[00:02] Jennifer: Hi everyone, thanks for listening to The Founder Spirit podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Wu. In this podcast series, I interview exceptional individuals from all over the world with the founder spirit, ranging from social entrepreneurs, tech founders, to philanthropists, elite athletes and more. Together, we'll uncover not only how they managed to succeed in face of multiple challenges, but also who they are as people and their human story. 

“There are more than 2 billion people lacking access to safe drinking water and there are so many low-hanging fruits.”

“There is, on a daily basis, 346 billion liters of water, I'll repeat that number, 346 billion liters of water is leaked onto the ground from water networks. And at the same time, there's also not enough emphasis on recycling and reusing industrial wastewater within the industry.”

“The teachings of the Vedas are that each of us are perfect in our original state. We are eternal, full of bliss and full of happiness.”

“The purpose of life is happiness. Because what does it mean to transcend that false ego, it means to realize that we are full of bliss, that means happiness.”

Joining us today is the introspective Prakash Govindan, the Founder and COO of Gradiant, a global leader in advanced water and wastewater treatment committed to giving nature its water back and ensuring it for generations to come. Most recently, its ForeverGone technology has been recognized as one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2024 as the only all-in-one solution that removes and destroys PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” from contaminated waters. 

Founder of The Turing Company and The Body, Mind and Spirit Retreat, Prakash is also a spiritual seeker and a Bhakti yogi.  

Just how did Prakash built the first and only water tech unicorn out of his doctoral thesis? And what is his interpretation of life based on the Bhagavad Gita, the holy Hindu scripture? Well, let’s talk to him & find out.

Hello Prakash, welcome to The Founder Spirit podcast! Thank you for joining us today from the Middle East. 

[02:40] Prakash: Hi Jennifer, it’s my pleasure absolutely to be here with you and thank you for having me on.  

[02:46] Jennifer: I'm also really excited to have a fellow (MIT) beaver on the show. Prakash, I was wondering if you could tell us, growing up in South India, what were some of the major influences on your life? 

[02:57] Prakash: My parents - I grew up to really wonderful parents, that's one of the big gifts in life that I've had. 

My mother is a mathematician, a very calm and charming person. She's only 5ft 3 inches tall. And my father, who is a (foot) taller than her, 6ft 3 inches, is the business guy. Very much opposite. 

We grew up with relatively limited means, sort of a middle class upbringing. And one of the things that I learned growing up is happiness is not proportional to the money one has. So that's informed many of the decisions I've made throughout life. 

So they were big influences in my life, they always encouraged me to be open-minded. I was a peculiar child and a teenager. I always had these deep existential questions, like who am I? What is this universe? But my parents, instead of patronizing me, they tried to point where I might find answers. 

I also grew up with a younger brother, he is an extremely intelligent person, his IQ is greater than 130. Growing up with him also made me realize I'm not naturally that gifted. So I worked very hard to catch up with this guy and hence with the rest of the world. Lots of emphasis on academics where we grew up. 

One of the deep impressions that was left upon me is (that) I grew up in Chennai, which is in the south of India. So India, like you know, Jennifer, receives its rain via monsoons. But during my formative years from around 11 to 18-19, many of those years, the monsoons did not return. So many of those years, you can go back and look at the records, the tap ran dry. 

So unlike growing up in the US or Singapore or one of these places where my children are now growing up, I knew the value of water because I knew what happens when the tap runs dry. So my brother and I, one of our chores every other day would be to take pails or buckets downstairs and there would be a truck which brings water and carry a few pails of water. A good workout and a good lesson in the value of water. So that's some of the influences growing up. 

[05:09] Jennifer: Prakash, having told us about the value that you perceive in water, what is water to you? And how do we perceive water today versus coming from a place where water is scarce? 

[05:54] Prakash: You know, different groups of people in the world see water differently. For example, as a scientist who's looking for exo-planets which are, you know, planets outside of the solar system, perhaps where there is earth-like conditions and a carbon form of life. One of the signatures they look for is the signature of water. If there is water, their assumption is there is likely a human-like form, at some point, have existed (on) that planet. 

That tells us a lot, doesn't it? So there is no water, there's no planet. You can clean up the carbon dioxide mess that we have created and we should clean that up. But that's not enough, we have to also secure our water. 

In fact, there's COP going on now, the climate conference. I attended the last one and I was on multiple panels on water. One of the things that is clear to all the experts is the first impact of climate change on human society is through water. Either there's too much or there is too (little). There are floods and there are droughts. 

So in spite of this, it just boggles my mind, Jennifer, in the COP28 where water was on the agenda for the first time. The first 27 COPs, no water, it's unbelievable. 

Water is mistreated, undervalued, misunderstood. This is one of the missions that the Gradiant founders, Anurag and I, have is to elevate the conversation on water, emphasize and educate on the importance of water as a resource. 

[07:03] Jennifer: I love that. Also, I saw in your LinkedIn summary, you put water is more than just a resource, it is a lifeline, a responsibility and a cause that is close to your heart. So looking to nature for inspiration to mimic the rain cycles to purify water, cCan you talk about the core technology that had launched Gradiant, but do it in a way that even I could understand? 

[07:31] Prakash: Absolutely. So like I described, I learned the value of water when I was younger. And then I was very fortunate to have a great education. I went to (the) Indian Institute of Technology, which is the best technical institute in India. And after that, I got into MIT. 

And when I got into MIT I thought water is a great area to work. Of course, as a graduate student, you're also looking for funding. That's the first priority. I won't lie to you and say this was the only thing I was seeing. But fortunately, destiny would have it that the water guru at MIT had funding for me. And that was perfect - John Lienhard, amazing guy, a global water guru. 

And he said, Prakash, let's work on water, but not the same old, work on something new. And as a person who had never worked on water before, I was a heat transfer engineer, I was a mechanical engineer, I started studying water and then I realized there's nothing that mimics nature's rain cycle for desalinating water. 

As you know, Jennifer, large parts of the world get all of their freshwater supply from desalination today. An example is where I live now, the Middle East. There is not a single river in Saudi Arabia or UAE. The combined population of these two countries is something like 35 million people and zero rivers, almost zero groundwater. 

Every drop of water you drink in these countries and most of the GCC countries is desalinated from the sea. And Australia relies on desalinated water, parts of India, parts of China relies on desalinated water. 

And there was no desalination which mimicked nature's rain cycle. So I thought it was a good idea to work on mimicking nature for a process that will desalinate water. And nature does it really nicely, right? Natural sun energy shines on the top of oceans and the water on the surface of the ocean evaporates because there is an atmosphere over the ocean.

Normally water evaporates only at the boiling point which is 100 degrees Celsius. But when there is a partial pressure effect because of the presence of an atmosphere, it evaporates at a lower temperature. So it evaporates at 30 degrees, 25 degrees and the vapor goes into the atmosphere, the air. And vapor-laden air is less dense than air, so it raises, forms clouds and it rains over land as fresh water. 

So this we mimicked over four years at MIT and now 12 years at Gradiant. We have mimicked nature's rain cycle into a system we call carrier gas extraction. And we have built a humidification/dehumidification or an evaporation device which is super efficient at, especially, extracting water from concentrated streams, industrial streams and the like. 

[10:23] Jennifer: Excellent, excellent. I think I understand a little bit better now, just a little bit. Still need to work on my PhD in mechanical engineering. 

[10:32] Prakash: I wouldn't encourage that. You, you have your own expertise. (chuckles)

[10:37] Jennifer: In a previous conversation, and I don't know if you recall this, you mentioned that from day one all Anurag wanted to do was be an entrepreneur and he had asked you multiple times to start a company together, but you were very focused on getting married. 

You had proposed to your wife, I think, before you left India. So as a result you declined him many times. So I was wondering, how did Anuag eventually convince you to do a startup together? 

[11:06] Prakash: I don't know, I guess we both couldn't find a job and… 

No, in all seriousness, Anurag is an amazing personality. He is extremely smart, I bet if we ever measured his IQ, it’d be through the roof. But at the same time he also is emotionally intelligent, super nice guy and has a mission in life to make things better for others. And that's a very attractive person to work for. 

I also want to use my energies in not something mundane, not punching in and punching out and making a salary, but rather making a difference in the world in a positive way. So it was super attractive for me.

Initially, my family doesn't have an entrepreneurial background, I never thought I'll be an entrepreneur. And like I said before, I had figured out already my happiness, which I wanted to prioritize on, is not proportional to the money that I was going to earn. So same as for Anurag, we did not start this company to become rich. That's not the goal, that was never the goal. 

But you know, we really hit it off. It made a lot of sense for my mindset, it just took me a while to get there. But thank God for Anurag's persistence. 

[12:19] Jennifer: You and Anuag are both strong personalities - your words, not mine. I heard it in the other podcast that you did. So I wanted to know, how was it decided who gets to be the CEO? 

[12:31] Prakash: Oh, it was always Anurag. Because many things, he is very calm, almost unemotional when it comes to making decisions. I am highly excitable and spontaneous, I can catch on fire at any point. 

He is always to the center, never here, never there. I am far out, I am super creative in a non-obvious way. Some people call me crazy. He's very deliberate and very businessy, he always wanted to be a business leader. 

I always wanted to be technical. Even today I see myself as a finite-time thermo-dynamist and an accidental business leader and not the other way around. He was very clear. It was very obvious from day one who should be CEO. And I'm so happy for that.

[12:21] Jennifer: Yeah, that's really great. That's really great because sometimes people jostle a bit for that position, so I'm just curious. Sounds like a match made in heaven then, or at least a work marriage. 

[12:31] Prakash: It's like a marriage, it really is. We have to be so well-coordinated and the communication has to be so good. Especially since the last 6.5 years we have not lived in the same city together, are running a 1,200 person company at this point, and there are so many things coming our way. 

Sometimes even without talking with each other, we give the same answer to the same question from different people. That's because the mindset is a fit, we want the same thing and we are very very different people. 

[14:05] Jennifer: I understand you and Anurag built a very clever uber-practical prototype by hand in the basement lab and very much impressed your early investors by turning water from an oil field into physical drinking water. I don't know if you actually drink the water, but that's what I heard. What was Gradiant like in the early days? 

[14:27] Prakash: Exciting, like intense 80-hour weeks, and it was a bunch of friends. I remember very vividly the first six employees, all MIT. 

When we first got a contract for our first plant, it was worth millions of dollars. I didn't have a single engineer, I didn't have a single engineer. And you know, I am a finite-time thermodynamist, but I know mechanical engineering, electrical engineering. And I had a couple of guys from MIT, Stephen and Max, who are all still at Gradiant. And we together started designing this thing. 

And along the way we realized we are not familiar with some of the specifications for the industry and so on. So we hired two engineering firms and we decided to pit them against each other. We gave the same work to the two firms and whatever one did right, we would show the other and say, how come you didn't do this? 

So we then hired our first engineer, Mark Zaloudek, who became our head of engineering later on. Amazing experienced person from the water industry, he was employee number seven. And we built this plant. When we built this plant, I didn't have an operations team, I didn't have an installation team. 

Steven, Max, me, Mark, Anurag, and even our CFO at the time, Luke Johnson, we all went to Midland, Texas. We got a house - we rented a five bedroom house, stayed for four months to get this plant up and running. And the intensity was there. And we grew very fast, very quickly. Within a couple of years, we had a few million in revenue, you know, 60, 50 employees. 

And somewhere along that line, we realized that just servicing and cleaning up the oil field is not enough to satisfy our ambition, our mission. 

So we expanded the scope, we started serving other industries. The first place we went to is China - we tied up with Shanghai Electric Co. And in the same entrepreneurial way, eight of us turned up in Wuxi, China. None of us knew any Mandarin, and we started building a plant and we delivered it. 

And somehow or the other, we have gone from strength to strength. And I can't believe it. As I said, we are 1,200 people and we have hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and all that good stuff. 

[16:46] Jennifer: You guys are profitable. That's right, something to be thankful for. 

Prakash, I was wondering if you can provide some insight on the state of the global water scarcity and the impact that Gradient is now having to address this critical issue. 

[17:04] Prakash: Absolutely. There are more than 2 billion people lacking access to safe drinking water and there are so many low-hanging fruits. For me, the emphasis of the global community on how to solve this problem is completely off. 

I'll give you an example. There is, on a daily basis, 346 billion liters of water, I'll repeat that number, 346 billion liters of water is leaked onto the ground from water networks. Okay, so this is somewhere in the range of 30-40% of all water usage around the world. If we solve the problem of leaks in pipes, we solve the global water crisis. 

So Gradiant has launched this product called SmartLink to use satellites and acoustics to see and to hear leaks and to solve that problem. Just an example, there's not much talk around stopping leaks from water networks. 

And at the same time, there's also not enough emphasis on recycling and reusing industrial wastewater within the industry. Now, with the CHIPS Act in the US and the CHIPS Act in Europe, legislators are forcing the hand of local companies to bring back manufacturing of microchips from the Eastern hemisphere, from Taiwan, from Korea, from Japan, from Singapore, back to the US, back to Europe. 

And as this is happening, what they are realizing is water is one of the gating factors. An average sized chip foundry consumes 40 million liters of water - that's a lot of water. And this comes in contact with different processes, different contaminants, and various grades of wastewater is produced. 

For the first time in history, a company has technology to take the various wastewaters and recycle it to the extent of greater than 95%, in some cases 99% within the same industry. So if you recycle 99% of the wastewater, instead of withdrawing 40 million liters, you only need 400,000 liters. Now you can build a chip foundry in Arizona, you can build a chip foundry in arid regions of the world, including the Middle east, which you couldn't do before. 

So about somewhere in the range of 50% of all water is used for industry. So that is the low-hanging fruit of solving the global water crisis. 

[19:44] Jennifer: I understand that on a daily basis, Gradiant also reduces 6.5 billion liters of freshwater withdrawals, renews 2.5 billion liters of wastewater and therefore saving, I think, 1,500 megawatts in electricity consumption. So this is all and then avoiding 950 metric tons of carbon emission. 

All this is actually what you're doing, that's the impact that you're making on a daily basis. 

[20:15] Prakash: Just to put all those great numbers you quoted in layman terms, the amount of water we recycle is the equivalent of the usage of 50 million households. That's a lot of water per day. Per day? Yeah, per day, every day. 

[20:31] Jennifer: 50 million households, that's impressive. 

So Prakash, coming back to the most recent news, Gradiant's latest technology, ForeverGone, was recently recognized as one of Time's best inventions for 2024 for its removal and destruction of PFAS, otherwise known as forever chemicals. 

I was wondering if you can briefly talk about the system that you've built to destroy these forever chemicals. And is it only in contaminated water or can you also do it in the physical world? 

[21:06] Prakash: So our system is mainly for water pollution, which is where a lot of these forever chemicals comes from into our body. I just want to make a point on the importance of treating this PFAS, this forever chemical is everywhere. It is one of the micropollutants and it's extremely harmful. 

It was originally manufactured by Dow Chemicals when they had the patent from 3M for creating nonstick coatings and things like that. So your Teflon pan, it has PFAS in it. I'm sorry to be a source of bad news for the people who cook in this channel. It's better to use an iron skillet or an iron pan instead of a Teflon pan. 

But this is extremely harmful. It has been shown to cause cancer, heart disease in adults. It's fatal in children. They tested, this is the Harvard Medical Study, they tested wombs of 100 mothers and they found PFAS in more than 80 in the U.S. of all places. 

So it's an extremely important problem to solve, and it was being swept under the carpet. What people were doing, they were using a media which can capture PFAS and then the PFAS remains in the media. When the media is exhausted, they'll use new media. This media will go to the landfill or they'll truck it a long distance to incinerate it and burn off the PFAs. 

What Gradiant is able to achieve is we have invented this thing called ForeverGone - forever chemical, forever gone from water. We didn't use one of our usual technologies, we started from a blank slate. 

We looked at the PFAS molecule - PFAS molecule is very unique. The head of the PFAS molecule is hydrophilic and the tail is hydrophobic. Hydrophilic as in it likes water, and hydrophobic acid is. So that is exactly how soap behaves. Soap. S-O-A-P.

So we realized if we have a foam, then just like soap, the PFAS molecule will be attracted to the foam and we can remove the PFAS molecule and then we can destroy it separately. So our whole separation step is based on a foaming process, microfoam fractionation process, which we patented. 

And the foam then goes into an electrochemical cell. So it's well-known that electrochemistry can be used to convert PFAS into just carbon dioxide and water and make it completely harmless. 

But traditional electrochemistry did not work. Electro-oxidation did not work because you have to apply a very high voltage for that conversion to happen. And there was no electrode that we could find out there off the shelf which could do that. 

And this is where Gradiant ingenuity, Gradiant innovation we call it comes in is we invented an electrode from scratch. It took us a year to do that. We invented an electrode from scratch which has the highest volt potential in the industry, an order of magnitude more than anything else. And that is enough to completely destroy the PFAS in the foam. 

So what goes out of the system is completely clean water without any PFAS. Nondirect levels, less than a part per trillion of all the components of PFAS. No air emissions, nothing else, just the clean water goes out of the system and the whole thing consumes a very minimal amount of energy. 

[24:33] Jennifer: I love that because I understood that the chemical bonds are very difficult to break down for PFAS. Congratulations! 

So now next comes your scaling strategy. How fast can you build this technology and will you be deploying it anytime? Hopefully sometime soon around the world at water utilities. 

[24:51] Prakash: We've already started deploying it. We already have proven the technology for three very important applications. Municipal water, the utilities which supply water to taps around the world, so that's one application that we have proven it completely. Nondirect water and complete destruction of PFAS also. So we're not sweeping it under the carpet. Gone, forever gone. 

Second, we have proven it for the industrial application, microelectronics. Water has a lot of PFAs and some of Gradiant's biggest clients are microelectronic clients. So that was our first application PFAS complete destruction again. 

The third is 50% of our PFAS ends up in landfills, so treating landfill leachate, we have proven (that) we can treat this to complete destruction. 

[25:40] Jennifer: Prakash, I want to just make sure that we have time to talk about your spiritual life. As mentioned, you're a spiritual seeker and a bhakti yogi. Usually people go to India to seek spirituality, but I understand that you did not become spiritual until you came to MIT. So what was the process of your awakening? 

[26:01] Prakash: Great question. So I have always had existential questions. Even as a child, I always questioned what all this is about. What's the point behind all of this? Who really am I? What is this universe? Even when I was a teenager.

and while I was encouraged to think about that, I didn't quite receive answers that I was looking for. It was always in the back of my heart that this is a gap in understanding. Especially during IIT, I was seeking very actively. I tried different meditation methods, I tried the Samarpan yoga, great, like silent meditation methods. And I still didn't receive the philosophical answers.

Then I went to MIT and I met a very interesting person, a monk. In my first week at MIT, I saw this poster which said, free vegetarian feast, which is all you need to say to get me anywhere. So I went there. I didn't actually read the full poster. It was actually a monk visiting MIT, a Hare Krishna monk, amazing person, sweet person. 

And I had a lot of questions. There were 60, 50 people in the audience. He probably spent 20 minutes just answering my questions. And others had questions too, which I took too much time for them to ask. 

[27:24] Jennifer: I guess you're one of those people. 

[27:27 Prakash: When it comes to spirituality. I am in a classroom. If you're teaching thermodynamics, you probably won't hear a peep from me. 

But he came up to me after the whole thing and he said, we have a retreat in a place called Gita Nagari in Pennsylvania. Gita Valley, it's called now. Amazing place, Amazing place. They have such an amazing community there. 

And he said, if you want, you can come. I have one of my followers who's coming from here, you can hitch a ride from them. I said, okay - being open minded was my thing. And I went there and I started receiving more answers, specifically from the Bhagavad Gita, which has been ever since. 

I had read six versions of the Bhagavad Gita before I had read two versions of the Quran, I had read the Bible, I had read French philosophers. A fair warning, if you're a teenager and you're reading Nietzsche, it can cause some kind of depression in you. So read it later on in life. 

[28:29] Jennifer: So my daughter's reading Molière, like the French philosophy.

[28:33] Prakash: God bless her heart. 

[28:34] Jennifer: I know, it's part of their curriculum. 

[28:36] Prakash: Wow, okay. So I read all of that. But finally some of this copy of the Bhagavad Gita and the translation and the commentary just lit a bulb in me. And I remember the monk gave me a copy of the Bhagavad Gita. 

I went back to my dorm room, I had classes in the morning, but I started reading and it was so intuitive and interesting for me, I couldn't stop. I read the whole thing before I went to class the next morning. I didn't sleep the whole night or eat or anything. 

So ever since I've been reading it again and again. Once in a while, I'm asked to teach. Also I teach it. It's had a big influence in my life. 

[29:18] Jennifer: So that's a great segue into talking about the Bhagavad Gita, which is the holy Hindu scripture dating back to the 1st or 2nd century BC. 

And you had mentioned that you also teach the Bhagavad Gita online, of which, you know, I started following with some friends, we formed our own study group. But what is the Bhagavad Gita to you, Prakash? 

[29:41] Prakash: Bhagavad Gita is two things to me. One is it's a manual to life. Whenever I have a crisis and even when I don't, I go to the Bhagavad Gita. When I lost my grandmother, I went to the Bhagavad Gita. Sometimes decisions at Gradiant are hard, decisions with family are hard. At all these sort of fork in the road kind of things, I go to the Bhagavad Gita because for me it's a manual for life. 

But what I've realized as I've read it dozens of times, I probably read it 50 times by now, it's not just a manual for life, it's a letter from God. It's a love letter from God and he's telling you I love you. 

And it has taken me so many years, 16 years to be exact, since I first read it, to realize it's not just a manual for life. It's not something passive, it is also God talking or writing to you. That's what it is to me. 

[30:39] Jennifer: And it is also said that the Bhagavad Gita, that no other book or scripture influenced, Mahatma Gandhi, shaped his character, transformed his life as profoundly and permanently as the Bhagavad Gita did. And among the many books that Gandhi read, the Gita alone became the unfailing source of strength and solace to him in the darkest hours of his life. 

And the story in the Bhagavad Gita takes place on the battlefield between the Pandava prince, Arjuna and his charioteer guide, Krishna, who's an avatar of Vishnu or God, and then he’s fighting against his own family on the other side. And this physical war has been interpreted as a symbol of inner struggle between the light and the dark. But in your opinion, must we have also a physical war between the light and the dark, or is this just an inner struggle? 

When I first picked up the Gita, my first reaction was, how could this holy Hindu scripture take place on the battlefield? Because Arjuna kind of has cold feet, right? And he's like, I don't want to fight, I wouldn't want to fight against my own family. Krishna's like, you have to fight, it's your duty to fight because you're a warrior. 

[31:52] Prakash: On a spectrum of a pacifist to a warmonger, I'm very close to a pacifist. I do not believe in war as a means for anything. And I believe this is not outside of the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. 

The Bhagavad Gita is teaching us, each of us (has) a duty. And without considering the fruits of the duty, we have to do our duty. Arjuna was the Michael Jordan of warriors. He has a name, Gudakesha, which is used by Krishna throughout the Bhagavad Gita. He calls him many different names. 

One of the names he uses to call Arjuna is Gudakesha means one who has conquered darkness and sleep. He could shoot his arrows in darkness at the bull’s eye of the target, however far it was away. Yet out of a misunderstanding of what is what, he was refusing to fight.

And this is so relevant today. If you believe, like I do, that water is the essential resource to secure our life (on) this planet and thrive as a society, then you have to fight for it. I fight for water. 

I have never owned a firearm, I'm not an archer, or not a violent person in that way, but I fight day in and day out. When my clients try to go with companies who are trying to sweep things under the carpet, I will stand there and fight ‘till they change their mind. 

And that's what the Bhagavad Gita means to me. He is not asking us to pick up an AK47 and fight, he is asking us to fight in our duty to this world. 

[33:40] Jennifer: Yeah, so fight with your duty. And it just so happens that Arjuna is an archer and that's his duty. 

[33:46] Prakash: Yes, yes, yes, that's exactly my understanding of the Bhagavad Gita. 

[33:51] Jennifer: But having said that, do you think, as the last resort, must we have a physical war? 

[33:58] Prakash: There are exceptional situations, it has to be extremely limited and focused, and it should cause as minimal harm as possible. 

Krishna practiced this, Jennifer, before the war. He submitted himself to be the messenger of peace. He took the message of Yudhishthir, the elder brother, the eldest brother of Arjuna, head of the Pandavas, and he went, Duryodhana. And he pleaded with him, don't fight. Give them a small piece of land, you own the world, you rule the world, give them five villages for five brothers. 

And Duryodhana refused to give even the five villages. And this was after he tried to disrobe their wife, Draupadi. So at that point, there was no other option but to fight for the innocent. 

[34:52] Jennifer: So going back to your comment that happiness is not proportional to the amount of money, I think the first lesson from the first chapter is “material attachment causes anxiety and makes one blind to duty.”

But I was wondering, can we talk about this concept of Vishnu Leela, which is the divine play which asserts that creation, instead of being in an objective for achieving any purpose, is rather an outcome of (the) playful nature of the Divine?  

[33:21] Prakash: The teachings of the Vedas are that each of us are perfect in our original state. We are eternal, full of bliss and full of happiness.

So Krishna, the Supreme Soul, gives us free will, because only when there is free will, there can be a loving relationship. And as a result of having free will, the living entity can choose whether to be part of the spiritual whole or try and attain happiness by itself. So for those of us who try and attain, make the latter choice, this material world is created. 

And this material world is created in some ways playfully by the Supreme - that is true. But it is created with the purpose of helping the individual living entities realize that we are actually part of this spiritual whole. It is created to kill our selfishness, our ego, and make us realize we are something way more than that. We are meant to be of service to others and the Supreme. 

That's the Vedic understanding of why the world is created. The creation itself is described beautifully in the second, third and fifth cantos of Bhagavatam. Bhagavatam or Bhagavada Purana or Srimad Bhagavatam is the postgraduate study to the Bhagavad Gita. 

[36:49] Jennifer: I've also heard Eckhart Tolle speaking, and maybe he's getting it from the Veda verses that the purpose of life is to transcend the ego, the individual ego and also the collective ego. But we're not doing so well in that department today, are we? 

[37:06] Prakash: But equivalently, it can also be said the purpose of life is happiness. Because what does it mean to transcend that false ego, it means to realize that we are full of bliss, that means happiness. 

So, yeah, for me, (the) purpose of life is very simple - happiness, and not ephemeral, temporary happiness I get out of, you know, smoking a cigarette or eating an ice cream or any of that, but permanent bliss. That's the purpose of life. 

[37:33] Jennifer: Yeah, bliss. I would say bliss, because bliss is eternal. 

There's three types of yoga that is being talked about in the Bhagavad Gita. There's the Karma Yoga, the Bhakti Yoga, which you practice, and then there's the Jnana Yoga. So the Karma Yoga is related to doing one's duty that we had talked about, taking the rightful actions. The Jnana Yoga is, I think, related to insight and wisdom and knowledge, if I'm correct. And then the Bhakti Yoga is related to love and devotion. 

Why did you consider yourself a Bhakti yogi and not a Karma yogi or a Jnana yogi?

[38:14] Prakash: Great question. A Bhakti yogi, in effect, is all three, because love encompasses action and knowledge. 

For example, even in the mundane sense, if you don't act on your love to your spouse, for example, if you don't, you know, write them a letter, buy them a gift, do them something nice, that's incomplete love. 

And if you don't have knowledge of who they are, for example, I mean, we have been married for 12 years, I know her for a lot longer than that. I strive to understand her better every day, especially recently, having two children and seeing what she has to go through and all that really taught me what she is about. 

And that knowledge of what she is about is required for me to love her. So both Jnana and Karma are subsets of Bhakti. 

[39:11] Jennifer: Hmm, beautifully said, and lucky wife. 

[39:12] Prakash: Lucky husband. 

[39:15] Jennifer: Lucky husband, lucky wife. 

Your favorite verse in the Gita is in chapter three, verse 20 and 21 - “Whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts all the world pursues.”

Why is this your favorite verse, Prakash? 

[39:35 Prakash: Because this is my mission with Gradiant is of course water, preserving the resource. But it's beyond that. Someone like Anurag who is the head of Gradiant is a person who should win.

Too often in the world, leaders set bad examples. Political leaders, obviously we all know the examples of political leaders who set bad examples for our children. But business leaders, after being so insanely successful, disappoint their wives. Ethics, morals is just not there. 

And too often those who are like Anurag, who have those things, who are moral, who are ethical, who are exemplary leaders. Anurag always puts himself below everyone else. He makes sure everyone is okay before he makes sure he is okay. People like that should win. 

So I want to make Gradiant the biggest company, not just the biggest water company. Maybe this is my craziness, the biggest company in the world. Because then that puts Anurag as the business leader. And like that verse says, whatever a leader like that does, many people follow. 

So which means there will be a revolution in consciousness. And what can be more important than that? 

[40:52] Jennifer: So a couple of things, we talked about ego-less leadership. You know, it's not realistic to have like no ego, but maybe just less ego. In a separate exchange, I asked you what is ego-less leadership? And you said ego-less leadership is about having a clear higher purpose. 

And coming to the second point about shift in consciousness in order to coexist in harmony with nature on this planet and also going forward, because I do think that nature will try to correct on its own, it will try to correct its imbalances. 

And also we need to develop a collective consciousness, not a collective ego, which is what we're seeing in certain parts of the world, but a collective consciousness. So what enables this collective consciousness? I've been thinking a lot about it and it's a lot of work on ourselves, obviously, but not everyone's hearing the message. 

So what can we do to help develop this collective consciousness? 

[41:58] Prakash: Spiritual education is first. The person who wrote the commentary to that, my favorite copy of the Bhagavad Gita, which I've read 50 times that I mentioned to you, Srila Prabhupada. He talks about developing a society, competition-less society with God in the center. Competition-less in the sense of no envy. 

Spiritual education, who we are - we are not this body, which immediately makes all of us equal, right? There's a beautiful verse in the Bhagavad Gita (5.18) vidyā-vinaya-sampanne brāhmaṇe gavi hastini śhuni chaiva śhva-pāke cha paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśhinaḥ.

A truly learned person realizes everyone is equal. Not just human beings, but also animals. All living entities are at their most basic, most fundamental sparks of energy. As soon as this education is realized, this concept, this truth is realized by everyone, automatically, all forms of racism and sexism and everything will die. 

And further, if one realizes we are all not only equal, but we are all brothers because we have a universal father in God and…

[43:25] Jennifer: And mother, on this earth, the Pachamama. 

[41:58] Prakash: We have come full circle, Gradiant in that sense is about treating our mother, Mother Earth, right? It's about restoring the balance and preserving the water she has given us for generations, too. 

[43:25] Jennifer: So, interesting because if you study and you learn from the Indigenous cultures, they believe that everything has spirit, not just the plant and the animals, but the rivers, the mountains, the rocks, the gods. 

And you know, you go to the Amazon, this is what people believe in. And then Shintoism in Japan, this is what they believe in. A piece of rock, this thing right here, has spirit. So part of my work is also trying to bring back some of the Indigenous wisdom. 

And it's because we have forgotten, we've become over-industrialized, much faster than we have evolved. But there's interconnectedness. There's this notion of, you know, inconceivable oneness, and dualism, so our relationship between the self and the Supreme. 

You talked about spiritual education, what are some of your spiritual practices? 

[44:19] Prakash: So every day I meditate on this Maha mantra, which has 16 syllables for about two hours. Oftentimes my schedule is such that I can't do it at one stretch, I break it into two, an hour at a time, so that I have taken a vow to do that for the rest of my life everyday. 

Every day I read Bhagavad Gita or the Bhagavatam. And not as a vow or anything, but that's just that I'm addicted to it, I love it, I love reading it. I try to practice all those things in life. I try to be kind and reasonable and try to work on myself from the point of view of not just causing minimal harm. 

You see, violence is also in words. There's a beautiful body of work by a gentleman called Marshall Rosenberg, nonviolent communication. Yeah, so violence is also in communication and stuff. 

[45:17] Jennifer: NVC (non-violent communication). 

[45:18] Prakash: Yes, NVC, empathic communication, I try to practice. Actually, one of my teachers in that is Yamuna's wife, Sri. She's an expert at teaching empathic communication. 

[45:30] Jennifer: Oh, I like that. Since I started following your YouTube channel on the Bhagavad Gita, I started listening to on Spotify, the chants, the Sanskrit chants, especially after the election day (chuckles). Almost every day, I literally listen to it every day. 

Okay, let’s wrap up now with some rapid fire questions. How do you balance your role as a startup founder, a husband and a father, with spirituality and service to the community? 

[46:00] Prakash: Big stones in first. If you have ever seen the video of the professor who bins a jar into his class and he questions his students. How do you fill this jar? With stones, with pebbles, with sand and with water. Big stones in first. 

[46:16] Jennifer: Okay, that's very deep. I'm going to have to meditate on that. 

Gradiant has generated over 250 patents and your name has been attached to over 150 of them. How are you so prolific? 

[46:26] Prakash: God's gift. 

[46:28] Jennifer: There you go. 

Your vision for Gradiant is access to clean, safe water as a fundamental right, not as a privilege. What is your personal vision? 

[46:37] Prakash: Service to society. 

[46:39] Jennifer: Anish wants to know, how are you so driven?

[46:41] Prakash: Gratitude for what I have received.

[46:44] Jennifer: Okay, with Gradiant valued over a billion dollars, have you experienced how money or power can corrupt? And if so, how do you stave off that corrupting influence? 

[46:55] Prakash: It's very important to take part of that money and give back (to) philanthropy, I do that through the BMS retreat, but also through other means. 

Second, like I said, happiness is not proportional to money. I say that to myself and my wife and my friends everyday almost. 

[47:12] Jennifer: I love that you're a very charitable person. You've sponsored over 300 people at the BMS retreats. What does service mean to you? 

[47:20] Prakash: Service means pleasing the Supreme. 

[47:33] Jennifer: If you had unlimited money and power, what would you do? 

[47:23] Prakash: I definitely would not sponsor a US Presidential candidate. 

[47:32] Jennifer: Awesome. Do you feel that your existential questions have been answered? 

[47:36] Prakash: I'm getting there. I'm farther along than I was 10 years ago. Hopefully in another 10 years, I'll be further along. It's a journey. 

[47:44] Jennifer: Okay, and what is a non-dimensional number? 

[47:48] Prakash: Like anything has a unit. One meter, one liter of water, one terabyte of data. A non-dimensional number doesn't have a unit. It's a ratio, and the numerator and denominator cancel each other. 

[48:01] Jennifer: Okay, awesome. This is, like, really difficult. I know you love to give away books, tell us your favorite books over the years. 

[48:10] Prakash: Man's Search for Meaning (by) Viktor Frankl. Bhagavad Gita, of course. When I was younger, I read this Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 

[48:18] Jennifer: That's right. 

[48:19] Prakash: It's a humorous book, but I also thought somehow it was about existential thinking and who I am. The book comes to a very weird conclusion that the whole world is a computer, except for I don't agree with that, but it's one of the books that helps you think, you know. 

[48:34] Jennifer: So I love that. I also love Viktor Frankl. And last but not least, what does the Founder Spirit mean to you? Make it rapid fire. 

[48:42] Prakash: Societal impact over money. 

[48:46] Jennifer: Societal impact over money. 

We're now coming to the end of our interview, and as you know, we end every episode with a quote. And for this episode, we have a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian lawyer and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule.

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world. 

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

Prakash, many thanks for coming on the Founder Spirit podcast today, and inspiring us with your entrepreneurial journey, educating us on the scarcity of water around the world and your thoughts on ego-less leadership. Thank you so much! 

[49:31] Prakash: Thank you so much, I'm very grateful. Hare Krishna.

[49:33] Jennifer: Hare Krishna.

If this podcast has been beneficial or valuable to you, feel free to become a patron and support us on Patreon.com, that is P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/TheFounderSpirit. 

As always, you can find us on Apple, Amazon and Spotify, as well as social media and our website at TheFounderSpirit.com. 

The Founder Spirit podcast is a partner of the Villars Institute, a nonprofit foundation focused on accelerating the transition to a net-zero and nature positive economy and restoring planetary health. 

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