Beerud Sheth grew up in Mumbai, India, and attended undergrad in Bombay. For graduate school, he came to the states to study at MIT, and then did a short stint in Wall Street before moving into the entrepreneurial world. He lives in the Bay Area, and enjoys hiking, working out and spending time with his family. He loves the Bay Area for these things, but also because of the community of ideation. The way he puts it, someone is always doing something interesting, and he really enjoys that. Besides business books, he leans towards reading biographies and books about the history of tech and business. Previously, he founded Elance, which is now Upwork, pioneering online freelancing. Twelve or so years ago, he noticed a key insight, in that the mobile revolution was happening all around. Within this, the lowest common denominator was text messages, in that not everyone had a smart phone. This got him asking the question - how interesting can these experiences be? This is the creation story of Gupshup. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy