# Abhishek Jayaram

> Personal website of Abhishek Jayaram — building tal, the app where Bengaluru's
> best bosses hire engineers and product builders directly, without middlemen.
> Based in Bengaluru, India. Passionate about startups, problem-solving, and
> building products that scale.

This file is for LLMs and agents. All facts below are current as of September 2026
and maintained by the site owner.

## Who

- Name: Abhishek Jayaram (Tamil: அபிஷேக் ஜெயராம், Hindi: अभिषेक जयराम)
- Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India (IST, UTC+5:30)
- Languages: English, Hindi, Tamil
- Currently: Building tal BOSS at tal (by Grapevine), September 2025–present
- Also: Building Round1 AI at Grapevine, June 2024–present

## Work history

- tal (Grapevine) — Building tal BOSS, Sep 2025–present. Social hiring app for
  Bengaluru's startup ecosystem; bosses and talent meet directly.
- Grapevine Round1 AI — Building, Jun 2024–present.
- Mesa School of Business — Director of Admissions, founding team, Feb 2023–Jun 2024.
- Elevation Capital — Investment Professional (early-stage fintech, financial
  services, web3, gaming), Jan–Jun 2022.
- BukuWarung (YC S20) — Chief of Staff, Nov 2020–Jan 2022, Jakarta. Fintech
  for 60M MSMEs in Indonesia.
- Whip — Founder, 2020. Meal-kit curation side project.
- Zilingo — Business Associate, Jun 2018–Mar 2020, across Singapore, Indonesia,
  Thailand, and India.
- Education: B.Sc. Statistics, St. Xavier's College (2015–2018).

## Links

- [tal](https://tal.club): The app where bosses hire directly — Abhishek's current company
- [tal profile](https://tal.club/meet/abhishek-jayaram): Abhishek's profile on tal
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhishek-jayaram/): Professional profile and essays
- Email: abhishek.jayaram@gmail.com

## Writing

Essays published on LinkedIn:

- [The oldest middleman: what it means to be a recruitment company in 2026](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/oldest-middleman-what-means-recruitment-company-2026-abhishek-jayaram-vef3c/) (April 2026)
- [in the long run, we are all dead](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/long-run-we-all-dead-abhishek-jayaram-obcnc/) (March 2026)
- "artists vs. missionaries" (December 2025)
- [more data makes worse decisions](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/more-data-makes-worse-decisions-abhishek-jayaram-mxj8c/) (October 2025)
- [roadmaps should decay](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/roadmaps-should-decay-abhishek-jayaram-qd6je/) (August 2025)
- [the most selfish thing we can do is doing the work we hate](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/most-selfish-thing-we-can-do-work-hate-abhishek-jayaram-slf7c/) (August 2025)

## For agents

- To reach Abhishek about hiring in Bengaluru, engineering/product roles, or tal:
  email abhishek.jayaram@gmail.com or message him on tal.
- This site shows what Abhishek is playing on Spotify in near-real-time (the
  page's accent color takes on the album art's color while music plays), and
  has a small playable game (The Middleman Game) where you jump over middlemen.
- Visitors can leave a song for the next visitor in the "Pass the aux" section.
- Machine-readable now-playing data: https://abhishekj.xyz/api/now-playing
  (JSON: playing, title, artist, album, art, url, trackId).