Unraveling startup cultures with Hari TN

Hari TN is the Co-founder of Artha School of Entrepreneurship. He is also an evangelist, thought leader, and influencer in the Startup ecosystem. He is an alumnus of IIT Madras and IIM Calcutta. Hari has authored 8 books and is a columnist at Mint. His books ‘Saying No to Jugaad', ‘From 'Pony to Unicorn', and ‘Diversity Beyond Tokenism’ have been bestsellers.Hari has been part of the leadership teams at five high growth start-ups and helped shape their growth journeys and exits, including a listing on NASDAQ. Three of these went on to become Unicorns. He is also passionate about helping founders build great companies and supporting women leaders discover their potential.In this free-wheeling conversation, Subbu and Hari discuss organizational culture in the context of startups. *Key Topics*0:25 - Turning points in Hari's trailblazing career 4:45 - Big insights and 'aha moments' about culture7:30 - The 9 determinants of scale (and where culture fits in)12:10 - The role of the external ecosystem in helping founders make sense of culture13:10 - The analogy of the 'invisible hand' applied to org culture15:30 - Executing on culture beyond the culture playbook17:55 - Leveraging moments of truth to drive the right set of behaviors20:30 - Aggressive v/s soft cultures23:00 - Organizational self-awareness26:00 - The role of the leadership team (beyond the founders) in driving culture27:40 - Scaling culture across geographical boundaries29:00 - Human Capital as an Achilles heel for startup founders30:00 - Culture starts with hiring the right people35:00 - Hiring for homogeneity v/s diversity37:00 - The strongest elements of the BigBasket Culture39:30 - The fox and the hedgehog strategy