From 2000 Employee Millionaires to $1.5B Revenue: Anand Deshpande on ESOPs, IPOs & the Future of Deep Tech

In this episode, we sit down with Anand Deshpande, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Persistent Systems, to explore how he built one of India's most successful IT services companies while creating over 2000 employee millionaires through strategic ESOP implementation.

Anand explains how ESOPs became central to Persistent's culture starting in 1999-2000, when employees didn't even understand what they were. He shares the 10-20-30-40% vesting structure designed to retain talent long-term, and why he simply told employees "just keep it, you'll not regret it" — advice that would prove transformative when the company went public in 2008-2010.

The conversation traces Persistent's journey through the dot-com bust, the 2008 financial crisis, and eventual IPO. Anand discusses when a company is truly ready to go public, why rushing into an IPO can backfire, and how quarterly earnings calls force a certain kind of short-term thinking that founders must learn to manage.

A key part of the discussion focuses on CEO traits and selling to leadership. After meeting 150 CEOs in 2008, Anand identified three patterns: CEOs focus on 7-8 priorities and delegate everything else 100%, they care about top-line growth over bottom-line, and they love to network. These insights completely changed how Persistent approached sales and positioned itself in the market.

Anand also shares his hiring framework for senior leadership — looking for excellence in one of three areas: sales, technology domain expertise, or operations. Not okay at all three, but truly exceptional at one.

The episode explores Anand's transition from CEO in 2019 after 30 years, his personal wealth management philosophy across four buckets (expenses, legacy portfolio, growth investments in AIFs, and philanthropy), and his vision for the future centered on three mega-trends: Energy, Biology, and Intelligence.

This is a structured, first-principles conversation on wealth creation, leadership, strategic pivots, and backing the next wave of deep science innovation.

Timestamps:

00:00 Highlights & Introduction

01:17 The Story of ESOPs at Persistent Systems

03:01 Designing an ESOP Policy: Vesting & Strike Price

04:42 When is a Company Truly Ready for an IPO?

06:12 Life After IPO: Quarterly Earnings & Investor Relations

07:06 3 Essential Traits of Every Successful CEO

09:49 How to Recruit and Build Senior Leadership

11:07 When should a Founder step down as CEO?

11:57 Anand Deshpande’s Personal Wealth Philosophy

13:41 Strategic Investing: AIFs, Direct Companies & Philanthropy

15:41 Future Opportunities in India: Energy, Biology & Intelligence

18:22 The Deep Tech Revolution: Engineering Biology

19:18 Time Management Secrets of a Global Leader

20:41 Conclusion & Final Insights

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In this episode, recorded at Product Unconference 2025, Sandeep Jethwani sits down with Vijay Shekhar Sharma to unpack how founders stay relevant across multiple technology cycles.

Vijay explains how technology evolves in waves — from chips to PCs, operating systems to applications, mobile to cloud, data to AI and now agents. Every wave creates winners, and every winner eventually becomes the foundation for the next. Romanticising past success, he says, is the fastest way for companies to lose relevance.

The conversation traces Paytm’s repeated reinventions, from payments to devices and now towards AI-led workflows. Vijay shares why pivots are rarely sudden decisions, how founders shift the centre of gravity of organisations over time, and why not everyone moves together during change.

A key part of the discussion focuses on AI for small merchants. Building on the Soundbox that transformed digital payments, Vijay outlines a vision where AI becomes a thinking partner for kirana stores — helping them decide what sells, what doesn’t, when to stock up, when to push offers, and even when to advertise.

Not AI for demos or dashboards, but AI for everyday business judgement. The episode also touches on leadership inside public companies, ESOP wealth creation, governance, and the parts of the journey that continue to weigh on founders even after scale and success. This is a candid, first-principles conversation on relevance, reinvention, and betting on the next wave, straight from the stage at Product Unconference 2025.

#CreateWealthPodcast #Dezerv #PayTM #Product #Fintech

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Yoga Bar didn’t wait for India’s healthy snacking wave, it helped create it.

In this conversation, Suhasini Sampath (Co-founder, Yoga Bar) takes us inside the product decisions and supply-chain discipline that shaped one of India’s most interesting FMCG stories.

This is not the usual “D2C marketing playbook.”

Yoga Bar was built on product first principles- clean labels, FDA-grade formulations, whole-ingredient recipes and vendor systems designed to hold up at scale. At a time when Indian shelves were dominated by palm oil, refined sugar and opaque labels, they chose the harder path: global standards at Indian price points.

Suhasine’s notions on category leadership were something to write home about. She believes that a brand owning a meaningful share of a focused category can create far more long-term value than a larger brand operating in a cluttered, undifferentiated space.

If you care about health, consumer brands, or building anything the hard (right) way, this conversation is worth your time.

#CreateWealthPodcast #Dezerv #YogaBar #ConsumerBrands #HealthySnacking #FMCGIndia #StartupIndia

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