Crafting an Outlier Career | Arnav Gupta On Designing IPL's Tech, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal, Rejecting Facebook Offer at 22

This episode of The Inner Scorecard features Arnav Gupta , an engineering leader at Meta who has built a career defined by high agency and outlier decisions. We go back to the university days, and everyone knew Arnav as one of the best coders, but nobody could've guessed he would go on to solve some of the hardest tech problems out there.From rejecting Facebook and Zomato straight out of college to start Coding Blocks, to advising Deepinder Goyal at 25, and eventually scaling the IPL live stream to 200 million concurrent users—Arnav’s journey is a masterclass in engineering for impact. We dive deep into the "runbook" philosophy of live events, the cynicism that comes with experience, and how to know when you've finally made "enough" money.Episode TimestampsEpisode Timestamps00:00 — Introduction: Meet the "Champion Swimmer"04:45 — The Startup Perspective: Why payroll stress changes how you see the world08:00 — Joining Zomato: Negotiating part-time consulting and high-leverage roles11:15 — Working with Deepinder Goyal: Lessons in leadership and financial incentives13:30 — The "On-Time or Free" Story: Tech as an insurance product20:00 — Engineering for Business: Reducing app size to stop uninstalls25:30 — Rejecting Facebook: The "Reversible Decision" framework33:00 — The DTU Days: Why Electrical Engineering was a struggle40:45 — Scaling IPL for 200 Million Users: India's "Super Bowl" moment48:30 — The War Room: Why you need Runbooks, not "0-to-1" thinking57:00 — Why I Teach: The selfish benefit of documenting your work01:04:30 — Wealth Philosophy: Why Indians should optimize for money early01:13:30 — The "One Crore Liquid" Milestone: Changing your mental species01:18:30 — Moving to London: Global Talent Visas and the UK food scene01:26:15 — Working at Meta: Scale vs. Individual ImpactConnect with ArnavX (Twitter): https://x.com/championswimmerLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnavgupta/Connect with NikhilLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=nikhilkapahiX: https://x.com/innerscorecard_Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inner.scorecard/Support the ChannelIf you enjoyed this conversation, please Subscribe and hit the bell icon. It helps us bring more exceptional guests like Arnav to the show!