Raghavendra Polanki had an amazing ride from the startup world to the world’s most coveted company, Google. But his thirst for learning didn’t stop. He was convinced that an MBA would help him fuel his next growth phase.
We interviewed him on our YouTube channel. Here’s the transcript. If you prefer watching the original video, here’s the link: How I got into MIT Sloan Fellows MBA
How I got into MIT Sloan Fellows MBA
MBA after FAANG (Google)
by Raghavendra Polanki
Today we have with us Raghavendra, an ambitious Googler who has gotten into the dream university for every engineer – MIT Sloan Fellows program.
MG: To get things started, if you could tell a bit about yourself. What qualifications did you have?
Raghavendra: So I was born and brought up in a village in Andhra. My father has been a farmer but has always been pushing boundaries to innovate things in his own space. He is an inspiration for me.
I’ve done my bachelor’s in engineering from GITAM college of engineering in Vizag where I’ve done electronics and communication engineering. Post that, I’ve worked at couple of places like Accenture and then I decided to pursue masters.
I got fascinated with technology while I was working and I thought masters would really help me.
Then I prepped for GATE and got an admission into IIT Kharagpur for specialization primarily in computer vision image processing and machine learning domain so there I was for a couple of years, doing my masters and thesis in this domain.
MG: Also what many would find interesting is you did a startup back when they were not hot. So how did that come through? What was that experience like?
Raghavendra: My father was always an inspiration for me to keep innovating, keep doing stuff. So after my masters, I worked at Samsung and a startup called Vizexperts where I was deep into solving deep tech computer vision problems.
But in 2014, when startups were just starting and e-commerce was just booming, we identified a problem – significantly high return rates. A lot of people were returning things for reasons like ‘what I see is not what I’m getting’.
So during my master’s thesis, I built this tech which is the latest scanner to build 3D data.
I with a couple of friends from IIT Kharagpur felt ‘this is a problem, this is the solution we can do’ and we started with that journey.
We got funded and got our first clients in Urban Ladder and Fabfurnish – who were just starting out in the furniture domain. They had this problem of return shipping. Returning furniture is very expensive business, right?
So our solution fitted right into the problem and it was optimizing their costs very well. We started with that, but eventually realized the bigger challenge was not just the furniture domain, it was real estate.
The reason being, furniture can still come to your house and you can send it back. But when we are buying or renting a house, it can never come to us. We always go there to visit and there’s so much of time invested by everybody. So we thought the 3D tech that I built for this domain can be reused for real estate.
That’s when we pivoted. But we realized that a furniture model is about 5 MB in size when you scan it, however when it came to real estate, it would be around 600-700 MB.
Back in those days, during the 3G era, the hardware we had was also very limited. In 2014, you had to download something as large as a movie first before you could even watch it, so it was not feasible.
So, we had to go back to the drawing board and reinvent all the capturing and validation algorithms. We got everything down to less than 5 MB load size which was our eureka moment!
We were able to launch a product in real estate and it went pretty well overall in the Delhi-NCR market. We captured a good share of the market among all the real estate developers there. So that was very fascinating – as I said, pushing myself to solve problems has been something I’ve been running behind.
MG: So you were not only successful as an entrepreneur, you also had a successful exit as you told me. Then how did you make it to Google? Tell us how the process was when you were recruiting or interviewing with Google?
Raghavendra: One thing that I’ve learned through my startup journey is basically I’m very good in building something from 0 to 1. Be it products, be it teams or solutions, from 0 to 1, I’ve done pretty well.
I had one realization during my startup journey – if you want to build a sustainable company that can last longer – going from that 1 to 100 is very different compared to the 0 to 1 journey.
That’s where I realized I need a lot different skill sets, not just to start something, but to build a sustainable, continuously-running machine.
Then I felt, why reinvent the wheel myself? A lot of companies like Google or Amazon have already solved these problems. Why not go back to the corporate world and learn how people are scaling things up – whether it’s people, organizations, or technologies? That’s when I decided to go back to the corporate world to restart my journey.
Definitely, moving from a startup to corporate is not an easy shift. There’s a lot of unlearning you have to do. Especially, the interview process is meticulous, particularly for places like Google or even my previous company, Expedia.
Google’s interview process is definitely very tedious, very elaborate and deeply technical. So I had to brush up my skills again and go for it. Thankfully, with all the hard work, it turned out well.
MG: It’s notorious – at Google! You often read on social media that people go through a number of rounds. So did you also experience multiple rounds? How long was the process?
Raghavendra: The Google process needs a lot of patience from you as it is very elaborate. I experienced multiple rounds too.
They begin with five rounds, not on the same day, but spread out. If they’re fully satisfied, they will either reject or accept you, or else they’ll take another 2 -3 rounds more.
I had roughly 7 to 8 rounds of interviews with Google, and the entire process took about 6 months.
I remember, after I joined in, I was talking to some of the new joiners back then. All of them had a similar time frame. Some of them got offers from other companies because their process was much shorter.
They joined and then had to change back to Google once they got the offer. Yeah, it’s definitely notorious, but it’s all worth it! It’s the dream job for engineers.
MG: You had made it, then what prompted you to look at an MBA a few years down the line? How did you go about that decision-making?
Raghavendra: I think it’s been close to four years now at Google for me. I’ve been at the cutting-edge in terms of solving problems or scaling technologies because Google is a planet-scale company – it’s huge!
People at Google are amazing as the rigorous recruiting process itself signifies that they keep the bar very high. I got to work with really great people here. With this 4-year journey, one thing which I was able to achieve was understand what you call execution-level scaling aspects.
But for me to get to my long-term goal of setting up a company which can stand sustainably, be there for a long time, the process was a lengthy one involving starting at a mid-level senior manager and then keep growing to learn all the strategic aspects of it.
I did meet some mentors at Google who have taken a similar journey – like someone who has gone to Harvard and how their career accelerated, their thought-process changed and the mind shift they had post-that.
That inspired me to start thinking – if I have to make my path faster to my long-term vision, what are the routes? And definitely this was one of the routes which very clearly showed the path to get to my destination.
MG: Got it. So what schools did you shortlist? Why did you do that? Can you tell us about it?
Raghavendra: There are a lot of schools in the US which are amazing but most of them cater to different levels of experience and different kinds of cohorts. Especially for me, I’ve close to 15 years of experience in the industry.
And through my mentor, I learned that there is one unique program which is the right fit for people of significant experience – for those who’ve done really amazing stuff but are looking to scale to a different level in their journey. This is the Sloan Fellows Program.
It was started by MIT back in 1960s and is primarily offered by only 3 schools in the world – Stanford, MIT and London Business School.
The MIT Sloan Fellows program is a one year full-time intensive program for seasoned executives where you can transform yourself completely.
So that’s the program I applied to which was the right fit for me compared to other one-year full-time programs. I applied to Stanford and also MIT primarily because at London Business School, the dates are a little different. Thankfully, MIT did happen!
MG: About the process – you also made another interesting choice of doing the executive assessment (EA) instead of the GMAT or the GRE. Give us a little more insight into why you picked that and how you prepared? What was your score?
Raghavendra: The GMAT and EA – from the preparation standpoint are exactly the same. You have to prepare the same syllabus for both. When I started with the GMAT prep, I realized it’s equally notorious like Google and it’s a very long exam. I did take some sample tests though.
That’s when I came across friends and some of the past students who suggested an alternative to the GMAT – the EA which is usually accepted by many schools in the US and aimed at slightly senior folks with a lot more experience than the regular MBA program applicants.
So they primarily test the same skills but in a reduced time window.
EA is just a 1 ½ hour exam rather than the GMAT which is much longer while the syllabus is exactly the same.
So I prepped using the same GMAT material and then took an online exam.
I prepared well giving a 3-month’s time frame to preparation for the whole syllabus of the GMAT. I got about 157 score in the EA in my first attempt which is decent enough score to apply to these schools.
MG: Did you prepare with the official guide or did you take any online courses? What kind of preparation went into it?
Raghavendra: I started with The GMAT Official Guide. For EA, there is other official EA material also, so I did go through that. Other than that, I practiced a lot of question, doing sample tests.
So, one was course practice where you keep practicing concepts and questions randomly. The other was fine grain practice which is time-bound and you can take practice test.
Definitely, GMAT Club will help a bit there, a lot of material is available. Post that, just focus and give your attempt right.
MG: Awesome! So you were done with the test. How did you go about your applications? Why were you looking at consultants? How did you discover MBA Crystal Ball? Walk us through that process?
Raghavendra: One thing I’m good at is analytical things – I’m very good at my story. Especially for these applications, you need to write lot of essays. For somebody who’s seasoned, with 14-15 years of work experience, there’s lot of content, many examples, so much of data on what has happened over these years.
I was going in circles choosing the right school, and trying to figure out the right examples or stories I wanted to highlight in my essays, so that’s when I started exploring and spoke to some of the past students.
I’ve been following MBA Crystal Ball on YouTube and other places. I love a lot of Sameer’s MBA videos on YouTube.
Thankfully, the reinforcement came from one of the current students at Stanford where they used MCB’s admissions consulting service and they strongly recommended it.
So that’s when I decided and reached out to Manish asking ‘can you folks help me with this?’ When we started, Manish asked me to write down my story. I remember ending up with 10 pages of write-up. From there, getting it to 200 or 500 words (or whatever limitations) was a journey – thanks to Manish for helping me with it.
MG: Tell us about how the interview experience was and anything you vividly remember even today?
Raghavendra: After completing the application process, I got an interview call from MIT.
I’ve done a lot of interviews before, for corporate jobs or other areas like with VCs, but an MBA interview was the first time for me and the experience as well as expectations are very different.
It’s a very short interview where you really need to present yourself, so that’s where I was initially in a dilemma on whether I should just go ahead and do it myself or maybe take some help from Manish back again.
Thankfully Manish supported me, guiding me how to prepare and concisely narrate my answers. Primarily the questions were behavioral in nature – it’s talking about your experiences and how you rightly fit in the program and the university.
But some questions would be notorious and you really need to know your application very well as these questions would be very focused on your application. They’ll pick a specific phrase or sentence and ask you about it.
Reading through your application thoroughly would help you – that was one interesting learning during my interview where I thankfully did prepare well, with suggestions from Manish, so I was able to answer all of them well.
MG: Then you got the result, but there were nervous moments, it took a while. So walk us through what was happening?
Raghavendra: It was quite a journey! Especially in my case, I got waitlisted in the beginning. I applied in R1 end and got waitlisted. I was so surprised as I was very confident I’ll get through. I was also very confused if I should leave it and move ahead to do something else.
One thing that really helped me was talking to a lot of people. Especially after the waitlist, I met so many current and past students. I learned that waitlisting is pretty common because of the diverse cohort they want to maintain and the limited number of seats.
So that would happen even though your profile is really good, there are limited positions they have to fill, so they’ll kind of hold you.
MIT gives you the opportunity to write back in during this time when you are on the waitlist – for what progress has happened and things if you think you missed during application time.
One thing that helped me a lot was – I shared my essays with some of the existing or previous students. People really loved my profile and regarding my essays, one area they suggested was ‘why you want to do an MBA’ and ‘why MIT now’ was something I could focus more in my update essays, so that helped a lot.
I was in touch with so many people trying to understand the process, so it was quite an exercise. Waiting is not a good situation for sure, but it’s all worth it when you put in that effort and the result comes out positive.
MG: I’m sure the victory tastes even sweeter. Just to summarize, you said a few things from a waitlist perspective: one is networking and talking to people, second is updates. Did you do one update or did you do multiple updates?
Raghavendra: I did 1 update. The recommendation I got was not to do too many. Given the limited time frame I had, the update had to be meaningful, else they may feel you’re bugging them a lot. That’s the reason, for my situation 1 was appropriate. But 1-2 is a good number is what I’ve learned through the process.
MG: Got it. Perfect! Excellent! All the best with your MBA experience Raghavendra and we hope to see more startups coming from you in the future!
Raghavendra: Thank you so much Manish for all the support I got through this.
Over 15 years, MBA Crystal Ball has helped thousands of applicants get into the elite business schools often with scholarships. Reach out to us at info@mbacrystalball.com if you’re looking for professional help with your applications. Good luck!
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