Description

Mahesh Guruswamy is a seasoned product development executive who has been in the software development space for over twenty years and has managed teams of varying sizes for over a decade. He is currently the chief technology officer at Kickstarter. Before that, he was an executive running product development teams at Mosaic, Kajabi, and Smartsheet. Mahesh caught the writing bug from his favorite author, Stephen King. He started out writing short stories and eventually discovered that long-form writing was a great medium to share information with product development teams. The essays he wrote over the last few years culminated in this book. Mahesh is passionate about mentoring others, especially folks who are interested in becoming a people manager and newer managers who are just getting going. Mahesh resides in Orange County with his wife, Krishma, and son, Vivaan. In his free time, you can find him either running in the trails around South Orange County or reading cosmic horror fiction.

In this episode, Philip and Mahesh Guruswamy discuss: 

• Planning ahead for marketplace changes 
• Selling your vision to those who care 
• Acting quickly and decisively 
• Creating expectations 

Lightbulb Moments:

• Plan ahead for changes in the marketplace. Talk to your customers to figure out what they need. 
• Stand for something, sell your vision to people who care. People really care who they’re buying from. 
• Act quickly. If you decide to build, build it very quickly. Don’t be a zombie company. If there is bad news that needs to be said, say it right away. Don’t let it fester. 
• Create those expectations so that when that final conversation may need to be had, they know what's coming and they can plan for it if they want to

“Whenever I give somebody one of my direct reports, something bad, something messy, I'm willing to do it myself too. I never give anybody something to do, which I don't think I can do.” - Mahesh Guruswamy

Connect with Mahesh Guruswamy: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maheshguruswamy/ 

Book: https://www.amazon.com/How-Deliver-Bad-News-Away/dp/B0D7FHTTNN 

Connect with Philip: 

Website: https://www.fornarolaw.com/ 

Podcast Website: https://lbmpodcast.com/ 

"X": https://x.com/FornaroLaw 

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/philipfornaro/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@fornarolaw3002 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fornarolaw 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fornarolaw/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FornaroLaw 

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