Soviet Refugee Finds Success In America Against All Odds - Gennady Galanter

In this episode of The Quest for Success Podcast, we sit down with Gennady Galanter, an AI expert and entrepreneur, to explore his inspiring journey from a challenging upbringing in the Soviet Union to building a successful business in the United States. Gennady reflects on the challenges of immigration, the power of mentorship, and how resilience and adaptability helped shape his entrepreneurial success.

Gennady shares insights on strategic project management, opportunistic growth in technology, and the future of AI in a rapidly evolving world. He discusses the importance of specialisation, the role of personal relationships in business, and how AI and data consulting are transforming industries. With expertise in Serebral AI, Gennady provides a fascinating glimpse into the next frontier of artificial intelligence and its implications for society, business, and the future of work.

This conversation is packed with valuable insights for entrepreneurs, tech enthusiasts, and AI professionals looking to stay ahead in a world driven by innovation and adaptability.

Key Takeaways:
 • Success is measured by the positive impact we have on others.
 • Taking risks can lead to unexpected opportunities.
 • Mentorship plays a crucial role in personal and professional growth.
 • Specialisation is key for long-term success in AI and business.
 • AI and data consulting are rapidly transforming industries.
 • Adaptability is essential for overcoming obstacles and scaling businesses.

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Transcript

Dylan Pathirana (00:05.07)
All right. Welcome back to the quest for success podcast. And thanks so much for tuning in once again today. We're incredibly excited because on the show we have with us a serial founder.

and a Silicon Valley veteran who I'm really looking forward to like digging deep into his story because it sounds super interesting. Today on the show we have us have with us Gennady Galantar. Yeah Gennady and I had the privilege of studying with Gennady at Harvard Business School and thank you Gennady joining and I know you got an amazing story. We want to unpack that story and get to know you much better in deep.

Gennady Galanter (02:04.025)
I appreciate for inviting me. Thank Thank you, John. Thank you, Dylan.

Dylan Pathirana (02:07.054)
So Gennady, this whole podcast is about success, right? And so we need to start with something pretty fundamental. And that is, what does success actually mean to you?

Gennady Galanter (02:20.813)
What is success?

Gennady Galanter (02:27.381)
Ideally, ideally how I would like to measure myself is as we go through life, you know, we're going to be remembered for touching people's lives. One way or another, we're touching people's lives. Our employees, our friends, our families, children, their parents. It's how many people we touch, as many people as we positively touch.

Dylan Pathirana (02:53.518)
Mm-hmm.

Gennady Galanter (02:57.207)
and whose life we can improve, that's the measure of success. If people go through life, touching people's life positively and improving them overall, and the more that is, the more a measure of success. Starting with our families, starting with our families. And out one.

Dylan Pathirana (03:07.51)
Mm-mm.

Dylan Pathirana (03:12.662)
Yeah, so creating a positive impact.

Dylan Pathirana (03:19.948)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's, that's a good one. Like, so you, want to create a positive impact to your family and everyone that, that you touch us, like, you know, you work with. Yeah.

Gennady Galanter (03:32.313)
When we're gone, that's who will remember us, the people whose life we touch.

Dylan Pathirana (03:34.488)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (03:38.104)
Yep. That's right. Absolutely. And so I suppose, you know, to understand the man who's sitting in front of us right now, we really need to go back to kind of early Gennady. So can you take us back to kind of your early childhood and walk us through, walk us through that.

Gennady Galanter (03:51.021)
of course, I am exactly the product of upbringing, obviously. My DNA, okay, you know, we're talking about Ukraine, Soviet Union, 1960s when I was born. I was born in a family of poor people. Engineers. My dad was an industrial engineer.

My mom was agricultural engineer back in the days, know, so very, very poor family. And then the product of a broken family, the worst parents, et cetera. So in many ways, sort of having to defend for self from early on.

from the very, very humble, very, very humble upbringing. I don't know if you knew this story, John. Yeah, you know, it's like coming up with ideas how to make money when I was in elementary, starting from elementary school, It's like figuring out, do you want me to tell you what my first business

Dylan Pathirana (05:07.147)
Yeah, yeah, please. Whatever you can share. That will be amazing.

Gennady Galanter (05:11.491)
This friend of mine had Playboy magazine, somehow it got into his hands. We were probably in our, I don't know, maybe third grade, something like that. And what we did in my kitchen, when my mother was gone, he was holding the magazine down with his hands and I was standing there with a photograph and a picture and a photograph, remaking the photographs of the pages. And then I printed it in my dark room.

And then we sold it in school, the photo, with the boys. This was my first venture, honest God. Well, of course, when it got cut, his parents were brought, my parents were brought, I don't know, all in all, it's in many ways, it's a product of, you know, having to survive, having to survive, not necessarily, not to the point surviving on the street, but having to fend for some.

Dylan Pathirana (05:49.677)
Aww.

Gennady Galanter (06:09.827)
Plus I'm short. My height played a role. With my appearance and how I try to attract people and bring attention, my teacher in school had said to me, don't make clown out of yourself. She was like pointing that I'm being a clown in class. This is how I made living throughout my, you know, the last 40 years of my career, being this person who is trying to attract.

other people and trying to build this character that's attractive to others. And that creates, you know, survival skills, flexibility, ability to adapt the situation. A lot of that formed this adaptability to life in life. I feel comfortable. You know, I've been, I've been in situations, many difficult ones, all sorts of like legal.

illegal, whatever, you know. And I survived through, I survived through the last, you know, 50 plus years of career because I had to, that early, early having to fend for self, that formed the traits that I think I leverage a lot. Not a lot of people like as flexible as I am to be in Harvard crowd.

and not Harvard crowd at all. If you know what I mean. Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (07:40.341)
Yeah. And so, so during that early time, if you were kind of fending for yourself, was there anyone that you were kind of looking up to during that period?

Gennady Galanter (07:51.669)
I had this guy in my life that was... He must have had maybe eighth grade of education. Probably not a lot more than that.

And he was making money. This guy was making money. He was an entrepreneur. Alek was his name. He was much older.

And I asked him, Alec, how is that? How do you do that? He says to me, in life...

He used a Russian word for that, but I'm going to say it in English. said, dumb people win. Dumb. So what he meant by that?

He says to me, smart people that see a lot more than I do, they see obstacles. They see obstacles. They see obstacles that think, think, think through it. They don't do this. But because he wasn't smart enough to think all the way through, and because he fundamentally was positively thinking guy, and ignoring and or unable to see these difficulties, these challenges.

Dylan Pathirana (09:06.781)
Mm. Mm.

Gennady Galanter (09:09.507)
And so I'm sort of took after that, frankly. This is who I am. I've taken risks in life that I shouldn't have taken in retrospective. But if I didn't take them, I wouldn't be where I am now.

Dylan Pathirana (09:12.877)
Good.

Dylan Pathirana (09:25.197)
Great advice actually. So it's more of whoever doing things go further than someone analyze doing a lot of thinking and end up not doing things right. That absolutely makes sense right.

Gennady Galanter (09:39.609)
I've that so many times, or even now in my surrounding, like I'm surrounded by people. Smart, brilliant. Talking about opportunities. It's one thing about talking about it and another thing about pursuing opportunity. So I'm pursuing opportunities because I sort of, this is who I am. I have to go and fight and get the new thing. Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (09:54.303)
Absolutely.

Dylan Pathirana (10:01.709)
So, Janari, going back to the early days of your life, was it Ukraine is part of the Soviet Union? So that was like a communist kind of country, So it's kind of foreign to me, like, you know, what's the life living in a like a communist regime?

Gennady Galanter (10:11.499)
Of course, of course, of course!

Gennady Galanter (10:17.227)
course, of course.

Gennady Galanter (10:26.201)
that's whole different storage. I mean, I left Soviet Union when it was still Soviet Union before the Berlin war. Well, I came to US as a Jewish immigrant from Soviet Union, refugee from Soviet regime, from people like Putin, basically. So I came here to US. Here I say, here I you're in the cellar.

But I came here to US as a Jewish escapee. I was 27 years old, so I've spent... I served in Soviet military during Afghan war. I volunteered. was one of those people. I was so indoctrinated by the regime. Like these people, these poor people that are watching television in Russia now. Poor people, because I understand that I was a victim from Soviet television.

Dylan Pathirana (11:06.327)
Wow. Wow.

Gennady Galanter (11:26.551)
When I was growing up, like in my 17th, I was completely indoctrinated by that regime. Smarter people listened to Voice of America, Free Europe, et cetera, like radio stations that translated, but that took effort. But people like me who didn't want to take effort, I was listening to the damn television and I was completely indoctrinated by the Soviet ideas until my eyes opened up at one point.

Dylan Pathirana (11:55.479)
And what was that point? What made you open your eyes?

Gennady Galanter (11:58.873)
So a lot of people started to leave. A lot of my friends left all over the world. Australia, Canada, Israel, Germany, Canada, US, and they started to write letters.

as a friend that I grew up with. but before that, before, and so, and then the war, and then I started to participate in anti-war. When I came back from the military, I served two years. Tank, tank, I'm a tank guy. When I came back, was anti-war protester, arrested, et cetera, et cetera.

Dylan Pathirana (12:36.309)
Yeah.

Gennady Galanter (12:49.293)
And then the war wouldn't stop. was late 80s. We had a little baby. My ex-wife and I. And we didn't want the child to grow in that regime. We didn't know that it's gonna fail. We didn't know that it's ultimately gonna fail. So we escaped.

Dylan Pathirana (13:08.93)
Mm-mm.

Gennady Galanter (13:15.395)
came to US and made life out of, made life here in California and became Americans. For many years, for many, many years, I was very proud to be able to say I'm an American. For many, years. Every time when I would be asked, who are you? know, my accent, obviously people would ask about my accent, but they would ask, who are you? I would say, I'm an American, okay? Now I prefer to say that I'm Ukrainian, friend.

Dylan Pathirana (13:30.633)
Mm. Mm.

Dylan Pathirana (13:40.982)
Mm. Mm.

Gennady Galanter (13:46.637)
because now I'm Ukrainian. That's a big find for me. That's a big find for me to become belonging to that country. It's a big find, ultimate.

Dylan Pathirana (13:52.374)
That's good.

Dylan Pathirana (14:00.653)
Yeah, so Ghanadi, that transition from coming from Ukraine in a difficult time, I guess, what was that like, you know?

Gennady Galanter (14:10.329)
Oh, immigration. you know what we say? You know the people that immigrate, that go through this first wave, the first thing. Oh, you know what we say about ourselves? And it's so, true. We came to US. I had Max, my son, who is now 36. He was one year old. So we've been here for 35 years.

Gennady Galanter (14:35.479)
and I had $500.

and I didn't speak a word of English. Not a single word. Jam, I didn't speak a word of English. Not at all. this was so amazing. Well, first of all, I think that America, that US, that country that I came to, the fact that it enabled me to go through, you know, from nothing, from $500.

to okay I don't know if I would call myself successful okay that's different member of success is difficult okay it's all comparable okay I mean relative okay I can I'm probably okay I'm probably more successful than my father I'm more successful than my father okay

But you know the immigrants that come like I did with $500 that have to make life in a new country where you don't speak the language. We say that you have to eat a pound of shit.

No, not found.

Gennady Galanter (15:58.329)
25 pounds of shit.

Gennady Galanter (16:03.927)
being an immigrant. And until you do, and until you do, you're not gonna pass through that experience. You just have to go through that experience. And we all did. And in our own ways, in our own ways. My father worked for other people and cleaned their apartments, and his wife did too. They're both engineers, you know. They have to go through that shit.

Dylan Pathirana (16:29.453)
Mm.

Gennady Galanter (16:31.745)
I had to go through mine, whatever it was. So we did that. And if you eat fast...

If you eat fast, you just have to eat fast and pedal fast. You eat fast, you get to that point, you pass that, you're good. So I did that in all meaning, like learning the language, becoming American, understanding tradition, in that sense. So a lot of learning, a lot of learning and...

Dylan Pathirana (16:57.535)
Mm-hmm.

yeah. So a lot of learning, lot of struggle. mean, I had a similar kind of background. came like, you know, I didn't have children, but yeah. So 35 years ago, I came to Australia. had a massive struggle just like you. Probably you had a bigger struggle as a, with a child, you know, one year old child. But when, you know, you're going through this struggle, when was that defining moment, right? Kind of a change your life.

Right? You realize.

Gennady Galanter (17:30.829)
You know, it's actually happened very, very quickly for us. Six months, or maybe, what, eight months into living here in the Valley. My father lived here in the Valley, so I came here to be here in California.

I think very quickly, a lot of my peers, they're like, okay, go and rent tuxedos at the shopping mall, go work at the taxi, deliver pizza. I said no, no. So I focused on studying. I focused on studying. Six months into that, or seven months into that, I got myself enough, enough.

language to say something in the interview. And I got lucky because I got hired by this amazing woman, Nancy Kerfie. So we're talking about 35 years ago, okay, 34, okay. We're still friends with her. She was the person who hired me for my first job. There was a company called Computer Sciences Corporation. It's one of the largest in US corporations. They do a lot of government contracts. They do a lot of government contracts.

military, government, big industrial contracts. At the time, must have had 150,000 people employed. It's like Accenture, that sort of thing, but building massive systems. We're talking about 35 years ago, For federal government, for submarines, for things that are flying up in the air, for satellites, okay?

There was an ad in the newspaper. It's a pre-internet time. It's an ad in the newspaper. And there was no way to do a research. What is CSC? When I was going into the interview, I didn't know that CSC was one of the... It would take me to go to the library to find out. No, I wasn't about to do that. It just said, looked like an ad, CSC is looking for...

Gennady Galanter (19:49.881)
So I came in with a piece of paper from the newspaper, from Sunday newspaper, which frankly I stole. Okay, I stole that paper from my every morning, every Sunday morning. I would go around the neighborhood and I would steal, I would steal Sunday newspaper because it had ads for jobs.

Dylan Pathirana (19:52.589)
You

Gennady Galanter (20:12.505)
I steal it for ads for job and I cut it from one of those papers. And I came for the interview. I didn't know who they were. They were one of the largest in US companies. I have no idea. Sitting there in the lobby waiting for come out. I didn't know that I was waiting for meeting with them.

Nancy's from New York and she speaks with New York accent heavy New York accent and lit I like needle not only could I not understand English in general But it was just impossible. I couldn't understand what the hell was she was talking about. It was so difficult. So years later That they hired me for a job. I don't know what I said I said to her

Dylan Pathirana (20:40.223)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (20:49.131)
Yeah

Gennady Galanter (21:05.505)
I said to her in the interview, I was 27 years old at the time when this is all happening.

She goes, why should I hire you? She says, she looks at me. Nancy.

I go, listen, look at me. I'm 27 years old. I have a child and a wife. We just came, we're fresh off the boat. I'm sitting there and saying this in my first interview. I've never had another interview before this. This is my first interview. I just came with a piece of paper and I'm saying to her, I came here seven months ago or six months, whatever it was. And I'm just starting to learn English, saying my first words.

Dylan Pathirana (21:33.067)
Yep. Yep.

Gennady Galanter (21:49.279)
I have much sun and I realized that the people in my age in this country, how much they already achieved, like where they are. You better believe I'm gonna dig very fast to get there. I'm just gonna dig faster than they are. And she goes, when can you start? So this was one, and so I asked her years later.

Dylan Pathirana (22:09.621)
You

Gennady Galanter (22:17.419)
I worked for that company for six years. I worked there until mid 90s, guess. 96. I worked there until 96. Six years. I made, I grew up there. It was a good environment to grow up in. Very good mentorship and good projects. I asked her like...

What is, like, why did you hire me?

There was a conversation years later, like, didn't you understand that I didn't speak English? Like, didn't you know? Didn't you? Of course I did. She says to me, while, I quote, while we were walking, she said, Nancy, she said to me, I will forward this interview to her so that she is reminded of this. By the way, she hired me for another job afterwards.

She went to work for another company, I brought me there too. But she said to me, I made a decision to hire you while we were walking from the lobby where I met you, before we made it to my office.

Dylan Pathirana (23:20.148)
Okay.

Dylan Pathirana (23:24.428)
Yeah, yeah.

Gennady Galanter (23:43.315)
How did you do that? And she said, you know, the way you smiled, the way you shook my hand, the way you greeted me. I already knew that.

And then she said that some that company had a motto a motto Which I've subscribed dearly like they taught me this and I subscribe dearly to this idea because I I've seen them living by this idea as far as HR HR and human capital is concerned it is They were hiring swans

This is Nancy, she was explaining. Swans. A swan. The person who is smart.

Dylan Pathirana (24:27.895)
Yeah.

Gennady Galanter (24:35.588)
working hard, willing to work hard. Okay, we're not going to work a whole work hard. I'm ambitious and nice. Okay. And the idea is that you can teach people other skills, but this you either have them or you don't. You either have an ambitious person or you don't.

Dylan Pathirana (24:42.135)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (24:49.227)
Okay.

Dylan Pathirana (25:00.375)
Mm-hmm.

Gennady Galanter (25:03.993)
Okay, so they were looking for that. Somehow she made that connection as we worked through the whole, I don't know, it's debatable, okay. But I liked the idea and in my life throughout later on, I adopted this idea when I managed my own company. I tried to do that and I thought,

the CEO who is running the company now, I taught him the same. Look for swans. that was one kind of, that was a big thing in my career, six years that formed a lot. And then another big, there was some milestone, there was another big part of my career was PWC.

Dylan Pathirana (25:42.027)
Yeah, it's a good one.

Gennady Galanter (26:01.613)
Yeah, that went for years too.

like number of years. I actually lived through the merger between Coopers and Libra. So I was hired in the Coopers and Libra.

It was big six at that time.

which later became Big Four. And so part of the merger, Pricewaterhouse and Cooperson Library merged and it became PWC. So that was part of my journey. Interesting project, like a lot of growth into project management, leadership, account management. So I learned by that time, we're talking about late 90s, late 90s already.

So I did that. then for a number of years, went from consultancy, because the first two gigs were consultancy. I went to work for a software engineering company, Cibola. I don't know if you ever heard the name. Cibola Systems.

Dylan Pathirana (27:14.413)
see you Bill.

Gennady Galanter (27:18.169)
We're talking about late 90s, early 2000s. It's a large 5,000 people, 5,000 large corporation. And I developed a product line. I was responsible for number of products. All had to do with service delivery, service delivery. An engineer gets on the truck, goes to deliver service, service, VAC equipment or whatever it is. So it's that sort of managing that sort of business, billing, financials.

navigation, routing, inventory management. So I did a lot of that.

Dylan Pathirana (27:55.969)
Yeah. So Ghanadi, when do you like, you know, I remember you're saying when you're year three, grade three at school, you're thinking of doing your own like photography and selling it.

Gennady Galanter (28:07.409)
I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I never had this opportunity to be an entrepreneur because I lucked out and from the get-go, from the first job I had in the US, I was making decent living. I was a well-paid...

employee, family, house, etc. So I was a well-paid employee throughout my career until 2009 happened. So I had that career going on for many years and I always did pretty well. Well, for an employee, plus my ex-wife was making very good living. So average.

Dylan Pathirana (28:49.538)
Mm-hmm.

Gennady Galanter (29:05.785)
you know, suburban, average suburban white collar, white collar family. Okay. And then I'm 47 years old and 2008 comes the crisis. was working, I was working in private equity at the time, which obviously collapsed as many others. And I got executed. I got, I got,

Dylan Pathirana (29:22.231)
GFC.

Dylan Pathirana (29:34.721)
Yeah.

Gennady Galanter (29:35.097)
I got executed close-range style, you know. And here I am, 47, in the middle of the wars, partially because of this. Doesn't matter.

Gennady Galanter (29:54.905)
And so it was like, okay, it was a realization that I'm not employable. The situation, the market, it was clear that I was, that I'm not someone who is employable. Okay, so what is my option? My option is to do something finally. Finally, I was in a position, I didn't have a penny. Okay, I did not have a penny to my name. I didn't have any savings. I didn't have any savings.

I had $45. I'm very, very, very, very slightly exaggerated, but not far. And so I was living in my ex-wife's house, then ultimately I left on the first floor.

Dylan Pathirana (30:28.909)
you

Gennady Galanter (30:45.065)
Luck would have it though. So this is like sometimes luck. Damn, sometimes you have to be in the position like, let's say I will tell you what happened and then assume the same situation would happen if I had my job. We'll just assume two scenarios. I don't have my job now. I'm just sitting at home, on the beach. A guy walks into my life who I used to work for.

and says to me, hey, you're not doing anything anyway. Why don't you go on the plane, jump on the plane, fly to Ukraine? This is late 2009 we're talking about, or something like that.

fly to Ukraine and put together a team of people. I need a project. I have a project. I have a million dollar budget. Get on a plane, build me a team. Here's a million dollars for a year. For a year.

Gennady Galanter (31:57.785)
Okay, if I had my job and if it wasn't 2008 but 2007, so like what do think I would tell them?

Dylan Pathirana (32:08.033)
No way.

Gennady Galanter (32:09.559)
Okay, so I have to go on another continent. Here I'm living in California, I have to go to another continent, to the country that I haven't been living for 20 years now. By that time, I haven't been living there for 20 years already. This is like to me, it's a completely new country. Now I'm immigrating back in from a country that I never been part of. I left Soviet Union, here it's now Ukraine. I've never been there. I visited funeral, my mom died there, so I went to the funeral.

in 2006, 2001 this was, and now it's 2009, 2010.

I said yes.

Gennady Galanter (32:56.737)
And I knew that I would not be able to execute the operations. We're talking about engineering operations, okay? I knew that I'm not, look, I'm just not that character. I'm not the character to run an engineering team. Look at me. How I'm gonna run? Come on. Clearly I'm not that guy. But I knew the guy.

Dylan Pathirana (33:18.637)
Yeah.

Gennady Galanter (33:28.513)
Of I did. He was in St. Petersburg, Russia. Nick, his name was. And I knew him from my previous job, the one that I executed at. He was still there. So I got executed in San Francisco office here in Bay Area. But they had an arm in St. Petersburg and I frequently traveled there back and forth because they were doing job for us. And I met him.

Dylan Pathirana (33:40.738)
Yeah, right.

Gennady Galanter (33:57.377)
on many occasions. He was the right guy for that. He was.

call them up and go, listen, I have a million dollar budget. We can build this company. We can build this, let's go do this. And I convinced them to leave St. Petersburg. I moved them to Odessa. And between him and I, we built, we started recruiting that summer, 2010, but by October, we opened up.

with 22 people team.

for this company in the area that my friend was a CTO and started to build products for them. And we created an amazing engineering team, which at one point grew to 130 people. As they were growing, we were growing too. So at one point my partner, Nick,

Dylan Pathirana (34:44.875)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (35:02.048)
Wow.

Gennady Galanter (35:10.659)
says to me, okay, let's look at this not, because I, you know, I had that mindset that this was still a project. And he pointed to me, we have a company, let's grow the company.

And all I did at the time, all I had to do is to, did my roller deck. I did my roller deck. And all of a sudden I have one project, I have another project, have third project, have fourth project, I have tenth project. And all I did, I would just call people that I knew, Jim, around my network, just friends and family. And I would say, I'm doing this, I have a team of engineers.

It wasn't a very smart strategy. There was nothing to that strategy at the time. was actually a stupid strategy. It was a stupid strategy. It was not a strategy at all. In terms of Harvard speak, it wasn't a strategy. It was survival.

Dylan Pathirana (36:15.019)
Remember, hope is a strategy. So it was more of a hope, right?

Gennady Galanter (36:17.433)
I will speak on that as well, on the issue of And so, okay, I did what I did. I did the right thing because through that, I created a portfolio of products, a project, sorry, portfolio of projects that Nick, my partner, was managing, creating teams.

All we were doing was creating teams for this client, creating teams for this client, creating teams. And Nick was managing, by the way, Nick is in OPM 63. He's graduating in March. He's graduating in March. So we created this platform of projects that were generating profits for us. Profits here, profits here, profits here. We created a project management organization that managed these projects.

Dylan Pathirana (36:55.787)
Alright.

Gennady Galanter (37:15.051)
We created relationships with these clients.

And then we created profits. And then we decided that we're gonna invest these profits in creating, putting bets on different, on various verticals, on various technological verticals, making investments. So for example, we're talking about 2010. So for example, we made a bet on...

mobile application development as a thing. know, 2006 iPhone comes out, 2010, we're in 2010, mobile gaming, mobile applications, mobile commerce, mobile this, mobile that. We found the guy.

Gennady Galanter (38:07.363)
Hired, hired a guy, made him a general manager, responsible for a line of business mobile. Go ahead, build this vertical.

We did the same.

with blockchain. Remember blockchain? We did the same with e-commerce. we were thinking about, we always keep this off a person. Do we have a guy? Do we have a guy that we can see that can lead this? We were looking for the guy that we can see that can create business out.

Dylan Pathirana (38:27.287)
Yeah. Yep.

Dylan Pathirana (38:33.644)
verticals.

Gennady Galanter (38:54.905)
Okay, so we kept finding these guys. Some better, some worse.

Okay, so we created a mobile blockchain e-commerce. And this one guy, Stepan, he was in Kazan in Russia, because we also had a group there, 140 people at one point, we grew that organization. That one was also, a lot of this were opportunistic, like, okay,

Dylan Pathirana (39:31.084)
Mm-hmm.

Gennady Galanter (39:31.263)
Someone would come to me and say, hey, can you guys develop mobile applications? We would turn around and say, who do we know that can do this? Okay, can you do this? Okay, you're gonna be the guy. And the same like, can you develop a blockchain? Yeah, we can develop blockchain. Who do we know that can do that? And so we, in many ways at the time, I will make a point, there will be a punch line, I promise. We were acting very opportunistic.

Dylan Pathirana (39:57.613)
you

Gennady Galanter (40:02.131)
Much like the initial, these foundational accounts, much like they came to us through personal relationships and nothing more, fundamentally. I wasn't selling anything else other than personal relations. Much like that, other business came to us also opportunistically. Someone would come say, you know, build mobile phone. But from that, when we would find the person,

who can create business out of these opportunities. We would then go back to market and say, we're doing this. And it worked. And so we started to grow this business. They started to grow. We were taking money from our projects and putting in investing into the project that these guys were creating for us. And they were all creating cashflow. We were all cashflow. It's a cashflow positive business. Period. I don't have any investors.

Dylan Pathirana (40:56.877)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (41:00.417)
Mm.

Gennady Galanter (41:00.921)
I don't have any investors in this business. We started opportunistically with a project.

Dylan Pathirana (41:04.589)
Mm-hmm.

Gennady Galanter (41:07.873)
And so that was going on until I would say 2015, like five years. We were trying all these different things and we were watching how each of these verticals will grow. It's not that they were sort of competing because we couldn't define what is the brand, what is the brand about. It was very difficult because the guy who is doing mobile

Dylan Pathirana (41:29.505)
Yeah, yeah.

Gennady Galanter (41:35.533)
He wanted Brent to be more about studio and the guy who is running our data group from Kazan, hardcore engineering, Amazon Web Services, data lakes, infrastructure. It has nothing to do with studio. So that was creating conflict until this guy, Stepan,

from Kazan. I was a CEO.

My partner Nick was the COO, the guy who ran all the projects.

Dylan Pathirana (42:11.938)
Mm-hmm.

Gennady Galanter (42:18.553)
This guy, Stepan, called me up in 2015, this was, I think, and said to me, whatever you do, you don't need to choose my line of business, because he was also one of the GMs. But pick one, he says. He was having this conversation with me on the phone. I was somewhere in the trip with my wife, and he called me up, he said, look, look, you guys, it's up to you.

being me and my partner.

Gennady Galanter (42:52.227)
but you better off picking one thing and focusing on one thing. Just learn to do one thing well, he says to me. Learn to do one thing well.

And that message resonated with me very well. That idea that we need to have a strength and vision and perseverance to forget about everything else and not to do everything else, but focus on this one thing, not necessarily. And so I went to my partner Nick with this idea. He didn't want to hear any of this.

He is more opportunist, he is more of the person who wants to take chips and put chips on the table. You know, like, okay, it's not bad, it's not a criticism.

Dylan Pathirana (43:45.835)
Yeah, it's working, right? Yeah.

Gennady Galanter (43:47.457)
It's not a crisis. Okay. If you're, let's say, a generalist, if you're a generalist, and if whether it's mobile or blockchain or data-centric or this e-commerce or whatever else, we had some other ideas we were testing. If it doesn't matter to you what specifically that is,

But you're looking at this more from as, okay, I'm in risk management. I'm in risk management. I wanna put my eggs in different baskets. That's a different strategy. That's a different vision. And our conflict between him and I was about this. Because I look at this as an entrepreneur and a technologist and a marketeer.

that's looking for like, okay, how do we create a niche where we're a minute company, not funded by anyone? How do we create a niche for ourselves and how do we keep growing? And so I'm trying, and he's more, again, not bad, not good, but his thought at the time was let's distribute the risks. And so...

Only that debate went for, probably went for six months.

Gennady Galanter (45:21.909)
I ultimately, thanks God, convince him.

We said goodbye to all other GMs.

We thanked them for the business. We said, I mean, we did all well. We said goodbye very well to everyone. And we said, okay, let's take this guy because he seems like the guy who will lay golden eggs.

We believe that. We believe that the data-centric world, we saw that coming like he was growing that line from 2014. And we saw that up tick, tick, tick, tick. We saw that, okay, they started with engineering the infrastructure. They started with the infrastructure first. How do you create infrastructure for our clients? Cloud, on-prem, off-prem, hybrid cloud.

So we started with hardcore infrastructure stuff. And then once the client got the infrastructure, how do you automate this process? So we got into process automation and continuous delivery, continuous integration of code delivering into production. So we started with that. So we were developing skills as the needs of the clients that we had progressed. Because they were all going through the same journey to get to data ultimately.

Gennady Galanter (46:48.697)
leverage and mine the data. And so we were developing these practices, these capabilities, mining data, extracting value from data, learning from data, machine learning, now AI, generative AI. So we basically went from the last seven years or eight years we've been on this, longer than that, 10 years, we've been on this 10 years, 10 years. Of course, what am I saying?

Dylan Pathirana (47:13.612)
Okay.

Gennady Galanter (47:18.585)
2011 years, we've been at this from 11 years, which he started that idea in 2014. He picked on that first. This guy, I'm telling you what the other guys did. They did something else. And so I said to my partner, let's bet on this guy.

And what happened? What happened? We made him a CTO first. He became a CTO. We started to promote his vision and drive that as a theme of the company. It didn't not go without the struggle. And of course, it did not go without the struggle. I we lost people. mean, we had to break some bones.

Dylan Pathirana (47:56.161)
Mm-hmm.

Gennady Galanter (48:07.129)
We had to break some bones, internal transformation, many ways, internal transformation. And ultimately what happened, ultimately in 2022, my partner and I stepped out from running the operations. We formed the board of directors.

We brought in an independent chairman, Sujit Singh. He's from private equity. He's very smart, Indian guy, very, very smart. Harvard, Harvard, I don't know, FMB, one of the Harvard business programs. Very, very strong guy. He runs...

Dylan Pathirana (49:02.828)
Mm-hmm.

Gennady Galanter (49:06.467)
He's our chairman, basically a referee between the two 50-50 founders. with him coming in and creating, forming the board, one of his conditions was that Nick and I step out from running the business and go to college. And that's how I ended up at...

Dylan Pathirana (49:35.551)
In holiday. wow.

Gennady Galanter (49:37.117)
That's how I ended up in OPM. so Stepan is basically now is company CEO. We're helping him to run like we're helping from the board. He's doing well. The company is going through transformation to becoming

Gennady Galanter (50:00.919)
You know, because we've built so much business, Nick and I, in this idea of team augmentation as a business, it was generating a substantial portion of our revenue, a very large portion of our revenue. And now, first time in last quarter, the company revenue generated from consulting engagements around AI.

data, machine learning, the traditional revenue. So he's growing, that part of the business is growing very, very fast. Last year we grew 65 % in that part of And I'm very healthy even though.

Dylan Pathirana (50:46.689)
Wow. And so given,

Yeah. And given your expertise in AI, it's quite a big buzzword right now. What

Gennady Galanter (50:58.344)
Sorry, say it again, say it again, I'm sorry.

Dylan Pathirana (51:00.961)
Like given your expertise in artificial intelligence and that being your main business line, it's quite a big buzzword right now. Do you think it's living up to the hype? And if so, what do you think's next for AI?

Gennady Galanter (51:16.725)
I have the answer.

Okay, I can tell you what I believe. don't know. strike that I have the answer for you. I have a very strong opinion and it is so strong that I am going after it as an investor and as an entrepreneur and investor. Okay.

Gennady Galanter (51:48.393)
A couple years ago I actually formed, since I had this opportunity with Harvard, and since I had my hands are free from having to run the business. It's a beautiful situation when you have time to actually look at what's next.

Gennady Galanter (52:10.761)
And I have been for the last three years. This is going on for the last three years. I don't know if I mentioned this to you, Jim. think I, in some of our conversation, I might have mentioned this technology or this idea to you, or I discussed this at Harvard in class, but I won't repeat myself because I'm a bit deliberate. So I started the company.

It's an early stage startup that has an opportunity. It is called Cerebral. Cerebral is for the part of human brain where reasoning and thought rationing is happening. It's a part of the human brain. So it's cerebral AI for that reason.

And so the belief is...

Gennady Galanter (53:12.313)
The modern systems that we have, the systems that are based on neural networks alone, things like large language models as we know them, Okay, I'm not being original or saying anything new to you when I repeat this idea that people say that it's a predictive typing on steroids, right?

It doesn't have a thought. There's no thought behind what it's producing.

Gennady Galanter (53:50.529)
And so if you take this further, okay, what is the best opportunity of humanities following this idea of feeding the data about the world, feeding the data into the system? I don't think the assumption that if we feed all of the data in the world,

Gennady Galanter (54:15.865)
AI in its modern form somehow will figure out, let's say, a Newton law of physics as Newton had figured out. No matter how much you explain the falling apple or planets rotating around solar system, the AI in its current form will not figure out the relationship between gravity, mass, the distance.

It took human mind. And so the question is, what is that delta? What is the delta between observation and doing, and actually doing reasoning? Reasoning that's based on information, based on knowledge. And so what's coming into the picture now is a technology or idea that was

Dylan Pathirana (54:49.015)
Yeah.

Gennady Galanter (55:14.155)
actually not new in 1956. The idea that I'm discussing now, it's actually, it existed from mid-50s, it's called symbolic artificial intelligence. In fact, back in the 50s when it was originally invented, the scientists that invented this term called it the real AI.

the true AI, the real AI. And it's really what separates neural networks. That's basically a collection of relationships between symbols, between terms. Where in the symbolic AI, the knowledge instead of being inferred from data, it's being encoded and

and defined. For example, if you define laws of physics, like laws of gravity or laws of thermodynamics or other fundamental things about the fundamental reality of this, the fundamental reality, laws of physics, laws of chemistry, if you define, you manage to define those at the most fundamental level,

and build on those knowledge base. The belief was at the time that you're able to create what they were calling at the time, were referring to as knowledge, what do they call it? expert systems. They call them expert systems.

Gennady Galanter (57:09.613)
If you had, basically they looked like, if you look online, expert systems, you would see something looks like ATM machine that they would install on the floor of some engineering organization. There were hundreds of specialties. And you would have a line of engineers going to this machine, typing a question in plain English, for example. I need to calculate the radius of this thing. And it would create.

based on knowledge and based on information that you're entering, it would create the response that actually based on the knowledge, it has nothing to do with neural networks. It was.

Dylan Pathirana (57:47.991)
So can I just jump in there? What separates symbolic AI from artificial general intelligence? AGI.

Gennady Galanter (57:55.323)
So what you would need?

To me, AGI is a collection of stitched together vertical domains defined in a symbolic fashion. Thin, razor thin domains that you can refer to. So you have a layer that's your large language model effectively that understands what is the question. It figures out

that to answer this question, I need to reach out to calculate this. I need to reach out into a knowledge system that I have associated with me, for example. So for example, we're starting, we're approaching a project with Kuchenmeister, Hans Gunthes, our broker in bakery.

Dylan Pathirana (58:52.949)
yeah, yeah, yeah, you mentioned.

Gennady Galanter (58:56.833)
where our thought is that we're gonna be able to define.

Gennady Galanter (59:05.229)
physical processes and reasoning about adjusting parameters in the baking oven based on observation and measuring product throughout the production process. So we're advocating fact, we're advocating an idea.

the combination of neural networks and symbolic AI, what is now referred to as either hybrid AI, hybrid systems, or they're also referred to as neuro-symbolic artificial intelligence. You will hear this term more. You were able to define narrow, they're called anthologies, it's called domain anthology.

Dylan Pathirana (59:51.394)
Mm-hmm.

Gennady Galanter (01:00:02.681)
You can define domain ontology to be a baker, or you can define domain ontology to be an industrial engineer. Imagine this. Imagine that you have a collection of knowledge that makes up, let's say, a chemical engineer. Let's say someone who went to college, to high school, built that knowledge of chemistry, physics, math.

Everything. Imagine that stack of knowledge. Now imagine that stack of knowledge can be represented as a domain ontology.

Gennady Galanter (01:00:44.569)
And imagine that if you had a reasoning engine, that you can create this complete stack of knowledge. Deploy this stack of knowledge onto a reasoning engine that's now aware of this knowledge. And now you start feeding the information from the environment. Now your reasoning engine is able to take this stack of knowledge, the main. Now this all of a sudden, I am...

a chemical engineer or I'm a baker or I'm a food service engineer because you created this stack of knowledge. I'm trying to say that ontology engineering is the thing that allows you to create that stack, define that and create it and then deploy it on reasoning engine. And the idea that we're proposing is that if you have a collection of this many, many, many, and many, many, many domains and if you stitch them together,

You have what I think is going to be an AGI.

Dylan Pathirana (01:01:45.707)
And so on that, if you are a young person right now, because like by the sounds of things, if we create these networks, which are basically expert level networks, what's the point of having any of these engineers or any of these professions? Cause you can basically get

Gennady Galanter (01:01:55.597)
Yes.

Gennady Galanter (01:02:00.877)
You know, we're now touching on the issue that is very painful to me because, you know, here I am sitting here and I'm part of this transformation, we're automating. Okay, for now we're empowering people. Okay, for now we're empowering, but ultimately it's a valid question and it's a true question. And we should be collectively, collectively as a society.

discuss this, our governments should be, we should be, because I don't think this issue is being raised enough. And I don't know if our governments and our leaders understand well enough what's coming. Elon Musk, I'm sure, does. And so what worries me, I see where it's going, we're probably going to live in a time

You are for sure, you're younger too. We're going to live in a time of hyper economic expansion. That's assuming we don't kill each other. By the way, I see Dylan either something that's really, really positive for everyone or something that's really, really bad for everyone, but nothing in the middle.

And in order for this to be good and very, very positive, listen to me. We need to all hug each other and sing kumbaya. And a lot of love. A lot of love because the alternative is not good at all.

Dylan Pathirana (01:03:46.125)
But as someone who knows what's coming or can see what's coming, if you were to put yourself in your younger shoes, what would you be focusing on?

Gennady Galanter (01:03:51.981)
This is already here. Listen, I have violin in my office. I have two at home. And frankly, I believe that it's possible that even I am going to live with the time when all I have to do is to play violin, play with my daughter and go to the gym, make sure that I eat well and go to the gym.

Dylan Pathirana (01:04:17.429)
So isn't that what you're saying? Anything can be repressible like in knowledge, but only thing it matters is that relationship. know, so isn't that pretty much it? Yeah, exactly. So it's a for as humans, this is a beautiful time, right? Because all the hard work, all the things that you can outsource and you can really live the life.

Gennady Galanter (01:04:27.449)
Yeah, that cannot be replaced. That cannot be replaced.

Gennady Galanter (01:04:41.891)
We need to learn, we need to learn to go back to tribal. We need to have a lot of love and kumbaya. No, of course, I strongly believe that. We need to out, forget about guns, violence. I don't see any other alternative.

Dylan Pathirana (01:05:07.189)
Yeah, suppose you got to give people a purpose again, because now work is has become people's purpose. And so if you can automate that, you've got it.

Gennady Galanter (01:05:13.369)
No, suggest we look far enough and assume that, okay, look, I don't know when you were last time in San Francisco, but San Francisco is full of cars that have no driver. On every intersection I see 10 cars with no drivers. All over the city, come on.

Dylan Pathirana (01:05:31.851)
Yeah, Waymo.

Gennady Galanter (01:05:42.061)
The people that drive cars today, need to be thinking about what's happening, what's coming their way. As everything else, Unfortunately, I'm right there in the middle of all this. I see that. So I don't have the answer. I'm doing this because if I do this in a responsible manner, I try. If I don't do this,

Dylan Pathirana (01:05:50.369)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (01:05:57.345)
Yeah.

Gennady Galanter (01:06:11.595)
other people will develop.

But it worries me. It worries me that we don't have the answer. How are we gonna live in 10, 15, 20 years? How are we gonna entertain ourselves? How are we gonna keep ourselves occupied?

Dylan Pathirana (01:06:29.517)
So, so, Janani, I have one question. Like you've seen in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, where you live, lot of young people coming and trying to create, you know, the future, right? And someone like Dylan, going through the same journey, like what advice that you can offer?

Gennady Galanter (01:06:51.929)
advice.

Dylan Pathirana (01:06:53.163)
yeah just a simple advice I should we be on creating something or just focusing on more yourself be a good kid

Gennady Galanter (01:07:01.057)
I think, okay, if I were to start my life from scratch, I would do one thing that I didn't do, unfortunately. I'm trying to compensate with violin, but that's not a full replay. I would have learned math.

Dylan Pathirana (01:07:07.359)
Yes.

Gennady Galanter (01:07:25.721)
would have learned math. I would have done that to the deepest degree. I would picked up the subject and I would have learned math. I would started with that. It's hard to go, it's not fair to go to this other world without learning math. I would, like, if it's too late now, I'm not going to do that. But if I were studying, I wish someone explained to me back

Dylan Pathirana (01:07:28.001)
What's up?

Gennady Galanter (01:07:55.929)
when I was growing up, how important this is. I didn't understand. I didn't understand. So, now, deal with now.

Dylan Pathirana (01:08:03.213)
Alright, I'll get onto it. So I'll get onto that one.

Gennady Galanter (01:08:05.321)
And.

Personality. Openness, humbleness.

Dylan Pathirana (01:08:22.477)
And Gennady, what's next for you?

Gennady Galanter (01:08:28.429)
I'm telling you what I'm doing. just told you. I believe in developing these, I believe in this idea of creating a reasoning engine that can think about different things. So I'm doing that. This is what,

Dylan Pathirana (01:08:28.502)
You

Gennady Galanter (01:08:57.24)
But from my exploration, I mean, to me, it's science and technology. It's right where I wanted to be. It's very interesting to me. We're doing bakery as our first vertical. We're doing bakery. We're basically going to create an autonomous bakery that creates, in this case, it's waffles. But it will think about creating waffles. Okay.

Dylan Pathirana (01:09:18.893)
Wow, that would be amazing.

Dylan Pathirana (01:09:23.956)
So incredible.

Gennady Galanter (01:09:27.833)
My violin, I'm very like, okay, I'm spending time on that. I have a teacher, I try to practice, try to get better at that. It's fascinating to watch my 40 year old daughter growing because I could see, because she was born right after Corona in 2021 in January. And because we were all locked down, locked at home.

She was growing right next to me, unlike my first two kids. And watching that brain develop, I was right there. Imagine, like I'm working on all this stuff, trying to write this paper on AI, reading a lot of books on AI. And here she is growing next to me, and I'm seeing how she processes and absorbs the information, how quickly her brain develops. It's amazing. I think that, by the way,

Gennady Galanter (01:10:32.013)
I think that's what's gonna happen on a larger time scale. Maybe, okay, maybe it's 50s we're talking about. Maybe we're talking about 50s. I think we need to understand a lot better how the human brain functions. And I think the development of the AI and developing better AI will allow us, hopefully.

build better machines for scanning our brains and for processing our brain, for understanding our brain, so that we can create AI based on our biology as well. We're not there yet because our resolution is at 100 micron, that's safe for human brain, and we need to get to five micron resolution.

Dylan Pathirana (01:11:20.077)
Mm.

Gennady Galanter (01:11:32.141)
to really understand, so we're ways away. So maybe it's one of the things that we need to sort of, it will happen as AI gets better. It will help us to figure out a way to scan our brain. I think so.

Dylan Pathirana (01:11:47.457)
That's amazing. And I suppose looking back on your journey, Gennady, do you feel successful?

And remember that your definition of success was, you know, touching as many lives as possible when having that kind of positive.

Gennady Galanter (01:12:04.473)
I did a lot of bad things in my life. Listen, I did things in my life that I shouldn't have done, which I regret. And I don't think that I have whatever value, whatever life I have touched, I don't think I'm yet, I'm yet to compensate it for what I've done that's like what I feel wrong about. And so...

If I didn't have that, I probably would have said that I was successful, but I have ways to go to compensate for other stuff. So I need to do a lot more.

Dylan Pathirana (01:12:45.549)
Yeah, that's, that's, that's very interesting. It's, it's all part of the journey, right. And, working towards that, that success and, you know, we could honestly sit here for hours. Like I didn't even realize that we've gone through more than an hour chatting to you and it's such a fascinating conversation. but I want to wrap it up here. We might have to have a part two ways down in the future, but throughout our conversation, I've been jotting down a few things, which I think have led to what I would say.

is quite a successful life, at least from an outsider's perspective. And I want to share those factors with you. The first one is you're always hustling. You're always taking opportunities. I think maybe that's a better way to put it. Always looking for opportunities, keeping your eyes open to opportunities, and then taking them. I think that's a really important aspect because without opportunities, you can never get the success, right? And so always...

And not being too focused either, like having a wide horizon and letting the opportunities come and chasing those opportunities as well. think the second and maybe the biggest one is you're incredibly relationship driven. there was times through there where you're talking about, know, growing your business, you just have to flip through your Rolodex because throughout your, your time, you're always investing in those relationships, trying to build your network. And then at the end of the day, when you need something, you can reach out to that network.

Gennady Galanter (01:14:10.583)
A lot of Of course, it's all about people, not only people.

Dylan Pathirana (01:14:15.861)
And I think more than that, it's yes, you have a great relationships, but you also connect the opportunities that you're looking for with the right people. And I think that's what stood out to me about your business was you were looking for the opportunities that would come to you. And then you'd also be looking for the right people. And then connecting those two is really where your material success has come from. So think that's a big one. And the last one I want to share is your...

Gennady Galanter (01:14:42.713)
You got it right, yes, you got it right, yes.

Dylan Pathirana (01:14:46.561)
The last one is positivity. And maybe also communication as well. There's been so much storytelling throughout today's conversation and it's been such a joy to kind of listen to your story and yeah, really glad we could line up today. Yeah, we really enjoy this conversation, Gennady. And also I wanted to add to that list, your authenticity.

Gennady Galanter (01:15:02.553)
Thank you so much.

Dylan Pathirana (01:15:12.745)
When you're talking to Janati, it's like black and white, what you see, what you get, and that's the kind of person you are. And it was really nice to spend this hour talking to you, understanding your background, where you're coming from, and also where you're heading. Like I heard a lot of things probably gone over my head because it's all too tech, but it's an amazing conversation. And thank you so much for your time.

Gennady Galanter (01:15:38.105)
Thank you guys. Thank you for inviting me. It's pleasure. It's a pleasure and honor. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Dylan Pathirana (01:15:41.271)
Yeah. Yeah. And if you've enjoyed today's conversation and you've taken something out of it, if you could please subscribe or follow us on whichever platform you're listening to this on right now. And you can see all of our conversations over at our website, the quest for success podcast.com. And with that, we'll see you guys in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Hey, that was awesome.