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Jan 17, 2019 · 20m · mad

Why Does The World Need Another Computer? // Anant Bhardwaj, Instabase (FirstMark's Data Driven NYC)

Anant Bhardwaj · 14m spoken Steve Jobs · 1m spoken Matt Turck · 29s spoken
0:00 / 0:00
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

At Data Driven NYC, Instabase Founder and CEO Anant Bhardwaj presents the case for a new operational productivity operating system to power enterprise computing. Through historical context, cloud ecosystem analysis, a live application build demonstration, and a Q&A session, Bhardwaj illustrates how Instabase simplifies building end-to-end operational software.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Matt holds 2.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Matt as informed peer 0.8 Guest teaching 2.3 Guest disagreement 0.3 Matt pushing back 0.5
05100:0010:0020:000:37–2:37 · Matt as informed peer 0/10 Steve Jobs on Operational vs. Management Productivity Anant plays an archival clip of Steve Jobs discussing the difference between management productivity and operational productivity. The host Matt Turck does not participate in this audio clip, so host metrics remain at zero.2:37–5:26 · Matt as informed peer 0/10 Ubiquitous Computing and Application Categories Anant details historical computing context from Xerox PARC and categorizes applications into lifestyle, management, and operational productivity. This is an uninterrupted presentation monologue without host involvement.5:26–15:32 · Matt as informed peer 0/10 The Need for an Operational Productivity OS Anant conducts a live software demo showcasing Instabase flows, program synthesis for field extraction, and custom grammars for financial calculations. Host activity is absent during the monologue presentation.15:32–20:54 · Matt as informed peer 3/10 Why Operational Productivity Platforms Matter and Presentation Wrap-up Host Matt Turck initiates Q&A by asking how Instabase handles complex data cleaning and integration behind its user interface. Anant explains their internal building blocks and portable compilation model before taking an audience question on company origin.0:37–2:37 · Guest teaching 1/10 Steve Jobs on Operational vs. Management Productivity Anant plays an archival clip of Steve Jobs discussing the difference between management productivity and operational productivity. The host Matt Turck does not participate in this audio clip, so host metrics remain at zero.2:37–5:26 · Guest teaching 2/10 Ubiquitous Computing and Application Categories Anant details historical computing context from Xerox PARC and categorizes applications into lifestyle, management, and operational productivity. This is an uninterrupted presentation monologue without host involvement.5:26–15:32 · Guest teaching 2/10 The Need for an Operational Productivity OS Anant conducts a live software demo showcasing Instabase flows, program synthesis for field extraction, and custom grammars for financial calculations. Host activity is absent during the monologue presentation.15:32–20:54 · Guest teaching 4/10 Why Operational Productivity Platforms Matter and Presentation Wrap-up Host Matt Turck initiates Q&A by asking how Instabase handles complex data cleaning and integration behind its user interface. Anant explains their internal building blocks and portable compilation model before taking an audience question on company origin.0:37–2:37 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Steve Jobs on Operational vs. Management Productivity Anant plays an archival clip of Steve Jobs discussing the difference between management productivity and operational productivity. The host Matt Turck does not participate in this audio clip, so host metrics remain at zero.2:37–5:26 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Ubiquitous Computing and Application Categories Anant details historical computing context from Xerox PARC and categorizes applications into lifestyle, management, and operational productivity. This is an uninterrupted presentation monologue without host involvement.5:26–15:32 · Guest disagreement 0/10 The Need for an Operational Productivity OS Anant conducts a live software demo showcasing Instabase flows, program synthesis for field extraction, and custom grammars for financial calculations. Host activity is absent during the monologue presentation.15:32–20:54 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Why Operational Productivity Platforms Matter and Presentation Wrap-up Host Matt Turck initiates Q&A by asking how Instabase handles complex data cleaning and integration behind its user interface. Anant explains their internal building blocks and portable compilation model before taking an audience question on company origin.0:37–2:37 · Matt pushing back 0/10 Steve Jobs on Operational vs. Management Productivity Anant plays an archival clip of Steve Jobs discussing the difference between management productivity and operational productivity. The host Matt Turck does not participate in this audio clip, so host metrics remain at zero.2:37–5:26 · Matt pushing back 0/10 Ubiquitous Computing and Application Categories Anant details historical computing context from Xerox PARC and categorizes applications into lifestyle, management, and operational productivity. This is an uninterrupted presentation monologue without host involvement.5:26–15:32 · Matt pushing back 0/10 The Need for an Operational Productivity OS Anant conducts a live software demo showcasing Instabase flows, program synthesis for field extraction, and custom grammars for financial calculations. Host activity is absent during the monologue presentation.15:32–20:54 · Matt pushing back 2/10 Why Operational Productivity Platforms Matter and Presentation Wrap-up Host Matt Turck initiates Q&A by asking how Instabase handles complex data cleaning and integration behind its user interface. Anant explains their internal building blocks and portable compilation model before taking an audience question on company origin.

speaking balance: gold is Matt, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%0:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%3:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%3:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%6:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%6:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%9:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%9:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%12:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%12:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%15:00 · Matt 14.8% · guest 85.2%15:00 · Matt 14.8% · guest 85.2%18:00 · Matt 3.1% · guest 96.9%18:00 · Matt 3.1% · guest 96.9%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 3:20 Critiquing existing cloud providers as complete OS solutions

Anant challenges the idea that AWS, Azure, or GCP are fully realized operating systems for operational productivity, noting developers still face manual setup hurdles.

 Hardest push from Matt ▶ 17:13 Matt Turck questions backend execution complexity

Matt Turck presses Anant to explain what occurs behind the scenes to clean and format disparate data sources into uniform application blocks.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:38 Anant explains program synthesis and standalone binaries

Anant educates the audience on how Instabase uses program synthesis and custom grammars to compile workflows into portable binaries that run anywhere on-prem.

 Matt holds his own ▶ 17:13 Matt Turck identifies backend data integration challenge

Matt Turck demonstrates domain expertise by highlighting that supporting high-level abstractions requires solving hard data formatting and integration problems across diverse data sources.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicMatt as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementMatt pushing backWhy
Steve Jobs on Operational vs. Management Productivity 0100 Anant plays an archival clip of Steve Jobs discussing the difference between management productivity and operational productivity. The host Matt Turck does not participate in this audio clip, so host metrics remain at zero.
Ubiquitous Computing and Application Categories 0210 Anant details historical computing context from Xerox PARC and categorizes applications into lifestyle, management, and operational productivity. This is an uninterrupted presentation monologue without host involvement.
The Need for an Operational Productivity OS 0200 Anant conducts a live software demo showcasing Instabase flows, program synthesis for field extraction, and custom grammars for financial calculations. Host activity is absent during the monologue presentation.
Why Operational Productivity Platforms Matter and Presentation Wrap-up 3402 Host Matt Turck initiates Q&A by asking how Instabase handles complex data cleaning and integration behind its user interface. Anant explains their internal building blocks and portable compilation model before taking an audience question on company origin.

Statements from this episode (9)

Assertion Partly supported
Steve Jobs: Successful companies spent IT budgets on operational, not management, productivity
“The not so successful ones spent the majority of their money on management productivity, and the more successful ones spent the majority of their money on operational productivity.”
Steve Jobs Jan 17, 2019 ▶ 1:29
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Steve Jobs: Early PCs and Macs targeted management, not operational, productivity
“PCs and Macs never attacked operational productivity. They just attacked management productivity.”
Steve Jobs Jan 17, 2019 ▶ 2:05
Insight
Bhardwaj: Software applications fall into lifestyle, management productivity, and operational productivity
“And I think there are, like, three different kinds of applications we use. One we call lifestyle applications, which we use over phones. One is management productivity applications, which we use over phones and tablets. And the other one is operational product…”
Anant Bhardwaj Jan 17, 2019 ▶ 4:39
Opinion
Bhardwaj: The operating system for operational productivity remains an open market
“But for operational productivity, the game is still open, and I think there is not a clear winner.”
Anant Bhardwaj Jan 17, 2019 ▶ 5:09
Insight
Bhardwaj: Building operational apps needs better abstractions than raw cloud services
“There should be a better way to plug it, to build these applications and to distribute these applications than, like, the building blocks provided by these services.”
Anant Bhardwaj Jan 17, 2019 ▶ 6:11
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bhardwaj: Building loan processing apps typically takes over a year
“People spend, like, More than a year of engineering cycle to build these kind of applications.”
Anant Bhardwaj Jan 17, 2019 ▶ 7:04
Disclosure
Bhardwaj: Instabase offers 40 applications across healthcare, finance, and higher ed
“There are, like, 40 different applications of different kinds. Some are used by universities, some are used by hospitals, some are used by insurance or banks or whatever.”
Anant Bhardwaj Jan 17, 2019 ▶ 15:07
Insight
Bhardwaj: Great platform businesses succeed by expanding total market supply
“If you look at any good platform, Like Uber or Airbnb, it's not that they made life convenient, but they also increased the supply of things. Like with Airbnb, the supply of hotels or supply of basically places you can find significantly increases, or with Ube…”
Anant Bhardwaj Jan 17, 2019 ▶ 15:59
Disclosure
Instabase built its core from scratch to compile into a single binary
“The reason why we had to build all of those ourselves is because, ah, we had to run on-prem, or we had to run everywhere. So we could not use any other cloud stuff, but that also allowed us to kind of like rethink everything from scratch, which means that now …”
Anant Bhardwaj Jan 17, 2019 ▶ 18:13
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