Tanay Kothari, the Indian-origin CEO of Wispr, recently shared an unconventional leadership tactic: asking his co-founder to publicly argue with him. After noticing his team was too hesitant to challenge his "half-baked" ideas, the Stanford alum staged a disagreement during a presentation. In a tweet, he explained what happened next.
“I asked my co-founder to argue with me in front of our whole team. That one moment changed our entire company culture. Early on at wispr, I'd give presentations and nobody would push back. They'd nod. Take notes. Say ‘sounds good’,” tweeted Tanay Kothari.
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He continued, “But I knew some of those ideas were half-baked. And I needed someone to tell me. So I asked my co-founder to disagree with me during a presentation. just to show the team it was okay. He did. I took it well. Made some quick fixes based on his feedback. No big speech about ‘radical candor.’ Just one public example.”
What happened next?
Kothari explained, “Next meeting, someone disagreed with me. Then someone else. Now it's normal. If people are afraid to tell you when something's broken, you won't hear about problems until it's too late.”
{{/usCountry}}Kothari explained, “Next meeting, someone disagreed with me. Then someone else. Now it's normal. If people are afraid to tell you when something's broken, you won't hear about problems until it's too late.”
{{/usCountry}}The Stanford University alum expressed, “The best founders aren't the smartest people in the room. They're the ones who've built a culture where the smartest idea wins, even if it's not theirs.”
How did social media react?
Praising the initiative, an individual posted, “That's actually a great tip. I will note it down for sure. I myself am a founder(we are just 2 people, both founders xD, but who cares). When we pop off, this is great advice to take, and I will. I feel people often don't challenge things enough, which isn't optimal. When we challenge each other, it leads to some good changes if we do it the right way, which in turn can change some bad ideas or some half-baked ideas to some well-crafted ideas which take the product to the next level.”
Another added, “That's cool! Maybe all startups should build a culture of arguments & debate sessions for important decisions, so the whole team can share their POV. In most cases, teams come up with better ideas than leaders. As Jack Ma once said, ‘I am not smart, I work with smart people’.”
A third commented, “One public example > a hundred internal memos about ‘psychological safety.’ People learn what's acceptable by watching what happens, not by reading about it. The hardest part as a founder is making it safe for people to tell you your idea is bad. Most never figure that out.”
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A fourth wrote, “This is an interesting approach! It's easy to tell your team, 'Please give me critical feedback’. Even if you give them a positive experience when they critique you, it doesn't make it any less difficult to tell a CEO they're wrong. I'm still working on encouraging this!”
Who is Tanay Kothari?
According to his LinkedIn profile, he completed his schooling at Delhi Public School, RK Puram and then pursued higher studies at Stanford University, earning both a bachelor's and a master’s degree.
He started Wispr Flow with Sahaj Garg in 2021. While he is the CEO of the startup, Garg has assumed the role of CTO.