I'm not sure about you yeah I did but it was a great con and before uh shooting this podcast we talked for like a half like half an hour before before that I was like very scared like what's going to happen I don't even know this person and um I don't know how this conversation is going to go will I even contribute anything but with that brief conversation that we had before shooting I was comfortable I was like with this the person that you can have a conversation raw and authentic raw and authentic again boils down to the same if you're raw and authentic people will love to have a chat with you you're not someone who is just trying to sell yourself likey I'm smart I'm the smartest you need to open up with your vulnerabilities like how I fumbled when I was talking about it if you're not opening up with the vulnerabilities how would someone else trust you yeah definitely but this backfires also yeah you open up out of vulnerabilities at wrong place and you are gone two sides of the anyway arit this is uh where we end and thank you so much for all the insights that you shared you've provideed insane amount of value and um it's been I've had an amazing time talking to you and I'm um and I'm 100% sure that everybody watching this episode is going to get amazing while you from this so thank you so much for doing this and thank you so much for coming on a short notice well thank you so much it was really Fab really human conversation if I want to put it I opened up on so many stuff these are something that I've never shared anywhere but thank you so much for asking great question thank you so much thanks first of all before uh diving into the podcast I this up can you start I'd like to cut here I'll just take that call it was important welcome to the podcast how are you doing all [Music] good arpit how are you doing welcome to the what is happening to me [Music] today

Channel: Fueled

Views: 74,366

Keywords: Arpit Bhayani, Arpit Podcast, Aripit Coder, Arpit Software, Software Engineering, Developers, Programming Language, Coders, Leetcode, Hackerrank, Hackerearth, Competetive programming, Curious Engineers, Google, Amazon, Unacademy, Social Media, Linkedin, Social media platform, Revine, System Design Course, Curiosity, Career growth, Job Switching, Jobs Apply, Business, Entrepreneurship, Startups, Funding, Investment, Y Combinator, Interview Tips, Job Interview Tips, Job Interview Prep

Id: JvMEgmKUR9I

Length: 82min 28sec (4948 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 07 2024