Why One CEO Calls Himself Chief Coffee Maker, and How It’s Benefitted His Company: With Ajeet Singh

By Yitzi Weiner and Casmin Wisner

I had the pleasure of interviewing Ajeet Singh, CEO and founder of ThoughtSpot, a company that provides the industry’s leading search and AI-driven analytics platform. Ajeet and I spoke about his role as “chief coffee maker,” and what motivated him to found another company following his success co-founding Nutanix, his first start-up.

“Good startups are like an inverted pyramid management structure, with the CEO at the bottom, supporting the rest of the company.”

Thank you so much for your time. What is your backstory?

I was born in India and graduated with a chemical engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology. I planned to come to the U.S. to earn my PhD, but my father was having health problems, so I stayed in India and earned an MBA there. After a brief stint in management consulting, I switched to technology and began working at Honeywell in India, which later brought me to the U.S. when I was transferred in 2006. Following two years at Honeywell, I spent time at Oracle—managing database products—before I left to head up product management at Aster Data, which was…