Perplexity Founder Aravind Srinivas Thinks This Is The Top Skill To Become A CEO

Aravind Srinivas, the co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, says that the crucial quality for leading a company is the ability to “make peace with some problems.” It is essentially about embracing imperfection and prioritising which problems need to be resolved first.

At a recent talk in the Dean’s Speaker Series at UC Berkeley Haas, Srinivas opened up about the vital skill required to be a CEO. He also discussed Perplexity’s product offerings, as well as his strategic approach to running the business and engaging with investors.

Srinivas highlighted that a significant lesson from his time at Perplexity has been learning to embrace imperfection. He explained that accepting unresolved issues as part of the journey is essential, rather than insisting every problem must be immediately fixed.

“Anytime you ask someone, ‘What are you doing, what is the one problem you’re looking at,’ or, ‘What are your priorities for this week?’, they will have a bucket list of like five to 10 things to say. And then, I asked them, ‘OK, what is the number one thing?’ And they can’t say it…And I think that is the number one skill you need as a CEO or a founder is anytime you need to pick the number one thing,” Srinivas said. 

Srinivas explained that this mindset permeates the company’s product development approach, where Perplexity aims to launch solutions that are around 80% finished. It allows for rapid enhancements in response to the fast-evolving AI landscape. This flexible strategy enables the firm to swiftly adjust and improve its offerings as the market develops.

“You have to build products that 80% work. It cannot be 60% because no one’s going to use it. The retention will be zero after 12 weeks. You have to build 80% perfect products where there is a long tail of 20% that kind of doesn’t work, but that 80% is enough for users to get excited about it. And six months from now, that 80/20 goes to 90/10, and 12 months from now, it goes to 95/5. And that’s how you win the market one or two years from now,” he noted.