A break from the buzz: Fireflies.ai CEO Krish Ramineni on success, solitude and the luxury of time

On a recent trip to India, Fireflies.ai CEO Krish Ramineni squeezed in a video conversation with ET Panache — somewhere between meetings, cricket and an introduction to fellow investor John Abraham. The California-raised co-founder talks about the things he values when the calendar finally clears: time to think, Patek Philippes that outlast trends, and the rare luxury of a really good conversation.

Edited excerpts from an interview:

Fireflies is all about saving time. With the time that you’ve saved, what is something meaningful you’ve spent it on as your company has grown?


I believe that unscheduled time lets you do your most creative work. I like to have two or three days where I have zero meetings on my calendar to think, work, be creative, design. I also draw a lot of inspiration when I'm doing other activities. For example, listening to a business podcast, watching a documentary or something on YouTube related to marketing or the fashion industry. I’m very into fashion and design. I take all those learnings from my hobbies and bring it back to the company.

How has your lifestyle changed since your company went global?

I’ve had a chance to travel a lot more than I used to when I was first growing up. When we were kids, we were not allowed to travel much because it would impact our schooling. Recently, I was in Thailand. Every year we pick a location and fly our team, which works remotely across the world, to one place for one week, which I want to do more of. Usually, I’m travelling between India, the US and London. I’m still trying to work out, stay fit, try different foods, catch a Bollywood movie here and there — trying to make time for that.

You’ve previously described yourself as an introvert. How do you think the journey to being an entrepreneurial public-facing figure has changed your relationship to yourself and to those around you?

I wasn’t shy about public speaking. I used to participate in school plays and ran our school’s daily TV station for 15 minutes everyday. That's when I learned to be in front of the camera and speak. If I’m at a conference, I would rather be up on stage than go to a networking event. Small talk is difficult for me.

Once I break the ice, it gets a lot easier. I met John Abraham for the first time, he’s a lovely individual. When I meet interesting individuals, I naturally come out of my shell. For me, it can get overwhelming when I have to meet a lot of people at once. I feel like I’m more of an extroverted introvert.

There’s definitely nothing nicer than being at home, reading a book, watching a movie. I've gone three, four days where I have zero human contact to recharge. Even at our company offsite, with 100 people, there are times when I'm like, “This is too much for me, too much interaction.” But I'm learning to get more comfortable with that.

What was your first luxury purchase that signalled to yourself that you’ve made it since being an early-phase founder?

I’ve always been pretty modest in terms of what I like and how I spend. Recently, I've gotten more into watches; I have a younger brother who’s into them. I’ve been fortunate enough to acquire a few classic timepieces from the lens of investment. A Patek, an Audemars Piguet, a couple of Rolexes.

Investing in the Rotterdam Dockers is significant as well. My parents felt like I had a better chance of using competitive tennis to get into university than cricket, so they banned me from playing cricket or even having a cricket bat. I would sneak out of the house and play. Now, here I am — an investor in a cricket team. Obviously, they’re proud now, but I wish they had allowed me to play cricket. I think I would have done better in cricket than even tennis. Whenever I get free time outside of work, you’ll see me playing on the cricket field. That time was created after almost eight years of grinding, which I’m only able to do now because I have a great team behind me.

What’s a belief that you held strongly when you first started Firefly is that you disagree with today?

I always felt like I had to approve and review everything — like if I didn't have the final touch, it’s not going to work out. But at some point, you cannot be your own bottleneck. The reason you're hiring people that you trust is for that very reason.

The biggest change for me is you have to delegate and trust people to make the right decisions. Sometimes, you have to be okay with making mistakes. The only way to scale a business is to hire great people, teach them the right values, allow them the freedom to make some mistakes and trust them to make the decisions. If things are not working out the way you want them to, you can always go back and course correct. But before, I was definitely overstretched and overly involved in every little thing. That’s something I had to give up.