Vijay Rayapati

"Sometimes you have to take a step back, smaller role, company, comp, to amass learnings and growth so that you can move ahead with greater momentum." This advice comes from Amit Fulay, VP of Product at Microsoft. In a Fireside PM interview, he shared how his own step back to join a startup, though it involved a pay cut and losing his team, armed him with invaluable experience that ultimately fast-tracked his career. Amit's insight on "catapult opportunities" is just one of 10 powerful lessons he offered on navigating product management careers. Read the full blog post for more of his counterintuitive yet transformative advice, covering everything from focusing on customer problems to finding sponsors to enjoying the journey. Read the entire post here: https://lnkd.in/gdy2dn6D #ProductManagement #CareerAdvice #Microsoft

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Marc Benioff is spot on. From plain vanilla body shopping back in the 90s to hosting over 1700 GCCs in India by 2024, India has made its presence and heft felt on the software map of the world substantially now. Going forward, I believe we will also make our mark as global product companies, both in the B2B and B2C space. Our own patented AI-native platform for Salesforce implementations, Qualitia Boson www.qualitia.ai, is just one such example. https://lnkd.in/dYsdvAtu #MarcBenioff #IndiaTech #GlobalPresence #SoftwareDevelopment #AI #QualitiaBoson #Qualitia #Salesforce #B2B #B2C #Innovation #TechEvolution #IndiaInTech #FutureOfSoftware #DigitalTransformation #TechGrowth #IndiaRising #ProductInnovation #AIPlatforms

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The start-up ecosystem in Bihar now begins to show up in many ways now. It's never too late and we begin to see a turn around very soon. Bihar GDP is likely to grow at more than 15 percent this year. It was 12 percent plus last year. Organics, the emotional power to give back by the Rich Bihari diaspora across the Globe seems to be awakened and driving the change. Follow Neehar R for more exciting updates. For my readers, Suffice to mention now that Bihar now boasts for a million plus successful n thriving SHGs. You will see a few semiconductor plants coming up, few Capability centers and many more ventures now coming up over the next few quarters. Jai Hind 🇮🇳. #Bihar #Unstoppableindia

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🤔 Unlock revenue tied to data streaming or keep your focus on the rest of your roadmap? Good news: that’s a choice you no longer need to make—the Confluent OEM Program is here to empower you to do both! MSPs, CSPs, and ISVs, don’t miss out—learn more about the program on our blog!

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Google is squeezing customers to drive growth…and it means big revenue opportunities for GCP partners! This year Google Cloud shifted to enforcing customer payment of committed cloud spend budgets. Previously, customers would be allowed to pay only for what they used, despite commitments to use higher. Unlike AWS and Azure. This policy change has driven impressive revenue growth. Google Cloud reported a 29% year-over-year revenue jump in Q2, hitting $10.35 billion, and accelerated to 35% growth in Q3, reaching $11.4 billion—its fastest growth in eight quarters. So why does this policy shift benefits Google Cloud partners? - Increased Spending on Marketplace Customers with unused budgets are now channeling funds into third-party tools on the Google Cloud Marketplace, directly boosting partner revenues, rather than seeing the money go to waste. - Higher Partner Engagement With Account Management teams having to deliver this tough news, they’re actively seeking ways for their customers to use up the budgets, marketplace partners are gaining more visibility and engagement internally. - Strengthened Google Cloud Ecosystem This model encourages customers to explore and adopt more partner solutions within Google Cloud, and this increased customer usage will in turn attract more partners to capture the distribution opportunities. As Google Cloud’s revenue climbs, marketplace partners have a unique chance to capitalize on redirected customer spend. Do we think customers will maintain these commitments next year? It seems like Google’s best bet is to works closely with their best partners to get it spent in the marketplace - this should be a major success story for their ecosystem. #partnerships #cloudpartnerships #googlecloud #marketplace

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We are excited to announce the launch of Ursa engine, our Kafka API-compatible data streaming engine that is built on top of Lakehouse. Ursa is not something entirely new; it is built on our many years of experience building and operating #ApachePulsar and #ApacheKafka. To learn more about the #Ursa engine, I recommend our #PulsarSummit keynote presentation and announcement blog post. Here, I’d like to delve deeper into some of its features: 1. Making Kafka API a first-class citizen: In #ApachePulsar, we developed a unified messaging model combining queuing and streaming semantics into one protocol, aimed at enhancing data sharing between business applications. Although powerful and increasingly adopted by enterprises and unicorns, the requirement for application rewrites is impractical in today’s economy. Instead of building data gravity around a protocol, we open up access to the robust stream storage layer by extending support to the Kafka protocol, transitioning from a single protocol to a multi-protocol platform, facilitating greater flexibility and integration. 2. Achieve Stream-Table duality via Lakehouse Storage: Data streams commonly end up in data lakehouses, where integrating and maintaining them can be complex and resource-intensive. Ursa simplifies this by storing data streams as lakehouse tables in object storage. This integration not only streamlines operations but also allows seamless access to operational data for analytical processes. Thanks to its multi-modal storage engine which fosters data sharing across teams and departments. 3. Object storage as the primary storage solution: To better align with cloud economics, particularly for large workloads, Ursa makes ZooKeeper and BookKeeper optional and utilizes a cost-optimized write-ahead log based solely on object storage with leaderless and stateless brokers. This architecture leverages object storage for both data replication and storage, minimizing inter-AZ data transfers and reducing costs for latency-relaxed, high-volume workloads. By integrating these features at the multi-tenant level rather than at isolated cluster levels, Ursa eliminates costly data duplication and movement across clusters, allowing teams to map directly to tenants and be able to share data across teams and departments more efficiently. We believe that the future of data streaming platforms lies in being open and multi-faceted, fundamentally different from traditional data platforms. They are designed not just to store and process data, but to enhance organizational capabilities by fostering data sharing across the organization and integration with other systems. More and more data streaming platforms will look more like Ursa, with multi-protocol, multi-tenant, and multi-modal capabilities. Check out our announcement blog post about Ursa: https://lnkd.in/ghEKTYE6 #ApacheKafka #Lakehouse #DataStreaming

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🚀 Reflecting on Kafka Summit: Transforming Data Streams into Business Value Kafka Summit Bangalore 2024 was not only enlightening but also provided a delightful reunion with Jay Kreps, co-founder and CEO at Confluent, and my former colleague at NexTag. It's inspiring to see how Confluent is shaping the future of Streaming with Apache Kafka & Apache Flink Unified for the Data Streaming Era (Two(2) big communities coming together) Here are some pivotal learnings from the summit that resonate deeply with our objectives at MakeMyTrip and the broader trends within the tech industry: 1.  𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: Confluent is focused on making it easier for users to process data streams more quickly and efficiently than before, emphasizing the importance of moving beyond mere data movement to achieve transformative business impacts while Addressing Data Infrastructure Complexity. 2. 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐬: Confluent aims to transition from a model where data consumers pull data from systems, to a model where producers present well-formed data that multiple downstream subscribers can use. This approach is embodied in their concept of "data products," which are well-curated, reusable data sets with a clear ownership and governance structure. 3. 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐄𝐧𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: The new features in Confluent’s streaming platform are designed to federate data effectively across operational and analytical domains. The platform’s capabilities are extended to ensure data is not only real-time but also reusable, governed, and securely connected across all systems. 4. 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬: Confluent team introduced a significant development called "TableFlow," which seamlessly integrates streaming data with analytical systems. This integration aims to make real-time data available in data lakes or warehouses instantly, supporting both operational responsiveness and analytical depth. Confluent added support for Iceberg to Confluent Cloud, allowing customers to convert Kafka topics, schemas, and metadata into Iceberg tables seamlessly. 5. 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠: The overarching theme was the strategic shift towards a holistic view of data management, where streaming is not just a method of transporting data but a fundamental aspect of how data is structured, processed, and consumed across businesses. While they might not be explicitly calling it Kappa architecture, their focus on data streams suggests they're on a similar path. 📸 Here’s a snapshot of Jay Kreps, me, Aditya & Confluent team at the event. Looking forward to many more such reunions and fruitful collaborations! #KafkaSummit #DataStreaming #Personalization #Confluent #MakeMyTrip

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A great article with a simple explanation for why data streaming is necessary for modern businesses. Check out the article and sign up for our upcoming Kafka Summit Bangalore to learn more about data streaming! https://lnkd.in/gD6t3rXF

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Read ‘A document use case comparison: Aerospike vs. MongoDB Atlas’ #whitepaper to explore the key differences between #Aerospike 7.0 and #MongoDB Atlas v7.08, including key insights on superior throughput, consistent latency, and cost efficiency. https://lnkd.in/ekxy7m7E

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*New episode of Level Up Prodcast with Malthi SS" In this episode, I chat with Sonali Nanda, who is Senior Vice President at Exxat. Prior to Exaat, Sonali was product leader with High Radius and managed a fairly large team with #Product, #Design, #Analytics and Ops. We spoke about: 💠 Managing different things as a Product Leader - people, product, strategy. 💠How to Foster Innovation and Creativity 💠Balancing Speedy Execution and Strategic Thinking 💠Advice for Women in Product Management 💠Managing Diverse Teams and Priorities Check the episode for tons of insights #ProductLeadership #WomenInLeadership #TechInnovation #CareerDevelopment #ProductManagement #EmpoweringWomen #LeadershipDevelopment #ProfessionalGrowth

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So proud that MongoDB has been recognised by RepVue as a Top 20 Org for Professional Development and a Top 20 Org for Publicly Funded Companies. And it's all thanks to the MongoDB team for personifying our values every day. It's a vision that starts from the top and permeates every corner of our global sales team. We believe that it's our profound duty to nurture the next generation of sales professionals and empower them to one day step into bigger leadership roles themselves. We instill the importance of taking risks, embracing failures as learning opportunities, and pushing each other to break through self-imposed limitations. Here's to many more! 🥂 #MongoDB #leadership #culture

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With MongoDB, we help engineering leaders get off the modernization hamster wheel and embrace predictable, optimised spending that fuels their most ambitious initiatives. With powerful features like automated cluster sizing, on-demand pausing, and granular spend visibility, MongoDB Atlas helps you right-size your data infrastructure and take complete control of your IT costs. Perfect way to break free from the constraints of economic uncertainty and get easier budget approvals. This blog helps you understand how MongoDB Atlas can help you take better control of your data costs. #MongoDB #cloud #innovation

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Catalyst24 is in the Books ⚡Kudos to Asher Mathew, Chris Samila, Tai Rattigan, and the #partnershipleaders team. Once again, #Catayst24 is where you listen, learn, and be inspired by partnership ecosystems and the scale of the possible. It's rare to find an event dedicated exclusively to people focused on the partner journey. With 700+ attendees, networking with friends, colleagues and new connections was the event's highlight. But wait, there's more... 🌡️ A common theme was the recognition that we are partnership practitioners need to evolve and become more organizationally integrated into our core business. Asher spoke about "getting a seat at the table", understanding the business needs of the c-suite, creating more sophisticated programs, imagining bolder initiatives, integrating operations, and using a common vernacular that peers and, more importantly, stakeholders can understand. Partnerships are still moving upward on the maturity bell curve. How far up, depends on the organization, the people and the program. 💡 Scott Brinker's perspective was refreshingly uncomplicated. A partnership should answer the question: "... how do you build great customer experiences together?".     📈 Brad Pace, COO at IMPARTNER, answered: "... what's the first thing you should do when setting up a partner program?". He discussed the importance of committed revenue plans (quota) by geo/BU/partner type, revenue governance, and attainment/attribution policy; this should be required reading. 📖 Mature partner programs that have gone through this discipline have gained credibility with unimpeachable performance metrics (KPIs) against goals. Too often, we as partner professionals rely on "PowerPoint math," leaving CFOs unconvinced of the partner's participation and impact. As Jay McBain pointed out in his keynote, partner professionals need to get better if we are going to realize the unprecedented market opportunity before us. 🔭 Speaking of Jay, his keynote on the future direction of technology provided the perspective with the widest aperture. If you haven't seen his research yet, I highly recommend it.   Despite overwhelming data demonstrating that ecosystem-led growth creates more opportunities that close faster and for larger contract values, we still face pockets of resistance that negatively impact partner program participation and adoption. Catalyst delivered an embarrassment of riches for strategy, tactics and best practices. It is incumbent on the community to make the most of these insights and continue to push the boundaries of the possible. Shout out to Bryan Williams Karen Chastain, Christiana Christenson, Crystal Chau, Elsa Chan, Pedro Gastal, Antonio Caridad, Rajat Sinha, Kenny Browne, Cody Sunkel Sherry Foster, James Hodgkinson, Diane Schmidt, Jeff Roth, Adam Hmielowski, Greg Portnoy, Chip Rodgers, Kristine Stewart, Rob Rebholz, Justin Zimmerman, Aaron Howerton, Dina Moskowitz, Frie Pétré

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Great overview.. Here is doc form that embeds all the videos. https://lnkd.in/gCRRExin

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𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗶𝘇𝘇 𝗖𝗘𝗢'𝘀 𝗕𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻. CEO Assaf Rappaport and Wizz founders gave up $23 billion in favor of the challenging option of developing the company in preparation for a giant IPO. Leadership is often defined by the choices we make in the face of opportunity. Recently, the CEO of Wizz demonstrated exceptional leadership by declining an enticing offer from Google. This decision wasn't about rejecting growth or innovation but about staying true to the company's vision and values. At ALPHA Marketing, we believe that true leadership is about understanding your unique value proposition and making decisions that align with your long-term goals, even when faced with lucrative opportunities. The Wizz CEO's choice underscores the importance of strategic focus and the courage to stand firm in one's convictions. In a world where quick wins can often overshadow sustainable growth, let's celebrate leaders who prioritize vision, integrity, and the enduring success of their organizations. #Leadership #StrategicDecisions #BusinessGrowth #TechMarketing #MarTech #startup #venturecapital

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This is an interesting read. The changes that the broader AI ecosystem will bring to existing business practices and verticals will be a transformational journey for many industries in the years to come. Some of the capabilities highlighted in this article will eventually become mainstream. A few things that the entire tech industry has to work on to make all of the concepts outlined as mainstream are: Data Quality and Governance - Garbage in equals garbage out. There is lot of business "junk" that can lead to model hallucinations, inaccuracies, etc. that require various re-learning techniques and feedback loops to be implemented today. Without improving data quality and governance practices through automation, intelligent systems, you will have low quality outcomes which eventually won't augment your workforce. This vertical becomes inherently more complex with voice and video getting added to text-based data. New business models - A lot of products in the market need to rethink how they optimize for the outcomes and which outcome they want to charge their customers for. Most customers don't want to sign up for an outcome based model which charges for activities which are in the business workflow without achieving the final outcome. And sometimes the final outcome like closing a sale is too far in the cycle especially in the B2B space that it's not sufficient to provide a robust cloud-based solution. Cost-of-goods-sold - AI models are expensive to run and operationalize and over the years, this will evolve and R&D across the industry will help drive down the cost. This would need buyers to re-think how they buy and plan for costs, forecasting and planning and sellers to re-think their business models and monetization strategies. Multi-modal data management - For your models to be efficient from a business context, you need to be able to process all types of data that is generated: data stored in data management systems, voice-related data from calls, presentations and video-related data from trainings, knowledge bases, news, etc. Managing multiple data management systems was complex with the data sets different industries like banking, financial, energy, healthcare, auto, etc. generate. It will be inherently harder to manage the additional types of data in a cost effective manner. We will see a boom of additional cloud computing power and a different level of computing efficiency (performance and price-per-performance) that would have to evolve much more than what we have today in the market. These are just a few of the innovation areas that will define how AI shapes up and becomes mainstream. This is a generational transformation that we are living through and a lot of innovation will have to happen in the above areas in the coming years. #ai #industrytranformation #data

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As companies go multi-cloud in their deployments, we need stand alone MLOps/LLMOps solutions that can deployed across vs being dependent on any one platform. As developers use multiple code generators, we will need security solutions that go across all of them to support developers. As businesses use multiple LLMs/AI models/APIs across the enterprise, we will need stand alone solutions to help identify, implement, and secure data and use cases. These are great opportunities to build next gen independent large software companies.

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We sat down with the insightful Aman Garg to seek his informed perspectives on the role of #AI in #PreSales. He pointed out an important vector to consider while assessing AI's impact - customer segmentation. Consider customers on a spectrum: from large enterprises with seven-figure ARR commitments to high-volume, high-transaction customers who may just sign up for free trials and need deeper feature demos. AI's impact will be most significant in this high-volume mid-market segment. Here, the investment in AI tools offers the highest return due to the sheer volume of interactions. 💡 🚀

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