Deep, Dark Thoughts On Being Different
By: Dharmesh Shah
Tags: Diversity, Inclusion, Entrepreneurship, Recruiting, Culture

I’ve been different since the day I was born.

I was born in Ankleshwar, Gujarat, a tiny town in India. I don’t know what the population was back then, but it was probably fewer than 10,000 people. We had one somewhat-paved road. There were no traffic lights or stop signs. My mom’s family lived at the end of a dusty lane. There was no hospital nearby and even if there had been, I don’t know that my mom would have gone to it. So, I was delivered at home. She had a mid-wife to help (who was a family friend). There was no doctor. I was the first child, and my mom was 18 at the time.

In the photo below, my mom is in the bottom left. That kid looking somewhere else is me. My grandmother is the person between us (she’s rockin’ it at 94 years old now and is one of the sharpest people I know).

I was an odd child in many ways. The one thing my parents remember about me is that I was very quiet, shy and kept to myself. One thing my mom said (when she was alive, she passed away recently): “I could sit you in a corner and come back two hours later — and you’d still be there. You didn’t need toys or anything. You would sit there and think. We never did figure out what you thought about.” Interestingly, I have no recollection of any of that. I can hardly remember anything from before I was about 10 years old.

I remained “different” in most of those early years for as far back as I can recall.

I think I’ve worn a tie during three periods of my life. Early childhood was one of them.

The Depths I Went To, To Not Be Different

I’m 50 years old now. For more than half of my life (over 25 years), I mostly saw being different as a problem. Being different was not a good thing. It was something I needed to work on and solve. I devoted considerable energy to that goal — with some “success”.

A few notable examples:

1.When I came to the United States from India I had an Indian accent. Not surprising, Gujarati (a language from my home state of Gujarat in India) was my mother tongue. What was surprising was that I decided to deliberately “fix” that accent. I didn’t get any formal coaching or anything, but I made an intentional effort and as is my obsessive way, I really dug in. Took some time, but after a while, I have what I think of as the “flat, no-accent accent”. Almost a newscaster accent. Fun fact: I subsequently lived in Alabama for 10+ years (where I met my wife, Kirsten). During that time, I made absolutely sure not to get a southern accent. I hadn’t worked for all that time to get rid of one accent only to acquire another.

2.At the same time (after my initial move here), I decided to give myself a less different first name. Dharmesh was kind of strange (I thought) and it was kind of a dead give away that I was different. So, I came up with a name for myself. I wanted something to start with a “D” (so my initials remained the same). I was looking for the equivalent of the no-accent accent. You know what I came up with? David. Yep. For many of those early years here in the U.S. I was David Shah. In fact, colleagues that I worked with back then still know me as David Shah. They have no idea who the heck “Dharmesh Shah” is.

Note: I did not legally change my name, because I didn’t know that was a thing that people did or could do. Had I known that, I might have considered it. I just went by “David”.

3.Then, there was facial hair — or the absence thereof. I had facial hair as a teen growing up. But, I went clean-shaven when I got to the U.S. and stayed that way for many years. Why? Because I thought I would “fit in” better. Later, I shaved sporadically. After some reflection years later, I realized that the times I chose to shave weren’t just “random”. There was a high correlation between when I shaved and when I was going to get on a plane (I traveled a lot for business back then). My dad had told me many, many times that when I didn’t shave, “I looked like a terrorist.” My mom would disagree: “He doesn’t have the eyes of a terrorist.”. I don’t know what the eyes of a terrorist look like, but I guess I’m glad my mom didn’t think I had them (though she may have been biased). In hindsight, I should have called my parents out for drawing stereotypes, but I had a long list of other grievances with my parents (as many children do) and that didn’t really make it high on the list.

Being Different…Again

That all brings me to my point.

I eventually realized that being different could be an asset, just as my willingness to spend time alone as a child still helps me to do this day. I like the name Dharmesh. I shave whenever the heck I want to (which is once every almost never.) And while I didn’t go back to my Indian accent (that felt disingenuous), I stood on stage at INBOUND last year and talked about my mom, because although she’s no longer with us, her impact on who I am, my heritage, how I speak, lead, and write — is still very much a part of me, and I’m proud of that. People often assume that people like me are comfortable talking about diversity and inclusion because it impacts us so deeply. We are expected to be the torch-bearers.

Quick joke: How many Indian family members can you fit in a photo? Answer: At least two more. Don’t worry, I know I’m stereotyping — it’s OK, I’m Indian, I’m allowed to make fun of my own. Them’s the rules and I don’t make the rules.

There are a couple of challenges I’ve had in trying to be a champion for diversity inside and outside of HubSpot. First of all, I’ve (misguidedly) thought that pushing for diversity was in a way a bit of selfish, since in a way, I’d be advocating for myself. I’m not exactly sure how I got that silly thought into my head — but it got lodged there somehow. Second, I’ve spent so many years trying to not be different that it felt very unnatural to then run around telling people they should celebrate their differences. “Do as I now do, not as I did…”

My Take On Diversity

I’ve read a lot of the literature on diversity and inclusion. I’ve watched YouTube videos. I’ve engaged in some friendly debate. The evidence is strong and growing: diverse teams do better. Especially at scale. So, it should be no surprise that I’m in support of diversity at HubSpot. Most of my time and almost all of my ego and identity is tied to the success of HubSpot and I do whatever I can to help HubSpot. And it’s clear to me that our success is highly correlated to our ability to attract and retain a diverse pool of smart, passionate, caring people people.

But I’d be lying if I said that business performance was the only reason I’m in support of diversity.

I’m a red-blooded capitalist, but I’m a warm-hearted, red-blooded capitalist.

I support diversity because I fundamentally believe it’s the right and fair thing. Or, said differently, homogeneity — whereby you hire people based largely on how much they’re the same as you, is wrong. In some cases, it’s actually illegal.

My version of MLK’s “I Have A Dream” speech (which I have watched at least a hundred times — no exaggeration):

I have a dream that one day, people will know that it’s not just OK to be different, it’s better. That they will succeed based on the value they create and the values they hold, and won’t be judged on the strength of their accent, the depth of their introversion or their taste in 1980s action movies.

Don’t worry, I’m not quitting my day job anytime soon and becoming a speechwriter (that’s partly because nobody knows what my day job actually is). But, whatever it is, I love my job. Except the part where I have to get up in front of an audience of 20,000+ people every now and then at our annual INBOUND event. Like this time… (although this time, I had a lot of fun with it and once again got to sneak in a Monty Python reference). In terms of being different from your run-of-the-mill company keynote, I think this does pretty well. I’m somewhat proud of it. I’ve come a long ways from the toddler me who would sit under dining room tables for hours.

INBOUND18 Keynote (an introvert presents to 24,000+ people)

One Last Thing

A parting message. I did not start HubSpot with my friend and classmate Brian Halligan so that the company could mold everyone that joined the company into perfect little worker units by driving out their differences. We did it because we wanted to create a company that had impact and that would grow beyond us. And, diverse teams and diverse thinking (can’t have one without the other) endures.