Hemant Bhanoo
Engineering expertise + self-compassion @ scale
Current role: VP, Product & Strategy, Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (siyli.org), in SF.
Location: Austin, TX.
What I did at Google: Engineer, MTV, 2010–2015.
What’s your professional goal? The Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute was spun out of a very popular course at Google, Search Inside Yourself, which was created by Xoogler Chade-Meng Tan.
The overarching purpose is to operationalize wisdom, compassion and make them accessible to the world. I took the class at Google and have been lucky enough to teach it to fellow Googlers, leaders and change-makers around the world since.
The next chapter entails building a team to make those tools accessible at scale, without losing the depth and transformative experience that in-person programs have.
Bringing that kind of transformation at scale is exciting to me not in terms of sheer numbers but more what it means for the populations we’ll serve, not to mention the highly educated and influential audiences that we reach today.
If we can get people started, be their lifelong companion on that journey, and be a trusted resource as their practices deepen, we’ll have accomplished something pretty profound.
What does being a “Xoogler” mean to you? Google is an amazing and unique place to work. Since it wasn’t my first job out of school, I particularly appreciated some of the deliberate choices the company has made in terms of culture and mindset. I’ve tried to carry that philosophy across to subsequent jobs.
Culturally, it means I feel part of a family of Googlers and Xooglers and carry that sense of shared purpose wherever I go.
What was your best experience at Google? I’ve been drawn to entrepreneurship since a young age. In the past, the risks were so much higher with startups.
As an engineer at Google I got to work on entrepreneurial projects. That exposed me to the full lifecycle: starting with an idea, sketching wireframes, showing them to co-workers, connecting with people all over the company, creating a team of 20%-ers to work on them, having it become an official project, building prototypes, forming external partnerships… you name it! My time at Google spanned the gamut of skills and job descriptions.
I got to refine that entrepreneurial skillset at Google while still getting paid, and worked with many experts along the way. I can’t imagine another place in the world where I could have done that!
Most valuable lesson learned at Google? Professionally not being afraid to think big while executing on the details at the same time. Also, ask for forgiveness rather than permission.
Some people think that 20 percent time is a ‘right’ at Google. But 20 percent time isn’t given, it’s taken. You do it because there’s a fire in you that says you cannot NOT do that thing. That’s the fire I want to live in and that’s what I’m living in right now. It’s still hard (and amazing) to believe my job description now involves bringing wisdom and compassion into the world!
How has your experience to date prepared you for what you do now? Working at Google, and Amazon before that, has taught me how to combine intention with business sense and economic reality. It’s helped me find the right mix of scrappiness and engineering elegance — like prudently deploying technology to solve the bottlenecks in your business. It’s also helped me balance having a grand vision while executing on the details.
It’s been fascinating to build a background in entrepreneurship, business, technology and mindfulness, then grapple with figuring out (and applying) the right mix of those skills and experiences to the next challenge!
What’s your vision for the Xoogler community? I’ve been blown away by the Xoogler-preneur community. There’s a shared understanding and dropping of pretense that happens when this extended family (because that’s exactly how it feels) comes back together on the “outside.”
I’ve found it to be an incredibly supportive network and valuable resource. A huge shout-out to Chris Fong for nurturing it so lovingly!
How to get in touch with me? Drop me a note at hemant@siyli.org. I’d love to connect!
Thanks Hemant!
