Leadership Lessons from Show Business - A Conversation with Steven Puri

Leadership Lessons from Show Business

In this episode, Tom and Adrienne chat with Steven Puri and trace his unexpected path from a "code monkey" in Northern Virginia to an Academy Award–winning visual-effects producer and later a tech entrepreneur.

Steven shares how he bridged left-brain engineering and right-brain creativity on films like Independence Day, Braveheart, and several David Fincher projects. He reflects on lessons learned in Hollywood—managing creatives, nurturing "lightbulb" moments, and building culture—that carry over into hybrid and remote leadership.

Long before remote work became a buzzword, Steven was orchestrating VFX teams across studios in Los Angeles, London, and Sydney, balancing creative, financial, and logistical mindsets over distance—an early test of distributed leadership that today's managers face.

Throughout the conversation, candid anecdotes like the famed "Bart" trailer story illustrate why inviting every voice can spark game-changing ideas. As our work (and often our brains) has scattered in today's culture, Steven is dedicated to bringing us the tools for intentional focus.

Here are a few of the gems gleaned from this fun and flowing conversation:

• Embrace Diverse Talents: Success in both film and tech comes from uniting creatives, technical experts, and business minds around a shared goal, much like assembling a movie crew.
• Manage Creativity with Intention: Great leaders know how to create the right environment for creativity—sometimes by giving people more than one project, or by encouraging "rubber ducking" (talking through problems out loud).
• Best Idea Wins Culture: The most effective teams foster a safe space where anyone, regardless of role, can contribute ideas—echoing Steven Spielberg's approach of valuing input from everyone, even the "coffee boy."
• Hire for Passion and Culture Fit: Skills can be developed, but passion and alignment with the team's mission are essential. Hiring the right people is more important than micromanaging.
• Purposeful Markers and Storytelling: Leaders should set clear markers and use storytelling to help teams understand where they are and where they're going, just as a film uses acts and foreshadowing.
• Active Listening is Key: The best leaders practice active listening, seeking feedback from users, team members, and even critics, and using it to improve.
• Leadership is a Practice: Leadership isn't just a set of concepts—it's something you do and refine every day, much like honing a craft in show business.

Steven is the Founder and CEO of The Sukha Company with the mission to help millions of people find their focus, achieve more and have a healthy work life.

Steven's career started as a newscaster/interviewer for the #1 youth news show in the DC/Baltimore market (on WTTG-TV) and then as a junior software engineer & Thomas J. Watson Scholar at IBM.  After attending USC in Los Angeles, he began working in film production and produced computer-generated visual effects for 14 movies including Independence Day which won the Academy Award for Visual Effects.  

Steven's first tech company was Centropolis Effects that produced those CGI effects, and he eventually sold it to the German media conglomerate Das Werk when he was 28.

Steven then produced some indie films and eventually went studio-side to develop and produce live-action features as a VP of Development & Production at 20th Century Fox (running the Die Hard and Wolverine franchises) and an EVP at DreamWorks Pictures for Kurtzman-Orci Productions where he worked on Star Trek, Transformers and more.

After Fox, Steven returned to building tech companies and founded The Sukha Company - 'sukha' means 'happiness from self-fulfillment' in Sanskrit.  The Sukha is a focus app that bundles all the tools necessary to have a focused experience and a healthy, productive workday.

Steven lives in Austin, TX now.

Connect with Steven: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stev