008: Acquiring Equity through Critical Skills and Negotiation Strategies

Ajit Deshpande (00:00:00) - Young engineers who are completely unaware and get fixated on just one aspect of your total compensation. I realized this out of working for younger companies on how equity is perhaps as important, if not more, of your total compensation. Many engineers, even when I'm hiring, sometimes I have to probe them. Do you understand the total package? Do you need some education on how this works? And some people are very informed and most of them aren't.

Christopher Nelson (00:00:30) - Welcome today to Tech Careers and Money Talk Episode number eight. Can you believe it? We're at episode number eight already. I'm your host, Christopher Nelson. I've been in the tech industry for 20 plus years, and after climbing my way to the C-suite, working for three companies that have been through IPO and investing my way to financial independence, I'm here to share with you everything that I've learned and introduced you to others that can help you do the same thing. And today I'm going to introduce you to somebody who can really help because Ajit Deshpande is one of the best negotiators for compensation in tech equity that I've ever met in my life.

Christopher Nelson (00:01:06) - And I sat across the negotiating table from him. So he has worked for hypergrowth companies like VMware and Splunk, and then he also has taken public Zora and Sumo Logic. I'm excited to share with you his career story and then also his negotiation tactics. Let's get into it. I'm so excited to introduce everybody today to Ajit Despond. Ajit is a IT leader in the Silicon Valley who has an amazing story that I actually wrote about in my book from Noto IPO that's coming out later this year, because I don't know anybody who has leveraged a unique set of technology skills to catapult themselves into leadership the way that Ajit has. And now he's established himself. He's worked for two companies that have been through IPOs and two other amazing companies. I'm excited to introduce everybody today Ajit Deshpande. Yeah. And so I want to like it. At one point you came to this country, you landed from Mumbai to Louisiana, and that's where your journey into tech started. I want to just sort of bring that to light to everyone, because I think there's a little bit of humor there.

Christopher Nelson (00:02:23) - There's a little bit of fun there. And that's how your journey started.

Ajit Deshpande (00:02:27) - Yeah, it feels like a lifetime ago. But I came here in 1998 to pursue my master's degree, right? I was born and raised in Mumbai. And of course, like every young engineer, wanted to look at the new US world with Silicon Valley and everything, wanted to start starting over here. And there's a funny story about I think I grew up in a big city, Mumbai, which is pretty crowded and all that. And I, despite getting into several colleges, I landed in Louisiana, which is rural America, and just landed into a place which was nothing like I had seen in movies. Right. Because all you see growing up is like high rises and, you know, New York City and everything. I landed in a marshland, Right? So it was quite a culture shock. But. But amazing school, amazing experience, great people. So I really had a great first two years doing my masters. That was the start of my journey in the US.

Christopher Nelson (00:03:28) - But when but when you I think when you graduated it was right around sort of the 911 times were sort of uncertain. You know where I know today there's a lot of stress and angst, especially around people that are H-1b visa holders. What was it like back then getting your start in that environment?

Ajit Deshpande (00:03:47) - Oh yeah. I think just like the current market conditions, right? The ups and downs have been through several recessions and I was right at the start of the.com bust. For those of you who are as old as me can remember those times when it was all technology growth and everything and I just graduated and came to Silicon Valley with a hope to kind of get into the high tech world of computing. And right at the beginning it was, of course, as an immigrant, I had to get through the immigration process and H-1b, like you said. And right after that, the nine over 11 incident took over America and I was impacted as well for my job after December 2000, where I had no job, a lot of college loans and searching for employment again, which was exponentially harder for an immigrant to look through.

Ajit Deshpande (00:04:44) - So yeah, quite a challenging time. I remember living in my car for a week, so pretty much homeless in America at that point.

Christopher Nelson (00:04:52) - Wow. And so then what were some of the things that helped you actually then get that first role? I mean, obviously, I think some people are probably experiencing some of that stuff today. What were you know, you know, whether it was, you know, community network. I mean what really helped you then get that first role that you needed to to lock it in.

Ajit Deshpande (00:05:12) - Yeah. Mean community? Definitely. Think I made new friends. It was pretty much that I didn't know a single soul in California. So I just landed here with some acquaintances, an old classmate and started living here. I was also trying to keep up with my technical skills and offerings, some help from my professors back in LSU and how to present myself, but really a new world of, you know, how to sell myself. And a lot of learning came through early failures, right? The every rejection that came with interviews at that point in that harsh market, it kind of taught me a lot on how to present myself, how to present my technical skills, and how to provide the value proposition that I had to offer overall.

Ajit Deshpande (00:05:58) - So I think after a year of hard work, I think I landed into align technology, which was an early like. I mean, they had just gone IPO, but they were manufacturing companies doing invisible liners. So that was I started as a software engineer and then spent five years over there working up through the ladder.

Christopher Nelson (00:06:21) - Well, and so go ahead.

Ajit Deshpande (00:06:24) - Now, I was just saying, those were the humble beginnings at that point.

Christopher Nelson (00:06:27) - Well, it was. And I think like many of us, I mean, I myself got my start. I mean, post I graduated in 2001. And so with my undergrad degree in and so then it was going into just this chaotic market of, you know, to your point, spending time interviewing. And it's so hard when you are in this. A bit of a frantic mindset. At that point, I'd rented an apartment in the Bay Area and was paying rent on it, and so I was going deeper into debt every month. And so the interviews were very high stakes.

Christopher Nelson (00:07:05) - But you have to have that mindset. And I learned, too, that every rejection has to be a lesson learned. You have to take something away from it. And then once you finally get your foot in the door, you take that opportunity. You then strive to say, How am I going to set a standard? How am I going to do really well here? And I'm sure that that's what you were doing at Align Technologies is really trying to establish yourself and learn.

Ajit Deshpande (00:07:32) - Indeed, I think overall it was a new area. It was new geography, no support. I grew up in a protected environment growing up back home. And I think the exposure definitely hardens you like they say, right? What doesn't kill you actually makes you stronger. That was the exact experience, right? I was going through the whole process and, you know, living through the tough times. So overall, I think it has taught me more than any formal education has ever done. But I think one thing that I must add over here is also keeping like, you know, that learning moment on for every situation.

Ajit Deshpande (00:08:15) - Right. Has often helped because while I was a techie at heart, I think I started my journey of getting an all rounded view of business at that point. Right? So really getting to understand the business operations, the manufacturing operations, the integration space overall. Looking back, I feel it helped me a lot as a good mindset to kind of take my career forward.

Christopher Nelson (00:08:40) - And so when you are at a line, you know, what, what was one of the impetus to have you then start looking towards actual high tech software manufacturing? Was that something that, you know, was that always the ultimate goal was to get a software manufacturing job or was there something when you were at a line that made you think, I have to go from here to there?

Ajit Deshpande (00:09:03) - Well, I think the best thing that ever happens in younger companies and we'll talk about that a little bit more as we go on is the exposure technology, right? And if you can keep an open mind and keep learning new things on the job and applying them towards progress in your future self, I think those are learnings that you get in younger companies and that's what has kept me going since aligning with technology.

Ajit Deshpande (00:09:33) - I picked up virtualization and you know, the VMware technology, which eventually became my employer a few days later after that, right? I started doing some integration work for manufacturing, and that's how I landed eventually at Splunk with you over there, right? Yeah. So those were all learnings on the job, including the technical learnings as well as the business operations learnings.

Christopher Nelson (00:09:59) - So now you've, you've opened up this thread. So what was that line of technology? You really started learning about integrations and that did something I mean that's a unique skill that you've always had. Like you've developed a really very laser focused expertise that I think really helped launch your career moving forward. What did you see as a business opportunity, or was it the technology that intrigued you more?

Ajit Deshpande (00:10:27) - I think it was. It was all of the above. Right. Because I always thought that that gave me the widest perspective of things to happen, right? I often see techies kind of get cornered or get into a specific niche and feel like they really have to go into that area and feel scared to kind of venture into other areas.

Ajit Deshpande (00:10:51) - Integration gave me that opportunity to play with so many toys, new technologies, new challenges, new problems, new people. So I got the widest view and I really enjoyed that. One of the I mean, some of the performance reviews that I got back then always called out that my strengths were kind of mixing or understanding or speaking to business users and technical users with equal ease. And that was very well observed by my manager then. I really enjoyed that. I liked working with techies. I liked working with business operations people. I like working with, even technicians, right? So the people aspect and the technology aspect mix of integrations really, really helped me drive my career forward in that direction.

Christopher Nelson (00:11:40) - And so then what was the impetus that said, okay, now it's time to leave a line. And I want to move to VMware.

Ajit Deshpande (00:11:48) - Uh, VMware at that point was the place to be. I remember back in 2008. The cutting edge technology of that generation was virtualization.

Ajit Deshpande (00:12:01) - For those of you who are in technology know, you know, you know this well, but before that, there were big boxes and data centers and everything. Really. VMware and virtualization as a whole changed the game. Much like I am changing things now, right? So I of course wanted to write that wave of the cutting edge technology and be there at the right place at the right time. And of course I was running towards something as opposed to running away from something. The line was great, but I thought I really had to take my career towards the new company in VMware, and sure enough, it was a very gratifying experience five years later.

Christopher Nelson (00:12:40) - And was this something when you when you then looked for your new role, were you taking these these integration skills and saying, okay, here's, you know, it was applying for that particular role now in the virtualization space?

Ajit Deshpande (00:12:52) - Yes, I think it was a mix of integrations and virtualization, but I think VMware at that point was really growing rapidly.

Ajit Deshpande (00:13:02) - They wanted someone to be a kind of a development manager slash architect for that group. And I was able to kind of offer that as one of my skills. And sure enough, I think I was a good fit with a lot of ups and downs that always happen in the tech world. I feel like I had a great experience at VMware, just going through that whole journey of a hyper growth company at that stage.

Christopher Nelson (00:13:32) - Overall, yeah, it was. I mean, it was an amazing company to be at during that time because it was, it was the company and virtualization was that revolutionary technology Now was it VMware that I believe was your first management role?

Ajit Deshpande (00:13:47) - I actually was a manager at a line for a brief period, but I decided to take one step back, I think, and looking back, it was a great idea because on one side, as a young professional, I was nervous about taking the role for one reason that it was an individual contributor role.

Ajit Deshpande (00:14:05) - And sometimes it's kind of important to slow down and to speed up in the long run. So I took a step back and took an I see role. And looking back, like I said, it turned out to be a great thing because I think within six months I was promoted to be a manager again at VMware and I was given a chance to run a small unit to deliver value services for VMware.

Christopher Nelson (00:14:30) - Well, and I think that's a really important thing to tease out because I think many of us like we feel there's programming that says it's always up, it's always up, it's always up where sometimes and I've experienced the same thing in my career that sometime taking this step down to have more mental capacity to focus on the skills at hand, to build out, you know, more of your current capabilities without going into stretch mode, I think that that's undervalued and I think that's a that's a really good point to to bring up.

Ajit Deshpande (00:15:05) - Indeed. I've seen this over and over again about, like, you know, getting young professionals, getting caught up in titles or in specific technologies and, you know, falling in love with something that that in tech world is so, you know, it's such a short shelf life that you almost, you know, typecast yourself into something.

Ajit Deshpande (00:15:31) - And so it's really important to be as important as it is to get detailed, it's also important to really be a generalist and be flexible and accepting of newer things coming into the market.

Christopher Nelson (00:15:42) - Yeah, that's really so important. And so, you know, I think that it was a VMware where we met and you're like your team was, you know, was honestly like it was storied. Like people were like, oh, this is the team that can get stuff done. And this is where I really started watching your career. I saw you as somebody that was, to your point earlier, trusted by the business, trusted by the technology teams to deliver results. And you did it very effectively. And, you know, like many things in technology, it's not always going to be 100% perfect. Right? But it was effective. And so was that like that whole point of taking what you learned, it aligned and this whole concept of understanding this space very well that I still to this day, you don't find very many people that I think do it do integrations well or think about it.

Christopher Nelson (00:16:44) - Was that part of your career growth strategy that let me continue to leverage this or was it something that just happened? Because again, you still had the passion for what that was?

Ajit Deshpande (00:16:57) - Yes. And I think, like I said, I think it was primarily with my interest in knowing at all. Right. So call it all trades or anything. I think unlike any other technical area, integrations offered me a taste of everything that was out there. Right? So in the interest of connecting technologies, I got to play with a lot of toys. So that was kind of, you know, selfish on my part to kind of learn all these newer things. A lot of talented engineers often get caught up in something and they just don't have the opportunity to get exposed to anything right? With so many things happening. And I used my jobs or my career as one of my testbeds of constantly learning something that I could apply towards my future self. And that's probably one of the most satisfying things that I've experienced in the few jobs that I've been at overall.

Christopher Nelson (00:17:58) - Right? And then I mean, within this expertise, I mean, then this is what provided you the opportunity to then leverage the VMware opportunity to the Splunk opportunity.

Ajit Deshpande (00:18:08) - Yeah. So Splunk, we worked together. You were my manager, so I remember that very well. It was it was a great team Overall, I must say that Splunk was probably the best job that we've had and some of us keep in touch and and we still enjoy those. Those times. We worked hard, we played hard. And it was really, you know, a good opportunity to use, you know, your skills towards something that was innovative. So I still quote most of my experiences from Splunk on what we were able to achieve in those five years over there. So yeah, I used my integration, but then quickly like, you know, pivoted into different roles for, you know, supporting the Splunk Cloud product and then, you know, other things regarding the CPQ and the billing solutions and a lot of technology implementations internally for those five years.

Ajit Deshpande (00:19:01) - And thanks to good, good people like you, I got the opportunity to do that.

Christopher Nelson (00:19:06) - Well in and I think what I observed and this is this to me is is again sharing this so that other people can understand is that when you you operated like you did where you had this knowledge of this breadth of technologies and how things came together and managing that intersection. And you always had a clear command on what the business was trying to accomplish, as well as the technology, which again, I see a lot of young engineers that are so it's easy to get smitten with the tech. It's easy to fall in love with the tech and want to just be all about it. But when you also understand how the business operates and you know, also thinking, excuse me, like a shareholder as well, you know, I saw you build so much trust with the business because you were able to dig in to solve business solutions at the right time. And I think the Splunk Cloud product was, you know, a game changer for a lot of us where we came in there and were able.

Christopher Nelson (00:20:04) - To deliver something in a very short period of time. But the reason I keep trying to tease this out to people is because that was really when I saw your career really start to accelerate and move forward because that it was some of that building trust with business and tech teams that then got you the vote of confidence to say, okay, this guy is ready to be a director.

Ajit Deshpande (00:20:31) - Indeed. I think that that was for sure. I think one of the key factors, right, is that you are trying to be a messenger and from both sides. Right. Really building that trust at both ends. There seems to be a big divide in the engineering side of the world and the business side of the world, at least in the markets that I've been at. And they often don't speak the same language. So I feel like I feel like I'm the translator that they can trust at both ends and I can carry that message. So it comes with responsibility and it comes with conviction that you need to have to be able to be trusted at both ends.

Ajit Deshpande (00:21:16) - But I take pride in doing that and I enjoy doing that because I can understand the pain points of each of these groups, having worked with them slightly closely. And so I think I'll always continue doing that. I'll try to solve problems both at the business end and the technical end.

Christopher Nelson (00:21:33) - And so then, you know, then after taking your career and you worked for, you know, two companies that had gone through an IPO helping them scale, then you said, okay, now I'm going to go help some companies go through IPO. What? What was really the driver of that?

Ajit Deshpande (00:21:52) - I think I learned a lot in that process. I think part of what I learned out of compensation was how equity was. And you talk about this a lot about how equity plays an equally important role in your total compensation as it does as your full time salary. A younger self would always look at I would generally look at and most people make the mistake of looking only at your basic salary or package and completely forget that there is this big gold mine of equity that you can potentially leverage.

Ajit Deshpande (00:22:30) - And I think, of course the the macroeconomic situation is an equal influencer in this, but it does require some level of education on how to take advantage of the company's growth, how to be aligned with that and how to put your skills in the growth of the company. And it makes it truly a win-win situation in that case. Right? Your company is growing. You're making money in that process. And overall, the gratification that you get out of that is just amazing overall.

Christopher Nelson (00:23:06) - Yeah. And so this is actually a good point. What I want to do is take a small break right now. And then when we come back, I want to I want to double click on this because a cheat, you know, when it comes to negotiating for total comp has been one of the hardest negotiators that I've ever experienced sitting on the other side of the table with. So I want to double click into some of the ways that he analyzes companies in some of the ways that he analyzes total comp.

Christopher Nelson (00:23:31) - So we'll be right back after this. All right. So here we are back with a discussion. And as I mentioned before the break, he is a, you know, somebody who really thinks about equity as part of his total compensation And. And so I want to take a step because when we're on break right there, you and I were just talking about the fact that. People know. My experience has shown me that people know working for equity is good. And when you get to certain levels, equity comp becomes a lot about the compensation. As you and I both know, you know, having had VP roles, you know, senior director roles, etcetera, it becomes a very large part. But many people don't. They don't have the conversation. They don't even talk about it. I mean, what have you seen in her? I mean, obviously you live around there on the streets.

Ajit Deshpande (00:24:24) - Indeed. I think different areas have different levels of understanding of equity, and I would say that definitely in Silicon Valley, most people are now very informed about how equity works.

Ajit Deshpande (00:24:36) - But so often I see young engineers who are completely unaware and get fixated on just one aspect of your total compensation. Right. And I realize this out of working for younger companies on how equity is perhaps as important, if not more of your total compensation. So I look at it in terms of total comps and many engineers, even when I'm hiring, they sometimes I have to probe them. Do you understand the total package? Do you need some education on how this works? And some people are very informed and most of them aren't right. And the way I look at it is, the company is really giving you a part of its share for you to be aligned with it. So now you are really working in your interest and the company's interest. It's truly a win-win situation over there. So that's how I look at it and it definitely aligns people's mindset in the interest of the company and in interest of their own personal growth.

Christopher Nelson (00:25:40) - Well, and I remember distinctly when, you know, because I've been in this very similar situation where you have to educate people on equity and you don't you don't know how much people have done.

Christopher Nelson (00:25:51) - And I just remember when you and I were negotiating for salary, you came with the most precise spreadsheet and you really walked me through. Here is my total compensation package today of base bonus and equity. And you talked about what each portion was of each and which one was aligned to the company and which one was aligned to what you delivered. Then you, you broke down on the same spreadsheet, the offer that I was providing and what the conversation that you had. And this is where, again, I want to have this conversation in front of people from an educational perspective if you talked a lot about company risk. You wanted to really understand, you know, and Splunk at that time had just gone public and had been able to report, you know, a certain set of data. But your main focus was what is the risk that the company is going to not grow as fast? And then it was really, if I remember correctly, a lot of a lot of questions around leadership. But I want to really double click on that because the way that you thought about that at my perspective, I had thought about it, but I really thought like, Oh my gosh, like this guy's taking it to a whole new level in and where did you even learn how to do that at that point?

Ajit Deshpande (00:27:23) - Yeah, I think overall, just my basic education has always been in the technology part of it.

Ajit Deshpande (00:27:31) - Right. As I was learning the business operations maybe because of integrations, I started taking interest more around. How is the company validated? What are these guys talking about like their quarterly calls or what have you, right for a non accounting major or non finance major? This stuff was new but very interesting. Right? Because that really kind of gave me a little bit of interest on how do I evaluate a company, How are the risks that the company is taking, what's the reward of it, What's the opportunity cost of joining this company versus something else? Because remember, the basic fundamentals of time value money, right? We are all here for a few years in our career, right? So if you are not at the right place at the right time, you are perhaps moving on a slow track. And while you cannot always be on the fastest track available, that's something out of control. You definitely want to optimize every lever you have in your control to be there to take advantage of what you're getting in exchange for your time.

Ajit Deshpande (00:28:36) - So that's what my thought process was when I was joining Splunk. How likely in my own metrics with what I know right now is the company like to kind of make the company grow and my career grow. Right So that that was kind of the basic mindset from where I learned about it. I think it was primarily because I just started kind of learning online a little bit more around valuation about companies, how share pricing works, how to read financial reports, so on and so forth. While this might seem like very complex, it's actually not. It can be simplified down to very simple things and you can go as deep as you want and by no means I'm a valuation expert of any sort, but I definitely consider myself a. Good basic evaluator of the company's fundamentals, if you will.

Christopher Nelson (00:29:29) - Well, that's, I think, an important lesson for all of us to learn is that, you know, you can go, you can go grind on crazy spreadsheets, crazy data.

Christopher Nelson (00:29:39) - But, you know, I myself and I know, you know, others that we all know have done well for themselves in selecting companies and taking equity off the table by just having a basic fundamental framework and leveraging it and then also getting more data. I mean, I think that was one of the things that always stuck with me too, is that you were then saying, okay, what other data pieces can you legally provide me that I can understand to really help make my decision? Yeah.

Ajit Deshpande (00:30:09) - I mean basic things like pre-IPO or just IPO companies that have data that they can provide, just that no one asks for. So one basic advice that I always like to give people is ask. The worst thing is people are going to say, no, that's legally, I cannot provide you that. But it's always helpful to ask people about what the current internal valuation is. What was the most recent quarter? What did it look like? What are your strategic goals? Right. And I think with newer technologies coming in like ChatGPT and everything, perhaps I was looking up something which simplifies, you know, reading financial reports so much that you can totally get the gist of what they are trying to say even through their fat financial reports.

Christopher Nelson (00:30:57) - Right. I'm really interested in how that's going to work because I know people who when they're evaluating companies, they go through, you know, the different company reports. They look at the risks, they look at a lot of different factors. And now there's going to be the ability to consolidate that data. And so this is you know, what I would encourage, again, people getting into technology is, you know, look through the data, understand the financial fundamentals of the company because. As you said, and I want to really tease this out, because this is a critical point, our goal is to be shareholders, to be partners with them so that we're then aligning what we're delivering with what the company is delivering as well. And so what? When you're evaluating companies, what are the factors that are going to say, I want more cash versus more equity or I want more equity versus more cash? What are some of the decision criterias that you use around that?

Ajit Deshpande (00:32:02) - It really depends on the stage of the company.

Ajit Deshpande (00:32:05) - First of all, I would mean, my strategy and I would think that most people should only be having this kind of conversation after you, you know, that you are getting an offer. Of course. Do all your homework before that. Yeah, but I do not like to bring up the money conversation any sooner than necessary. Yeah. Most companies will first evaluate you on whether your technical skills, your business skills or operational skills are all matching. Once you know that you are at that stage of talking about compensation, that's when you start talking about this point. Number one. And to your question about like, you know what should be the mix, right, of equity versus cash versus bonus or other benefits, it really depends on the stage of the company. The younger the company, the larger the risk that you are taking and hence you deserve to be compensated more on paper, right? So if you are, of course, everyone's situation and life stage is different. People have loans and, you know, family situations and what have you, after your basic cash is done, I look at cash as oxygen, right? So everyone needs oxygen.

Ajit Deshpande (00:33:20) - Everyone. But having more oxygen doesn't necessarily give you anything more, right? So that's basically you would want to exchange that oxygen for water or shelter or clothing or what have you. Right. So I think that's my philosophy. I do need a certain amount of cash to pay the bills. But then after that, for my long term investment, I'm looking at the equity portion of it purely from that perspective. All right. So that's general philosophy. And to answer your question, I think the younger the company, perhaps the larger the risk that you're taking and hence the larger the equity should be, at least on paper.

Christopher Nelson (00:34:02) - That's right. Well, and I think, you know, you know, and so when I think about, you know, your career, so you went on from Splunk and you worked for Zora, then you work for Sumo and helped take both of those companies through IPOs. You know, when you think about reflecting on the evaluation criteria for those companies, like what are some factors that you say, okay, I want the company valuation.

Christopher Nelson (00:34:27) - What are some other things now with your experience that you say here, here are 2 or 3 other factors that are really important to me when I evaluate companies.

Ajit Deshpande (00:34:35) - Um, I think of course I'm going to talk more about non-financial metrics, and then I'm going to talk about the financial metrics of this question, right? So talking about the non-financial metrics, I think primarily the product vision, the leadership team, you know, the company's culture and values definitely have to align first, right? Without that, everything else is not useful, right? At least in my playbook. So I'm not purely running for the dollar growth, but I'm looking fundamentally at how I really want to be a part of this company. So I really want to know who's running the company, what are their values and what do you have, Right? The company size often matters. I've seen time and again that companies end up hiring very rapidly or very misaligned or expensive employees. Right.

Ajit Deshpande (00:35:31) - And if that's the case, I want to kind of understand whether they are being financially savvy about how to utilize the funds in an early stage company. Yeah. If you're not making use of the investor money prudently, then you're definitely ruining the company. But also you're taking my career down with it. Yeah. So I want to be conscious of that fact when selecting companies now coming to the financial metrics of it, right? Overall, good metrics to look at are employee size, the revenue of the company, the growth rate of the company. Yeah. What their strategic plans are and what areas they want to expand in. Uh, the total addressable market where the company plays is an important factor, right? If you're trying to solve a problem where there are way too many players, perhaps you're going to get a very thin slice of the pie. And if the Tam itself is not large enough, then you're not going to end up making that much money as much as you romanticize.

Ajit Deshpande (00:36:41) - Right. So that's something that, of course, it's a very subjective, you know, call on how it should be. But I think looking at the market and with experience, people should be able to guess that quickly. The other thing that I like to look at is in terms of what your internal valuation is for companies that are not not public, this information is not available outside, right? So you have to often ask for the 409 a valuation of the company and companies are willing to share that in most cases. And you can do some of the calculations about what they are offering you. What is the dollar value today and over the next typically over the next four years, how much equity income can this company bring to me if everything goes well right now, you can factor an additional conservative factor of that. I like to come up with a range of myself. I'm expecting $100,000 over so many years. Or if it grows, then I think it's a bonus. But I'm hoping to at least generate this much equity income over the next four years.

Christopher Nelson (00:37:56) - And that I mean, we have to put a bow on this. I know, but there's a master class in that somewhere. And I think everybody can learn from, you know, a G2 experience. I think he's one of the best equity negotiators that I've come across. And so I appreciate you sharing that with us. I want to step real quick. I want to add some more value to everybody right now. Let's step into the fire round to close this out. So, um, how do you keep learning?

Ajit Deshpande (00:38:28) - Well, I think the important part is to carve time out of your daily routine, to invest in your own learning. Right. And this can be completely different from what your day job is. And it should be somewhat different from what your day job is. I didn't know accounting. I didn't know about equity compensation back in the day. I only know new programming and I can provide for myself learning. I think it gives you some gratification. So a disciplined approach of carving out an hour a day or something more, if you can afford that towards learning, is very important for everyone.

Christopher Nelson (00:39:05) - And so we work so hard in technology, right? And the burnout is real. What do you do to recharge your batteries?

Ajit Deshpande (00:39:13) - I like to travel. I like to do outdoor activities. I like to do, you know, I like to go to the gym. I like to do something that's more fitness related. That also helps me keep my mind clear, keep the blood pumping and that's my way of recharging.

Christopher Nelson (00:39:36) - So if you were going to speak to that young Ajit, who went from Mumbai to LSU or are just getting started in tech, what advice would you give your younger self today?

Ajit Deshpande (00:39:48) - I would say just that. Keep learning, right? I think the learning part I know I'm repeating myself often, but I think that's one thing that everyone should be doing. I encourage my kids to keep learning something new and develop the skills over time and that compound interest that it pays for you by repeating those activities over time is immense.

Christopher Nelson (00:40:08) - Well, and I think also what you said before, too, was make sure that we're taking those, you know, failures or rejections as lessons learned.

Christopher Nelson (00:40:16) - Right. Is being able to learn from those.

Ajit Deshpande (00:40:19) - Absolutely. Yeah. So I've had my share of failures along the way. And every failure brings immense learning, right? So whether it was early in my academic life or my career started with ups and downs, I think those failures are the best teachers, I would say.

Christopher Nelson (00:40:38) - Yeah, definitely. Right. So what soft skill do you think has helped your career the most?

Ajit Deshpande (00:40:44) - I think people and communication, right? So generally I think I've kind of met people who came from a completely different background culturally, learning, career, everything. And just like in conversation with them and it has taught me a lot and you know, I've learned that asking for small favors from people always helps and brings them and wins them over overall. So I purposely practice asking small favors out of people overall.

Christopher Nelson (00:41:15) - And then wrapping up the fire round. What's the best investment of time that you've ever made?

Ajit Deshpande (00:41:21) - I think spending time with family, traveling and learning.

Ajit Deshpande (00:41:26) - I think overall that that's what kind of kind of gives me a gratification overall, right, in terms of being complete at the end of the day, just remembering all the time I spent with my kids, with my family and and the learnings that I've done that day gives me good sleep at night.

Christopher Nelson (00:41:46) - Well, great. Well, Ajit, I just want to thank you so much for taking time out to share with all of us everything that you've learned along the way. I think you, your phenomenal negotiator. I'm here as a witness to say and I think all of those points that you made, I would encourage you to dig in, rewind, listen to what he says, and understand that because, you know, there truly is an opportunity to get a lot more value out of your salary negotiations.

Ajit Deshpande (00:42:18) - Hey, thanks for having me. I hope I was able to add some value and, you know, always reach out and LinkedIn and think. I'm always happy to help young people who are starting off this journey or who've not been exposed and share my knowledge.

Ajit Deshpande (00:42:31) - I truly believe that knowledge just expands by sharing. Aw.

Christopher Nelson (00:42:35) - That's great. Well, everyone, we'll make sure to input his LinkedIn link in the show notes. And again, thank you so much for listening to Tech Careers and Money Talk. We are a young podcast, so our ask is please follow us on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon. Wherever you listen to podcasts, please leave us a written review. We want to know what value you're getting from the podcast and tell other technology employees, employees that there is a place where we talk about career and money together, share all of our lessons learned. And that's right here. Thank you very much.