Curiosity, Risk/Pivot, and Resilience | Somnathan Krishnamoorthy | TEDxCMRNPU Youth
Former Indian Air Force pilot Somnathan Krishnamoorthy shares his journey from military service to corporate leadership, emphasizing how curiosity, risk-taking/pivoting, and resilience enabled him to navigate career transitions through flying, disaster relief operations, event management, business school, and tech companies like Amazon. His talk demonstrates how these three principles helped him adapt to diverse challenges from tsunami relief operations to AI/ML development.
Summary
Somnathan Krishnamoorthy, a former Indian Air Force pilot turned corporate executive, delivers his first TEDx talk on three core principles that guided his career journey. He begins by establishing his background - transitioning from military service to corporate roles at Amazon and ResMed, while acknowledging his nervousness about public speaking versus his comfort with sixth graders' questions.
The speaker frames his entire narrative around three themes: curiosity (learn, unlearn, anticipate), risk/pivot (prepare, execute, learn, repeat), and resilience (dealing with setbacks and comebacks). He extensively discusses how flying taught him to 'read the present' through constant environmental awareness and situational assessment, comparing cockpit awareness to life skills of monitoring instruments while being aware of external conditions like weather, terrain, and other aircraft.
Krishnamoorthy provides several concrete examples of these principles in action. During the 2004 tsunami relief operations in the Andaman Islands, he had to quickly assimilate information and prioritize diverse needs (medicine, food, water, rescue) in an unfamiliar environment with limited information. Later, he transitioned from pilot to event manager for the Bangalore International Air Show, working with diverse stakeholders from IT to entertainment to security, requiring him to understand different organizational cultures and integrate them for flawless execution.
His career pivots demonstrate calculated risk-taking: choosing military service over traditional engineering despite being the first and last in his family to serve, attempting to transition from pilot to US business school (Boston College admission with scholarship that was blocked by Air Force personnel shortages), eventually completing his MBA at IIM Ahmedabad, and transitioning to corporate roles in renewable energy, AI/ML at Amazon (working on Alexa's shopping functionality, improving accuracy from 40% to 98%), and healthcare technology at ResMed focusing on elderly patient care systems.
The resilience theme emerges through multiple setbacks: being denied the US education opportunity, graduating during COVID-19 lockdown with no campus placements, and navigating organizational changes at Amazon. He emphasizes that setbacks continue to 'rankle' but require moving forward, citing Rudyard Kipling's 'If' poem about risking everything on 'one turn of pitch and toss.' His talk concludes with advice to 'be humble, be grateful, and be empathetic' while explicitly stating he's not recruiting for the Air Force but sharing universal principles for career navigation.
Key Insights
- Flying taught him that you must constantly read the present by monitoring instruments while being aware of external conditions like weather, terrain, and other aircraft, which the Air Force calls 'situational awareness'
- During tsunami relief operations, he had to quickly prioritize hundreds of competing needs (medicine, food, water, rescue) while operating with limited information in an unfamiliar environment
- Managing the Bangalore International Air Show required working with phenomenally diverse stakeholders from IT to entertainment to security, each with their own processes, limitations and biases
- At Amazon, he worked on improving Alexa's shopping functionality from 40% accuracy to 98% accuracy, taking users from initial question to 'pay now' situation
- The Air Force blocked his admission to Boston College due to pilot shortages, a setback that still 'rankles even today' but led him to eventually attend IIM Ahmedabad instead
Topics
Transcript
[0:01] I'm sure it must be relieved last month. Huh? We can go home and enjoy our Saturday. Uh before we get started, uh I hope to match the energy with the RJ brought in and the smells and sights of food that saw me and talked about and the previous speakers, the lawyer and the gentleman who ran. Uh so that puts a lot of pressure but it gave me time to think oh this is how a TETA talk happens. TED talk happens. First disclaimer, first time on TEDex and in the world of Zoom [0:33] calls and team calls and now the last time I stood and spoke yesterday was with sixth graders but they asked me…
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