CAREERS BLOG
CAREERS BLOG
Jan 6, 2022
Dr. Prasad Akella, founder and chairman of the Drishti board, is creating his third massive market category that uses technology to extend human capabilities. In the 1990s, Prasad led the General Motors team that built the world’s first collaborative robots (“cobots,” projected to be a $12B market by 2025). In the early 2000s, as cofounder of the social networking pioneer Spoke, he envisioned and helped build the first massive social graph — a category now worth trillions. Today, at Drishti, he is working to combine the cognition of AI with the flexibility of humans in factories in the form of AI-powered production. Prasad is based in Mountain View, California.
When I founded Drishti in 2016, I knew it was important to map out what mattered most to the success of the company. Yes, the product and technology had to be ground-breaking and effective. And yes, our customers had to see the value in the computer vision and AI technology we were building and want to buy, use and expand with Drishti.
But what really makes or breaks companies, what’s even bigger than technology or customers or revenues, are the values that guide their teams. So the founding team sat down and helped me articulate what values we wanted to be ours. Here’s what rose to the surface:
Be honest
We demand that our employees be honest both inside Drishti and outside of the company. To be honest with themselves and the people around them. To put their true selves into the work they do here. It sounds straightforward, but being honest can be hard. It can be difficult to have authentic conversations with coworkers, especially when you know the two of you aren’t seeing eye to eye. It can be hard to be honest with customers, particularly when you’ve let them down in some way. And it can be heartbreaking to be honest with yourself, that you’re not giving your best self, or that a specific role isn’t for you. But without that level of honesty, everyone suffers.
Create value
In everything you do, bring value to the table. Whether you’re sending an email or tweaking a line of code or walking the plant floor with a prospect, when you leave that engagement, does everyone involved have a better day because of it? Did you leave any stones unturned or any questions unanswered? Did you present more problems than solutions? Ultimately, Drishti’s goal is to provide new, unmatched value to manufacturers in the form of analytics and insights. We’ll only get to that point if, along the way, we all create value in our everyday engagements.
Think long
Change can be quick, but lasting change doesn’t happen overnight. From day one, I’ve wanted Drishti to exist for the long haul, to create something spectacular and continue to innovate and improve the lives of people in manufacturing and beyond. It may be easier today, and quicker in the moment, to take a shortcut or use a bandage rather than dig into the underlying problems or set up processes that can help us scale. But that’s not long-term thinking, and that doesn’t set us up for success on a greater time horizon. Keeping the future in mind might mean making a decision that costs us 10% more work today, but obviates the need for a complete rewrite of the code in three years’ time.
Drishti’s principles are our fundamental guides that, if adhered to and executed against, will help us thrive for years to come. Building a new company is tough, and creating a new category of business is even harder. Having clear guideposts that anchor you in the journey is critical to success.
