Anu Bharadwaj: AI Won't Save a Team That Fears It

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Positive Leadership Podcast, the podcast that helps you grow as an individual, as a leader, and eventually as a global citizen. I'm Jean Philippe Courtois. Today I'm delighted to welcome a leader who combines product ethos, operational excellence, leadership at scale, and a deeply human view of teamwork. She began, by the way, at Microsoft, a company that, you know, I know really well, where she learned how to build for developers at scale and then made a bold leap to Atlassian in 2014 and rose from head of products for Jira to COO and then president. And along the way, she helped shape team anywhere, led one of Atlassian's bold SAI chapters, and kept, uh, really, uh, asking a question matters more than ever. How do you help teams truly work better together? So it's really a pleasure to welcome Anu Bharadvash. Very warm welcome Positive Leadership Podcast, Anu.

Speaker B: Thank you so much, jp. It's a pleasure to be here.

Speaker A: So, Anu, already start, as you may know, uh, coming back to the past. And so, uh, a few months ago I've seen in Silicon Valley on a learning tour. This is where we met for the audience and you are speaking on a panel about the momentum of AI with some other startups. And I was immediately struck by your leadership style. Thoughtful, grounded, deeply human as well. And I must admit to our listeners, we also share a Microsoft connection. Right after that panel, uh, I came to you basically and I asked you to join the podcast and you accepted. And so here we are today. So I need starting again with the very beginning. I know you grew up in India, you study computer science in Bangalore, you love games, and then you cross continents to start your career in the U.S. but let's start early on with your childhood in India. What values did your family instill in you and what first sparked your love of technology?

Speaker B: Yeah, um, so I grew up in, uh, Bangalore in the 80s. Um, I grew up in a middle class family. I'm the youngest of three children. I was a shy and nerdy kid, very attached to my mom. And, um, now as an adult, when I reflect back on my childhood, I realize what a sheltered, privileged and empowering childhood it was in terms of, um, the amount of independence and autonomy we were given as children. If I were to think about, uh, the values that shaped, uh, my childhood and what I received from my parents, one particular incident stands out. Um, uh, my mom would tell me this all the time. She would say, um, you know, when someone says you're beautiful or smart, how do you feel? Beautiful. Beauty and intelligence. Are lucky qualities to inherit, but really, they're nothing to be proud of. You inherited those things, but when somebody says you're kind or resilient, how do you feel? Because kindness is a choice you made to care for another person, to share your meal, to offer your seat, a choice to be proud of. And resilience helps you overcome obstacles, like you learn to swim despite your fear of water. And you learned to do karate well, despite losing your first fight. And so, um, resilience is something to be proud of because you earned your way to that. So that always stuck with me as kindness and resilience are values to be proud of.

Speaker A: I love that. I love that. I mean, this clear distinction between our DNA and what we learn and what we decide to become. Who do we say to become as humans? Actually, early on in our childhood, any, uh, memories of some of the dinner discussions you had again as a child, maybe with your dad, your mom, siblings, and others that are still on your mind today, the kind of discussion you are having?

Speaker B: Indeed. Yeah. So, um, I lost my mom at a pretty young age. I was a teenager and, um, uh, she was diagnosed with cancer. And while she was sick, she told me, look, whatever you do, I want you to promise that you will finish your education and that you will get a job and you will be financially independent. And I thought, what's the big deal about this complete your degree thing? Why is it so important? I didn't realize that, uh, as a teenager growing up, but once I did finish my degree, I landed my first job at Microsoft. And as an adult, I realized, oh my God, it is actually so important to have financial autonomy, especially for women. It's important to have that kind of independence to shape your own life. And so that really stuck with me. And ever since, uh, day one of, um, being able to earn, um, a living, I've supported multiple education philanthropies, especially focused on underprivileged girls in, uh, rural India. And it's a very meaningful part of my life. I understand the importance of, um, what she was saying. Uh, now as an adult, we'll come

Speaker A: back to that later on because I, uh, think it's really important again to connect the dots back to, again, who you were as a kid. What about your dad? In which ways did he influence your thinking, your behaviors? Maybe later on as well, before you decided to go to the U.S. basically,

Speaker B: yeah, my dad is a big influence in my life. Even now. Uh, he's, um, a very active 80 year old. And, um, no matter where in the world I've lived over the last 20 or so years. He has visited me every year and he's spent a few months with me each year. We're very close and um, when growing up, one of the biggest things I learned from my dad is really about living with an open heart. He welcomes a lot of people into his life. He does his very best to help them no matter what inconvenience he has to go through. But he's open to new experiences. So that made me realize the value of curiosity and being open hearted and welcoming new experiences and people into your life.

Speaker A: Well, uh, tell me when and how did you decide on your own, or maybe also with some recommendations from others, uh, to basically get into engineering. Right. As a discipline and development. Why?

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, that's a great question. Because growing up, um, I was very, like I said, I was a nerdy kid. I was very into science and math. So originally my ambition was very much to do the pure sciences. And um, my dad used to work at a company called Robert Bosch.

Speaker A: Yes, of course.

Speaker B: And um, he used to bring home these dot matrix printout sheets that we could write, uh, exercises on that um, my sister and I could write on. And so I was asking him that how, why do these uh, printouts look like this and why is it perforated? I had never seen a device like that. But when I got into high school he bought me a Pentium 386. One of the OG machines. Yeah. And on that I love Windows.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yes, it was Windows. So my very first operating system was Ms. Dos, of course, and so on that. I learned to play video games and eventually started to build video games and I loved it. I thought it was the most incredible thing ever because, you know, you can translate your thinking and logic into something, uh, something actually tangible and fun.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so that's basically how I got interested in computer science and programming. And in India, um, it's very, um, or at least during the time I was growing up, it is very much a templated thing that you'll either become an engineer or a doctor. But my parents were very open minded and they basically said you should choose what you want to work on. And initially I got into um, iit, which is kind of like the Ivy League schools of India, on a science program. But it also was around the time when my mom was um, diagnosed with cancer. And so I decided I'm not going to take that program, but I'm going to do computer science in the local college. I remember this was a distinct memory from then, the dean was unhappy and the folks at IIT were like, nobody does this. You can't just leave this and go do something else. But that really stuck with me. And I guess it was a bit of a chip on the shoulder too, to make sure that I do something with my life and not, uh, regret that decision.

Speaker A: Yeah, no. Wonderful, uh, memories. Anu. Uh, and obviously you just talked about the love you have for software development and games. And what a surprise when, uh, actually you started working with video games with Microsoft. So I'd like to go back to that early chapter of your life. How was it when you began again working for Microsoft? From India, by the way. Right. And not in Redmond, which is, you know, which was at the time, I guess, more rare. I mean, they were already a pretty big hub of developers in India, but it's been growing since then. So how was it? And again, why did you pick building video games as a starting role just because of your passion for games?

Speaker B: I think I got lucky because, uh, Microsoft came to campus and they recruited very few, uh, people. Um, and uh, we weren't really given a choice of what project, but we were told a few things that we might be working on. And the video game thing really appealed to me. It was called Terrarium and it was built on the Net SDK. But jp, when I got the job, I really couldn't believe that this was a real job. This was an actual job. I was like, oh my God, I'll do this for free. But then when I joined Microsoft, it was such a moving, uh, experience because I felt like, wow, MS, DOS, Windows 95, all the operating systems I've used, I actually have a chance to check in code into that code base. I actually have a chance to build that. That really blew my mind, the fact that you can have an impact on so many people like myself. So that was definitely a big draw for me to join Microsoft.

Speaker A: And how was it to get on board in Microsoft those years? And again back in India? What did it look like?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I started in the India Development center, which at the time was fairly small. I think it was something that Microsoft was experimenting with to see if it would be a scalable thing. But over my tenure at Microsoft, um, India Development center grew from maybe just under 100 people to over 5,6000 people. So it scaled really well. But when I joined it was, um, quite small. So there was this sense of camaraderie and the sense of community. Um, and because Microsoft had made this, uh, very, um, intentional move that the culture be very similar to what Microsoft headquarters was. There were a number of people who had moved from Seattle to Hyderabad in India to sort of bootstrap the dev center. So that was um, a really interesting time and a great first job I think because Microsoft, as you know, um, allows people to shift roles if you're amongst the top performers so you can maximize your experience set. And I made full use of that. So I tried different roles. Um, and one day I met at a user conference, I met this person who said, oh, you know, I use this build product. I was working on Ms. Build then. Yeah, and I can go home and put uh, my son to bed because I save 20 minutes at the end because build automation does a lot of what I had to do manually. And that was a, uh, big moment for me where I felt like, oh, all this fun and games we have at our desk has an impact on someone's real life. So that drew me to product management which felt like was really suited very well and situated at a place between real problems and solutions and being the person that bridges it.

Speaker A: Yeah, I want to dig a little bit into that actually Anu, because I think you have an incredible curiosity. Right. And as you said, you try many hats Microsoft, and then later on even more as a developer, as a researcher, if I'm not mistaken, as a tester engineering lead before finding your way into product management. So what did that period, uh, of exploration teach you about yourself? And when did you realize that building products around real customer needs, uh, customers, one day you met with customers was your true gift. So tell us about that story about the way you evolved from roll to get product and customer connection as well.

Speaker B: Yeah, um, so the thing that drew me into product management like I shared was really the ability to have an impact on someone's life. Your uh, question is really interesting in that it goes deeper as to what did you learn about yourself. And for me I do this exercise with all the teams that I take on. With every new team that I form, I do this exercise called core values exercise where you basically are given a list of body values and you sort them into what are the top 20? I like what are the top 10. I like what are the top three. And an interesting thing is, um, I have done this over the last 20 years and the answers haven't changed. I think the way it manifests changes really. But the core values themselves are not very different. And for me my three core values are, uh, integrity, courage and service. And so, um, service is really the form in which a Lot of my product building shows up in terms of I want to build something that has an impact on somebody's life. That is, I want to be of use in this world where I can make someone's life better. And so I learned that that was very important to me as I looked through different things. And courage shows up as really the, uh, intention to try different things, to be open, new learning. And even if I'm wrong, or even if that fails, I.

Speaker A: Taking some risk. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. Taking a risk. Um, I really, uh, enjoy that. And it shows up in both my personal and professional life as, uh, being able to do the hard thing, um, when it's right. Being able to do the right thing, even when it is hard.

Speaker A: It's very interesting. And did you say, actually, Anu, that those three values, whoever were the teams stay the same? You mean the people, not you? Right. Pick those values or was it a choice, personal choice, for Manu, saying, those are going to be our values.

Speaker B: So the exercise is really interesting, jp, where, um, you sort between different values so you think about what does this mean for me. For example, responsibility is in one of my top three values. But when you're forced to pick, forced to focus on, uh, core values, these three stand out for me. So they are very personal to me. But the reason I do it as a team exercise is core values show up in the way you behave, whether at work or at home. And I think it's important to be seen to really be understood. For a team to have psychological safety, Anu and JP need to feel like we deeply understand each other and our motivations. And so sharing the core values, I think, really helps a team really get together and be cogent and coherent in a very deep way. Um, so that's why I do that. And those are my three values. And people's values tend to be different, but when you form a team, you see the diverse set of values, and sometimes those values can be conflicting. And that explains why you might run into some problems.

Speaker A: No, I'm so much, uh, sharing the same you have. And actually, just as an anecdote, when. When we redefine our, uh, core values at Microsoft in 2014, 15 for the transformation. Come back to that theme later on because you did some big transformation at Lastian as well. So we share nuts. At the time, I was, uh, one of the two, three exec sponsors, I think, with Emmy Hood or CFO with, uh, Kathy Hogan, and it was someone else. And we did exactly the exercise. We had hundreds of values on the table and it went through a long sorting exercise and when we picked three values that we wanted to focus on as a company, which was pretty bold, interesting enough, integrity was one of them. Okay, so something in common, respect and accountability. And what was wonderful about that is for the 10 years after that, and I left the company, as you may know, in 2024 now, but for the last 10 years when I was still a leader at Microsoft, I would do with my team the same exercise once a year where by level of management, each manager from level one to level five, six, I think it's a pretty big org. They would gather with their people for a few hours and discuss what respect means for Anu, for JP and others. This is such a rich discussion because a world is not the same for each one of us. And as people then talk about actually attitudes, behaviors, facts, what happened, then they start opening up about what it really means, what they expect those values to believe like. And then in the real life you can have a better alignment on really the core meaning of the values, which I think is so critical. Otherwise it's so easy to put on a poster the values of the company you see in the hallways of many companies when you enter the building. But sometimes people don't give. You know what I mean? I mean they don't care.

Speaker B: Definitely.

Speaker A: I love it, I love it. Uh, continuing. So you spend more than a decade at Microsoft working on Visual Studio, uh, wonderful product the company and learning your product shape the daily lives of builders. That chapter give you obviously scale, discipline, deep customer apathy. Uh, so looking back to your Microsoft years, Anu, what are the most important lessons about product people and about yourself as a leader that you carried forward in the next step of your life, Products, people and yourself?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a thought provoking question. Um, on the product side, ah, working in developer tools made me realize a few things on product building, um, at Microsoft, the developer platform is huge, right? And um, Microsoft has made a conscious effort to build that ecosystem over time. One of the first products I built at Microsoft, um, uh, made a substantial amount of revenue in year one. So I was very happy, I was very proud of myself and I thought this is awesome. Check this out. The product's making so much money. So I remember talking to the VP at the time and telling them if you give me a sales team, I'm going to take this product and double the revenue next year. It's going to be amazing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And he said to me, anu, um, go back and triple the revenue on this product first and then I will give you one salesperson, not a team, but one salesperson because that's how big Microsoft was and that's what it took to move the needle. But it also taught me that inadvertently for product building and distribution there are many ways to do it. You don't always have to depend on a ah, direct sales team doing top down enterprise selling. That is a privilege if you have it. But product led growth can be equally powerful. And that was also a good lesson to take into Atlassian because much of our business was product led for large part of Atlassian history. Uh, but that gave me um, a sense of product building and product distribution can happen in many flavors and so you really have to choose the right tool for the job.

Speaker A: Yes, yes. So that's for product. What about people as well? Teams, people, organization, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I think um, on the people side the thing that I really um, learned at Microsoft was I had become a lead for the first time. I was um, um, really responsible for a team of people for the first time. And my instinct very much as a gamer was you know what, in your career, treat it like a video game, you have to keep climbing levels. So you knock down one level, you go to the next one and really you're a great player if you're able to blitzkrieg through the whole level, through the whole set of levels in records. But as I became a manager I thought, oh, everyone will also want to do that and therefore let me push my team really hard so that we maximize the speed at which they're getting promoted through the system. And then after six months I got my manager feedback and people were very unhappy with me. So I had five reports and they said man, Anu's um, too intense, she's pushing us too hard. And I was confused. Just like wait a second, doesn't everyone want to do the same thing I want to do? And the answer is no. People have different motivations, people have different plans for their life, people have different aspirations. And so that was a good lesson for me in terms of when you lead people it's not about you, it's about them. You really want to understand what they want and take them to a place they want to go versus um, impose and project your own desires and aspirations on them. So that was also a good call to spend time listening, deeply listening and understanding what they want and coalescing a

Speaker A: team on that, uh, a wonderful shell uh, lesson by the way. I mean I was smiling, uh, you know, listening to you Andrew, because it reminds me also my early years Microsoft, where I was known to be Mr. Plus, always asking more to people, setting a high bar. So also got some coaching about ajp, you know, be careful, don't push that hard on people. Uh, anyway, so I learned the lesson, you know, and exactly as you said. And you know, you, you need to lead people one at a time, one at a time. And you personalize, uh, the relationship and the way you grow with people. And it's an art. It takes time to learn the lesson. So, um, Atlassian, uh, clearly, uh, you went to Atlassian. I want to understand first why you made that decision. You could be maybe today at the slt, at Microsoft, who knows, maybe the CEO of Microsoft, uh, spending a few more years in a company. So why did you decide to move to Atlassian?

Speaker B: Yeah, and I remembered this quite distinctly because when Atlassian called me, I did not know very much about Atlassian. So I was confused why somebody was calling me. And um, then they said, look, just come and meet the team and see. What do you think? And because Atlassian was located in Australia, I thought, cool, I'll at least get a trip out of it. What's, what's to lose?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so I went and met the team. And um, before that, during the interview, uh, during the initial, um, informational, they told me, look, we are a company with the following values and we take this seriously. And I thought, oh, this is just some marketing bullshit. Every company says this. Why would I believe it?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and one of the company values was open company, no bullshit. It's an Australian company, so they swear a lot. So I went to Sydney and I met the team and I felt like, oh my God, this is my kind of people. It's my tribe. I belong here. Because the company values weren't just some words, they're written on the website. It was really obvious that, uh, people were living it day, uh, after day. And the tone was set very much at the top by the co founders who deeply believed in these values. And the people were builders. The team I met, they were builders. They were there to serve customers. They were very mission driven. So I felt a sense of belongingness, which was the primary thrust for me to make the decision to move.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's very interesting. Just in the last five minutes, you probably set the wealth values like 10 times. So I think it says a lot, it says a lot about you. But we'll dig more into that though. I'd like to go to your extraordinary career at Atlassian. Right from leading products for JIRA to CEO to President. Uh, so I'm um, really intrigued by the way you kept learning and moving to very different roles. Take us inside the progression Anu. And what were the biggest mindset shifts from head of product to CEO and then president? And were there moments when you wonder whether you are truly ready for that job?

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, so my journey through Atlassian has been a series of transformations, uh, where the first job that I took was head of product of Jira, where the goal was really to transform Jira from a product to a platform.

Speaker A: Would um, you mind just telling our listeners maybe we're not all tech uh, people what JIRA is just to make it easier as well.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Um, so Atlassian is a collaboration company that builds um, products for teams. So things like project management, product management, uh, knowledge sharing, knowledge repositories and developer teams, um, teams building software tend to be a large part of the teams that Atlassian serves. Jira was really this um, workflow, uh, engine a ah, project management tool that a lot of uh, teams would use for managing their project's timeline and bug, uh, tracking, et cetera. But also a lot of non technical people would use it just to track their projects, track their work. And so uh, JIRA was the biggest revenue driver for Atlassian when I joined. And the goal was really to go from a single product to a platform and create multiple products based on uh, Jira that we could then serve different kinds of teams, not just one kind of team. Yeah, that was uh, one of the first transformations I did, Atlassian. Uh, and that was a great learning experience coming from a large company like Microsoft to a much smaller company. Um, it was um, a great change of pace in that you have a lot more autonomy. I remember there was one product that I wanted to acquire and I spoke to uh, the CEO about it and said hey, you know what, I think we should buy this product. And um, he said, he talked to me for half hour, we discussed this and he said okay, let's go do it. The same thing would have taken me about many meetings at Microsoft a few cycles.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: So the pace at which things moved was awesome. But also I said okay, so where's the team that'll get all this done? And he said you are the team. And so there was also this um, coming together of uh, different kinds of responsibilities which pushed me more and more towards being a generalist.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so I had to basically branch out by necessity M because the company was growing so much and when you want continue growth you just learn new skills. So Atlassian for me has been a series of transformations, one after the other. But you asked me about the mindset shift. I think that's, that's an important one because, um, quite often we have these beliefs about ourselves. So my belief about myself was I'm a technical person, I enjoy product building, but this whole business side is not for me. That's not what I do. I am more of this type of person. But I also shared how Atlassian felt like my tribe, I belong here. So when you have that belongingness, you think of it as, oh, this is my company. I will do whatever it takes to grow the company. And so I basically had to let go of those beliefs and do whatever it took to keep taking the company from hide to hide. So as I did a series of these transformations, the second transformation I had to do at Atlassian was, um, really change the company from an on premise business model to a public SaaS model.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And we'd already gone public. And so doing that transformation basically took a lot. Of course it was a big technical change, but the much bigger change was really go to market and revenue recognition and explaining to public investors, here is how to think about the revenue model. And this is, uh, growth's going to go down, but come back up, believe us. And so learning all of that and branching out was required to transform the company successfully. And because I felt like, oh, this is my company, I need to do whatever it takes, it helped me overcome that hesitation I had.

Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.

Speaker B: And, um, just as while I was doing that, an interesting story that comes to mind is, um, so while we were doing the public SaaS transformation, one of the things that we had to do was change what we were selling. And I went to the sales kickoff. At this time I was not the CEO, I was just a copy of product. And so I go into the sales kickoff and I think, oh my gosh, this is a lot of salespeople who are doing really well because the company was doing extremely well selling on premise products. So they were on top of their goals, they were crushing it. And it was an environment of celebration. And I was supposed to go on stage and tell them, you know, this thing you're doing so well, stop doing that and instead sell this new product I'm building.

Speaker A: You have to reset 100%. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And it's still coming. So you have to trust me that this is the right thing to sell. And so I got really nervous and we had this, um, get together the night before. So the next morning I was supposed to go on Stage.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: And so in the get together, I went in and chatted with people, and there was a large table we were sitting around, and there was this, um, game we were playing where you'd go around the table and people are asking, what's the favorite new acquisition you've got? What did you buy recently that when

Speaker A: you hit your coda. Right, when you beat your codas.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so there were people sharing about how they bought this mountain cabin, and they really loved taking their friends to it. Somebody talked about a new boat they got, and they love taking rides on it. Someone else was talking about this new watch they got. And when it was my turn, I said, you know, the thing I bought that I'm most excited by is this book on slime molds and how they evolve. And it was an instant conversation killer. Everyone silent. They're like, what? You're reading a book on slime molds? Why? And I realized, oh, gosh, I'm like a fish out of water. I'm just not fitting in in this crowd.

Speaker A: So what did you do the morning after when you had, uh, the keynote with all those salespeople?

Speaker B: So right after dinner, I went and called, um, one of my mentors in the company, uh, a guy called Jay Simons, who used to be the Arab president, uh, many years ago. And he said to me, look, Anu, you may not be like everybody else there, but remember what you have in common, and that'll help M. And so the next morning, I opened with. We're all here to serve customers. We're all here to do the best thing for customers. Here is why going to the cloud is going to be the best thing for customers. Because this is what we can deliver for them. We'll take them to the future along with us. And so we are really doing the right thing for customers over the long run. And it will be painful in the short run, but we have to push through this pain to get to where we need to be. And the salespeople rallied. They got it. They got why this was important not just for us, but for customers, and why this would be a better outcome for them. So. So finding that common thread, even when things feel like, uh, you're very different or this transformation is going to be painful, was a good lesson to take away from that.

Speaker A: I love it. Of course, it reminds me of many stories because, as you know, obviously Microsoft had to do the same. And so we had to move from on Prem to the cloud. And so many incredible memories all across the world of pitching to all our frontline teams about this is a new world, believe me. But this is also all about customer success. Something I want to dig into is that customer obsession. When we change or evolve our culture in 2014, again, we picked a couple of attributes to the culture we decided to change. One was the famous growth mindset, of course, from Carl Dweck, which I, uh, have a couple of episodes this podcast, just about growth mindset, because I love it and I keep loving it. And the second one was customer obsession. And that is, to me, so critical to any organization, any company that wants to build some value. So I love to understand how that obsession to customers, I think, became also a central point and part of your leadership philosophy, which is, I think, pretty rare. I mean, I've observed and witnessed a number of senior engineers, I would not name them publicly, who move sometimes from pure engineering works to business roles. It was really hard for them to truly relate to customer obsession. So how did you do it? How did you do that? Migration, transformation of yourself.

Speaker B: So, uh, customer centricity and obsession, I think is important if you're a product builder. So as an engineer, you may be able to work outside of that, but not for too long. I think it still has to come back to, who are you building this for? Because if you're just building something clever, yeah, okay, it's interesting. But if it's not having an impact on anyone's life, why are we doing this? And so, um, the act of being able to serve customers and truly understanding their problems, I think is a natural trait for me. But for me, the challenge was also to say, how do you scale this? How do you scale customer success and customer obsession across an organization? And so an interesting thing was, um, Atlassian kept growing from when I joined. Maybe it was around 200 people, and when I left, it was probably around 15,000. And so one of the things that I kept thinking about was how do we keep implementing practices in the company and how do I role model as a leader myself, that you have to start and end with the customer. And so one of the things I started was, uh, this practice of, uh, putting out weekly loom videos. And this also happened around the time we were shipping to be a distributed company. And what I used to do was put out these short videos that said, here are the two customers I met this week. And this is what I learned. And I kept consistently putting out those videos every week. And the number of people that were seeing them kind of went up into the thousands as we started recruiting more and more People. And I think that was very important because even after years at the company, even after being the coo, I would constantly learn new things. People would use our products in ways that surprised me, in ways that we had not designed the product to be used, and situations where, um, it wasn't really what we thought it would get used as, but it was really creative, uh, in terms of application and so role modeling. That was important to me as a leader, because a lot of people would then come back and say, if she can make time to do that in her week as a coo, and if she's accountable enough to come back and share with us, of course I should also be able to do this. And so it kind of inspired them to create some time for themselves, to interact with customers. Um, but like you said, I think it's crucial to succeed for every company to focus on the customer.

Speaker A: Absolutely. I love the fact you connected that with your growth, mindset, and learning. Learning it all and sharing that learning with all, which I think is so important in any collaborative organization. Now, I'd like to make kind of a pose in our discussion, because you made a pose in your career at one point, and you decided to spend a year, uh, doing field work in wildlife conservation, from lions, I think, in Africa to cheetahs in Namibia, and even penguins in Antarctica. So, first of all, I got to ask you, where does your love of wild animals, and especially if you understand, well, big cat conservation, come from?

Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. You're very well researched, JP. Um, yes, I did take a sabbatical in 2016, um, because I really wanted to do wildlife conservation in the field. I grew up in Bangalore, like I said, which was, um, not as big of a city when I was growing up, but still a city nonetheless. So I never really had any up, uh, close interaction with animals. We didn't even have a pet at home. It's not a popular thing in India.

Speaker A: Yeah, in India.

Speaker B: But I always loved, um, I always loved animals, and I loved watching a lot of these things. And so I started making small contributions to wildlife conservation, uh, programs. Programs through my career at Microsoft. Uh, but I always had this thing in my heart that I want to go do this work and see how that feels and really be close to animals. So 2016, I decided, I will quit my job and go do this thing. And my boss, the CEO of Atlassian at the time, he said, anu, don't quit. Convert this to a sabbatical instead. I only asked that if you come back to Tech, you consider Atlassian first. Um, and so I thought, oh, okay, uh, this seems fair enough. And when I came back later, he told me, I was surprised that you lasted a year. I thought you will come back because you're so much of a tech person, you're so much of a builder. But that experience, uh, really took me across Africa and Antarctica and I really enjoyed that year. Um, um, what do you.

Speaker A: Sorry. Uh, so what do you remember almost vividly actually, from the deep break? And what did it teach you again about yourself outside of your job, outside, uh, of developing, leading teams just with animals somewhere in the world? What, what did it tell you about yourself?

Speaker B: Yeah, so the deepest, the most vivid memory I have is, uh, one of the projects I did then was, uh, lion rehabilitation, where we would rescue lions from these captive situations and then help them kind of reacquaint themselves with the natural world. And so, uh, there were close to 16, 17 lions in the facility that um, we were using to house them. And it was so wonderful to see because lions are basically like 100x a domestic cat. So they have the same behaviors as domestic cats. Uh, the kneading, crying for dinner, and um, they're quite social cats. And so they'd all roll together at dinner time and you can feel it in your spine. So there's something very primal about a, ah, group of really large predators, um, getting together. And it was so different than, uh, what my day to day looked like. And it was a wonderful feeling to know that, um, I was playing a part in having them live their lives longer in more natural settings than what they were condemned to. But more importantly, what it taught me, um, about myself is a lot of the times when we work in technology, when we work with the kinds of people that we work with. I used to take for granted that the quality of people, the bandwidth of conversations we have, the desire to have impact at scale and just the go, go, go, the speed at which we operate, that I thrive on that. Um, and I learned that about myself, as to how important that is for me, because I missed a lot of that when I was working in, um, the conservation world, where things move a lot slowly for various reasons. But yeah, really that fire in me, which is, uh, which asks me to keep making progress, um, that was very important to me. So I think I learned that about myself and um, I value that a lot more now.

Speaker A: Yes. And if I may, because I think certainly today, right in 2026, it will come back to AI, obviously, uh, particularly when you live in the valley. I was there. It was uh, unbelievable. I Think we need to relearn how to go slow in your life from time to time, don't we? So how do you actually do that today if you do it? I mean, now that you obviously moved on from being the CEO of Atlassian, do you give yourself the time just to be with yourself and slow down and not just be hyperactive on a bunch of activities?

Speaker B: Yes. I think there is an important balance, like you pointed out, especially in today's world, because I think, uh, for those of us immersed in AI too, things change so fast that there is this constant fear of, like, what, what did I miss out? What did I not catch up on? Um, but I think also what makes us deeply human is our ability to be creative. And creativity requires rest. You can't be creative when you're exhausted. And so, um, throughout my career and even now, um, I basically relied on a few things that helped me find that centeredness and that grounded hands. Uh, one of them is, uh, doing silent retreats, uh, meditation retreats that you don't really have to engage socially, you don't have to communicate, you don't have to speak, which gives you deep rest. I think the nervous system really gets reset and gets some deep rest when you do three, four days of that. I really enjoy it. And I've done that regularly throughout my life as an adult. And second, I find that it's more energy management than time management. So when it feels like you're very busy, um, I really make it a point to make sure that I'm doing things that give me energy. And for me as a person, the kinds of things that give me energy are fairly simple and rewarding. So even if it is just my morning ritual of go get a coffee and a croissant and just enjoy and savor those few moments, that really helps bring balance for me. And I make sure that I set aside enough time for those rituals. Because self care can feel selfish, but it is not. It's the only way that you can have an impact on the world by taking care of the one resource you have in your hand, which is yourself.

Speaker A: It is so true. It's actually at the core of the Positive Leadership Foundation. It's, uh, starting with oneself and taking care of oneself. Because if you don't take care of yourself, how can you take care of the others and the world? I mean, there's no way. So you need to start with that. So I'd like to go back to, uh, Atlassian. Anu, uh, when you became CEO, you approached role almost like a product Discovery problem, and spoke, I think with many other CEOs. So what did you learn from those conversations? How did you turn that input into your own operating model and your signature of a CEO at Atlassian?

Speaker B: Yeah, so when I became a coo, um, we were in the middle of this uh, transformation, um, to the public um, cloud. But also um, through my tenure as CEO, we went through another transformation of being a fully distributed company. But when I took on the CEO role, the first thing I did was I went and spoke to about 80 odd people who had done the COO job across Microsoft, Adobe, very smart, small, um, companies, big companies, and people who had gone through the transition to the public cloud. Um, because my instinct was here's a job I've never done before. And so I want to make sure that I see what great looks like, I understand what great looks like. And then if you shoot for the stars, you might land on the moon. And so, um, through those uh, interviews what struck me was uh, the CEO role looked very different at different companies. And what really tied all of them together was to find out what's the place that has the most leverage, um, that has the most return for where you work and what impact that will have on the company. And it is such a versatile role too that you can basically shape it to be what you want as long as you look at what's the maximum leverage you can create for your company. Um, so one of the funny stories I remember from then was my dad, um, was uh, with me when I took on the CEO role. He was uh, at my house and he said, oh, so you took this new role. What does a CEO mean? And he and I uh, play Scrabble a lot. And I explained it to him as um, a CEO is like a blank tile in Scrabble. You basically build it to create the maximum score across the board and it can take any form. So it's a versatile uh, role. And through that, um, one of the things I realized was, um, our transformation to public SaaS was important not just for, not just for customers to be at a place where we can deliver new technology, but it was also important for us from a business model perspective to get into recurring subscription revenue and usage based revenue thereafter. Um, and so it was a good learning, um, exercise to kind of go talk to other people who had done the role, but also deeply understand the business and the customer set to say, where do you generate new uh, growth points? Where do you generate new sources of revenue? And where do you generate new sources of growth? Um, so that was a very, uh, important lesson in terms of stepping back and gaining perspective on the company overall.

Speaker A: Which help you obviously, which guide you as you took the job as well. Very smart way, by the way, to discover a new job. And uh, obviously people would tell you, today I'm going to prompt AI to query those atcos jobs and memories shared socially. But I think the way you connect to people and learn from them is so powerful. So one of the boldest bets Atlassian made was Team Anywhere as a product, but beyond the product itself. You said that great teaming needs three things, shared experiences, shared purpose and shared community. And I'd love to unpack that with you because I think it goes far beyond, again, remote work, which was one aspect of that. Particularly during COVID There's been so much learning across the world in corporates and so on. So when you think about Atlassian's collaboration products and when you think mostly about your own leadership philosophy, what does successful teaming look like in a distributed workplace? That is the workplace we know today in 2020.

Speaker B: So distributed teams, I think are a reality of any company that goes beyond a certain scale, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And distributed, um, teaming requires a commitment to, uh, work in a certain way. So Atlassian Steam Anywhere project was basically our effort to say we are now going to commit to being a fully distributed company. What does that mean? That means we are not forcing people to come into an office X days a week. But what we are saying is that teams are going to be distributed geographically. However, we have certain ways of working to make sure that that is effective. Because, um, when you get into distributed teams, two things happen. One, on the positive side, it opens up the talent pool to a lot more people, people that can do certain jobs despite constraints around where they live, what time they can work, et cetera. And I think that's a good thing because you bring more diverse people into the workforce and therefore it reflects a higher quality of work that you can create. But on the con side, it's easy to lose purpose, it's easy to lose sight of what is it that you're all here to do because, um, you're not seeing your teammates day to day, there's no water cooler conversations, et cetera. So it can become, um, easy to lose track of shared purpose. The three things that you said, shared purpose, shared experiences and shared community. And so one of the things I had to do, um, as the CEO that was rolling out Team Anywhere, was really figure out, how does this change the way we work? What does teaming in a distributed world mean? And we came to the conclusion that it involves a real shift in the way you work. So asynchronous collaboration looks very different than synchronous collaboration. So if JP is sitting next to me, uh, at another desk, I just turn to him and say, why don't we do this? Let's just change the plan that we had in the morning and instead do something else in the afternoon. But if JP is in Paris and I'm in Santa Cruz, I can't just call JP whenever I want. We have some overlap, but asynchronously I want to make sure JP and I are still headed towards the same direction. So a writing culture becomes really important where there is a source of truth that is not just one to one conversation, but something that is actually written down. Uh, something that can be equally accessible by everyone. And then um, it's also important that you are able to share purpose, um, more, uh, frequently and in a more meaningful way. So our travel budget actually increased. Even though the real estate side came down, the travel budget increased in that we asked people to get together with what we called intentional gatherings. Um, at least once a quarter you were required to be physically present with your team in any place, pick any place, but all of you are physically present there. And the curious thing was um, we mandated that you need to set aside some time for non work activities. That's the shared community part. To really deeply understand what is important to jp, what is important to Anu. The two of us are working on a team, so let's understand where we are coming from and let's spend some time together doing things that help build a relationship rather than being at a surface level. Um, work relationship.

Speaker A: Just working. Yes.

Speaker B: And lastly, one of the things that it did was it changed the way we thought about um, or at least it changed the way I thought about leadership for myself. So this loom videos I was talking about being accountable and sharing more. I'm an introvert by nature, so sharing is not necessarily my first instinct. But sharing more of yourself, doing videos instead of text so that people can see the expression on your face so they can relate to you that you're not a caricature executive software, but an actual person with um, an actual day that you're sharing with them, um, that became a lot more important.

Speaker A: Yes. No, I deeply believe in the same actually. I know particularly start with a purpose all the time to give the context why we're here by the way, because you can decide to do whatever you want with your life. So it's A choice you make every morning as you wake up and the share moments as well. Particularly these days when most of the companies have this remote work. I think the few times you decide to get people together, it's got to be very meaningful and deep in terms of connection. Otherwise it's just a waste of time for everyone. So I think there's still a lot to be anyway to be learned about that. Now I'd like to shift gears and come back to a topic we touched a bit on, which is transformational leadership. Because I think you did a lot. So you had the opportunity to help lead one of the most consequential transformation enterprise software, as you shared before, right? Scaling Atlassian massively while also moving the business from on, um, Prem to the cloud in a different context. Uh, the privilege alongside Satya to kind of do the same and be in a driver's seat. Between 2014 and 21, as we transformed Microsoft, I was leading, transforming basically 30,000 salespeople in the field across the world into a cloud first and then eventually AI first company. And I think what both journeys have in common is the transformation is never just about technology. It would be too easy. Products, operating, uh, models, blueprints, templates, blah, blah, blah, scorecards, we have plenty of them. It's about people, but it's about helping large groups of human beings let go of what made them successful. So, so many years we're building belief, as you said before, capacity, capability and energy, positive energy for a very different future. So having lived through such a deep transformation, Atlassian, what do you believe separates a leader who manages change from a leader who truly transforms an organization? What's the difference?

Speaker B: So transformations are a necessary part of any growing entity's life. So I think it is crucial to think about, um, transformations in a holistic, continual way. Like you pointed out, it doesn't just. There isn't just a starting stop and now that's great, I'll live in stasis forever. I, um, think transformational leaders, what they have in common is one inspiration. So really, um, what causes somebody to take action and what really galvanizes them into doing something that is not necessarily part of status quo? Uh, they need to see a future that is better than the future that we're headed towards. And so inspiring leaders are able to paint that picture of, through the struggle as you get through that, there is the promised situation, uh, which looks so much better. And inspiring people requires that you deeply believe in it yourself and that you can model it from the front. So my brand of Leadership is very much role modeling and leading from the front. And so I found that it's very necessary to inspire people to think about a better future. Not just the tactics of here is what we will do tomorrow, here is the new SKU you will sell. But really imagine a world where customers are able to get the latest greatest without having to do anything. Yesterday your developers checked in and tomorrow morning they have the latest. Wouldn't that future be amazing? So being inspirational I think is the first thing that's very much required for transformational leaders.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: The second one I would say is um, leaders that are driving this transformation have to really be persistent. So uh, uh, also uh, the thing with being persistent is often you have to change direction. Right? Because things uh, change a lot, especially in the tech industry and uh, in the dynamic environment. However, it is more important to be correct than consistent. So whatever tactic you had chosen yesterday may not be the tactic today when you go through a transformation because the terrain might vary but you have to believe the map. Uh, but it's important that you learn from whatever new signals you are getting and lead the team and be able to explain here is why we are changing tack and this is what we are going to do. So being able to persist through a lot of these changes and chaos and managing that chaos and really directing the chaotic energy in one constructive direction I think is very important. And often people get tired uh, when leading through a transformation because of the amount of change thrown uh, at them. So I would say lastly you really need to be self aware as a leader and be in it for the long haul because it's easy to just try and sprint. But this is a marathon so you have to be able to paint a picture that is inspiring. You have to have the persistence and the learning ability to keep changing, attack and taking the best path through the transformation. And you have to manage yourself and make sure that you stay there for the long haul so you're able to lead your team through the moras.

Speaker A: I think this is very well said. I think there's so much uh, again learning we got on the go and always by the way connected um, with the people on the ground, always connecting with the customer signals as well. Always uh, curious about the change that you believe was great but maybe need to be tweaked next week, next month because it's actually not that great yet. And celebrating as well I think success stories because pretty hard at the beginning when you're getting off the ground from on prem to cloud. Well guess what I mean the first, salespeople who are able to do that should be heroes. They should be the cloud heroes. We did that. I'm sure you did the same. And then you create this kind of snowball effect where the early pioneers bring others. I mean, they basically bring the all the tribe, as you call them, to follow the path. And then it becomes a massive, uh, change happening. So, having said that, I love to move to AI, obviously, which is on the mind of all listeners, of everyone in the world these days, more than ever. And this brings me to a recent conversation on this podcast with someone you may know, Rafi Krikorian, CTO of Mozilia, which was on my show. Yeah, Rafi was wonderful, and he made a very powerful point in our conversation. And we said, in the age of AI, we need to own our, uh, context and our data, each one of us. Okay. And for leaders, I think that has a deep implication, actually. It means being intentional about what knowledge lives inside the organization, what teams create and share context, and how managers help people use AI without outsourcing, uh, judgment, trust, or accountability. So I'd love to ask you, how is AI reshaping, you think, the operating model of a great team? And in that new reality, what must leaders and managers continue to own directly and what can be delegated in an accountable way to AI agents? Big question.

Speaker B: Yeah, and it's a moving target too, given how much for sure, every day capabilities, uh, AI agents are subsuming, um, fundamentally, I think, about, um, an organization, an enterprise, a company really, as a group of people that have gotten together to achieve a shared objective, achieve a shared goal. And so in that context, uh, with AI, what has happened is a team tends to be composed of humans as well as AI agents. So the new teaming, the new reality of enterprises is really that you have a set of humans, you have a set of AI agents. How do they all work together and deliver more than they were able to in the past? So from that context, I think what's important is for leaders and managers is that they understand how they can get AI superpowers. So one is just being open to the technology and being able to learn how that is useful in your context. So you read a lot. Um, especially over the past month, I've been reading more about how, um, people distrust AI and they're doing things to sabotage AI rollout in their organization. And I think that is basically proof that, um, collaboration, working together, working as a team, working as an organization is a profoundly human problem. So if you don't address the emotional pain uh, there the fear that I might lose my job, the fear that I might become redundant because AI can do my job better as a leader. If you don't address that, your teams are not going to be successful because they'll just spend that same emotional energy trying to do things that are not necessarily very constructive and resisting change. Everybody loves progress, but nobody likes change. So as a leader, you really have to spend that time, um, getting your teams to understand how they can be superpowered with a lot of these AI agents and how they can really wield that power in their context. And it's very important for leaders to also do the same thing themselves because if you don't use the technology yourself and you don't understand how it can make you a better leader, a better manager, it's unlikely that you'll be able to influence, influence your team do the same.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: So the two things I tell leaders, uh, and managers often is one, make sure that you understand yourself and you are an expert in the technology because your role is going to change itself. You are able to manage a lot more, you're able to create capacity, and second, for your teams to adopt AI agents and really work together collaboratively in that setup and make sure that you have the right scaffolding put up. One, there needs to be a trust boundary, because use of AI ChatGPT in a consumer context is very different than trying to implement enterprise agents inside a trusted boundary. So the factors that matter around trust, around context, data, all of those, I think leaders need to be on top of and really focus on upskilling their team. Um, that really lays the foundation for good enterprise adoption of AI.

Speaker A: No, I like it. I think there's a lot, I mean, there's a lot to say about, again, that core human element, and I would call that personally maybe, because recently an episode which will be on air when this episode will be done, by the way, with Donna Hicks, who wrote this wonderful book about dignity. Uh, and dignity is a very deep human value on the way you see people. It's more than respecting. It's actually about the core identity of people, whoever they are. And I think understanding, uh, what dignity means in the age of AI for people is going to be a critical challenge for all leaders, all managers, to fully up run what it means to coexist and cowork with AI. So just pushing the discussion a little bit more, uh, because I know you left Atlassian a few months ago, right? And you're doing a number of boards and other initiative, but imagine tomorrow morning and maybe who knows when the episode will be on air. This will be the case. You are the founder of an AI native company. Uh, Anu. Okay, start up from scratch. You of course in a valley, you've been raising a few hundred million dollars because it takes five slides on a deck to do that. I'm kind of joking a little bit, but this is what I saw actually when I was in the Val. This is kind of mind blowing for a European. Anyway, so you've got that money, you've got uh, gold, you've got a vision about whatever this AI company is going to be. I love you. To elaborate a bit more actually on the way you would build those non negotiable leadership principles that you would anchor from the start. And what would be the organizational model would you design in terms of core talents? You need people, AI agents or uh, a genic system when it comes to decision making, product building, go to market, et cetera to make it a breakout success in the AI era. So it's a bit of AI fiction, but I think you can relate to it because I know you spend a lot of time with many of those guys today. So why would that be?

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, so by virtue of uh, my work with iconic um, I'm able to see a lot of AI native companies and work with a lot of these founders. Um, so maybe a uh, three part answer to your question. 1. In terms of what does it take to build an AI native company? I think um, the non negotiables for a successful AI native company in my mind is the ability to take a fresh look at existing problems. So the way that existing problems today are solved are by assuming that a human being is going to be doing different steps of the problem. But now with the amount of um, AI capability unlocked both through agents as well as through search and analytical AI, there are different ways to solve existing problems which look completely um, uh, tangential to the way that we solve problems today. And so I think it's important for any AI native company in this era to be able to say what is the useful problem I'm able to solve in the world. In a very different approach, assuming humans are not going to be doing all of the work involved, but AI is going to be driving much of that. So consequently the second part is that how do you construct your company? I think it's so exciting to be in this uh, era where there are one person companies. It's no longer AI fiction, it is AI reality where bulk of the work gets done through AI agents. Especially when you're starting out and validating your thesis and figuring out willingness to pay. Um, so I think the way you design your org also is very different. Um, there are higher expectations now in terms of what can one person plus many agents do and then what can eight people plus many agents do? And so the scaling uh, units for AI native companies look very different. That's a good and a bad thing, depending on how you see, um, can be amazing in terms of the value you can unlock early on. And for existing companies it can present a challenge because existing companies tend to um, do AI adoption by throwing uh, AI at an existing workflow, which may not be the best way to solve the problem at all.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And lastly to your point about, um, so what does this mean, um, overall? Personally I think it means that there will be more software created in the world because now more people are creators.

Speaker A: More capacity.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So you fundamentally are generating more capacity and therefore more productivity. Um, now the challenge really is judgment in terms of great, you can do a lot, but what is the right thing to do, which fundamentally is a very human, uh, attribute. So how do you really nurture human judgment, grow human judgment? The career arcs of people are going to look very different and focused on the more human things that uh, they bring to the table.

Speaker A: No, I mean, makes a lot of sense and I think, ah, it would be very telling to see some of those incredible stories beyond of course the big kind of LMS companies like Entropic and others of this new uh, era of AI startups across different industries. I mean not just tech, but applied to life sciences, to manufacturing, to agriculture, and solving the biggest problems in the world as well. So I look forward to seeing what it means in terms of uh, reinvented leadership. I think certainly in those companies that'll be fascinating. So I'd love to shift gears now because the time is passing pretty fast. I told you before we started the episode, it's packed. And I'd like to talk about what I think of your strongest commitments. I think, Anu, women in tech, you've become one of the most prominent voices in tech on the experience of women, and especially of women of color in leadership. And you've backed that up, uh, with uh, some action. From helping seed Atlassian's ascent, uh, program to pushing for systems and cultures where diverse talents can truly thrive. I think you've used a very powerful expression. I, uh, heard you talking different podcasts beast mode to describe what it can feel like to be a woman in tech. Like a beautiful beast. Wow. So I Love to ask you what really sits behind those words. Unpack for us that Beast Mode metaphor. What are, uh, again, the invisible taxes, the extra cognitive load, the unspoken expectation, the structural barriers that women face as they rise in technology still today in 2026.

Speaker B: Yeah, um, I like to use Beast Mode because, um, it's a great, um, that was basically my metaphor for how to translate, uh, what was happening to me in the real world to, um, construct I could relate to. So as a gamer, Beast mode is basically playing the game on difficulty level hard, right?

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker B: I grew up, like I told you at the beginning of our chat, in a very sheltered, um, place, in a very sheltered environment where my parents instilled in me the genuine belief that men and women are equal, that there is no reason to treat them differently, there's no difference in their capabilities, uh, to do different kinds of work, have different kinds of impact. But when I, um, when I became an adult and I met with multiple people and started spending, uh, more of my time in the tech industry, um, I was a bit shocked, uh, at the juxtaposition of, uh. There were plenty of people who were championing women and who believed in this egalitarian belief that men and women are the same. But there were also many people who had these invisible biases that I would encounter. People saying, but women can't do math, so I don't know that women are encoding. That's strange. And things like, oh, um, as a woman, I expect you to be a softer manager. I expect you to be more understanding of my schedule. And so there are a number of those, I think, socially conditioned beliefs that women often encounter. Um, and unfortunately they persist even today. Um, but I think the way to fight them that I have, um, experienced is really one being an ally, making sure that whether you're a man or a woman, person of color or not, uh, you understand that this person, a woman of color or a woman in the setup, is going through a fundamentally different experience than yourself, maybe. So how can you support them? How can you champion them? Uh, and the second one is really for women to be aware of this and figure out how to really convert their differences into advantages. And often it has helped me being the woman in the room because I'm literally enough one. So there is recall value. Uh, but also I bring a very different perspective to the conversation we are having. I bring a very different set of life experiences to the discussion we're having. So diversity can be a strength and how to leverage that I think is important. And lastly, like you mentioned this is, um, a topic that's very close to my heart and very important, I think. So. I have spent a lot of my time championing, mentoring women, championing these causes, building up these networks of allies, and I hope that it makes life a little bit easier for the women who come after me and that we're able to continue paying it forward.

Speaker A: Yeah. What has been at least rewarding, uh, and I've tried to again get a few of them on the podcast, is to see some former, uh, female Microsoft leaders like Piggy Johnson, Navrina singh, who became CEOs. I mean, uh, obviously Peggy became CEOs of GT Robotics, and I got Nevrina on the podcast. Navigating, founder of credo, AI. And you are another fantastic example. But both of them in the podcast, actually, and you kind of did the same. They spoke about the importance of making emerging technology trustworthy, but also establishing and setting up guardrails for AI, building a real infrastructure of trust. So in many ways they are pointing even more to human element, which, honestly, in my learning tour in the Silicon Valley, I didn't hear so much from, from male leaders about the importance of having any kind of regulation, any kind of guardrails. Forget it. So what is your view on that? Do you think that we better have more women leading tech companies to be more balanced and to have a more actually harmonized view of the world and more humanity into technology?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a pure business decision that has a lot of data to back it up. Right. It's obviously a good idea to have a diverse team running your company. It's obviously a good idea to have a diverse team working on solving a problem. And diversity can come in different flavors, but it does come in terms of women and men having a balanced team. Um, and you can see some of the biases that we have as a society gets amplified and perpetuated in a lot of the LLMs. So it's even more crucial. So the work that Navrina is doing with credo, I think is critical to make sure that we don't just take existing biases and amplify and perpetuate that forever, but instead we take a more critical look at a critical and objective look at what are biases that are codified and how do we fight those biases. I think it's super important to do that. And regulation is definitely one of the tools, um, which forces companies providing foundation models to be able to say, here is how I can demonstrate that the model is objective and accurate and Factually correct?

Speaker A: Yes. So we are coming to almost an end, Anu. That's good news for you, because then it's been exhausting. A few more questions on leadership. Again, uh, what comes through your story is that leadership is never only about performance, uh, or success. It's also a lot about identity, ambition, respect. You talk about also integrity, balance, and the choice we have to make to keep growing without losing who we are actually as humans. And I think that part of your journey speaks far beyond tech. So what would be the advice you'd give to a young woman who wants to build something that matters and lead without losing herself? And not just in tech, by the way, in any field.

Speaker B: My advice would be, um, that, uh, the only way you succeed in the world is by being your whole self, by bringing your whole self to the work that you do, whether it is starting a company, taking a job somewhere, um, doing nonprofit work. Whatever your chosen vocation may be, don't be afraid to bring your whole self, um, because that's really unique. What you bring to the table when you bring your whole self is unique. And it is important that women, uh, feel just as free to express themselves fully as do the rest of the people in the world. Um, and if I could say that to a younger version of myself, I would probably reiterate the same thing.

Speaker A: Love it. So I need to ask you a question I ask always to my guests, which is, what does positive leadership mean to you, Anu? What is a positive leader in your own definition?

Speaker B: Um, in my mind, positive leadership is really the kind of leadership that builds you up, that makes you do things that you didn't think you were capable of, that helps you reach your fullest potential. Because ultimately, leadership is a privilege. So you're only a leader when others follow you, and when people follow you, I feel like you have the responsibility to bring out the best in them, and the best in them that is even better than what they expected of themselves. So raising the bar in a very constructive and positive way, such that the collective impact of you and the person that is following you is much bigger than what you could hope to me.

Speaker A: Love it as well. I, uh, can relate to that a lot. I witnessed so many great leaders, uh, in my life and also in these podcasts, wonderful people like yourself. Now, as you look ahead to the next 10 years, I know 10 years is like a century in the AI age. Now, everybody think about just the next week. What is the future you feel most committed to? Help Shape yourself, personally project yourself out there beyond your pure Tech identity. What is Ayan whose biggest dream or vision about your own contribution of that future that you would love to shape?

Speaker B: Yeah, when I think about a future that I would love to shape, uh, for our planet, it would be one where, um, we are able to wield AI for good. And that can take many shapes and forms. But really, AI, like any other powerful technology, is neutral. It can be good, it can be bad. It depends on how you wield it. And so the dream I have for the future is a place where we as, um, leaders, uh, sitting in places where we can impact the world significantly, are able to wield AI for good, are able to bend the arc of the future towards where AI can do more good than we ever imagined. And, um, that helps lift up humanity as a whole.

Speaker A: What a wonderful and new to this, uh, incredible conversation we had together. It's been really a delight, a pleasure. I wish I had met with you at Microsoft when working together across the world. Me in Paris, in Redmond, you in India. But it's never too late. We met in the Valley. I'd love to thank you again because it's been a masterclass in sharing your own journey, the way you shaped it with curiosity, always human centered leadership, and the way you're thinking about the way you can contribute to a better future too. So to our listeners, I'm sure our new stories inspired you. So please subscribe to Positive Leadership podcast. If this is the first time, feel free to leave a few 5 stars rating was appreciated and your candid comments as well. And my newsletters. And until next time, stay positive. Take care of yourself. Keep living with purpose. Anu, a huge thank you. It's been a wonderful moment.

Speaker B: Thank you so much. Jp this was a wonderful conversation.