A podcast about building startups

Honest conversations about hard calls.

Conversations with founders, operators and engineers — walking their journey and stopping at every hard call along the way. The bets they made, what each one cost, and how they actually turned out.

What you'll hear
The whole journey

Not one story, every turn

We walk a person's path from the start and stop wherever a real bet was made — the leap, the hire, the pivot, the moment they decided to leave. There's rarely just one.

What it cost

The price, not just the payoff

Every bet cost something, and most of them get told without that part. We ask what was given up, what broke, and whether it turned out the way it was supposed to.

Who's talking

Founders, operators, engineers

The people who were actually in the room while it was still uncertain — not just the ones whose names end up on the company.

Episodes
01

Turning down the safe track, twice

An operator who said no to an MBA, left investment banking, and built a company's functions from nothing.

Coming first
02

Seven years, then out

Leaving a proven finance career for an unproven company — and what it takes to eventually walk away from it.

In the works
03

Building teams, and taking them apart

Hiring through hypergrowth, and the far harder side of it that almost nobody discusses honestly.

In the works
Who's behind it

Hosted by Vignesh.

I've worked at an early company that made it, one still grinding to make it, and one that shut down. The thing that separated them was never the idea or the funding. It was the people, and the calls they made when nobody knew the answer.

Those calls almost never get talked about honestly. So I started asking.

Don't miss the first one

Hear the calls nobody talks about.

Episode one lands soon. Follow now and it shows up in your feed the day it does.