Episode
Loving Failure and Learning Daily with Kumaran Anandan
- Podcast
- Software People Stories
- Published
- Jan 16, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3746
- Processing state
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Summary
In this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Kumaran Anandan, CTO of TinyMagiq and Enterprise Architect —shares a refreshingly honest journey across hardware, industrial automation, embedded systems, startups, consulting, and Microsoft. From writing programs on a programmable calculator (and storing them in audio cassettes!) to building deep learning habits through daily compounding, Kumaran explains why modern technologists must fall in love with failure, understand fundamentals, and stop building software without users who will pay. A thought-provoking conversation on architecture, human psychology, AI hallucinations, and what it really means to create value. 00:00 – 01:00 — Kumaran’s self-introduction: experimenting constantly and looking forward to failures. 01:00 – 02:25 — Earliest career memory: building a DBase 3+ application for a school and earning a watch as his first “payment.” 02:26 – 03:29 — Not getting campus placed, being an average student, and the early struggle of finding a job. 03:29 – 05:20 — First software experience in 10th holidays: programmable Casio calculator, BASIC programming, and saving programs using an audio cassette tape. 05:20 – 07:56 — Early career direction: interest in hardware, industrial automation, 8085 assembly programming, and learning through real-world constraints. 07:56 – 10:12 — Moving up the stack: C/C++, antivirus software, Wipro’s hardware + software work, and “mobile apps” before mobile became mainstream. 10:12 – 11:34 — Entrepreneurship journey: starting a company during the internet boom, shutting it down after the bubble burst, then transitioning to Microsoft. 11:36 – 12:29 — Kumaran’s definition of good technology: anything that protects evenings and weekends from work. 12:31 – 13:48 — A cons…