Naji Gehchan: Hello, leaders of the world. Welcome to “Spread Love in Organizations”, a podcast for purpose-driven healthcare leaders, striving to make life better around the world by leading their teams with genuine care, servant leadership, and love.
I am Naji, your host for this episode joined today by Vinit Nijhawan a strategic visionary who has conceived and built several technology organizations that have been acquired by companies such as Boeing, Motorola and Qualcomm. Vinit is an admired leader and mentor who has built or inherited and then effectively managed several high-performance teams. He has worked in many industries: computing, aerospace, logistics, medical devices, biopharma, synthetic biology, and others. In 2008, Vinit intentionally pivoted his career from technology entrepreneur and CEO, to helping other entrepreneurs with a special focus on academia. He began teaching Entrepreneurship at Boston University and subsequently led the Office of Technology Development from 2010-2016. In this role, Vinit participated in several BU committees and organizations and has represented BU on several boards and business plan/grant review panels. Subsequently, Vinit took the OTD experience and launched a national academic IP monetization program with 40 institutions engaged, including UC Berkeley and UCLA. He launched Waterloo Alumni Angels at his alma mater. Most recently, Vinit is the Managing Director of MassVentures.
Vinit, It is such an honor to have you with me today!
Vinit Nijhawan: It’s my pleasure.
Naji Gehchan: First, can you please share with us your personal story, and what’s in between the lines of your inspiring journey?
Vinit Nijhawan: Well, you know, truthfully, uh, when people look at my LinkedIn, it, it looks very confusing because there’s a lot of stuff there, but really my story has been a very simple one.
So, um, I started my first company as an engineering student at the University of Waterloo in Canada. And, uh, Subsequently, uh, was part of five startups. Um, three years CEO and they were all in, um, obviously tech startups, but specifically in aerospace and telecom. That’s what I did for 25 years. And then 15 years ago, I decided to move from being a parent, as I call it, you know, running companies to becoming a grandparent, helping other entrepreneurs run their companies, you know, with successfully.
And that really took two directions. Um, one was teaching at Boston university. And the other was investing and the teaching kind of led to running the tech transfer office at Boston University for five years, where we launched eight venture backed companies, primarily in life sciences and healthcare.
So as you
Naji Gehchan: founded several startups, you scaled them, exited them. And I love now how you talk about being a parent and a grandparent, helping other launch their companies. Uh, what is for you, or is there even a magic formula that you think makes startups a successful venture?
Vinit Nijhawan: Man, that, if I had the answer to that question, I’d be a billionaire right now.
You know, that magic formula. But look, ultimately, there are three things that conspire, right? It’s a good team, a good technology, and the right timing for a market. right timings for markets is very, very hard to figure out. Uh, good technology is important, but you know, there’s so much good technology in the world.
So it really comes down to the team, in my opinion. So, uh, I put a lot of emphasis on the team, even when I make investment decisions. And so can you,
Naji Gehchan: yeah, sorry, I was going to ask you, can you tell us a little bit more about, uh, about what you look at? For a team, a founding team, what are the capabilities you look at?
What are the specificities beyond capabilities?
Vinit Nijhawan: Maybe. Yeah, so, uh, you know, number one, um, it’s helpful if it’s more than one person, right? So I don’t know what the ideal size of a startup team is, but I, I think a team of three I find to be, you know, quite an effective, you know, startup team size. The other thing, you know, you’re looking for are the right kind of qualities and.
Um, in particular, the one thing that I look for are, um, people that are coachable, because, you know, there’s always a lot to learn, you know, when, when, when you’re a startup, and especially if you’re a first time entrepreneur. The second is, um, the best entrepreneurs in, in my mind, um, are those ones who are like this perfect combination of determ Determined, yet flexible.
So what does that mean? You know, I think the way, I’ll use an analogy which might sound funny. But, uh, excuse me one second. But it’s, you know, it’s what the Buddha taught us, right? What the Buddha taught us is that there are many paths to the truth, but there’s only one truth. It’s the same in startups.
Right? There are many paths to a startup. Any startup, you will find you need to be determined about the end result. So you’ve decided what your vision is or what you’re trying, what pain your point you’re trying to solve. That’s your fixed point. That’s your truth, but there’ll be lots of little pivots.
You know, in different paths, you have to take to get to it. So that’s the flexibility. So you have to be sort of completely focused on that end point, but you want to be flexible enough because you’re listening to the market all the time and trying to do those little pivots, right? And if you’re smart, you do a lot of small pivots.
If you haven’t done it well, you have to do some big pivots, and that really kills companies.
Naji Gehchan: So, talking about companies, you shared that you also look into, um, into healthcare now, companies. Can, is it, is there anything different in those that you look for, or do you think what you shared, and I love this mix of determined, flexible, team of three, coachable, is it kind of like the same makeup regardless of the industry you’re in, in other words?
Vinit Nijhawan: I think it’s the same makeup. Um, you know, I think what’s different about healthcare is unlike other big markets, you know, like pick anything, you know, consumer goods or, you know, cars or, uh, you know, real estate. Those markets by and large function the same way all over the world. Healthcare, however, doesn’t.
Healthcare functions very differently, you know, in different countries. And so, you know, you have to be very knowledgeable and cognizant of the fact that it operates very differently in different countries. Um, so you need a team, I think, that has some knowledge of the country they’re in and how, how it functions.
And, and, of course, that, that leads to the fact that, you know, if you can’t be a global player, because each Nation has its own health care system, and you’ve got to be in a big enough market opportunity, right? So the U. S. Is about half the market for pretty much anything in healthcare, whether it’s new drugs or new medical devices.
Um, so the US market is a very important one, but it functions very differently than, you know, say the Canadian market or, or you know, parts of the European market. Sure.
Naji Gehchan: I, I, I totally agree that differences in. Healthcare, uh, in each one of the countries is, is always an interesting challenge when you’re looking at global companies.
I’ve been into different markets, different geographies. It’s, it’s different, even though at the end, the purpose is the same, right? We’re trying to make life better for patients, but I agree how you get there and the regulations are always very different.
Vinit Nijhawan: Not just the regulations, but how you get paid.
Yeah, that is like a big piece of it.
Naji Gehchan: Yeah. So you also, as you shared, uh, you also that team successfully and had very high performing team and, um, in tech and telecom, uh, before moving into, uh, investing and, and being, uh, being a professor, uh, at BU, uh, how did you personally. Let teams and how did you define high performing team and how did you let those what is your biggest learning?
Um, I’d love to hear more about that.
Vinit Nijhawan: Yeah, and and look let’s be clear. It was an evolution, right? It wasn’t like I woke up one day and became a great leader It took a lot of You know, learning and coaching along the way, I just started early. And, um, look, I mean, first and foremost, you know, a leader has to be very clear about that vision, about that truth that I talked about earlier, right?
So be very clear in your mind of what that is, because now you’ve got to articulate it to not just the people you’re trying to hire, but also your customers and, you know, investors and others. So if you’re very clear about what that endpoint is now, you can sort of work backwards and say, okay, what does my team have to, you know, look like, what are my investors have to look like, right?
Who are my early adopter customers? So you, you want to figure all that out before you start hiring people for your team, because, you know, you want to have a, a really good picture and some people call it a business plan of where you’re trying to get to. And, um, and, you know, once you have sort of a clear business plan, now you can think about what kind of people you want around you to help you.
So,
Naji Gehchan: so talking about people, if I want to be more specific, there is, you know, through the 80 plus interviews I already had in this, uh, in this podcast, uh, there is different views about complementarity of a team. Uh, some ideas about you need a team that build obviously trust, but how you can build also conflict sometimes that are positive and ends up with innovation.
I’d love to hear like, as you’re building team, what is the construct you usually look for?
Vinit Nijhawan: Yeah. You know, so the one thing I’ve also learned is that, um, different cultures Bring, you know, sort of different views of how you construct your team. So, you know, the U. S. is a very professional culture, right?
Which means, if I hire a VP of sales, or I hire a CFO, or I hire a VP of engineering, I can almost certainly find somebody who’s done that role before. And I don’t, I don’t have to hire somebody that I know personally, or I’ve worked with before. It can be somebody completely out of the blue that I’ve hired.
And immediately once I hire them, they’re inside the trust envelope, right? Because it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of a very professional market. That’s not always the case everywhere, right? And, um, so, you know, I’ll give an example. I find a lot of European companies, French companies particularly, when they’re expanding to the U.
S. They will send one of their trusted people from Europe to come and establish themselves here, right? But do not know the market here at all and I try to explain to them that listen if you hire somebody here a business development person or vice president of sales Once you’ve hired them, they’re, they’re, there’s no conflict, they’re not going to go anywhere else.
They’re only going to be dedicated to you because that’s the kind of professional, you know, workforce there is here. And people find that hard to understand because I think in many other cultures, you know, you, you want, you first have trust and then you think about, you know, the roles. Um, I, I, I think it should be the other way around.
I think the trust, trust develops. First you think about the absolute right people for each role that you’re hiring for. The best. And then, then a good leader builds the trust, you know.
Naji Gehchan: Yeah, yeah, I love those. You’re touching several points on cultural differences, leadership within cultural differences, and then how you build trust, obviously, which is, you know, do you start with trust?
How do you deal with trust is trust something that you just say, okay, we trust one another and it works or not. So it’s, it’s really a powerful
Vinit Nijhawan: voice you’re bringing. Yeah. And look, I mean, the reality is for any leader, trust is constantly earned. So it’s not static. I mean, you’re, you know, you’re constantly, people are always looking at you to see, okay, you’ve defined this truth.
Is it really, or are you like shifting, you know, so there’s, there are a lot, you’d be surprised. I mean, people are very astute. Yeah. They can figure out whether a leader really believes in the direction or doesn’t. Oh, for sure.
Naji Gehchan: For sure. And as you said, it’s, you know, it’s always so hard to get to this trust, but it’s, it, you can’t destroy it in fractions of seconds.
So there’s always this. Yeah. As a leader, do you really stand for what you’re saying and do you really believe in what you’re saying? I love this framing. What I’ll go to now, Vinit, I want to give you a word and I’d love a reaction to it. And so the first word is leadership.
Vinit Nijhawan: Uh, well, you know, I think it’s, it’s, it’s an overused word. Um, but you know, the, so let me use a little example. So when I first kind of moved into a big office, space, I, I wanted to be, have my office be in the same place as everybody else. And all the employees basically pushed back on that and wanted to put me into a corner office.
And, you know, what you realize is that, that hierarchy is something that, you know, I just fundamentally exists in, in, in human nature. Um, so, you know, so that’s why the word leadership, I think, has become important because Ultimately, you know, people are looking for a person, both people below that person, by below I mean kind of the ones who are executing, as well as the people above, you know, who are investing.
So, That’s what leadership means to me as an individual. So did you, did you
Naji Gehchan: end up accepting it? Uh, I’d love to double click on this, you know, with the example you gave of
Vinit Nijhawan: being in the Yeah, I ended up accepting the corner office, yeah. Okay, so you
Naji Gehchan: don’t, you just, so how, how is your view now on hierarchy?
Did it change? Do you think it’s something that is here? You’re saying it’s fundamental for human
Vinit Nijhawan: nature. Yeah, I don’t think it’s changed. You know, people, people talk about kind of Millennials and Gen Z and you know, how They want to have a lot more say which Look at what’s happened Twitter, right or some of these tech companies.
Of course people want to have a say and they might be More willing to be verbal, but I don’t think that’s changed, you know Look, I’ve always find that there’s three types of people in organization, right? There’s Um, you know, they’re the type who understand the direction of the company and are bought into it, right, vocally.
Then there are the people who vocally dissent, right, for very legitimate reasons. They don’t buy into it, but are very vocal about it. Those are really good people to know because you want, you want to be open minded and listen to them. You don’t want to fire them like Muff does, right? Every time somebody says something bad about Twitter, he fires them.
From his team. The third type, which I think is the most dangerous, is the silent opposition. And that exists in every organization. So there are people who don’t believe in the vision or the direction of the company, but aren’t vocal about it. But, but they, they aren’t vocal about it to the leadership or broadly, but they’re the ones who are gossiping and, you know, saying things.
Next to the water cooler. Those are the people you have to find and root out.
So the
Naji Gehchan: second word I’d love a reaction to is entrepreneurship.
Vinit Nijhawan: So another overused word, um, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting if you, if you look at what the, all the universities are doing is, um, they don’t use entrepreneurship as much anymore. Now what they use is a term called the entrepreneurial mindset.
Because most of the people, you know, doing MBAs, for example, aren’t going to go to startups. They’re going to go to bigger companies, but these bigger companies want that entrepreneurial mindset as well. And so, so what is an entrepreneurial mindset? I mean, basically, it’s someone who is always questioning the status quo, right?
That, that is what a good entrepreneur is. You’re always questioning the status quo. In other words, You’re constantly thinking about better ways to do things, right? And that’s what an entrepreneurial mindset is, that even within a company, you’re always thinking, well, how can this be improved? I mean, if you’re a surgeon, you know, you’re all the good, the really good entrepreneurial mindset surgeons are always thinking, okay, What if I had this instrument instead of this instrument?
I could do my job faster and better. Right? Now, the hard part becomes going from an N of 1, where, you know, you, you know that your life would be better if you had this change or this product or whatever. Now you’ve got to find out whether there’s a hundred other people like you that feel the same. And that’s what a lot of entrepreneurs have a hard time with, especially the technical entrepreneurs.
I, I used to be like that too. You know, you just said, Hey, this is a better technology. I know it’s a better technology, so everybody else must know it’s a better technology, but that’s not how it works, right? You have to go out there and, and do your customer discovery. So, um, I don’t know. I may have used too many words for my response to entrepreneurship, but no,
Naji Gehchan: it’s great.
It’s great. Uh, the third one is Ana Preta. Sorry, am am I pronouncing it correctly? Ana Preta, you broke up again. I saw you pr Vanna Preta. I saw you practice. This on LinkedIn, but I might be mispronouncing
Vinit Nijhawan: it. Okay. Hold on. Now. I’m let me just is it on my LinkedIn? Yeah, let me just take a quick look.
I think I don’t know what you’re talking about. Make sure I get that, right?
Maybe if a vein
Naji Gehchan: of Presto
Vinit Nijhawan: Or is it?
Let me tell you wait a second wise. Yeah, just put in the chat. So Yeah. Oh, here it is.
Oh, Vana Presta. Yes, I’ve put it. Um, I mean, I, I think it’s a Sanskrit word if I remember correctly. Uh, that’s, uh, a lot like, um, um, well, you, you talk about servant leader, right? So, uh, so Vana Presta is, is, So in Hinduism, there are four stages in your life, right? And, um, so, uh, vanaprastha is the third stage.
So your first stage, brahmacharya, is as a student. Your second stage, grihastha, is as a family person, right? Where you’re like, like you’re, you know, like you’re creating a family with children. And I have. Vanaprastha is when you’re giving back. It’s your giving back stage of your life. And then you’re the last stage, which is very controversial, is your sannyasa stage where you give it all up and become an ascetic, right?
To get nirvana, you put on a, you know, you put on the saffron robe and you beg for your food and you, you own nothing. Okay, that’s the
Naji Gehchan: hardest. That’s the controversial piece. Yeah, so, so, and I saw on LinkedIn, you talk about empathy and practicing panaprastha. Hey, I’d love to hear more about how you think of this.
Vinit Nijhawan: Yeah. So, I mean, so fundamentally in the first two stages, you know, you’ve built up a lot of knowledge, maybe some wealth. And, and your third stage of on a process stage is when you take that knowledge and wealth and you spread it to other people. Right. And, um, and there’s, of course, many ways to do that.
Um, the way I’ve practice it is teaching and investing because I think they’re both. Very relevant, because in both, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re passing your knowledge on, but you’re also passing wealth on, right? And, uh, you know, because, frankly, I want my students to become wealthy, right? I mean, that’s Um, you know, part of the goal of passing them knowledge.
Um, so empathy, uh, let me back up. So, so I, I’ve created this top 10 qualities of a successful entrepreneur, you know, Letterman style. Um, and, uh, my number one quality is generosity. Right. Empathy is in there too, but I think generosity in some ways is the ultimate empathy and what I mean by generosity is like all the best entrepreneurs are very generous, they’re generous with their time, they’re generous to their family, they’re generous with their stock options.
They’re generous to their customers. They’ll never let their customers down. Um, and so I think generosity is, is a very critical quality of, you know, of a good leader. Yeah, I love how
Naji Gehchan: you said it. Generosity is the ultimate empathy. I’ll take this one.
Vinit Nijhawan: Yeah.
Naji Gehchan: The last word is spread love and
Vinit Nijhawan: organizations. Uh, you know, so I, you know, it’s interesting.
I, I’m, I’m a very sort of, um, physical person, right? So, um, you know, I’m always hogging my employees and, you know, just having that sense of, of connectivity. And, you know, the world has changed a lot and people, you know, even my wife says, you know, you really shouldn’t be doing so much of that because, you know, you’re going to get yourself into trouble, you know, um, with the Me Too movement and all that.
And I said, look, people always know when it’s genuine. Do you know what I’m saying? Yeah. So, there is a sense of genuineness that people are very attuned to. And, uh, so first and foremost, I think, you know, love comes from being genuine where you’re genuinely interested in these other people in their success.
You’re generally interested in, uh, their career growth. Like, I literally sit down with all my people and the first question I always ask is, okay, where do you see yourself five years from now? Where do you see yourself 10 years from now? And you know, and then look, how can we work together to, to get you on that path, right?
Five years from now, you may not be working in this company. You could be somewhere else. So let’s figure out what the best way is of getting you there. Right. So, so I think that kind of genuineness. In helping people with their careers. That’s the ultimate love in organizations.
Naji Gehchan: Yeah. Thanks for that. And yeah, many times we, we refer to it genuine care on this podcast.
Many talked about this and I still believe in it. So thanks for, for your words about it. Any final word of wisdom for leaders around the world.
Vinit Nijhawan: Yeah, I think that, um, especially in healthcare, there is a huge opportunity for change. And, um, you know, healthcare has been around for centuries, right? If not millennia.
If you look at the old texts Uh, Chinese texts or Indian texts. People were practicing fairly advanced healthcare 5, 000 years ago.
We’ve lost a lot of that knowledge, right? And you know, like for example, a simple thing like diagnosis. That, that family doctor, you know, who had the pattern recognition, who could diagnose just by looking at you, looking inside your throat, feeling your pulse, feeling your temperature or whatever, that’s gone now, and now we’re, we’re dependent on instruments and blood draws and, you know, all those things.
And in some ways, you know, diagnosis is so poor in today’s healthcare system all over the world, and that Creates an enormous amount of cost the healthcare system because if you start with misdiagnosis, then you’re just going to spend money on the wrong things. And so, um, so I think there’s a huge opportunity for new leaders in healthcare to evolve our healthcare system to truly being one, you know, that’s not fixing problems, but, uh, you know, but being ahead, you know, it’s really it is.
Yeah. sort of wellness, right? Not surgery. So, I mean, we need surgery too, but, you know, there’s enormous lack of wellness in human society that needs to be rectified. And we need the leaders, you know, who recognize that. And we’re starting to see that in the younger generation. Yeah. Yeah.
Naji Gehchan: And it touches all preventive medicine, well being. general health. And, uh, I totally convey with you on this. Thank you so much again for being with me today. It’s been such a pleasure.
Vinit Nijhawan: Of course, Naji.
Naji Gehchan: Thank you all for listening to SpreadLove in Organizations podcast. Drop us a review on your preferred podcast platform
Follow us on LinkedIn and connect with us on spreadloveio.com. We’re eager to hear your thoughts and feedback. Most importantly, spread love in your organizations and spread the word around you to inspire others and amplify this movement, our world so desperately needs