In The Room with Matt Rogers and Swati Mylavarapu
This week on The Room, we interview Matt Rogers and Swati Mylavarapu, co-founders of Incite.org. It was a pleasure sitting down with Matt and Swati, examining their life story and exploring pivotal moments along their career journeys.
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We’ve distilled this episode’s conversation into three key themes and insights below. Enjoy!
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Key Theme 1: The Power of Patience
Both Matt and Swati have developed a unique capacity for patience through their careers and life together. Now in their mid-thirties, it looks as if their path was one straight line. On The Room, they challenge this notion sharing multiple examples of where patience proved vital to their ultimate success. For one, they met in middle school and didn’t end up dating (and eventually marrying) one another until their thirties!
In Swati’s life, politics were an early passion, as is evident by her teenage job as a door knocker for Al Gore’s campaign in Florida. However, she worked mostly in tech until 2016. After another historical election, she re-engaged politics with new fervor. This time she started Arena, Incite with Matt and recently chaired Pete Buttigieg's Presidental campaign. It’s easy for Claudia and I to feel like a month or even a year is a lot of time in our mid-twenties, but Matt and Swati’s individual and collective story highlights the importance of patience in the entrepreneur (and life) journey.
Key Theme 2: Distill a Grand Vision into One Product
In founding Nest, Matt had a grand vision for a cleaner planet and a tech-forward home. However, he knew that in order to make a real impact, he had to start somewhere tangible and consumer-friendly. Enter, the Nest Thermostat. Taking the long-view on building differentiated products, he and his co-founder first built a product that regulated your home temperature, and tracked your preferences, with the goal of saving energy and your pocketbook. When you’re inspired by the many opportunities for positive disruption in our world, peel back the layers of purpose and build for your vision by starting with an actionable goal.
Key Theme 3: Leading with Humility
Hearing how Matt and Swati have supported each other through life’s trials and tribulations was humbling. Both of them have proven to be a special kind of leader who values serving their team and the mission above self-adulation. As is evident both in words and in action, Matt and Swati are uniquely the sole limited partners of Incite.org, they’re personally investing in the future of innovation, politics, and social change. For founders and funders everywhere, Matt and Swati provide a powerful example of servant leadership and leading by example.
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