In this episode, we talked to Emil Michael, who is Silicon Valley's best dealmaker. This was a masterclass in negotiation, art of making deals, when to walk away from them, his story, working with Travis Kalanick at Uber, and so much more. Emil Michael is an investor and strategic advisor to many high growth tech startups. He was the Chief Business Officer at Uber, during it’s period of expoential growth where it was the most valuable startup in the world. He’s also held leadership roles at Tell...
Mar 04, 2023•1 hr 20 min•Ep 37•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, the gang gets back together! Marc Andreessen and Steven Sinofsky are back to talk about all things AI. We cover the rise of ChatGPT, Bing's AI powered chat Sydney, AI ethics, sentience, whether AI will take over jobs, the economic impact, AI startups vs tech incumbents, and whether it is time for AI to become sentient. This was an incredibly fun episode! Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur, venture capital investor, and software engineer. He is the co-author of Mosaic, t...
Feb 25, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Ep 36•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, our special guest is Marc "Tryndamere" Merrill, co-founder of Riot Games, the game developer and publisher behind League of Legends. This was an awesome episode and Marc is a fantastic guest. We talk about the origin of League of Legends, building a gaming startup, player focused culture, fundraising, building 'Arcane' the popular Netflix show and so much more. Enjoy! Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com/sriramk Follow Aarthi: https://www.instagr...
Feb 18, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Ep 35•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, we talk to Anders Hejlsberg, the creator of programming languages such. as C#, Typescript, Turbo Pascal and Delphi, on a life spent on building programming languages, the history of Java, his systems and setup, and what the future of programing languages looks like. Anders is someone we have looked up to for a big part of our lives, and this episode was a treat for us! Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com/sriramk Follow Aarthi: https://www.instag...
Feb 11, 2023•1 hr 26 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, we talked to Elad Gil - a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur, operating executive, and investor or advisor to companies including AirBnB, Pinterest, Square, and Stripe. He is also the author of High Growth Handbook, the playbook for turning a startup into a unicorn, and for navigating the most complex challenges that confront leaders and operators in high-growth tech startups. We covered a wide variety of topics during this chat - the current economic conditions and what it mean...
Feb 04, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Ep 33•Transcript available on Metacast This week, we're doing a quick 'solo episode' where we talk about layoffs in tech, what to do if you are impacted, the power of networking, shifting careers, consulting, and hitting the reset button. If you've been impacted by the recent tech layoffs, or have wondered how to think about layoffs and their impact, this episode is for you. Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com/sriramk Follow Aarthi: https://www.instagram.com/aarthir/ https://twitter.com/aarthir Follo...
Jan 28, 2023•46 min•Ep 32•Transcript available on Metacast This week we dive deep with Noam Shazeer, founder of Character.AI, Google veteran, and inventor of much of the current revolution in large language models including transformers, Mesh-Tensorflow, T5, and Google’s LaMDA dialog system. We cover: the evolution of Google and AI, transformers, LLMs, neural networks, commercialization of Google’s research, future of ChatGPT and AI, engineering philosophy, his work at Character.AI, and much more!Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https:/...
Jan 21, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast Andy Weir is the New York Times bestselling author of The Martian, Artemis, Project Hail Mary, and Cheshire Crossing. His 2011 novel The Martian was adapted into the 2015 film of the same name directed by Ridley Scott. In this episode, we talked about his story from being a software developer to a sci-fi author, getting a movie deal for The Martian starring Matt Damon, how humanity can go to another planet, his favorite sci-fi authors and what's next for him. As sci-fi nerds, this was a really f...
Jan 14, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast Brian Grazer is an Academy and Emmy award winning producer and writer. Grazer was personally nominated for four Academy Awards for Splash (1984), Apollo 13 (1995), A Beautiful Mind (2001), and Frost/Nixon (2008). His films and TV series have been nominated for 47 Academy Awards and 217 Emmy Awards. In 2002, Grazer won an Oscar for Best Picture for A Beautiful Mind (shared with Ron Howard). In this episode, we talked to Brian about his unique career path going from an outsider to a Hollywood insi...
Jan 07, 2023•56 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Aarthi and Sriram talked to James Clear, bestselling author of Atomic Habits (that sold over 9m copies!) and the popular 3-2-1 newsletter. We talked to him about writing and marketing a NYTimes bestseller, how to pick up good habits, the collective impact of small actions, and so much more. Check it out!Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com/sriramk Follow Aarthi: https://www.instagram.com/aarthir/ https://twitter.com/aarthir Follow the podcast: ht...
Dec 31, 2022•57 min•Ep 28•Transcript available on Metacast 'tis the time for our year end roundup - we talk about our favorite episodes this year, and our favorite other content - books, movies, in-person meetup, tech trends, and what is getting us excited about 2023. Happy holidays! Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com/sriramk Follow Aarthi: https://www.instagram.com/aarthir/ https://twitter.com/aarthir Follow the podcast: https://www.instagram.com/aarthiandsriramshow/ https://twitter.com/aarthisrirampod
Dec 24, 2022•46 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast This week's special guest is Steven Sinofsky, one of our favorite techno-optimists responsible for shipping Windows and Office products at Microsoft used by billions of people. He is also the author of one of the most popular Substack books - https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com In this episode we talked about Steven's early days at Microsoft, his famous internet memo, working with Bill Gates, and the traits he sees in good leaders and founders, how to set company culture, his experie...
Dec 17, 2022•2 hr 54 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast Indra Nooyi joins us this week as our special guest. In this episode we talked about her upbringing and early life, her career including leading PepsiCo, her leadership lessons, making it as an immigrant, and her experience meeting Steve Jobs. Born in Madras (Chennai) in Tamil Nadu, India, Indra Nooyi is an American business executive and former chairperson and CEO of Pepsico. She has consistently ranked among the world’s 100 most powerful women. She serves on the boards of Amazon and ICC. In 20...
Dec 10, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast In this 'solo' episode, Sriram and Aarthi talk about their trip to India and hosting the first in-person meetup in Chennai for fans of the podcast, as well as Sriram's take on Elon's first few weeks at Twitter and what he learned from watching Elon at work. Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com/sriramk Follow Aarthi: https://www.instagram.com/aarthir/ https://twitter.com/aarthir Follow the podcast: https://www.instagram.com/aarthiandsriramshow/ https://twitter.com...
Dec 04, 2022•46 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Aarthi and Sriram talk to Alexandr Wang is the founder and CEO of Scale AI. Alex is a 25 year old dropout from MIT, and is the youngest self made billionaire. Scale AI is the data platform for AI, providing high quality training data for leading machine learning teams. In this episode we talked about Alex's background and upbringing, how he stumbled onto the idea for Scale while building a camera in his refrigerator, the state of artificial intelligence, YCombinator (YC) program...
Nov 15, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Aarthi and Sriram talked to the one and only Marc Andreessen who is back by popular demand. For those of you (who are clearly living under a rock) who don't know him, Marc Andreessen is the co-founder of Netscape and co-founder and General Partner of Andreessen Horowitz. He is an innovator and creator, one of the few to pioneer a software category used by more than a billion people and one of the few to establish multiple billion-dollar companies. He is, without exaggeration, on...
Oct 30, 2022•2 hr 52 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Aarthi and Sriram talk to Rich Roll, an ultra-endurance athlete who is vegan, a chart-topping podcast host and author of multiple bestselling books, on his journey from being in college at Stanford, becoming an alcoholic, and then at the age of 40, recovering from his addiction, finding purpose and becoming an ultra endurance athlete. We talked about his early life, recovery, resurgence, role of spirituality in his life, what a typical week of diet and exercise looks like, why h...
Oct 23, 2022•59 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Aarthi and Sriram talked to Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus and now the founder and CEO of Anduril. We talked about Palmer's unique childhood, how he started Oculus and essentially made re-ignited the VR movement, sold to Meta, got fired, and then went on to start another challenging company called Anduril which focuses on building defense technology. We talked about Palmer's recent trip to Ukraine, the current state of the Ukraine/Russia, China/Taiwan and the threat of nuc...
Oct 15, 2022•2 hr 38 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Aarthi and Sriram talked to Tanmay Bhat, arguably India's most famous comedian, YouTuber, scriptwriter, actor, performer, producer and startup investor. We talked about Tanmay's early start with Youtube (a decade ago!), getting into live streaming, what a 'plandid' is, breaking down the construction of a joke, how comedy varies for different cultures and audiences, getting marriage proposals (!), dealing with haters, what makes Dave Chapelle, Andrew Shulz and other comedians suc...
Oct 08, 2022•2 hr 31 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Aarthi and Sriram talk to Emad Mostaque, the founder and CEO of Stability AI, the company behind Stable Diffusion AI (Artificial Intelligence). We covered everything from Emad's unique background, his religious beliefs as a Muslim, his son's autism diagnosis and how that shaped the building of Stable Diffusion, on LLMs (Large Language Models), how he thinks about AI ethics, how developing countries like India can leverage AI, and why he believes in open sourcing and democratizin...
Sep 30, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Aarthi and Sriram talked to the one and only Gary Vee (Gary Vaynerchuck). Gary talked about his decade-long history with the hosts, what it takes to be a good online creator, the power of creating content that is contextualized, his advice to young people, his views on Logan Paul, on why Mr. Beast is incredibly successful, and how to be a good parent. Enjoy! Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com/sriramk Follow Aarthi: https://www.instagram.com/aar...
Sep 24, 2022•44 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast In our first ever 'solo' episode (as Sriram says - 'we don't have a guest, but we have...each other'), Aarthi and Sriram talk about how to successfully onboard a new employee - both from the employer's perspective and for the new employee. And also, how to handle that first 1:1 with your manager, and the different tactics for onboarding for small startups vs bigger companies. And finally, how to think about promotions at work. Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com...
Sep 17, 2022•53 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, hosts Aarthi and Sriram interviewed THE internet celebrity couple, Anthony "Pomp" Pompliano and Polina Marinova. We covered everything from their life stories, how they met, their current work and building an online audience, thoughts on Andrew Tate, The Rock and others, and their lessons on parenting, building content together and finding happiness. Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com/sriramk Follow Aarthi: https://www.instagram.com/aarthir/ ht...
Sep 10, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of The Good Time Show, Aarthi and Sriram interviewed Laura Deming. Laura Deming is a partner at and founder of The Longevity Fund, a venture capital firm focused on aging and life extension. At age 8, Deming became interested in the biology of aging, and at age 12 she joined the lab of Cynthia Kenyon at the University of California, San Francisco. Deming was accepted to MIT at age 14 and later dropped out to accept the Thiel Fellowship and start a venture capital firm. We covered...
Sep 01, 2022•1 hr 25 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the Good Time Show, Aarthi and Sriram talked to one of our favorite economist, blogger, podcast host and author, Tyler Cowen. Tyler Cowen is an American economist, columnist and blogger. He is a professor at George Mason University, where he holds the Holbert L. Harris chair in the economics department. He also writes the economics blog Marginal Revolution and hosts the podcast Conversations with Tyler. Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com/srir...
Aug 17, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the Good Time Show, Aarthi and Sriram chatted with A.R. Rahman, Oscar-winning music composer, singer, songwriter and recently movie director, fondly known as "The Mozart of Madras". This was a very unique interview - we covered a wide range of topics from his music to movies, working with world class directors, his family and kids, spirituality and the meaning of life, his creative process, technology and AI and the future of India. This was a really interesting episode and wa...
Aug 04, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the Good Time Show, Aarthi and Sriram talked to Cleo Abram, a top creator on YouTube and TikTok, on her journey from Vox to being a full-time creator, how to be good on camera, how she made the now iconic videos on F1, artificial wombs etc. and why she's optimistic about the future! Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com/sriramk Follow Aarthi: https://www.instagram.com/aarthir/ https://twitter.com/aarthir Follow the podcast: https://www.instagram...
Jul 26, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of The Good Time Show, Aarthi and Sriram talked to Balaji Srinivasan, who is a tech founder, former CTO of Coinbase, multi-disciplinarian thinker and the author of The Network State (thenetworkstate.com). We covered a wide variety of topics ranging from transhumanism, what it takes to build a new country, how Balaji predicted the first and second order effects of the pandemic, why he's bullish on Indians, future of crypto, his productivity tips, thoughts on Elon Musk and Andrew H...
Jul 20, 2022•3 hr 51 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast 
