Prime Venture Partners Podcast

The Man Who Built Hotmail and Sold it to Microsoft for $400M | Prime Venture Partners Podcast

• Prime Venture Partners: Early Stage VC Fund

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In this PrimeVP Podcast episode, we go back to the roots of the internet with Sabeer Bhatia, the man who gave the world Hotmail. 📧

From his Hotmail journey to his bold perspectives on today’s most pressing themes, Sabeer shares unfiltered insights on:

1️⃣ How an email problem at work sparked the idea that changed global communication forever
2️⃣ Why communication skills — not just capital — make or break founders
3️⃣ Why health & discipline matter more than hustle in the long run
4️⃣ Why India’s education system needs urgent reinvention to foster critical thinking
5️⃣ Why AI today feels like the early days of the internet — and what it means for the future

⏱ Timestamps
00:00 – Introduction
02:50 – The serendipity behind Hotmail’s creation
06:40 – Storytelling vs. features: what consumers really buy
09:00 – The importance of thinking like a consumer
12:30 – The $99 smartwatch that beats Apple Watch
15:00 – Communication as a founder’s superpower
17:37 – From supercars to bicycles: redefining success
19:37 – Why AI will be bigger than the internet
20:00 – Critical thinking as the #1 future skill
24:30 – AI in medicine & education disruption
38:37 – Health as the real wealth for entrepreneurs
44:00 – Advice to young founders

💡 Top Takeaways for Founders & Professionals:
✔️ Simplicity + storytelling beats features every time
✔️ Health & discipline > hustle culture
✔️ Communication is the most underrated startup skill
✔️ India must prioritise critical thinking to stay globally competitive
✔️ AI’s impact will rival the internet revolution

💡 A must-watch for founders, operators, and anyone curious about what it takes to build, scale, and stay relevant across decades.

🎙 Hosted by Amit Somani

#SabeerBhatia #Hotmail #PrimePodcast #PrimeVenturePartnersPodcast #Entrepreneurship #IndianStartups #CriticalThinking #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Innovation #FutureOfWork #FounderMindset #CommunicationSkills #HealthAndWealth #Leadership

Speaker 1:

I had 214 followers on Instagram. Now I have 367,000. My posts have been viewed like 150 million times. Every tweet is ending up in Times of India or Hindustan Times or somebody's. I'm like I'm not seeing anything new.

Speaker 2:

Sabir Bhatia. He was the founder and CEO of Hotmail. Welcome to the show, sabir.

Speaker 1:

And that's when the idea of making email available on the web came to us. And success in entrepreneurship depends a lot on timing and serendipity, like what we discussed. What is required in entrepreneurship is really critical thinking. I think we overthink the problem. More than anything else, you have to sell a story. I love AI. I mean AI is going to change the world like you will not believe. Large language model it's Lama 3, it's 4, so many billion. Nobody freaking cares Stuff. Now AI will do better than even doctors Data collection. I've got like sensors all over my body right now. You know, not just this, I've got dispatch, actually humans, not without water but without food. We can go for 30, 50 days, bought a few toys, you know yacht or plane cars, apartment, home, all these things, but then they've lost the value for me.

Speaker 1:

And do five days of this reduced calorie fasting, you increase your lifespan or health span by two and a half years. I mean, look at steve job, look at rakesh junwala. When you can create all the wealth in the world, what use is it if you die at 57 or 55 or 59? Meaningless.

Speaker 2:

Hello and welcome to the Prime Venture Partners podcast. I am delighted to have with us today a very special guest, one of the early internet founders from the 90s, Sabir Bhatia. He was the founder and CEO of Hotmail. Welcome to the show, Sabir.

Speaker 1:

Thank you very much for having me on your show.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, sabir. So we can't but not start with Hotmail, and it was one of. I used to be in the Silicon Valley at the time and it was absolutely. You were the poster boy for what became I don't know how many trillions of dollars of economy, both on the internet now and then. We'll talk about stuff later. So can you tell us a little bit about the Hotmail journey, both in terms of the founding and the meteoric rise right, both in terms of the usage and the acquisition by Microsoft?

Speaker 1:

position by Microsoft. Listen, I think, like everything else, the Hotmail story, or journey, is finding a very simple solution to some problem. You know, whether it's Google, uber, even Microsoft itself, we're all kind of accidental entrepreneurs. I mean, we've got an idea that we want to do something. That's how I started thinking about, before co-founding, hotmail. The original idea was like let's do something on the internet. It's new, one day it's going to be big. What can we do on it Was the question that I needed to.

Speaker 1:

You know that I asked myself in those days, and I was working full time at a company called Firepower Systems. So I had this intuition what if we made a web-based database where we could store anything, easy to use, database, point and click, where we could, let's say, store all of our photographs or store all of our uh files? You know if in those days, if you had or documents that we had that we could, then it, the retrieval would be easy. We could retrieve it from anywhere in the world. Right, all you needed was a web browser. So the first idea of the cloud-based storage of some sort well, was the original idea. So I wrote a business plan for it and recruited my partner, jack Smith, to join me in the venture, and then we started coding this database and when we were creating it, both of us were working at a company called Firepower Systems.

Speaker 1:

The company installed a firewall around the corporate intranet and we couldn't access our personal email accounts. He had one at AOL and I had one at stanfordedu and that's when the idea of making email available on the web came to us. It's as simple as that. That was the genesis of Hotmail and we said, wow, we could access our email from anywhere in the world. So all it required was and both of us were hardware engineers, it's not that we knew this stuff or we were deep into software.

Speaker 1:

It was a human problem we were solving and we're like, we'll figure it out. We're smart enough, we'll figure out that we can use an email server, how to convert the email server into an output that is HTML-based. That's why it's called Hotmail, HTML email. So what is required in entrepreneurship is really critical thinking. I think we overthink the problem. I think we overthink the problem and most of companies I see, you know, over here there are some sort of copies of you know companies elsewhere and they maybe have a twist to them a five-minute, two-minute, one-minute, I don't know whatever, but that is continuation engineering. That's not original, unique idea that solves a problem.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

All the companies that I think have been super successful unique idea that solves a problem. All the companies that I think have been super successful have clearly hit the nail on the head and solved a very simple problem in a very elegant way, and I think that is true entrepreneurship. You know where there is. Before you start counting the dollars and cents, you say that the potential of this is uncapped, and that is the beauty of the internet or, today, whatever connected devices of any kind. You can find opportunities, and I mean the big ones are the ones where you find something that is truly scales and changes the whole world.

Speaker 2:

No, fantastic. So let me follow up on that a little bit. And you know, there is an element of serendipity in your experiment as well. Right, because you were building a database that was ready for the web era or the internet HTML era, and then you stumbled upon what I thought even back then and now was a killer application for that. Right it's. You know, if you would look today at connected devices or AI or whatever, I mean, there is a killer app for that. Right, because you could build all the info you want, but it's not really going to go anywhere. How do you factor for that, if anything? I mean, it might sound paradoxical, like how do you factor for serendipity? You don't, you can't, right? Uh? And and on the flip, on the other side, if you take too much of a problem that, oh, I have this problem and therefore the whole world will have this problem, often I find like there's a survivorship bias, right, like there'll be a few hot males that succeed, but many others will be problems that only 10.

Speaker 1:

You know matter of 10 people or 100 000 people, but not millions of people if you think like a consumer, I mean I, I'm, I have I'll be the first to profess I don't know anything about b2b sass. Don't even ask me, I don't even know, I've never dealt with it. Everybody has some sort of niche that they can understand. I, I understand consumers really well and in the consumer world, the last thing you think about is profit. You think about usage first, of course. Will people use it? Adoption, why will they use it? How will you get distribution? And you know, once they start using it, how. And then, of course, you'll figure out ways of monetizing it. So in this world, you have to put yourself mentally in the shoes of a consumer and ask, then start asking questions why will I use this, what is it for me? What is it by me? What is it by me? What benefits does it have? You know, and it's a simple problem you have to create an emotional connection with the consumer.

Speaker 1:

I love Apple. I started my career at Apple because Apple does not look at technology. I mean, it has fantastic technology, but it just hides everything. That's the means to the end. It just hides everything. It never tells you we've got 55 megahertz, this megahertz, this much, the RAM, this much nothing or this AI can do this. It just works Magically. Cloud storage works. When you store your photo, apple Cloud is already there. Iically, cloud storage works. You store your photo, you know Apple Cloud is already there. Icloud boom. Before you know it, everything is already backed up. It's that seamless introduction of technology which is at the heart of consumer and to consumers.

Speaker 1:

You have to sell a story More than anything else. You have to sell a story, not features, not capabilities, not what you can do. What is the story and why will I use it? And you have literally. The good news is you have a very short window, in one minute. If you can describe what you're doing for them, they will buy it. You can't go into this. Does this, this does that, this does that. For example, google just put out a simple search box, that's it. That's what ChatGPT also did. Absolutely Just a simple you can talk to AI. Now the interpretation of what it does. Whether it's a large language model, it's Lama 3, it's 4, so many billion, nobody freaking cares.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And all these other companies are trying to compete with ChatGPT on features, cloud, chinese, deep seek or whatever. India is also trying to do its own large language model. Come on, once somebody is the first mover in the consumer sphere, they will own everything. It's the first mover advantage of anything. It's like same thing in consumer arena, like electric cars. Tesla was the first, that's it. Everybody is betting 90% on Tesla, even though now a lot of Chinese companies have kind of caught up and stuff for price mostly. But you've got to understand the mind of the consumer.

Speaker 2:

So, since you also worked at Apple, like you said and I don't know if you stayed at Microsoft for a while or not, but another legendary entrepreneur there in Bill Gates what are some specific lessons learned, either from those companies or on your own, on how to understand the mind of the consumer? Yes, you need critical thinking. Yes, you need first principles-based thinking. I get that, but are there some tips and techniques or whatever right To say? You know, like Steve Cook of Intuit has this thing like follow the consumer home. A lot of the FMCG companies, like Johnson Johnson, they'd be like go there and watch how they use the washing detergent, not like not pontificate on what they need, or how does somebody do a shave with a Gillette razor. So are there some things, since you're so big on consumer, that you have learned as best practices in terms of doing the consumer understanding and the consumer discovery?

Speaker 1:

No, it's just experience, just act and behave like a consumer, which all of us are. So I mean, anytime there is any new consumer device of any kind, I sign up for it. Whether it's that recent human AI pin, anything latest, I don't care. I just spend money. I'm like let me just understand what problem they're trying to solve. So I am at the top of like, user of consumer products, and that's what. Then you start thinking and then you start just putting two and two together and figuring out is there something else we can do? Can this product or can this technology be used to solve some other problem that Western companies, for example, have no experience with? Like, for example, this new digital currency that I'm working on? I mean, it's really meant for the third world Emerging markets, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Because you know there is no currency fluctuation in the US. A dollar is a dollar is a dollar, you know. I mean, yeah, there's some inflation, but not like in Iran where the currency has been devalued like 30 times in the last 10 years and now, because of this war, maybe it's another 50, 60 times. So currency no longer the trust in the last 10 years and now, because of this war, maybe it's another 50, 60 times. So currency no longer, the trust in the currency no longer exists, with the people Ripe for disruption, right, and that's how you know, I think, about consumer usage habits. It's not going and observing them like up close to see how they use. I mean that's a little too much that. I believe that gets you, you know, 95 to 99% of- the last mile.

Speaker 1:

The last mile. A little bit more efficiency. Hey, this detergent, if it is put in packets or it's a paper or something, a sheet, maybe it will work better. But you've already discovered the detergent part. I like to discover new things, like where 95% of the bulk has not been discovered by anybody, and identify the bulk of the opportunity. Because once you have that and if your instincts a lot of this is instinctual too If your instincts are correct, I mean you hit a home run by miles, right.

Speaker 2:

So I have a very favorite question. I ask everyone I've never asked this on the Prime podcast what technology or device that you have spent on in the last two years or three years we won't go longer than that, since you're an African-American and you're trying a lot of things has changed your life, which is less than $1,000 or $500. Something that you use now because you experiment with everything. Right, you said the human ear, I'm sure, like you know, peloton, apple Watch, whatever else, right, this watch, this watch, yeah, I just got it this year.

Speaker 1:

Which one is this? Amaze Fit 2. What is it, amaze Fit 2,? It's only 99 bucks.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

But it has a 10-day battery life. It monitors everything that I do, my sleep, you know everything the whoop does. This does. It's got everything for running, bicycling, all kinds of workouts, golf all in one. Wow, I was 99 bucks, and I mean, before this I had an apple watch Watch. But the problem with the Apple Watch is it ran out of battery all the time.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And especially for me, like I did a bike ride last year, in June of last year, around Lake Tahoe. Of course 72-mile bike ride, so it took about six hours. My Apple Watch ran out of power. You know, maybe it was connecting to the. Gps all the time, and this one is 10 days Got it, and so this is a small like thing that I think is pretty useful. Whoop was the previous one that I liked a lot. What other devices?

Speaker 2:

More software, for that matter, any software app, whatever that you.

Speaker 1:

I mean I'm using oh, I've used an AI based website builder lovable or something else no, not lovable.

Speaker 1:

It's called hosting hostinger. Okay, hostinger never heard of that. And I, you know, I'm trying to organize a bike ride in Kashmir for peace, just peace. And so I had this idea and I said you know what? I'm going to make a website. So, rather than the traditional way of contacting people, you know, finding out designers doing this, I did it in half an hour Just went to Hostingercom, put in the prompts of what I wanted to get done. It gave me the whole website. I went and made edits to it and it was done in half an hour. Love it. I love AI. I mean, ai is going to change the world like you will not believe. Everything that we used to do previously you can describe in a prompt now.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely no. We're going to spend a lot of time on AI. One last question on Hotmail before we move on to potentially AI, which is you got a lot of success and a lot of money very early on in life, right? I don't know if you were how many years out of school you were in terms of undergrad or grad, you know, and obviously you know you seem pretty grounded and you're doing all these other things and whatnot, like how did that affect you both as an entrepreneur and as a person, right that early to get that much success and fame?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think some of it got to my head for a few years and I mean you made the usual things that most entrepreneurs do. But I've gotten out of that phase. You know, like I bought a few toys, you know a yacht a plane, cars, apartment, home, all these things.

Speaker 1:

But then they've lost the value for me. And now my most prized possession is my bicycle. I love it because I ride a hundred miles every week. It gives me good health, it keeps me fit. I love it. I mean it's I don't. I had the R8 sitting on my in my driveway for like three years and I have little kids. I didn't have time to take the car out because all the time I was spending with the kids, you know, in their kind of activities and stuff. So now it's more about, you know, just finding happiness in small things and that, like I said, the bicycle is in terms of possessions. I love it Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

No, I'm going to come back to. I know you're very, very big and outspoken on the focus on health overall, so let's do that towards the end. Let's talk about AI. Right, it almost feels to me since you were in the Valley as well in the 90s it feels like it's an AI moment.

Speaker 2:

I was in Palo Alto all of last week only talking to AI founders, vcs, early stage, late stage, like what the heck is going on. My one line takeaway was nobody has any clue what's going on, but it is going to change the world and it is changing the world, like you said, from Hostinger to Granola, to you know Lovable to what have you every cursor? So how do you think about it, both from an entrepreneurial point of view, consumer point of view I don't know if you're an investor also in terms of angel and other investing, but how should one think about this right? Of course you need to adopt it. There is no other option in any and every field, not just for tech. But any thoughts on how do we navigate this crazy new AI thing which seems like internet in the late 90s?

Speaker 1:

It is, or maybe bigger than that, who knows, it is going to be bigger than the internet. And once again, I think, rather than look at what's behind the AI, the engine bit which is now, I mean, getting more and more commoditized or a big player game, that's it, because a large language model will only get you this far. I mean, the efficiency is from 95 to 99%. But what can AI do to people's lives and how it can be used to people's lives and how it can be used to solve real world problems? I think that's the big opportunity. For example, I've created an app called Showreel, which is more of an education app, because I think education itself, the whole system of education, is broken, not just in India, the world over. More so in India, less so abroad, because here it is very knowledge-based and I'm like knowledge is irrelevant in this day and age. If I am testing you for what you know, it's meaningless. It's what you do with it, so it's how you think, and that part is critical thinking. So, using AI, I've developed an app for education that will solve the critical thinking bit to help kids, students, learners think critically, because if there is one skill that will be more in demand in the next five years than any other. It's critical thinking and problem solving, and 99%, or maybe 95%, of people in the world are afraid to think critically or think outside of the box. That's why only 5% become entrepreneurs, because the 95% have a problem in facing an unknown. But that is critical thinking. In facing an unknown, you know. But that is critical thinking. With all the knowledge that you do have, you don't have to find the right solution. But how would you solve this problem? You know, that's what Caltech and Stanford taught me.

Speaker 1:

I took some courses at Caltech where we were asked a problem which was like seemingly had no solution, and you know any which way you did it. And I went to the professor and asked him I don't think I can solve this. He says no, neither can I. If you solve it, you'll get a PhD. But I want to see what approach you take and how far do you take that approach and maybe while doing that, you discover something new. That is true, you know intelligence and that comes from critical thinking. And you know, I mean, I was very fortunate. That's why Caltech took me, because the exam that they had for me on mathematics was, you know, really tested how I thought, more than knowing the answer, knowing the solution, which is what Indian education mostly teaches you. That difference is you know the difference between like a successful product or not. Also a completely out of box solution to an existing problem.

Speaker 2:

No, absolutely. I have a teenage son about to go to college. In a year been pushing hard for him to consider a liberal arts education. I mean, learn how to think, learn how to communicate, learn how to you know problem solve is going to be more important, you know, than than necessarily just functional skills, right that you'll acquire over time and in the course of your job. So completely agree with that. Do you also invest in startups or not? A whole lot.

Speaker 1:

I have in the past and I don't have time because I'm doing my own stuff and I've invested in a number of funds in the US.

Speaker 2:

Of course. Of course, understood, understand Any other thoughts on AI. I know you don't do a whole lot on B2B, but I think a lot of what you said on B2C also applies on B2B in my opinion. Right, most B2B companies are stuck selling features. I have this feature, that feature, this compliant, that compliant Customer's looking for outcome orientation. Like, how will? So, even as we're looking at AI now and a couple of the companies we are investing in or have invested in, we're saying we ought to talk to the customer on what problem do we need to solve using AI? It's not about I have this feature. I can integrate with this HR system. I can integrate with, you know, salesforce, this, that, like that doesn't matter. That's all beneath the hood, right? Like, talk about Apple or talk about Google, for that matter. So, anyway, any particular areas excite you in the consumer space that you think are interesting for disruption using AI, or do you think everything is going to be up for grabs? Everything?

Speaker 1:

Medicine, for sure, you know diagnosis of everything. You look at a face and ask a few questions. That's how a doctor diagnoses your ailment, right? Yeah, those questions that you may not, you know, ask yourself. For example, you may have a stomach ache or a runny nose, I mean they'll ask you all the other things. You have pain in your this thing. They'll diagnose it and figure out. It's a heart condition, of course, or it's, like you know, hypertension, or it's whatever. That stuff. Now, ai will do better than even doctors, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Less errors right. More precision and recall. I think Microsoft just launched super intelligence medical super intelligence today.

Speaker 1:

I saw that. I saw it on LinkedIn, the CTO put out a post about it. That's it. That's it. I read the same thing as well, so I think it's exciting for medicine. Obviously, Any customer interaction, you any customer interaction, you know booking of appointments, taking orders, everything will be done by AI. I don't think you'll need humans Making websites.

Speaker 1:

Websites app. I made an app Apps. Yeah, I mean, I made the app just before coming. I downloaded it because this, you know, Steve Wozniak came up on a social media reel and he says I used to love coding. Now there is famousai and I just downloaded it and I made an app in like 10 minutes Amazing. And the whole thing works no spelling mistakes, no problems of reorientation of the size of the different pages on different devices. It's unreal, I mean, and it's only going to get better. This is just the beginning. So that's the future, I think.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, coding is going to be personalized creation of things such as, let's say, you want to make a bike helmet that suits, fits your head, or just finely tailored suit. Now AI will figure it out. Just stand in front of a camera and just turn around and they will make a, you know, finely tailored piece of clothing or whatever to your specifications. So personalization is, I think, also the next stage of consumer AI usage. Anything that requires human experience, you can now translate and use AI to do all of that.

Speaker 1:

So I see that with this automation, like data collection, I've got like sensors all over my body right now. You know, not just this, I've got this patch EDM. Yeah, exactly so continuous data, you know, and you put all that data and tell you what to eat, what not to eat, when to sleep, you know, and you put all that data and tell you what to eat, what not to eat, when to sleep, you know. So amazing that we will be interacting more with AI and robots than with humans because they'll give us the right advice. I mean, the whoop already tells you go to sleep by 10 am 10 pm tonight. You know your exhaustion level is too high and sleep at least eight hours at least 10 hours.

Speaker 2:

Does your Amaze watch? Do that too. Amaze does the same thing. I should get one of those, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So you know, I mean it's like you've got all these thinking agents telling you what to do in your life.

Speaker 2:

Great, let's move on. You mentioned something a little while back which is something we talk about a lot. So we also back entrepreneurs in the US, obviously a lot more in India and one of the areas where I think we could do much better collectively as an organization. There are amazing set of folks here, amazing set of folks there, but it's storytelling right, Like you said. Hey, look for consumer, it's extremely important. I think, it's important for B2B, it's important for AI, it's important for everything. So what are some? You know a few kind of handful of skills like storytelling and love you to double click on that as well that are skills that entrepreneurs should acquire, obviously, functionally right, I could be a great AI engineer or a great, you know salesperson or a great HR professional. That's fine, and you will leverage those kind of Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours. But what are some life skills like storytelling, like critical thinking, that you think entrepreneurs, in particular early stage one, should pick up as they're going around, or even the wannabe entrepreneurs that might be entrepreneurs tomorrow or day after?

Speaker 1:

Language? Obviously, philosophy. I mean the basis of AI is philosophy. You know, today the way we interact with AI is it will spit out an answer based on how you interact with it, so which means your input to it is language, and there is a huge difference. I mean, if you ask for example, I asked a book copyright editor and she says that you know, there is a huge difference in how the output of an AI engine, when she uses the word countenance instead of face, which means language.

Speaker 2:

Your language is important as well.

Speaker 1:

Is important because and that only comes from reading and knowing and conversing in the right, using the right words for the right you know way you are thinking or feeling or the kind of question you're asking is AI will treat you. It basically figures you out and says should I treat you like a 10-year-old or, like you know, a 45-year-old, or a 10th grade student or somebody who's you know got many years of, for example, experience under their belt? So language skills are key and language skills are key to selling. You know, I think everybody, every entrepreneur, has to be a salesman all the time. You're selling to investors, you're selling a story to consumers. You know you're selling to employees You're selling to employees.

Speaker 1:

You're selling to organizations the whole interpersonal skills. I mean today all my companies. We don't have a physical location anymore. Everything is virtual. You have to communicate, but we communicate like twice, three times a week on Zoom. Everything is done on Zoom. Teams are remote, they're sitting here, sitting there. So that is the new reality and so that is one skill that I would obviously encourage every entrepreneur to learn. You know the ability to communicate, and that just comes with experience.

Speaker 2:

Got it, got it Great, let's. You know, entrepreneurship also has a lot of lows. One of my partners, sanjay, is most famously cited as saying look, you know, it's two days of glory and 363 days of pain, right. But also along the journey of entrepreneurship, look, you know, it's two days of glory and 363 days of pain, right. But also along the journey of entrepreneurship, right, there are many downs, many ups and so forth. So how did you deal with that, especially after the brilliant early success? Because you've had a lot of different attempts you made. Maybe some of them succeeded, maybe some didn't. So how do you deal with a little bit of the tougher side of entrepreneurship, a little bit of some of the of entrepreneurship, a little bit of some of the lows, as you go around in your journey?

Speaker 1:

I don't treat entrepreneurship as a business. Simple, and maybe it's like I'm not trying to close a deal, close an employee. There's no such pressure, it's just free thought, free thinking, constant Iterating.

Speaker 1:

No such pressure it's just free thought, free thinking, constant iterating on the possible solution, refining it, and the market is changing so fast. I mean, the product we built for you know, like Showreel, which was just like a year ago, which was based on static questions, now has become dynamic because, using AI, you can have a real conversation with individuals and figure out their level of intelligence. So, you know, I think and that's the like, some of the bigger companies are already realizing that, like, salesforce has now rebranded itself AgentForce because it knows that agentic technology will completely replace anything that is query-based, because the query will be just a chatbot.

Speaker 2:

Right, absolutely yeah. And I think what we are now finding is chatbots have been around forever, right, and they used to be powered by ML and so forth. I think getting the agents to go to completion of the actions and get to the outcome is becoming quite important, right, it's not orchestrating the workflow, getting it to closure, and that'll also change everything the pricing model, the deployment, the conviction. I think the legal landscape will change as well. Right, in terms of, if any, I did one of my first driverless car experiences in a Waymo last week in San Francisco and it was mind-blowing what that is. But I was thinking about all the ethical and legal and other implications policy implications They've already been solved?

Speaker 2:

Yeah seriously and because it deployed Forget deployed.

Speaker 1:

Now it's going to go all over Bay Area.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Not just San Francisco, Palo Alto, Brisbane, all the cities.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and so to me it's like a, you know, multi-dimensional, multi dimensional, multidisciplinary problem. It's not just the AI that's driving the car, it's all these other scenarios have to be taught through. What happens when that happens? Great, let's jump to. I know one of your. Actually one more question on entrepreneurship what are some blind spots that people have? What are the positive, aspirational things like? Learn storytelling, think first principles, read a lot, do philosophy. What are things that people don't do or could be potential downsides, whether it was from your own experience or what you observed in other people globally?

Speaker 1:

I think a lot of entrepreneurs are also. See, it's good to imagine things, but you have to come down to reality to implement them as well. A lot of young entrepreneurs over promise and under deliver. The one thing that I learned from microsoft is never do that under promise andiver.

Speaker 1:

So what is possible? You know you may get to your end vision, but the selling point to an investor is not the end vision, but it's how you're going to get there. What are the smaller steps you're going to take to get there? And at every small assumption you make, get it tested. Like I'm making a lot of assumptions in this digital currency, but I'm testing it out at every stage with people like you, other people whomever I meet, who are knowledgeable and say okay. And then, of course, I've also learned the new art of selling, which is building your own social media channel.

Speaker 1:

I mean, until last year I had 214 followers on Instagram. Now I have 367,000. And my posts have been viewed like 150 million times. And Twitter I've just discovered six weeks ago Every tweet is ending up in Times of India or Hindustan Times or somebody's. I'm like I'm not seeing anything new. But personal branding, personal marketing using social media is huge, but the blind spots are don't let your imagination run so wild that you are consumed by hubris. Be humble at all. I mean be realistic, because, yeah, you can imagine something that doesn't exist, but you don't know how to get there. So you will never get there unless you've broken that down as well, and for that you need to be aware of what the latest technology is.

Speaker 2:

No, couldn't agree with you more. I don't think people spend enough time thinking about personal brand ability to reach all audiences directly, whether it's consumers, investors, prospects, partners. I think it can make a big difference and I think most founders are a little bit oblivious or maybe they don't like doing it. It's a little annoying or irritating compared to building or selling, but I think it's extremely important. Let's talk about health, since you're really big into it and you've kept in great shape. Let's talk about health, since you're really big into it and you've kept in great shape.

Speaker 2:

So you know, talk a little bit about just how the holistic 360, on how you think about health and what you do and, in particular I think I don't know myth or otherwise, maybe controversial when a young, early stage founder is building a company, they're like there is nothing else. This is what I'm going to do 100 hours a week. They're like 14 cups of coffee, no sleep. This is the war, et cetera, and I just find that like it is not really going to be headed in a good direction, and I know this is going to be controversial, but nonetheless, talk both about your 360 health thing. And then what would you recommend for somebody who's still in a crazy build phase. How do they? What are some basic things that they can do?

Speaker 1:

listen. Entrepreneurship and success in entrepreneurship depends a lot on timing and serendipity, like what we discussed. You can't change what is going to happen, whom you're going to meet, so go into every meeting with an open mind. You know, knowing that it may end positively or not doesn't matter, but as long as you learn something new, health is very important. I mean, I just started out of nothing else but curiosity. First of all, let me tell you how I got into cycling.

Speaker 2:

Yeah please.

Speaker 1:

About three years ago wasn't that long ago either a friend of mine whose kids go to the same school that my kids go to. I hadn't seen him for about three, four months and he was suddenly super fit. I'm like, what the hell did you do? She said I've started cycling. I'm like I'm going, did you do? She said I've started cycling. I'm like I'm going to start that tomorrow. And that's how I got into it.

Speaker 1:

Cycling or any kind of continuous physical activity releases a lot of positive chemicals in your body that overcome depression, depression, chemical imbalances, whatever the thing is. It just makes you happy. If you're in a dark place, like you said, ups and downs, quickest fix is not drugs, it's not attention deficit disorder, drugs or whatever. Just go for a bike ride or do something where you push your body to the limit. Body itself releases a lot of happy hormones and chemicals, which is great. So I got into this whole longevity thing because all these books started coming out on longevity. One was peter attia's yeah, outlive, and then the other one is the Longevity Diet by Walter Longo and I started researching it and started trying it out and they all work. Like I have done 11 five-day fasts Wow, when I go back next week because I'm eating like a pig in India, I'm going to go and do a five-day fast and it's a reduced calorie fast. But in all of this whole longevity thing, I have come to the conclusion that the only way to reverse aging, or stop it, if not reverse it, is fasting, and long-term fasting, not intermittent, not one day. You have to do it for five days and the science and theory behind this is you put your body into a state of autophagy, which is when okay. So the body requires about 1800 calories just to survive every single day. If you put it in a caloric deficit, which is consume only between 800 and 1,000 calories a day, that means you're short, at least 800, possibly more if you're walking, doing things you know, working out and other things. So let's say you're 1,000, 1,500 calories in deficit.

Speaker 1:

The body needs that energy somehow. First it goes to all of your pancreatic other stores, sugar stores. Then it goes to the subcutaneous level where you start losing fat underneath your skin. But only on day three, four and five does it go to your visceral fat which is around your organs, around your pancreas and your kidneys and liver and everything else, and plus when it is in a state of starvation. Out of the trillions of cells in our body, the few billion ones that are kind of malfunctioning, they die. So it rejuvenates your whole body and actually humans. Not without water but without food. We can go for 30, 40, 50 days. We have so much energy stored in our bodies and using this as a tool. I mean the math is, if you do five days of this reduced calorie fasting, you increase your lifespan or health span by two and a half years. I'm like that's a trade I'll take all day long and five days now I do it in my sleep. There's no first one was harder because I wasn't used to it.

Speaker 1:

Now I endure it in my sleep, no problem. And so fasting is huge, exercise is huge, muscle mass is huge, you know. Sleep is huge. Few things, happiness is huge, relationships is huge. That's it. That's all you need to do, because the most important asset we all have is our health. I mean, we are overly consumed, especially in this country with wealth. But let me tell you, health comes above wealth. I mean, look at Steve Jobs, look at Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. When you can create all the wealth in the world, what use is it if you die at 57 or 55 or 59? Meaningless. So in the long term, our time on planet Earth is limited and we have to make sure it's the healthiest time we have. So, investing in health and it starts early you cannot. Everything is reversible, but you cannot say I'll do this when I reach. I mean in India now people are dying of heart attacks at 42, 45. Yep, because they're not.

Speaker 1:

Investing in health does not mean going to the gym and building a body only. It means everything else. It's 360 degree. You've got to have good human relationships. You've got to maybe do a few fasts, put your body in a caloric deficit, do some outdoor cycling, whatever. Sleep well, all of that. Don't just look at one and say, oh, because that one person died, that means I don't need to go to the gym. A few points of data don't need to go to the gym, you know. A few points of data don't make you know the bulk, and the bulk is large. Data is telling you that you've got to invest in all these things in order to live a healthy life.

Speaker 2:

No, fantastic. Couldn't agree with you more, and I always tell founders you're taking care of your company. You know who's taking care of you. You need to take care of yourself as well, great Sabir. So, as we come to a wrap here, any kind of parting words of wisdom on things that you would encourage founders to do? And maybe, if you had to do your journey again, what would you do differently, if anything?

Speaker 1:

Nothing Because I can't change the past. So don't try to learn from the past. That's the worst thing, the worst place to learn from. Forget the past. Whatever has happened has happened. You can't change it. Don't brood over it. Of course, don't make the same mistake again. So learn something, but move on and always keep thinking. Whatever solution you have, you can always improve it. You may have thought of something. Ai is changing things so fast that whatever you did yesterday, throw it out, doesn't matter. Start and write the software again using modern tools. So what if you've invested? That it's irrelevant. And always focus on the customer. What does the customer? What will the customer experience be the best?

Speaker 2:

Well, fantastic, sabir, thanks. Thanks again for being on the Prime Venture Partners podcast. You're very welcome, very lovely and a long, you know kind of broad conversation. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. Thanks a lot. New episodes are available. Just search for Prime Venture Partners Podcast in Apple Podcast, spotify CastBox or however you get your podcasts, then hit subscribe and if you have enjoyed the show, we would be really grateful if you leave us a review on Apple Podcast. To read the full transcript, find the link in the show notes.