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Beerud Sheth

Founder & CEO, Gupshup · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

Beerud Sheth is the Founder and CEO of smart messaging platform Gupshup. An alumnus of IIT Bombay and MIT, he also founded Elance (now Upwork), which pioneered the gig economy and went public in 2018.

13statements → 9claims → 4claims resolved → 50%fully supported → 3.85/5average certainty → 2/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 1said about them ↓

2 supported 1 partly supported 1 contradicted 5 not checkable as stated how the 9 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 6 assertions · 3 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 9 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 are resolved, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Beerud argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Gupshup generates well over $100 million in annual revenue
“We are well over a hundred million dollars in revenue.”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 27:07 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Elance is the only late-90s gig economy startup to survive
“We were literally the only company from that era That has survived, right? Like freelance you know, we founded it in December of 98. Right. And there were there were a few other companies. There was one called guru. There were some one called moonlighter and a…”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 20:01 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
0% certainty 3
83% certainty 4
none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Beerud Sheth on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Beerud Sheth said on the Neon Show that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Not checkable as stated
Very soon, all workers will operate as remote freelancers
“Very soon we'll get to a world where everyone who's working will be working from home and working as a freelancer of sorts right now, you may have a long-term contract, but you're still working remote work.”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 38:44 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Messaging-based chatbots will replace many standalone apps
“A lot of apps will get actually replaced by messaging based chatbots and so on.”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 36:41 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Future generations will view physical offices and factories as obsolete
“You know, the next generation, like our kids will wonder saying people used to go to something called a factory or an office. What does that mean? Because, you know, you bring the office into the home and you work wherever you are. I mean, you could live in Go…”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 39:52 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup
Insight
Grinding 15 hours a day on micro-tasks kills startups
“Usually it's not the small stuff that will kill you. It's the big stuff that will kill companies. So So really there used to be a time that I used to think, oh, if I work, you know, 15 hours a day, or when I used to I drive, you know, that would be, that would…”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 46:48 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup
Assertion Contradicted
Elance is the only late-90s gig economy startup to survive
“We were literally the only company from that era That has survived, right? Like freelance you know, we founded it in December of 98. Right. And there were there were a few other companies. There was one called guru. There were some one called moonlighter and a…”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 20:01 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup
Assertion Partly supported
Gupshup reached 70M Indian users when Facebook and Twitter had 1M
“And it actually grew to seventy million users in India at a time where Facebook and Twitter had only like one million users in India, right?”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 25:27 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup
Assertion Supported
Gupshup generates well over $100 million in annual revenue
“We are well over a hundred million dollars in revenue.”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 27:07 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup
Disclosure
Gupshup has remained profitable without major funding since 2011
“Our last round was in 2011, right? It was a ten million dollar round. And since then we've you know, we've been profitable for a very long time. We haven't done any major funding rounds.”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 33:38 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup
Insight
Conversational interfaces are the most flexible foundation for digital commerce
“And I think conversations is the thing that becomes you know, the lowest common denominator. Again, it's sort of the most universal thing because it is the most flexible. It can take care of every situation, right?”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 43:00 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup
Insight
Indian education cultivates herd mentality over multidimensional reality
“The consequence of it is most people don't think what they want to do. You just sort of follow the, you know, follow the herd, if you will, you know, everybody, you know, oftentimes people do what their friends are doing or what you're, you know, what is highl…”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 4:35 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup
Assertion Supported
Pre-merger, Elance focused on fixed-price projects while oDesk targeted hourly
“The difference was Elance focused on fixed price projects while Odesk focused on hourly projects, right?”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 17:20 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gupshup processes four to five billion messages every month
“We handle about Four to five billion messages a month.”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 28:07 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Elance scaled to 20 employees in a two-bedroom NYC apartment
“We grew to about 20 people in this two bedroom apartment”
Beerud Sheth Nov 30, 2020 ▶ 13:16 Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup

The other half of the tape: Beerud Sheth's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode on the Neon Show. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Vijay Rayapati 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
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0112023episodes it came up in
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2023 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Beerud Sheth on building Elance (nowUpwork) & Gupshup Nov 30, 2020 44m
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