By Vishakha Singh
Etsy, said the Facebook representative and a few heads turned towards me. It was mid-morning on a sunny October day in San Francisco, nearly a decade ago. The International Advertising Association India delegation of 20 people were seated in a small room at the Facebook headquarters with a bright orange wall on the backside. As a part of the delegation, I was attending a session by Facebook’s Paul Adams on building communities. It was 2012, when the words ‘digital communities’ appeared like precious jewels in our conversations, in small quantities. Building communities as a business model was new for the world and Facebook was showing the path, in action and in presentations. The speaker was then head of Facebook planning and had just released a book titled ‘Grouped’ on communities which we later received as a gift.
Led by Pradeep Guha, IAA had organised a digital tour for the CEOs to the US to visit and learn from the big tech companies. The 2012 digital tour was the second initiative from IAA and I had onboarded the delegation to visit Microsoft, YouTube, Facebook, Google and Twitter.
That October morning, at the Facebook headquarters, in the middle of a talk by Facebook, I had earned a special spot in Pradeep Guha’s thoughts. Before the start of the tour, in Pradeep Guha’s Mumbai office, sitting across his large wooden table, I had requested him to include a visit to the Etsy office too. A listed company, Etsy is dedicated to building small, homegrown businesses and has been building communities since its inception. Those days, Etsy was not widely popular. PG was not familiar with Etsy but he took interest in my conversation on Etsy. So as the Facebook speaker talked about Etsy as the leading example in building communities, Pradeep Guha, sitting at the centre of the table, leaned forward and gestured a thumbs up to me. And heads on the table turned in my direction on this rare appreciation coming from him. I was suddenly noticed. Etsy had marked a respectable spot for me in his mind.
In this article, I want to bring your attention to the phenomenon called Pradeep Guha. To the unknown, you can read about Pradeep Guha in the tribute written here and a lot over the internet.
The Curious:
Techcrunch Disrupt is an annual event held in San Francisco for the tech startup world. It not only showcases new ideas but also the making of ideas, successes and failures. I had described the event to PG and had recommended him to attend it. One fine morning in 2019, I received a message from him on how excited he was to attend it. Curiosity fuels learning and he stayed at the top of knowledge by attending not just Techcrunch but also Singularity University and some other courses. A sharp thinker feeds his mind with new knowledge. He makes efforts to attend courses to learn and unlearn, no matter his age or designation. This is what Pradeep Guha maintained. It was not just an Etsy moment at Facebook, PG made efforts to learn the new from across fields and continents. He displayed curiosity with a proficiency that lacked any arrogance, the arrogance that becomes a second nature for being successful for a long time.
The secret of making a phenomenon is to live a life with a growth mindset, to stay curious and to hone the knowledge.
The Contrast:
What is the opposite of grand? Insignificant. To balance the two opposites effortlessly is a magical trait and that is what came easy to the phenomenon called PG. He always came up with grand visions but stayed true to the most insignificant details in execution of that vision. There was never any room for error in execution of the grandest of the vision. This reflected in all aspects of his work whether it was related to media selling by designing Mastermind or in creation of landmark events or even in maintaining his relationships with the world.He effortlessly balanced the contrast of big and trivial detail. It was neither compromised nor showcased. The balancing of the contrast was a given, it came like yin and yang, always together.
The Compassionate:
Pradeep Guha, the media stalwart passed away on August 21, 2021. On August 9, I had a message exchange where he wrote to me saying, “All good, thank you.” The news of his passing filled me with all shades of emotions, primarily being upset. He had hidden the suffering, at the same time, he had responded. When tributes poured in, all of it had the same tone of how he made people feel very special. Losing him became a personal loss on a mass level. Another contrast. His ability to connect, support, bind with people is an ability less possessed by leaders. I was a nobody in his aura of things, but from time to time, I received a message, sometimes a gentle scolding for staying quiet for months. His ability to keep people in his thoughts, to make them feel important and needed is a lesson in generosity. It was a construct maintained over the years. Not just colleagues and friends, he maintained a magical vibe with celebrities too. Renowned personalities treated him like their closest pal, yet he asked for a picture to keep the podium well-defined for both.
Pradeep Guha, the phenomenon, lit the path with his way of life, with childlike curiosity, manlike balancing of contrast and nature like compassion for people. All we need to do is to keep the lights on.
Vishakha Singh is a senior mediaperson and entrepreneur based in Mumbai. She has authored an online course titled SHIFT _ Simple Habits and Ideas for Forward Thinking that that encourages one to think in an alert, creative style in the fast changing business environment. She writes a weekly column at HabitsforThinking.in, the homebase for SHIFT. She also writes a column on Moneycontrol titled ‘Soch to Success’. This article has also appeared on HabitsforThinking.in
By Vishakha Singh