Future of Work: Anoop Gupta of SeekOut, on Driving Enterprise Talent Optimization and the Transition from Big Tech to Startup Founder

The VITALIZE Podcast: Venture Capital | Startups | Angel Investing

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Anoop Gupta (@anoopxgupta), CEO and Co-Founder of SeekOut, the AI-powered Talent 360 platform. SeekOut provides companies with a comprehensive view of internal employees and external talent with analytics, predictive insights, and action recommendations to provide a competitive advantage in recruiting, retaining and developing their talent base.

Anoop started SeekOut after a 20-year career at Microsoft, which began with the acquisition of his first startup, VXtreme, in 1997. During his tenure, Anoop was the Corporate Vice-President of the multibillion-dollar Unified Communications group. He was TA to Bill Gates, advising on technology and product strategy as a Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft Research, leading work on Telepresence and Natural User Interfaces. Prior to Microsoft, Anoop was a tenured professor at Stanford University and he holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Website: SeekOut

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/guptaanoop

Twitter: @anoopxgupta

Show Notes:

• What SeekOut is and their incredible growth, including 3X-ing their revenue over the last year
• Anoop’s journey from professor at Stanford, to a 20 year career at Microsoft, to startup founder
• How founding a series of other companies and the resulting pivots led Anoop and his team to start SeekOut
• How their company has evolved to focus on retention and the digital transformation during COVID
• How SeekOut’s recruitment platform is helping companies put DEI into action
• How they’ve approached the in-person versus virtual work question as a high growth company
• How SeekOut is investing in their own team and their focus on positive mindset and gratitude
• How Anoop views the future of work
• What he has loved about the transition from big tech to startup founder
• Building great company culture
• What’s next for SeekOut

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series.

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors.

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital.

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/