Going Back to Where It Began: Six Lessons on Learning, Leadership and Purpose in the Age of AI

What you know now expires faster

Pujya Swamiji Shri Shri Shri Dr Nirmalanandanatha Swamiji observed that AI now brings a new generation of change almost every week, where it once took 10 to 15 years. Hearing that from a spiritual leader, in a school hall, stayed with me. If a monk can see the pace, none of us can afford to ignore it. He also spoke about how AI will reshape agriculture in the coming years, and about the role agricultural universities will play in getting there.

For professionals, the takeaway is uncomfortable but freeing. Your degree is a starting point, not a finish line. The question is no longer what you know, but how quickly you can learn what you don’t.

Unlearning is a skill

Swamiji spoke about letting go of the past while keeping its lessons. Most of us hold on to old wins and old wounds equally tightly. Both slow us down.

My own path ran from electrical engineering to power plants, then to resource management in Germany, patent analytics and finally maize. Each turn meant setting down an identity I was proud of. Each turn also carried something forward. That is what unlearning really is: putting down the form while keeping the lesson.

Emotional intelligence never graduates

Speaking to the students, Swamiji talked gently about the teenage years, when hormones run high and feelings run ahead of reason. He asked them to understand their emotions rather than be ruled by them.

Sitting there, I realised this is not only advice for teenagers. Every leader I know has had days when feelings ran ahead of reason, in a tough negotiation, after a missed target or during a funding round that would not close. Building a startup has taught me that how I handle my own emotions decides how my team handles theirs.

Engage like a samsari, anchor like a sanyasi

Then, entirely from memory, Swamiji recited a poem by Rashtrakavi Kuvempu on the choice between the life of a sanyasi, the renunciate, and a samsari, the householder. For a son of Shivamogga district, hearing Kuvempu in that hall was deeply moving.

I took it as the best career advice I have heard in years. Throw yourself fully into the world, into its markets, deadlines and messy problems, like a samsari. But hold your values with the calm of a sanyasi, so that titles, valuations and applause never become the reason you work.

Be more than your job title

Swamiji urged the students to build real depth in music, writing or other fields alongside their studies. In an age when AI can do much of what a single discipline teaches, the edge belongs to people who connect fields. Our product exists because engineering, economics, language and farming met in one team. Your hobby may be your future advantage.

Remember who the work is for

The moment I will carry longest was a quiet one. I met two farmers at the event, and we talked about prices, rain and their children’s education. Standing on the same grounds where I once played handball, it struck me that every model we train and every pitch we make comes down to conversations like that one.

At RootsGoods, that purpose now reaches more than 48,000 farmers. But it began in a place like this, with teachers who believed in a boy before he had done anything to deserve it.