Walk the Talk - Interview with Anoop John, Founder & CTO.

Anoop John, CTO, Zyxware Technologies, is a man of many interests and an ardent proponent of the free software philosophy. This man is a polymath who loves to speak, and funnily enough has an opinion on everything under the sun! An avid blogger, he has documented a lot of data in his blog, www.thondomraughts.com, which covers his thoughts on topics varying from activism, to sociology, psychology, ethics, law and much more! All that being said, he is a simple man who just wants to make a difference, bring upon a positive change in the society and help his fellow people. This interview with him sheds light on his journey, his philosophies and the kind of man that he is personally.

A model student in school, he admits that he was definitely the best student in his class till 10th standard, but in the 12th, he says “there was value for money and there was competition so I was the second best in school. I was also not as hard working in 11th and 12th as I was in the 10th”! As a school student, he used to participate in quizzes and scholarship exams and has received the NTSE scholarship.

Moving on to college, Anoop John studied Electronics and Communication Engineering in the prestigious College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram (CET), where he had the inspiration for Zyxware Technologies. He completed his masters from Penn State University, after which he joined IDSiGIS (2003-2006), a company based out of New Jersey, USA. He joined as a Software Engineer and left the company as Design Lead. He then came to Trivandrum and set up Zyxware Technologies, and the rest, as they say, is history!

Get up close and personal with Anoop John – his journey, philosophies, and the kind of man that he is personally.

While in CET, did you involve in college politics? How were your academics?

“No, I was not, but I had a huge friend circle, I was involved in two different groups in my class. One was a very studious and tech savvy group and we used to spend all the time in the labs. The second group was a very outgoing group of students who had a wide range of friends across departments and I still maintain quite a few of these relationships even now. I had not taken part in college politics. Looking back I feel I should have taken an active role in college politics.

Academically, in terms of marks, I don’t think I was even in the top 20% of the class. But obviously, coding and logic, and all such subjects, I was probably in the top 5 of my class. I mean, in our class, a group of the five of us, were considered the programming geeks of the class and probably across the college as well.”

Tell us a little about your blogs. You have written a lot on a wide range of subjects!

“I had never been a good blogger, I used to write a bit when I started the organization, but have been very irregular after that! I’m a bit disappointed that I have not been able to continue it. I believe I write all right, but some of my old stuff maybe rubbish too. I like a lot of different things, and so I have written about a lot of those topics too. For example, I like mechanics, biology, electrical. So, I like a lot of different subjects and programming, I’ve actually pursued programming to a level where I can say that I’m an expert! And I don’t even like to call my self as a web application developer. I am an engineer! Currently I am focussing on software engineering and in that, on web application development. My interest in other areas is only cursory and casual. I have read a lot on economics and i don’t think my understanding of that is very strong either. Then biology interests me a lot, especially herpetology. I’m huge fan of snakes! I mean its a lot of tit bits, not science though.”

The idea behind starting Zyxware was to have an infrastructure, framework and people to contribute to change in the society. If it was for this purpose, then why didn’t you start an NGO?

“What I’ve seen with NGOs is that half of their activities are towards raising their funds for their activities, which in itself is not a problem in that, people wouldn't fund it, if it isn’t worth it, so there is kind of a selection process that is happening through their funding. But I feel that it is limiting, your pursuit is half directed to raising the funds and then justifying the use of those funds! I am a hardcore engineer, and I felt that my ability to actually generate those funds are pretty good! So, I should be able to connect with a lot of people with similar interests, who are passionate about this cause and they can have the satisfaction that they are also contributing to positive change in society. And because this organization is not really designed to squeeze money and make profit for individual gains, it will be able to reward it’s employees much more than other companies with same strength and capabilities.”

How hard was it to set up the company? Did you have the support of your family along the way?

“Extremely difficult! I found it unbelievably difficult, I still find it difficult. I look at everything as personal, as my own stuff, when I do something for me or anyone. I look at it as though it is my problem even if I’m working to help someone else, I will not look at is as though I am solving his problem, I will be looking at it as though I am solving my own problem! So I’ve always had that perspective towards doing stuff, but running a company has been a massively different experience! My initial idea was that I would be able to find a group of people just like me, to work under the same roof, for the same cause, where people would look at the cause as their own cause and the organization as their own organization and that camaraderie would be a massive drive in the organization and that would catapult it to great heights! Unfortunately it did not happen as so, and our efficiency was low, our ability to grow was weak. There have been a lot of committed employees in the company and that is probably one of the reasons why I have been able to sustain this company inspite of all the struggles it went through. It has been frustrating even, I mean, every time someone leaves the organization, it is frustrating for me, because I don’t look at employees as employees. They are friends. It is a stupid way to run a business but I cannot change the way I am. It is the reality of life that people will leave, they probably came to work for money and when they leave for such a reason I feel why can’t we pull ourselves together and be more efficient than that other organization. We don’t necessarily have to be bigger but more efficient than that other organization, or more profitable. Its all about all of us working together. But things are moving, definitely, this sounds a bit negative but still things are moving much faster and more efficiently than in the past. But I would loved to have created something like “that” which I have failed! But I think it is still possible and we are on the path. And yes I had the support of my family. I had a clear plan as to what needed to be done, so the support was there.”

Are you satisfied with where we are now, has the hardships been a hindrance to our vision?

“I am very willing to suffer or fight hardships, that is not a problem. I am not a materialistic person, so hardship is not a problem. Am i satisfied? I am always satisfied. And on the social front, that is not something we are focussing on currently. We are now putting all of our energy on creating this economic engine first, while working in parallel on the non profit engine as well. So the economic engine can fund the non profit activities. We used to do some non profit activities in the past, but our economic engine was so weak that it did not make any difference then and it definitely will not make any difference now!”

In one of your blogs there is a statement that is quite interestingly confusing which goes like this “I have decided to give up the habit of using him/her and have decided to just go ahead and use the masculine forms of the pronouns wherever they are called for. The fairer sex of the species who happen to come across my blog please excuse this in the name of coherence of thought processes. Oh and by the way did I mention that I am not a firm believer in the equality of the sexes :). I will henceforth use the feminine forms only when called for. Any and all protest shall not be heard upon.” Doesn’t this have a very subtle hint of sexism? Are you not a firm believer in the equality of sexes?

“Yes it’s true, I don’t think men and women can do everything equally, they are not built equally. I appreciate women for what they are. I think women are built more emotionally sound than men. It’s like this, how can you compare 10 degree celsius to 10 pound of pressure. You can’t! They cannot be quantified as greater or less than. So don’t try to fool yourself by saying they are equal! But I do think that a female PL can handle people relationships much better than a male PL. And there are things that I feel that men can do better than women too."

What about your political stand? Are you left? Liberal? Capitalist? Socialist?

“I think people should be actively involved in politics. I believe that the state should be able to provide the services that a capitalistic system would not be able to provide, so I would say I am slightly leftist there. I believe that the state should take care of the people, so a socialist mindset there. I also believe that allowing people to pursue capitalistic interests is the best way to achieve that. So its a mix of all these things.”

What is your take on religion, god, faith and the likes?

“I believe religion is necessary to come up with strong moral value systems. But you don’t necessarily need religion to come up with those value systems. Personally, I don’t know. I’m not saying that I don’t care, but I don’t know. I haven’t given enough thought or effort to pursue it further, to determine whether I have to believe or not. Religion is just a formal structure around belief systems. Religion is essential, to train people in strong ethics and moral values. Logic alone might make you take selfish decisions. Religion will teach you not to do that.”

How did the name of the company come about? Why did you choose to work on drupal?

“We played around a lot with this name. It wasn’t even coined by me. It was coined by my friend R. G. Kiran who was part of the 5 person group who wanted to start this company. Zyx of Zyxware comes from the x, y, z axes of the cartesian coordinate system or from the most popular variables used in equations. It was coined in college. We had decided to start this company in college itself. My idea of starting a company originated when I was in the 4th grade, but it was for totally different reasons then. I wanted to be independent or something and it was childish reasons then. Later on the idea remained but reasons changed. And as to why Drupal, because Drupal is a powerful and beautiful application framework with an unbelievably good community. Technically, I evaluated the popular Free Software CMS platforms available out there, and I came to the conclusion that Drupal will trump every other one in the market then. And to top it, it has one of the best Free Software communities in the world!”

What about your personal life? Family? Friends? Relationships?

“My family consists of my mother, father, both of them are retired. I have a younger sister who is married with two kids. I am unmarried, and thats mainly because I have been working so hard to build the company. You can say that I have been married to the organization! I am now trying to give a little more importance to my personal life. I have decided now, to finally get married. For the past many years my social life was non existent because all my time and effort went into the company.”

Since the time I joined Zyxware, not long ago, I have heard that Zyxware is different from other companies and so on. But haven’t we conformed a little, over the years to the existing standards?

“No, there is no point in being different for the sake of being different, is there? We should be different only if there is any value in doing so. Now we see a lot of value and efficiency in these processes that we follow, that is why we have conformed to those standards. So, that conformity is alright. But, on that note, have you seen any other company that spends so much time and effort in training people! I mean, I remember explaining something to a guy who has put in his paper! I sat with him for 2 hours and helped him. Later on, I was thinking as to why in the world did I have to help him. I wouldn’t think about all this then, I just wanted to help or share that piece of information with him.”

While you were doing the “Freedom Walk”. There was a time when you grew a pretty bushy beard. What was the purpose and outcome of it?

“This was done as a protest to the kind of treatment we Freedom walkers received during certain segments of our walk across Kerala. I grew my hair and beard for a period of 6 months after the walk. The outcome was quite disappointing. I had been to a few formal business related meetings during those last 6 months and the common initial expression I received was an expression of disbelief. Where people expected clean shaven formally dressed gentlemen, I would walk in with disheveled hair and beard. Those initial minutes were normally tough. Nobody would ask me why I was the way I was but would have kept thinking about why I was the way I was. However I have mostly been able to get through these meetings without disastrous effects because after my talk people would normally judge me by my merit and not by my looks. But I think it would have been easier if I were clean shaven. Breaking through prejudices is doable but it is tough. I believe that looks are not that important but I believe in dressing and being up to the best one can.”

All in all, it was a good chat with the CTO. I learned a lot from the conversation, including that he is an eligible bachelor currently seeking marriage! Eligible how? In a conversation we had, I asked him about the gandhian principles and vegetarianism that was mentioned in his blog, to which he replied, “I don’t know about gandhian principles, but there is something I believe in which Gandhi said, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ But I am a vegetarian for one specific reason. I tell people that I’m aggressively against smoking and alcohol consumption. A lot of my friends also used to smoke and drink and I used to never hang out with them when they smoked or drank alcohol. So if you are smoking or drinking I won’t be near that. If you want to hang out with me, no smoking or drinking. If either of this is happening, then I’m not in that company! I’ve pestered people a lot on this. So, I felt it is probably difficult for people to stop something they like doing and I thought I should try to stop doing something I like and so, I became a vegetarian as an experiment and is one even now.”

Eligible! Don't you think!?