{"id":523013,"date":"2025-10-23T20:28:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T20:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/523013\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T20:28:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T20:28:13","slug":"perplexity-founder-aravind-srinivas-says-this-surprising-skill-is-key-to-being-a-ceo-business-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/523013\/","title":{"rendered":"Perplexity Founder Aravind Srinivas says THIS surprising skill is key to being a CEO – Business News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aravind Srinivas, Co-founder, president, and CEO of artificial intelligence<\/a> firm Perplexity<\/a>, feels it requires just one skill to be a company chief \u2014 \u201cmake peace with problems existing\u201d, or the skill of embracing imperfection.<\/p>\n

Speaking during a recent Dean\u2019s Speaker Series talk at UC Berkeley Haas, Srinivas spoke about his thougths of the most crucial skill to become a CEO, Perplexity\u2019s offerings, his philosophy for the business and for investors.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Launching 80% Perfect Products and Learning From the Market<\/strong><\/p>\n

For instance, in the funding rounds for the AI firm, the founder of the startup reveals he avoids presenting and goes straight for Q&A. He also revealed that Perplexity succeeds by launching products that are 80% perfect and subsequently enhancing by learning from the market demands.<\/p>\n

Srinivas highlighted that the learning of accepting imperfection was an important learning during his experience with Perplexity. \u201cI used to think every problem just needed to be fixed instantly. As the company has scaled, I have learned to make peace with some problems just existing. That is the number one skill you need as a CEO or a founder,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

The line of thinking also extends to his company, where Perplexity strives aims to put out products that are 80% good, which can be made better by responding quickly to the evolving AI space, he said.<\/p>\n

Srinivas also feels that in a rapidly moving field like AI, \u201cThere\u2019s really nothing to lose from taking risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q&A Over Pitch Decks: A Unique Approach With Investors<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Perplexity meetings, Srinivas avoids presentation and decks in favor of Q&A sessions. And the same is with investors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never done a pitch deck for any of the other Perplexity funding rounds. I just write a memo, and I tell them, \u2018You can do a Q&A and ask whatever you want. I\u2019ll spend two hours with you, ask me all the questions you have, and we\u2019re just going to pull the metrics for whatever you have and show you right there. And anything else that is internal, not internal data, you can ask Perplexity. It already knows everything.\u2019\u2026I\u2019m not exaggerating,\u201d he told the audience.<\/p>\n

On being a \u201cboss\u201d and driving change as an entrepreneur, Srinivas said he started his own venture as he is \u201cunemployable\u201d. He joked during the talk, \u201cSome people are unemployable. They just don\u2019t listen to what the boss tells them to do. I\u2019m one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He further added that he nevertheless has a \u201cboss\u201d now \u2014 that are the customers. \u201cNow, Perplexity\u2019s customers are the boss. Every day I wake up, my phone has hundreds of these (messages) because I see across all these different social platforms, and that\u2019s how I know, every day, there\u2019s some work to do,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The founder goes by the mantra that true entreprenuership drives change. \u201cI\u2019ve always looked up to entrepreneurs. Driving change the way you think should be done can only be truly done as an entrepreneur,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aravind Srinivas, Co-founder, president, and CEO of artificial intelligence firm Perplexity, feels it requires just one skill to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3094],"tags":[53600,169887,169878,169881,139749,169893,169865,104603,169861,169889,169885,169874,51,169864,169886,169872,169876,169877,3134,169882,169870,169873,169863,73047,169875,169888,169871,169892,169884,169879,169862,169866,169883,40086,169891,45536,169880,169867,169890,169869,16,169868,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-523013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-ai-company","9":"tag-ai-founder-leadership-tips","10":"tag-ai-founder-philosophy","11":"tag-ai-product-development-tips","12":"tag-ai-startup","13":"tag-ai-startup-leadership-advice","14":"tag-ai-startup-leadership-tips","15":"tag-aravind-srinivas","16":"tag-aravind-srinivas-ceo-skills","17":"tag-aravind-srinivas-entrepreneurship-lessons","18":"tag-aravind-srinivas-startup-advice","19":"tag-aravind-srinivas-viral-interview","20":"tag-business","21":"tag-ceo-embracing-imperfection","22":"tag-ceo-embracing-imperfection-story","23":"tag-ceo-skills","24":"tag-ceo-tips-for-startups","25":"tag-embracing-imperfection-leadership","26":"tag-entrepreneurship","27":"tag-entrepreneurship-lessons-ai","28":"tag-founder-philosophy-ai","29":"tag-founder-tips","30":"tag-how-to-be-a-successful-ceo","31":"tag-investor-meetings","32":"tag-perplexity-ai-news","33":"tag-perplexity-ai-product-strategy","34":"tag-perplexity-ceo","35":"tag-perplexity-ceo-interview-viral","36":"tag-perplexity-ceo-reveals-top-skill","37":"tag-perplexity-ceo-uc-berkeley-talk","38":"tag-perplexity-founder-interview","39":"tag-perplexity-product-development-approach","40":"tag-perplexity-risk-taking-strategy","41":"tag-product-development","42":"tag-startup-founder-risk-taking","43":"tag-startup-leadership","44":"tag-startup-qa-approach","45":"tag-startup-risk-taking-strategies","46":"tag-successful-ceo-skills-ai","47":"tag-uc-berkeley-haas-ceo-talk","48":"tag-uk","49":"tag-unconventional-investor-meetings","50":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}