thank you so much it’s wonderful to be
here I always love coming to the DTO
campus violence at the other end of the
world from where the state but it’s
always a pleasure my name is uncle body
ku and the co-founder and CEO of nearby
dot-com which is an internet startup and
my experience is a entrepreneur for the
last nine years nine to ten in this
country has taught me a lot of things
it’s a fascinating experience to be an
entrepreneur particularly in today’s
times were suddenly becoming an
entrepreneur is vegetable people know
how to pronounce the word entrepreneur
people are carrying I am CEO bitchy
business cards and it’s this really cool
and sexy to be outside working in a
start-up owning a company and doing all
of those wonderful things that you see
on television on social media the
experience though is far more humbling
it’s not as glamorous as many for seem
to be and I have kept my ears and eyes
are open to genuinely learn a lot about
my own selves as I’ve navigated to these
dynactin audience and I wanted to share
a story particularly with you all which
is stood out as possibly one of the most
impactful and I would argue a very
unpopular or rather not obvious
conclusion of how life is particularly
in the country that we stay in so when
you think of a start-up office and
visualize a start-up office from what
you know whether your friends are
working there and so on you will imagine
the world which is without any
boundaries there are no cabins around
it’s a very flat organization people are
chilling out they’re high-fiving they’re
wearing shorts they’re wearing
flip-flops they’re wearing t-shirts
there are no certain moms being
exchanged everyone’s polite and cordial
but they’re also very young and very
forthcoming and this is energy that is
buzz that you would imagine in a
start-up office there beanbags all
around this free lunch this foosball
tables and people playing DT summer
facebooking and it’s okay and some are
instagramming and that’s also okay some
are working and that’s fine so it is
just wonderful
the excitement world and if you read a
lot about startups particularly
literature that comes in from the West
or if you observe the likes of the
googles and the Amazons and the
Facebook’s of the world there is this
underlining belief that this system
encourages very open communication this
infrastructure this ecosystem this
environment the set up allows people to
lower their guards down and be very
generously engaged with one another and
I went in with that same assumption I
loved generally knowing people
interacting with them getting to know
what their story is because beyond just
the title and the education and the
marks that they’ve got there lies a
whole new person that’s waiting to be
uncovered and I figured that if I create
a set up which will replicate what the
West has taught us it will be very easy
for me to have those conversations which
would be honest which would be
transparent and more importantly which
will be truthful
so I said on this journey and it was
very easy to replicate what the West had
told us it was very easy to get these
fancy offices it was very easy to have
mirrors and glass flowing through and no
walls it was very easy to have young
people come in give them the freedom to
wear whatever they want to do whatever
they want making them accountable
responsible but in the hope that there
is a fair bit of feedback and a fair bit
of truth that’s flowing back to you what
unfortunately happened is I didn’t see
any of that coming through I didn’t see
people genuinely stepping up and sharing
what they truly felt it was almost as if
they wanted to hide behind a wall when
there were no physical walls and in
office there was a virtual wall that was
between them and me or the leadership of
the organization people were not as
forthcoming as I expected them to be
suddenly everything that I knew of as an
entrepreneur having observed the western
style of startup was falling apart in
the Indian context and I struggled to
make it work
started overcompensating I started over
communicating I started reaching out to
people in the hope that they would open
up and open up a bluebird knob and the
more I tried I felt people were getting
farther away from me
it was almost as if they wanted to share
but my willingness to hear them out was
making them nervous was making them feel
as if they were being looted judged
evaluated and something had to happen to
break this rhythm or this routine that
had set in it disturbed me because I’m
not the person who would sit on the
chair
call myself a CEO define others and then
see people execute I am what I would
argue a very democratic leader where I
love the feedback and the consensus to
be established and I wasn’t getting that
so one fine evening not by design I’m
reading something online and I come
across this coat which of course I’ve
encountered before but now when I see
just strikes me as something that I
should have paid attention to it’s by
Oscar Wilde and it’s a very famous quote
that says give this man a mask and he
will tell you the truth if this man a
must and he will then tell you the truth
and as like oh my god so far I’ve been
led to believe that if I create this
setup people will genuinely generously
share their truth but maybe I need to
give them a mask
maybe they are not what I expected them
to be
maybe this setup and this infrastructure
is not conducive for them to be sharing
the truth and I need to give them a mask
so I did something which was not aligned
to my worldview thus far which was bring
an extremely strong layer of anonymity I
suddenly didn’t care who was saying what
I care about what was being said I
suddenly stopped getting about the
source of the truth and focus rather on
the truth itself so I started
circulating forms google anonymous
sheets where people were encouraged to
write about anything that they were
experiencing whether they were having a
great time at work a horrible time with
their managers their work was not
productive or was fascinating anything
on their mind that they were willing to
share and the minute I dropped the need
to know who it was where that person
belonged whether the office whether the
function whether their tenure and so on
I was blown away by the instant reaction
that people generated suddenly the
comfort of anonymity made them
absolutely fascinating being transparent
now that was just the first step because
if I hide behind this layer of anonymity
I might never be able to genuinely reach
out to individuals in a way that they
establish trust with the self what if
they think that they are being watched
while they’re being told that they are
anonymous so I had to break your
shackles
and what I did was made everything from
my side absolutely transparent as well
so we started asking a lot of questions
anonymously within the company tell us
what you feel tell us anything that you
find disturbing not aligned to what the
company vision is according to you not
aligned to your personal worldview and
something that you wish to challenge as
a decision that has been taken in the
self and I will make it a point to
address it not just back to you but to
the entire organization so every
question that it’s asked is post
absolutely openly to the company and all
my responses to those questions are also
those absolutely open its for everyone
to read everyone to consume everyone to
digest and then everyone can start
forming their opinions about what is the
reaction of that leadership are they
aligned with that are the alignment of
worldview but more importantly they get
to experience the questions that are
coming in from their tribe without
knowing where it’s
and it worked like magic it worked as if
I had never believed it to be because
suddenly people were like I had the same
question I had that same question and I
was unable to ask for whatever reasons
and now I see that question being asked
and I believe in this response or I
don’t agree with this response but I can
see that I can send in a follow-up and
it would still be responded for everyone
to be consumed suddenly the truth became
more important than the source of the
truth this lesson which was limited to
what I would call my entrepreneurial
world my professional side of my life
suddenly expanded to everything within
my life and that’s the message I’m going
to leave you with every single day each
one of you wakes up with a certain truth
in your mind and I argue that a truth is
not a fact
would you believe in to be true need not
be for someone else
and truth in my opinion is system
collective amalgamation of everyone’s
opinion about a certain circumstance
we’re not talking about the Sun rising
from somewhere and we’ve been around as
against a flat planet we’re talking
about opinions we’re talking about
judgment we talking about observations
if you believe that the current
government of this country is the best
ever we’ve ever had you will live by
that truth and there will be enough
people who will challenge you on that
and say you know it’s the worst
government we have ever had and they
will also have regain wake up living
that truth and who’s to say who’s right
and who’s to say who’s wrong but what we
end up doing if every single day Center
ourselves on the source of the truth if
we find people who are similar to us who
we’d like who we agree with who we find
agreeable we suddenly start believing
that truth as ours and we think that our
truth will be
cerebral today and suddenly someone
who’s different whether it’s context
whether its background whether it’s how
they look how they talk how much they
own anything that sets them apart from
where you come from
suddenly the truth is not yours and
yours is not accepted by them but if you
were to put a wall behind every one if
you were to actually make every
individual on earth anonymous and just
hear what they have to say not who they
are not their biases not their context a
view that you want to have every day but
you’re not getting here’s the miserable
horrible truth about technology every
single day it’s speeding us our beliefs
every single day that you open up
Facebook that you open up an Instagram
that you open up any other social
network that you consume time on you
will find a bigger version of your own
belief not an alternative version a
bigger version of who you are so if you
have believes they will personalize
those beliefs for you you will feed upon
something that you want to be believe in
and it will be made to come across as if
that’s the fundamental truth you will
never get to experience what the other
side is and that’s creating this massive
dichotomy in this world when we are
becoming bigger versions of ourselves
not a better version of ourselves will
amplify your own beliefs our own ego
with not questioning them challenging
them and this is nothing that we do on a
single basis on a single daily basis
that allows us to do that as students
who are going to experience a world that
is not absolutely nearly as similar to
what we experience for your parents
experienced the best gift that you can
give yourself is to be centered around
the truth starting with you
every single day when you wake up and
when you face yourself in the mirror the
anonymous self of you someone who
doesn’t know you someone who does not
understand where you come from will tell
you a truth the truth could be that you
don’t want to be at the place that you
are that you’re not the person that the
world believes you to be that you hate
the things that you’ve done or you
absolutely love doing what you are not
doing and those truths are ignored
they’re washed out by an image of
ourselves that we place in our own head
that the world has convinced us we are
and every single time that you refuse to
look at that truth you are accepting
alive you are allowing someone’s life to
become your truth and that’s the reality
of the world every single day someone
will be telling you what you have to do
to be successful every single day your
balance your friends your network and
you your own self will be telling you
what you want to do to be successful if
you’ve got a certain reading to
understand you of course going to pick
up science and if you pick it up science
you of course need to do engineering and
if you pick it up engineering of course
you have to get to the best school and
you’ve got to the best school of course
you have to get the best job if you’ve
got the best job of course you have to
get this minimum salary and if when you
get this job of course you have to get
promoted every now and then of course
you have to do that because that’s
success you never stop to think what
your truth is is this truly what I want
is this me facing myself not knowing who
I am but as an anonymous person driven
by my interest driven by my lifestyle
and my beliefs and I seen the person
that is not me but someone else in the
mirror and as much time as you can spend
with your own self deciphering truth
without being biased by where you come
from what your parents are telling you
what your friends are telling you what
you yourself have told yourself you will
here’s an unpopular opinion that you
want today at your age you’re possibly
sinning at what will be the turning
point of this planet and that’s what we
know on the human civilization and it’s
likely that you guys will never die it’s
quite likely that you guys would
physically never die you might die of an
accident
or because you got shot on anything but
you will naturally never done so we
often ask this question what ever this
was the last day on earth how would you
live your life differently my question
to you now is what if you knew that you
had to live for another 150 years what
would you change in yourself today so
that you’ve planned for the next hundred
fifty and the only thing that can set
you up to be willing and to be ready to
live yours beyond what you can
comprehend a world that we can
absolutely not imagine and an
environment which is so rapidly changing
is to only set yourself on the
discipline of chasing the truth not the
source of the truth not where it comes
from not the color of it but the pure
admission of what the reality is your
reality not someone elses imposed on you don’t allow someone else’s lie
here I always love coming to the DTO
campus violence at the other end of the
world from where the state but it’s
always a pleasure my name is uncle body
ku and the co-founder and CEO of nearby
dot-com which is an internet startup and
my experience is a entrepreneur for the
last nine years nine to ten in this
country has taught me a lot of things
it’s a fascinating experience to be an
entrepreneur particularly in today’s
times were suddenly becoming an
entrepreneur is vegetable people know
how to pronounce the word entrepreneur
people are carrying I am CEO bitchy
business cards and it’s this really cool
and sexy to be outside working in a
start-up owning a company and doing all
of those wonderful things that you see
on television on social media the
experience though is far more humbling
it’s not as glamorous as many for seem
to be and I have kept my ears and eyes
are open to genuinely learn a lot about
my own selves as I’ve navigated to these
dynactin audience and I wanted to share
a story particularly with you all which
is stood out as possibly one of the most
impactful and I would argue a very
unpopular or rather not obvious
conclusion of how life is particularly
in the country that we stay in so when
you think of a start-up office and
visualize a start-up office from what
you know whether your friends are
working there and so on you will imagine
the world which is without any
boundaries there are no cabins around
it’s a very flat organization people are
chilling out they’re high-fiving they’re
wearing shorts they’re wearing
flip-flops they’re wearing t-shirts
there are no certain moms being
exchanged everyone’s polite and cordial
but they’re also very young and very
forthcoming and this is energy that is
buzz that you would imagine in a
start-up office there beanbags all
around this free lunch this foosball
tables and people playing DT summer
facebooking and it’s okay and some are
instagramming and that’s also okay some
are working and that’s fine so it is
just wonderful
the excitement world and if you read a
lot about startups particularly
literature that comes in from the West
or if you observe the likes of the
googles and the Amazons and the
Facebook’s of the world there is this
underlining belief that this system
encourages very open communication this
infrastructure this ecosystem this
environment the set up allows people to
lower their guards down and be very
generously engaged with one another and
I went in with that same assumption I
loved generally knowing people
interacting with them getting to know
what their story is because beyond just
the title and the education and the
marks that they’ve got there lies a
whole new person that’s waiting to be
uncovered and I figured that if I create
a set up which will replicate what the
West has taught us it will be very easy
for me to have those conversations which
would be honest which would be
transparent and more importantly which
will be truthful
so I said on this journey and it was
very easy to replicate what the West had
told us it was very easy to get these
fancy offices it was very easy to have
mirrors and glass flowing through and no
walls it was very easy to have young
people come in give them the freedom to
wear whatever they want to do whatever
they want making them accountable
responsible but in the hope that there
is a fair bit of feedback and a fair bit
of truth that’s flowing back to you what
unfortunately happened is I didn’t see
any of that coming through I didn’t see
people genuinely stepping up and sharing
what they truly felt it was almost as if
they wanted to hide behind a wall when
there were no physical walls and in
office there was a virtual wall that was
between them and me or the leadership of
the organization people were not as
forthcoming as I expected them to be
suddenly everything that I knew of as an
entrepreneur having observed the western
style of startup was falling apart in
the Indian context and I struggled to
make it work
started overcompensating I started over
communicating I started reaching out to
people in the hope that they would open
up and open up a bluebird knob and the
more I tried I felt people were getting
farther away from me
it was almost as if they wanted to share
but my willingness to hear them out was
making them nervous was making them feel
as if they were being looted judged
evaluated and something had to happen to
break this rhythm or this routine that
had set in it disturbed me because I’m
not the person who would sit on the
chair
call myself a CEO define others and then
see people execute I am what I would
argue a very democratic leader where I
love the feedback and the consensus to
be established and I wasn’t getting that
so one fine evening not by design I’m
reading something online and I come
across this coat which of course I’ve
encountered before but now when I see
just strikes me as something that I
should have paid attention to it’s by
Oscar Wilde and it’s a very famous quote
that says give this man a mask and he
will tell you the truth if this man a
must and he will then tell you the truth
and as like oh my god so far I’ve been
led to believe that if I create this
setup people will genuinely generously
share their truth but maybe I need to
give them a mask
maybe they are not what I expected them
to be
maybe this setup and this infrastructure
is not conducive for them to be sharing
the truth and I need to give them a mask
so I did something which was not aligned
to my worldview thus far which was bring
an extremely strong layer of anonymity I
suddenly didn’t care who was saying what
I care about what was being said I
suddenly stopped getting about the
source of the truth and focus rather on
the truth itself so I started
circulating forms google anonymous
sheets where people were encouraged to
write about anything that they were
experiencing whether they were having a
great time at work a horrible time with
their managers their work was not
productive or was fascinating anything
on their mind that they were willing to
share and the minute I dropped the need
to know who it was where that person
belonged whether the office whether the
function whether their tenure and so on
I was blown away by the instant reaction
that people generated suddenly the
comfort of anonymity made them
absolutely fascinating being transparent
now that was just the first step because
if I hide behind this layer of anonymity
I might never be able to genuinely reach
out to individuals in a way that they
establish trust with the self what if
they think that they are being watched
while they’re being told that they are
anonymous so I had to break your
shackles
and what I did was made everything from
my side absolutely transparent as well
so we started asking a lot of questions
anonymously within the company tell us
what you feel tell us anything that you
find disturbing not aligned to what the
company vision is according to you not
aligned to your personal worldview and
something that you wish to challenge as
a decision that has been taken in the
self and I will make it a point to
address it not just back to you but to
the entire organization so every
question that it’s asked is post
absolutely openly to the company and all
my responses to those questions are also
those absolutely open its for everyone
to read everyone to consume everyone to
digest and then everyone can start
forming their opinions about what is the
reaction of that leadership are they
aligned with that are the alignment of
worldview but more importantly they get
to experience the questions that are
coming in from their tribe without
knowing where it’s
and it worked like magic it worked as if
I had never believed it to be because
suddenly people were like I had the same
question I had that same question and I
was unable to ask for whatever reasons
and now I see that question being asked
and I believe in this response or I
don’t agree with this response but I can
see that I can send in a follow-up and
it would still be responded for everyone
to be consumed suddenly the truth became
more important than the source of the
truth this lesson which was limited to
what I would call my entrepreneurial
world my professional side of my life
suddenly expanded to everything within
my life and that’s the message I’m going
to leave you with every single day each
one of you wakes up with a certain truth
in your mind and I argue that a truth is
not a fact
would you believe in to be true need not
be for someone else
and truth in my opinion is system
collective amalgamation of everyone’s
opinion about a certain circumstance
we’re not talking about the Sun rising
from somewhere and we’ve been around as
against a flat planet we’re talking
about opinions we’re talking about
judgment we talking about observations
if you believe that the current
government of this country is the best
ever we’ve ever had you will live by
that truth and there will be enough
people who will challenge you on that
and say you know it’s the worst
government we have ever had and they
will also have regain wake up living
that truth and who’s to say who’s right
and who’s to say who’s wrong but what we
end up doing if every single day Center
ourselves on the source of the truth if
we find people who are similar to us who
we’d like who we agree with who we find
agreeable we suddenly start believing
that truth as ours and we think that our
truth will be
cerebral today and suddenly someone
who’s different whether it’s context
whether its background whether it’s how
they look how they talk how much they
own anything that sets them apart from
where you come from
suddenly the truth is not yours and
yours is not accepted by them but if you
were to put a wall behind every one if
you were to actually make every
individual on earth anonymous and just
hear what they have to say not who they
are not their biases not their context a
view that you want to have every day but
you’re not getting here’s the miserable
horrible truth about technology every
single day it’s speeding us our beliefs
every single day that you open up
Facebook that you open up an Instagram
that you open up any other social
network that you consume time on you
will find a bigger version of your own
belief not an alternative version a
bigger version of who you are so if you
have believes they will personalize
those beliefs for you you will feed upon
something that you want to be believe in
and it will be made to come across as if
that’s the fundamental truth you will
never get to experience what the other
side is and that’s creating this massive
dichotomy in this world when we are
becoming bigger versions of ourselves
not a better version of ourselves will
amplify your own beliefs our own ego
with not questioning them challenging
them and this is nothing that we do on a
single basis on a single daily basis
that allows us to do that as students
who are going to experience a world that
is not absolutely nearly as similar to
what we experience for your parents
experienced the best gift that you can
give yourself is to be centered around
the truth starting with you
every single day when you wake up and
when you face yourself in the mirror the
anonymous self of you someone who
doesn’t know you someone who does not
understand where you come from will tell
you a truth the truth could be that you
don’t want to be at the place that you
are that you’re not the person that the
world believes you to be that you hate
the things that you’ve done or you
absolutely love doing what you are not
doing and those truths are ignored
they’re washed out by an image of
ourselves that we place in our own head
that the world has convinced us we are
and every single time that you refuse to
look at that truth you are accepting
alive you are allowing someone’s life to
become your truth and that’s the reality
of the world every single day someone
will be telling you what you have to do
to be successful every single day your
balance your friends your network and
you your own self will be telling you
what you want to do to be successful if
you’ve got a certain reading to
understand you of course going to pick
up science and if you pick it up science
you of course need to do engineering and
if you pick it up engineering of course
you have to get to the best school and
you’ve got to the best school of course
you have to get the best job if you’ve
got the best job of course you have to
get this minimum salary and if when you
get this job of course you have to get
promoted every now and then of course
you have to do that because that’s
success you never stop to think what
your truth is is this truly what I want
is this me facing myself not knowing who
I am but as an anonymous person driven
by my interest driven by my lifestyle
and my beliefs and I seen the person
that is not me but someone else in the
mirror and as much time as you can spend
with your own self deciphering truth
without being biased by where you come
from what your parents are telling you
what your friends are telling you what
you yourself have told yourself you will
here’s an unpopular opinion that you
want today at your age you’re possibly
sinning at what will be the turning
point of this planet and that’s what we
know on the human civilization and it’s
likely that you guys will never die it’s
quite likely that you guys would
physically never die you might die of an
accident
or because you got shot on anything but
you will naturally never done so we
often ask this question what ever this
was the last day on earth how would you
live your life differently my question
to you now is what if you knew that you
had to live for another 150 years what
would you change in yourself today so
that you’ve planned for the next hundred
fifty and the only thing that can set
you up to be willing and to be ready to
live yours beyond what you can
comprehend a world that we can
absolutely not imagine and an
environment which is so rapidly changing
is to only set yourself on the
discipline of chasing the truth not the
source of the truth not where it comes
from not the color of it but the pure
admission of what the reality is your
reality not someone elses imposed on you don’t allow someone else’s lie
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