Q & A with Sidhant Gupta - CloudWerx CTO
To lean on the startup analogy, CWX got our engines revving in 2020, kicked them into high gear in 2021, and jumped to warp speed in 2022. In 2023, we are approaching warp 10. It is already a monumental year - expanding to new territories, developing new strategies for customer experience advancement, and growing our team of amazing individuals who make it all happen. In our short history as a company, we have always put engineering expertise at the forefront. This year we will continue to disrupt the way that our customers innovate with Google Cloud. So, who better to hear from than our new Chief Technology Officer, Sidhant Gupta, Ph.D Gupta, who joined CWX in February. As our first Q1 working with him draws to a close, I set aside the time for a? Q & A and wanted to share them with our community.
Read the full Q&A:
Jason: First off, we want to welcome you to the CloudWerx C-Suite team! Would you tell us about what you first thought of CloudWerx when you first encountered us? What made you interested in coming on board??
Sidhant: Absolutely; thank you for the warm welcome! One of my key rules in life is to work with and surround myself with people smarter than myself. When I first met you and Betsy, I saw that you brought an intense sense of discipline to business, sales, and finance that complimented my own in technology. Second, it was clearly evident that we share ethical values around honesty, never compromising customer's trust, and leading as a ‘servant leader’.?
We also quickly realized that we share a deep sense of responsibility for forging a culture that fosters inclusivity, a growth mindset, and extreme ownership.??
Jason: Now that we have you, it’s hard to remember life without you, but you do have a long history in engineering. Tell me about your professional journey. What led you to this point?
Sidhant: I have always been a problem solver and a passionate learner. As such, what drives me forward is learning something new; challenging myself and then continuing to become better and better. My professional journey reflects that. After getting my Masters from Georgia Institute of Technology , and then my doctorate from 美国华盛顿大学 , I joined 微软 Research as a scientist where I began working on healthcare, machine learning, and hardware systems. After a few years of deep scientific research, I got interested in the problem of commercializing scientific breakthroughs we were making. Soon I was learning business incubation, corporate finances, and the various complex processes that make it all work. I spent the last three years at Microsoft helping take a complex biosecurity scientific program from lab to market to revenue.
Building cloud-first computing solutions has always been a prerequisite for my professional and doctorate work, and particularly Google Cloud . I had been building on this since Fall of 2008. Nearly every company is working with cloud technologies and these technologies are always changing and require constant upskilling. This is something I love doing so when I stepped into cloud consulting, it was nothing but a happy zone for me with constant learning, solving problems, and delivering value.
Jason: It seems like you have really enjoyed the projects you have taken on in the past. Perhaps it’s not unrelated that you have also experienced a lot of success! Can you clue us into what you believe has made you successful in your journey thus far?
Sidhant: Three principles, mostly:
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Jason: Those are absolutely three principles I can get behind as a CEO. We’re so excited to bring on someone? that aligns so well with our ethos! What projects or initiatives are you most excited to work on as CTO here at CloudWerx?
Sidhant: The most important initiative is to build a world class engineering team that is always seeking to become better and is obsessed with driving positive outcomes for our customers. This is easier said than done. I recognize that as teams grow, it becomes hard to maintain and sustain these core principles and culture. However, I am committed to making this happen.
Jason: Well the good news is, so are we! Looking forward to supporting you in that initiative all the way. I am sure some of our readers would be interested to know: what is your technical background??
Sidhant: Formally, I have two Masters in CSE and a Ph.D in CS. More importantly, I am always striving to learn new things and get better at what I know. I have built a very large repertoire of technical skills that transcend computing, physics, electrical engineering, and statistics. I love “connecting the dots'' across disciplines to solve problems starting from first principles.?
Jason: Do you keep up with the latest trends and movements in the computing industry? What changes do you see relating to tech in this space?
Sidhant: I try to keep up with macro trends in computing these days, pertaining to my current focus: cloud computing. It's hard as there is so much innovation daily so I lean on others such as my colleagues to educate me. One key trend I foresee is developers finally starting to adopt the true “cloud first computing” mentality. Traditionally, software has been written assuming ‘fixed’ resources, such as a small amount of CPU and RAM; but in the truly ‘cloud first’ approach, you can have a TB of RAM at a moment's notice and a 240 core machine. Storage is cheap and on a nearly planetary scale. Software hasn’t truly taken advantage of this and only now you are starting to see algorithms break the traditional paradigm.?
Jason: Do you have any favorite books or authors?
Sidhant: Three books come to mind that have had a profound impact on me and the way I think about the world. First, one that I randomly happened to buy at a train station when I was 10 or 11 years old – Dale Carnegie’s, How to Win Friends & Influence People , Second – Richard Feynman’s Lectures on Physics , and third, Isaac Asimov’s I Robot .
Jason: Great choices. With everything happening now with AI/ML, might be an opportune time to reread Asimov! As we wrap up, I am interested: do you have any passions outside of your work??
Sidhant: This may sound a bit odd, but my hobby is to learn and most things I said previously in this interview, like learning and building things is my hobby. It just so happens that I am extremely lucky that those skills also happen to be a lucrative career. Put another way, I am always doing what I am passionate about; mowing the lawn or doing house chores on weekends is “work”.?