The Moral of the Story - Part 3

Career journeys are broad and winding. And by the time you rack up a few years on the job, you learn a thing or two.

In Season 1 of The Career Circus podcast Story Knight interviewed leading figures in law, comedy, business, finance and more.

Each guest shared the moral of the story that spans the arc of their career.

Part 1 unpacked the moral of the story according to Wendell Potter (health insurance executive turned whistleblower), Evan Shapiro (media executive turned cartographer and podcaster), and Farzana Baduel (accountant turned PR executive).

Part 2 featured moral of the story according to Yasmin Elhady (lawyer, comedian and reality TV show host), Lady Suzanne Heywood (business executive and author) and Abbas Hashmi (financier and entrepreneur).

In this issue we’ve stories spanning careers in entrepreneurship, venture capital, and journalism thanks to Jatin Modi, David Ulevitch and Wajahat Khan.

Below are their takes in their own words. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Jatin Modi - enterpreneur, CEO - Renaissance

“When I started my business, I was the servant to the business for many, many years. It was like I was serving the business, which meant that my entire life was optimised to serve the business.

There was a big switch in my life where I realised that actually I’m not supposed to serve the business, but the business is supposed to serve me.

It has to serve my ambition. It has to serve what I would like to see in the world and it has to serve the kind of life I want to lead.

Then the second is that I think it’s really important to understand that capitalism has reached a stage where its nature has to be reformed.

In the last four decades, we’ve made it totally about shareholders, but it has completely destroyed a lot of the fabric of society, which are very important for us to sustain. The environment, of course, and those who are left behind as well.

The reason my company is called Renaissance is because I hope that at some point of time, we’ll be able to have a renaissance of capitalism, where it is a more conscious capitalism, and we can reach a stage where capitalism can exist in harmony.

Because I don’t think I would like to go into a Marxist utopia of socialism, because we’ve tried that many times in history and it’s never worked. So there is good in capitalism, but it has to be reformed. It has to be evolved.

And there is historical precedent for this. So, for example, if you look at religion, missionaries back in medieval ages could be quite violent.

And the conversions which happened in South America and in India and so on were very violent. But today you would think about Christianity and you don’t think of that religion anymore.

So there’s evolution which happens in all institutions. And I think capitalism as an institution really needs a renaissance.”

David Ulevitch - General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

“I think life is really much more like checkers than chess. People that overly fixate on the move that’s happening four moves away from now lose sight of making the best decision in the moment that they’re in because you have to play the game as it lays on the field.

If I look at my career, I never thought I’d be a VC or investor. I never thought I would be the largest public safety investor. I never thought I’d be doing all this work in Washington.

At each stage of the decision-making process, I just made the decision based on what felt like the right decision at that time. And I think that’s the best way”

Wajahat Khan - author and investigative journalist

“Storytelling is inherent. We like hearing stories. We like telling stories. It’s the most human trait.

When I started, 20, 25 years ago, I started getting feedback. I started to become a household name slowly. I’ve had a slow climb.

My broadcast career started in English, which was a very limited part of Pakistan understood me.

But certain policy circles, certain influential circles liked it.

The first thing which I started getting was party invitations. Girls started noticing me. Generals started noticing me. Diplomats started noticing me. Feedback became flattery; flattery became a date.

My sources became better; people started trusting.

The celebrity, the attention, and the sourcing…increase. And hopefully a little bit of your income too, as you become more prominent.

But today something else has happened. The courts in Pakistan called me an absconder; saying that I’m a national security threat and an Indian agent.

It gets lonely. That’s the moral of the story, that if you continue to do this, it gets lonely.

So the whole celebrity bit means nothing. So compared to 20 years ago, today I’m an actual household name.

While 20 years ago, people said, wow, what a story, what an interview, what a voice you have.

Today, the greatest thing I watch out for, and it happens in the thousands every day, is the duas.

The duas which come, the prayers, which come surpass any feedback, any flattery, any job, any promotion, any income stream, even any, you know, cute little naughty DM from some sort of supermodel.

Nobody gave me du’as 20 years ago. I need the prayers of my viewers. And thus, this is not just a job anymore. This is a duty. It is compulsion.

I need that support. So that’s my moral of the story.