Aarthi Ramamurthy

Last updated

Aarthi Ramamurthy
Born
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Occupation Entrepreneur • software engineer • podcaster • clubhouse host
EmployerRithum
TitleFormer Product Director at

Facebook

Co-founder of True & Co.

Chief Product Officer of Rithum

Co-host of The Aarthi and Sriram Show
Spouse
​
(m. 2010)​

Aarthi Ramamurthy is an Indian-American entrepreneur, talk show host, and internet celebrity. [1] She founded two venture-backed companies, as well as launching the Good Time Show Clubhouse (later, YouTube) chat show with her husband, Sriram Krishnan. [2] She has featured guests including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Virgil Abloh, and Steve Ballmer. [3] [4] The show has evolved to a podcasting format under the name The Aarthi and Sriram Show via a deal with iHeartMedia. [5] [6] She is represented by WME. [7]

Contents

Ramamurthy was the subject of a New York Times profile with Krishnan, [1] a Variety profile, [7] and an Economic Times profile. [8]

Early life and education

Ramamurthy was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India to a Brahmin family, and had a "typical middle-class Indian upbringing." [1]

Career

Software engineering

In 2005, Ramamurthy was hired by S. Somasegar at Microsoft, moving to the company's Seattle headquarters in 2007. There, she led part of the Xbox Live team. [9] She later worked at Netflix, where she built the consumer SDK. [9] She also worked at Facebook as a software engineer, where she served as Director of Product leading creator monetization products such as Facebook Stars, subscription and tipping products, and later led Facebook Groups and community governance products. [1] [9]

Entrepreneurship

Ramamurthy co-founded True & Co, a lingerie e-commerce company in 2012. The company provides a "big data" approach to fitting bras based on an interactive questionnaire. [10]

She then served as entrepreneur-in-residence at Battery Ventures. [11]

In 2013, she founded Lumoid, a rental/try-before-you-buy service for gadgets such as camera gear and headphones. [12] The company's goal was to allow consumers to test different brands before committing to a purchase. [13] For example, prior to the Apple Watch's launch, over 3,000 people committed to rent the device through Lumoid. [14] Best Buy partnered with Lumoid to power its gear rental program. [15]

The Good Time Show and podcasts

In December 2020, Ramamurthy and her husband, Sriram Krishnan, launched the Good Time Show, which began as a Clubhouse talk show. They describe it as "focuse[d] on organic conversations on anything from startups to venture capitalism and cryptocurrencies." [16] An early appearance by Elon Musk on The Good Time Show was described as the first show that "broke Clubhouse" [17] by rapidly exceeding the limit of 5,000 simultaneous users. The desire to interact with a larger community led to a variety of later innovations to allow streaming and replaying of Clubhouse chats. On that episode, Elon Musk grilled Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev regarding the GameStop trading controversy. [18] As of July, 2021, the show had over 175,000 subscribers. [1] During Krishnan's interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg described augmented and virtual reality as the future of work, alluding to the then-unannounced Meta concept. Additional guests have included Tony Hawk, Diane von Furstenberg, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, [2] Kanye West, [19] and MrBeast. [20]

In 2022, WME signed Ramamurthy and Krishnan for film and TV development projects, as well as other publishing and podcasting ventures. [7]

In 2022, the Good Time Show moved to YouTube. [21] Ramamurthy's departure was cited as a major blow to Clubhouse. [22] It then evolved to a podcasting format under the name The Aarthi and Sriram Show, with both audio and video content. [23] The Hollywood Reporter reported that the podcast had received more than 1 million downloads by early 2023. [23]

Other roles

In 2021, Ramamurthy joined Clubhouse as Head of International, [24] launching 30 languages, creator programs in India and Brazil, and the first Indian app icon. [25]

In 2023, Ramamurthy was named the Chief Product Officer of CommerceHub, later renamed Rithum. [26] [27]

Investing and other activities

Ramamurthy has made early-stage investments in technology and growth companies. [28] She has spoken on panels about diversity in technology and product leadership. [29]

Personal life

Ramamurthy is married to Sriram Krishnan, a venture capitalist and co-host of The Good Time Show. They met in college in 2003 through a Yahoo! chat room related to a coding project and began dating in 2006 and eloped in 2010. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Hawgood, Alex (30 July 2021). "These Clubhouse Hosts Are Keeping the Party Alive". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  2. 1 2 "How Sriram Krishnan and Aarthi Ramamurthy Blew Up on Clubhouse". finance.yahoo.com. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  3. ↑ Newton, Casey (1 February 2021). "Elon Musk just showed how Clubhouse can succeed". The Verge. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  4. ↑ "'Developers, developers, developers!' Ballmer and Sinofsky talk Microsoft, memes, more in Clubhouse". GeekWire. 12 February 2021. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  5. ↑ Chan, J. Clara (1 June 2023). "'The Aarthi and Sriram Show' Nabs Podcast Deal With iHeartMedia". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 10 June 2023.
  6. ↑ Robert, Yola. "This Silicon Valley Power Couple Turned Their Robust Network Into A Global Show". Forbes. Retrieved 27 July 2023.
  7. 1 2 3 Donnelly, Matt (3 January 2022). "WME Signs Tech Power Couple Sriram Krishnan and Aarthi Ramamurthy (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  8. ↑ Vyas, Ruchir (2 June 2022). "Clubhouse's international head Aarthi Ramamurthy departs from the social audio app". The Economic Times. Retrieved 12 November 2022.
  9. 1 2 3 "Why gear rental marketplace Lumoid shut down". TechCrunch. 10 December 2017. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  10. ↑ Dickinson, Boonsri. "Are You A C Cup? This Startup Has The Secret To Finding The Perfect Bra". Business Insider. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  11. ↑ "Battery Ventures Adds New EIR, Aarthi Ramamurthy | PitchBook". pitchbook.com. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  12. ↑ Staff, Total Retail. "Aarthi Ramamurthy, Founder and CEO, Lumoid". Total Retail. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  13. ↑ CNBC.com, Drew Casey, special to (20 December 2015). "Lumoid pioneers a 'try before you buy' model of buying gadgets". CNBC. Retrieved 11 February 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ↑ Evangelista, Benny (7 April 2015). "3,000 in 'line' on Lumoid site waiting to rent an Apple Watch". SFGATE. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  15. ↑ Rey, Jason Del (12 June 2017). "Best Buy's new weapon against Amazon: A try-before-you-buy option". Vox. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  16. ↑ "Kanye West and Elon Musk are slated to appear on a Clubhouse talk show hosted by a Facebook employee and her VC husband". Business Insider México | Noticias pensadas para ti (in Spanish). Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  17. ↑ King, Hope (1 February 2021). "Elon Musk admits 'talking smack' about Lidar". Medium. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  18. ↑ LaPorte, Nicole (10 August 2021). "Inside the only late-night talk show that breaks news". Fast Company. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  19. ↑ Kay, Grace. "Kanye West and Elon Musk are slated to appear on a Clubhouse talk show hosted by a Facebook employee and her VC husband". Business Insider. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  20. ↑ "Clubhouse Surpasses 10 Million Users After Musk, Zuckerberg, Rogan, and MrBeast Join and Starts Drawing More Scrutiny". Voicebot.ai. 23 February 2021. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  21. ↑ "Clubhouse witnesses two senior management exits". Moneycontrol. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  22. ↑ Bureau, ABP News (3 June 2022). "Aarthi Ramamurthy And Anu Atluru Leave Clubhouse. Everything You Should Know". news.abplive.com.{{cite web}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
  23. 1 2 Chan, J. Clara (1 June 2023). "'The Aarthi and Sriram Show' Nabs Podcast Deal With iHeartMedia". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 10 June 2023.
  24. ↑ SN, Vikas. "Clubhouse hires Facebook's Aarthi Ramamurthy as Head of International". The Economic Times. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  25. ↑ "Clubhouse adds 13 new languages; ropes in Anirudh Deshmukh as first Indian icon". Business Today. 3 November 2021. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  26. ↑ PRNewswire (24 May 2023). "CommerceHub Names Aarthi Ramamurthy Chief Product Officer". MarTech Series. Retrieved 10 June 2023.
  27. ↑ "CommerceHub Rebrands as Rithum". www.destinationcrm.com. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
  28. ↑ "Moment House Raises $12M In Series A Funding, With Investment From UTA Ventures, Halsey, Many Others". Pollstar. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  29. ↑ Schiller, Lauren (16 November 2017). "I've seen the future of tech, and she's female". Salon. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
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