The Exchanges

Q And Jay, uh, you mentioned in one of your, like, very recent articles, which came in Forbes, That, uh, when you were in VMware and you were first approved by a senior recruiter at Tesla, you, you almost made up your mind, and then it took one year, like, Elon talked to you, and then it took one year for Elon to convince you to join, right?

A Um, yeah, it was slightly different. So the way, yes, the first time I spoke and everything, Um, and I politely declined the offer because it was not attractive enough, and of course it was the same problem where I had to leave too much money on the table at VMware, and Tesla couldn't come up with an attractive enough salary, uh, and stock. And then luckily, I should say I'm more lucky that, um, they hired someone and it didn't work out, and Elon kept me in mind, and they called me after a year again. And this time he felt, you know, he needs to hire me, and I also felt compelled that, you know what, I missed last time, and this time, and I need to probably, this is an opportunity for me not to miss it anymore. So that's kind of how I decided. Still, I had to take a pay cut purely in a salary and bonus, because VMware had been a really solid salary and great bonus. Um, and that really stopped, um, almost 100,000 dollars, uh, just purely from salary cut perspective. And then on top of it, I had to leave stocks because my monthly stock investing was much more than my monthly salary. Um, and I had to, it was tough because I, I mean, I didn't come up in a wealthy family, so I was paying bank loans for several years. After coming to the U S so it was hard earned. So I couldn't leave that easily, but at the same time, you know, when you put the cost, I felt, you know what, now it's a…

AI assessment note: “yeah, it was slightly different. So the way, yes, the first time”

Q So if I'm not wrong, like in future two, three years or five years, your AI and ML, which you have built, will take away the jobs of a salesperson from a dealership?

A You know, um, I don't, I don't see that we can, it can, it, it can reduce, uh, you know, the number of people needed because the end of the day, it will create more jobs in different areas because You know, today we are just adding friction. If you think about Amazon, people can say, you know, it has taken away, um, you know, jobs, but it's also created tons of jobs because it has its own warehouse and supply chain. They're like, you know, 100,000 of people who work there and then delivery, all of those. So I don't see that because people still, we have created one more thing in our platform, which is unique. I don't think it exists in the industry. Where we have created a hybrid experience. If you are going through an online purchasing, you could start clicking through buying a car online, but any moment in that flow, you could suddenly decide, you know, I don't want to, or you can decide, or you can look at and say, you know, I don't see few variations or options for my car online. So now you're kind of stuck. If you, you don't want to go to a dealership, you want to do it online, but at the same time you want some help. So one click we have created a virtual handshake. So literally one click they can initiate a virtual session to the dealership. A dealership staff can answer that session and create a virtual handshake. They can do a screen sharing session on the browser. The…

AI assessment note: “I don't see that... it will create more jobs in different areas”

Q Jay, so I wanted to touch upon, you know, what made Jay Vijayan of today, who is the CEO and founder of Techion, right? So, so first I wanted to ask, do you categorize yourself among the geniuses of Elon Musk? Like, would you call yourself a genius?

A Absolutely no. I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I know, honestly, I, I, I feel, um, The, the way I'll strongly feel, everyone has genius in them. Um, all, I would say almost everyone, okay. Um, it's about how do you tap that out? I mean, people like Elon Musk have, have done that in an extraordinary way, and I don't, I don't, Compare, uh, to, um, Elon or, you know, um, Steve Jobs or anyone like that, right? Um, it is me and I came from a very, very normal background. It's kind of life's learnings over a period of time, over decades. I, I, I think it's about combination of two things. You have to tap in your inner genius and every, everyone can do that. Um, it's purely about putting your, your mind and the right effort. Keeping the right mindset of learning throughout the process, um, throughout your journey. Couple of things which I felt which helped me do what I'm doing is every step you learn, take life lessons. Every step in your personal life, in your career, I learned every step. Every job of mine from very early days, I applied the prior learnings and make it better. Apply the prior one, make it better. So from Oracle time, I think VMware helped phenomenally because it was a very fast paced growth. Company grew from two hundred million to, you know, five billion in revenue, fifty billion in market cap. Growth brought very high paced and a lot of, you'd say, to some extent, even chaos an…

AI assessment note: “Absolutely no.”

Q And I just want to touch upon the last part of your journey at Tesla. What are the key things that you learned from osmosis or directly from Elon while working closely with him?

A Yeah. One of the things is, uh, you know, that, um, Core purpose. Uh, he was very, very strong. So he went to, he was thinking many times of fundamentals and abstract. Um, sometimes it was very tough for people around because people around in the sense, I mean, the leaders, operational leaders, including myself, you know, you need to go execute that. He can be thinking abstract and say, you know what, um, you, you, you need to go solve it this way. And this is the outcome, right? Um, So for example, he would say something like, you know, what, um, customers should be able to buy a car with zero signatures. Okay. It's a great outcome, but end of the day, it's not about, we are not asking signatures. There is a government regulation and requirement for signatures. There is, um, you know, California law, there is federal government. His goal is thinking is right because his pro his thinking process was for consumers making it easy. So, um, I think he was so objectively driven to his mission of, um, solving a problem in the right way, and that is something I learned, um, and if you be, go at it with conviction and, uh, grit, you absolutely will be able to, not all the time you may be able to do a hundred percent, but even if you do Uh, 80%. It still brings massive value to everyone. I think that is one. Second is, um, also come up with, you know, um, smart Solutions, even pointers,…

AI assessment note: “he was so objectively driven to his mission... and that is something I learned”

Q And, uh, Jai, Elon is set to drive his team. What I have read, you know, in his biography, as well as, you know, various articles and through podcasts, drive people to insanity, like not insanity in a bad term, but in a good way, right? More than a hundred hours of work per, per, per week, right?

A Yeah, you know, for me, the way I see it is, he's mission driven. Um, he, as like he said, he talked about geniuses. He's a guy who tapped into his inner genius so much, and he's extraordinarily driven to accomplish his mission, whatever it takes. The way I see it is, if someone has that grand of a vision, that big of a vision, solving some massive problems, It's tough for them to keep or give mind, if I put it this way, put, give mind space for smaller things. Um, so I'm not saying it's people are, I mean, people's issues and concerns are smaller things, but unfortunately the reality is whether we like it or not, he doesn't have time. And it has to be the next level of leaders who have to do that. And I know it is very tough because he moves at such a pace and how many problems he needs to solve. And you need people like that to solve like bigger problems. So the way I would do is, you know, it's a great mission if you don't believe in his mission. And of course, yes, some, he does come up with mission impossible targets, uh, to people. And many times he brings out the best in them, and that happened for me. I mean, I never thought we would pull something off, like what I was able to do. Of course, there are a few people before me who were not able to do it. Both ways, it could go both ways. So for me, it worked out great, and I thought I, I did many things which I never thoug…

AI assessment note: “he does come up with mission impossible targets, uh, to people.”

Q You know, last time we gave give a recap of your journey. You are the largest automotive retail cloud today. And can you tell us, you know, in a summary, what value do your partners and customers derive from Techeon?

A See, mainly you'll talk about customers, right? That's the biggest thing. We do everything we do for our customers. Um, so first is from, uh, from, uh, think about three, three segments of our customers. So we have Our dealer dealers, which is, you know, the biggest, um, and then we have our, uh, manufacturers, the OEM partners, and then we have the automotive ecosystem partners. We have software providers, vendors, other customers. It all comes together so well because it's automotive is a big ecosystem. Second largest consumer industry in the world. Um, from our, from a US GDP, it's almost four percent of US GDP. Um, so it's, it is huge. So when I said that's why I kind of even framed it as an ecosystem. People have to, everything has to come together very well. So you, you have to connect all the dots to deliver what the true end consumers like. We all in our day to day life, we are consumers. You know, you probably drive a car or buy a car. I do the same. So eventually when we, if you have to serve the consumer, which is eventually pays all of us, then we have to enable our customers who are delivering whatever vehicle and services to the consumer in the best possible way. So we created The three clouds very thoughtfully bringing the automotive ecosystem together. So our dealers, they run their entire business on our cloud. Pretty much all the core business selling a car. I…

AI assessment note: “our dealers, they run their entire business on our cloud. Pretty much all the core business”

Q And would you advise like other founders building in vertical software, let's say a founder building in construction tech to acquire a construction site to go through that pain and build?

A Yeah, good question. A very good question. I would say, no, case by case, I would say. It depends on, you know, two things. See, fairly, even though it's, it's big, Honest answers, yes, it will be ideal, but at the same time, you also shouldn't be taking extremely unreasonable risk, especially if it's a massive, you know, scenario, because if you're delivering manufacturing software, you can't run a manufacturing plant. In those scenarios, the best is if, if a founder is convinced so much on that, this is a problem that you're solving. Like for, for example, a founder, say, um, Manufacturing if they've usually that comes from, uh, maybe, uh, you know, um, smart founder or entrepreneur who used to work in manufacturing in some capacity will see, oh wow, this is a great idea. I mean, why are people doing it so complex? And I, that's kind of how ideas came to me. And then say, I have a solution for this. I have a better idea where we could do this smoothly. Maybe I am not in a position to. Implement my idea in my current company because I'm not at that level making decision. Then if you're so convinced, it's fine to get out and start the company. The best way is to first to start with. That's what we did as well. You know, sell your idea concept or a prototype. You build a prototype convincingly. That's what we did. I took it in the same, you know, most of how the founders would d…

AI assessment note: “Honest answers, yes, it will be ideal, but at the same time, you also shouldn't”

Q And does it also result in, apart from convenience, any cost saving for the end customer?

A Oh, massive. Uh, everyone, um, everyone in the ecosystem saves massive amount of money. So if you go to our website, there are some early case studies numbers we have shared. How much, see, in addition to running a state of the art platform, frictionless process, It is a massive saving. So here's what, I'll give you some examples. Today, in dealerships in the US, they run 40, 50 different applications. They pay crazy amount of money. Some dealerships pay almost 100,000 dollars a month in software cost. Per, per dealership. Not, it's not even so hundred. So think about all the cost overhead they are passing on. Many times these will be passed on to the customer, right? Because they need to run a business. They need to do margins. So, it is, We are completely removing these friction and cost savings also significant in addition to not only cost savings. So three, three big value propositions, right? So one, the best consumer experience and personalized using ML and AI providing personalized consumer experience throughout consumer journey. It doesn't matter whether they do it from their phone, from their laptop, from desktop, when they drive to the dealership, when they sit in the dealership, all connected personalized experience. Number one. Number two, On top of this state-of-the-art, um, platform, significant amount of cost savings, um, massive. There are dealerships that save …

AI assessment note: “Oh, massive. Uh, everyone, um, everyone in the ecosystem saves massive amount of money.”

Q uh, you know, once, uh, you, you, you had some good amount of stocks and when you were coming out of Tesla, like today you could have easily retired for your lifetime with the Tesla stocks you had, but you still pushed yourself, you know, so where does this, you know, drive to push come from? Like, it's not easy. Yeah. To bring you from Chennai to Oman to Singapore.

A Yeah. No, thanks. Uh, um, uh, good, good question. So the way I saw, you know, honestly, every part of, I'll be very honest, every part of this, what you mentioned, there is always one part of me telling me, okay, you know what, this is the time to settle down. Let's be in the comfort zone. Um, in which was there because even in Oracle, because it was seven and a half years, I felt, you know, I was, uh, being in the comfort zone, but at the same time, Somehow being in the comfort zone always gives you a little bit of uncomfort as well, because you feel, you know, bored, you feel that, you know, you're not doing a lot, you're not learning a lot. See, one of the things, um, I've mentioned in other podcasts, which, uh, in the past, and I believe so as well, um, you, then the, the way the world works and the, the way the human nature works is also when you Break out of resistance. You get stronger and you grow bigger, right? You can take the fundamentals of, uh, uh, planting a seed into the ground, and the seed grows out of the ground, and as you water, the some of the times, that's why not all, but many of the seeds, it won't grow, um, just outside the ground. You have to, you know, Dig a hole and close it, and then you water it, and then it kind of breaks out and grows, right? That's why there's a saying that I think this is, I steal from Jim Quicks, um, uh, saying where, you kno…

AI assessment note: “being in the comfort zone always gives you a little bit of uncomfort as well”

Q Amazing. And Jay, if you could also please share, you know, just some rough numbers about around, you know, what's the current AR and how has the AR grown over the years or the number of users or dealerships have grown per year from 2017 till now?

A Yeah. Um, so if you see, 2017 18 was purely prototype product. We, um, that was a conscious decision. We didn't go full force to market. We didn't have a sales team, um, hired. So we had very clear To, it was more testing the market and making sure that we get feedback loop into the company. I would consider our automotive retail cloud launch in, in, um, 2019, even though officially we, we launched the pilots a few months early, but once we confirmed the pilots are solid, uh, then we officially did a press release in November, 2019. That's the official, I would say, uh, launch, and until then the revenue was small, uh, but in 20, 20, it immediately jumped to almost, uh, it started going towards, and then now we are more in double digit, uh, ARR. We have not shared, uh, the ARR numbers, uh, Siddharth, to anyone, so I'm not sharing the exact numbers. We will share sometime in the future.

AI assessment note: “now we are more in double digit ARR. We have not shared the ARR numbers”

Q Like when, when did you form the company? When did you launch the first product? What were the few challenges you faced? Because it's, it's like a hundred year old industry, more than a hundred year old industry. Which you are trying to change?

A Yeah, absolutely. I, yeah, good question, uh, Siddharath. So Techion, we formed the company in, uh, early 2016. Um, and then from that time onwards, um, I started with my personal money in Techion seed money. And then immediately there were few, uh, there was one venture firm, Storm Ventures, which is a pretty solid, uh, venture firm, and I had a friend who was a VC, and, um, he was very interested, um, in investing in whatever I do, which was a very nice feeling for an entrepreneur when you have someone saying, Jay, whatever you do, I want to be investing in it. Um, so, uh, That was a great opportunity. And then friends and family, I, I had some very clear parameters. So one good thing is luckily for me, I've been investing in companies, um, for, I would say somewhere between 10 to 12 years now, um, different companies, different sizes of companies. So I felt I had an opportunity to learn through that process, being advisor, mentor, sometimes on board and public company boards. So I had this opportunity to learn throughout that process. So I was, um, we were making very disciplined, um, Uh, decisions. Oh, by the way, I forgot to answer your earlier question. You said, um, about co-founders. Um, I want to mention, um, there were, uh, two key people who, um, joined me immediately after. I would consider them as co-founders, uh, Guru Sankararaman. Um, he was, uh, also a VP, uh, a…

AI assessment note: “we formed the company in, uh, early 2016”

Q And Jay, I would love to know about your schedule from the time you wake up to the time you sleep. What, what are the activities that go in?

A Yeah. Um, I'll share. I know it's again, that is another part of learning. Um, early days I was all about, I used to, I liked working out a lot. Um, I've done all kinds of things from very engaged. Some days I'll wake up at like, you know, four AM to go for a run and all of those. So it was all over the place. Um, last few years, I've settled down. I read a lot, um, all kinds of books and self-improvement books and, you know, all of those. I think it's important for any leader and especially an entrepreneur. Um, it's very, very important to be self-centered and read a lot about all of these. And when you read a lot, you'll always find this common theme. There's no one book that is a holy grail or one, you know, video that's a holy grail. So you have to get And you will find a common theme and common thread in many of these things. Um, so my routines have changed. So now morning routine for me becomes, um, I get up, you know, um, whatever time I go to bed, I try to get up early, like around anywhere between five 30 to six. If I go really late, then I change my alarm to, you know, six or six 15 or something like that. But if I go a bit early, my bedtime varies every day and it's unfortunate, but I try to get Anywhere between, trying to get to bed anywhere between 10 to 12, it used to be one, two a.m., all three a.m., all kinds of crazy, but now I'm trying to get to bed between 10…

AI assessment note: “now morning routine for me becomes, um, I get up”

Q And yeah, if you could share, you know, what the advantage the end customer, the buyer of the car has got through the massive technology and scale that you have built?

A Yeah, I think the more, most important one for us, right? That's, uh, that's, that's everything, you know, end of the day, if we do that right and which we are, then everything else will follow. So as I mentioned to you earlier, how, how big the automotive retail economy is. It's a trillion dollar economy just in the U.S. and if you take outside the U.S. and global, um, it's probably somewhere around like four to five trillion dollars, um, across the board. So it's a huge economy, people buying and selling cars, people servicing and maintaining their cars, you know. From taking on perspective, you know, so before starting there, right, you know, today's process is frictionful. Buying a car has a lot of friction. Um, many times online buying people say that it's just for the namesake, you know, some companies do an okay job in selling used cars online, but the new car selling is quite complex, right? It's, it's fraught with friction due to multiple reasons. Even regulations create frictions, but on top of it, the biggest friction point right now is the fragmentation. In this industry, if you think about, if you take a dealer, when you walk into a dealer in the, in the US, even if you have done all your homework and know exactly which car you're going to buy, they will make you sit anywhere between four to six to eight hours in the dealership, and it is many times a very painful …

AI assessment note: “before starting there, right, you know, today's process is frictionful.”

Q So she was with you for the least four, six years?

A When we started the family, we only had debt, and we had a, I had a good job. I was working at Oracle, but I had a lot of debt in my view, and there are a lot of people who also said, In India, it's, you know, you, you bought the loan for the business. The business is done. You close shop. You just file bankruptcy. Today in, as you know, in the US, it seems to be fairly okay to file bankruptcy when it really didn't work. As you know, yeah, people don't understand here. India tradition is, and I, it's not in me as well. I felt someone gave me money trusting we're going to do something, and I feel I have to return. And that's, I never in a single moment thought, Bankruptcy is a way to say I'm not paying you back. So the good thing is. Paid back and it gave me a lot of satisfaction and gave me a lot of relief and a lot of learning from that time. I, you know. Almost very, very, very rarely. It's a last resort.

AI assessment note: “When we started the family, we only had debt”