Piyush Patel, Intellectual Man of Mastery
The scene: late 1970s London. A young man furrows his brow as he studies a map of the United States, searching for his future. He’s looking for the most auspicious city for he and his wife to launch their new adventure and raise their two young boys, while pursuing their entrepreneurial American dreams. This visionary young man is father to Piyush Patel, whom you’ll meet shortly.
In a “Eureka!” moment, Patel’s father finds the perfect place: El Reno, Oklahoma. “My dad saw that the two major highways in the United States, Hwy. 81 and Rt. 66, cross right here in El Reno. He decided that’s where we should go,” says Patel, whose own remarkable story sprang from his parents’ plucky decision. The Patel family opened a small hotel, a couple of blocks from that fateful crossroads. “My dad was literally like, ‘Let’s go to the middle of America. That’s where all the cars are going to pass.’”
Fantastical? Not if you’re a Patel. Father and son alike have the rare ability to evaluate data, toss in a dash of imagination and find enormous opportunity. They think fast and find solutions. Like moving to El Reno. It was from this little Oklahoma hometown that young Piyush began to dream.
His bedroom walls were covered with ingeniously repurposed pictures of sports cars. “Growing up, I really wanted car posters,” he remembers. But the family didn’t have funds for extravagances like that. “So my dad said, ‘What we can do is go to the library, and ask for the Car and Driver magazines that they’re going to throw away. And those can be your posters.’” And I remember thinking ‘One day, I’m going to have these sports cars.’” And he does. Six, including a McLaren, a Ferrari and a Lamborghini.
Clearly, one of Patel’s superpowers is harnessing the improbable. Need more evidence? Here’s the story of how he met Lisa, his wife of more than 25 years. For someone whose first entrepreneurial foray was digital illustration instruction for visual effects and animation, their meeting was remarkably … analog. Of course, it was in the ’80s.
“My wife and I were eighth grade pen pals back in the early ’80s,” he says, smiling. At the time, the OU-Nebraska football rivalry was a major thing, and Lisa is from Nebraska. “Her assignment for her writing classroom was to pick a school and write them a letter.” Lisa picked Norman on a map of Oklahoma, but then moved her finger a smidge to the left. For the second time in his young life, someone pointed to El Reno on a map and changed Patel’s life.
“There were three sections of eighth grade English, and I was in the section that got her letter. And the teacher said, ‘Alright, everybody write her back.’ So we all wrote her a letter … and she wrote me back, and I wrote her back. And we did that until we were freshmen in college. I’d never seen a picture of her. And I just remember that before I met her, I was talking to her on the phone and I hung up the phone and I looked at my buddy and I said, ‘I’m gonna marry this girl.’ And he goes, ‘You’re out of your mind.’” That buddy would be the best man at the Patels’ wedding.
Although his career has been staggeringly successful, money was never Patel’s driver. It’s part of what makes him such an interesting study. He launched his company, Digital-Tutors, during the dot-com heyday of the early aughts, unwittingly creating a delivery platform whose value soon made itself known, eventually outshining the teaching content.
At first, the company, which offered digital effects and illustration classes, mailed lessons to clients on DVDs, which was cumbersome and limited the company’s ability to grow. In 2000, with encouragement from a student, he posted the videos online and his company Digital-Tutors soon became the world’s largest digital training library, used by global companies including Pixar, NASA, Microsoft and Dreamworks.
“We were like four years before YouTube. Little did we know we had built the first YouTube, right?” he asks. “But in reality, we were so concerned with the content that we were like, ‘No, no, people only want the content, not this platform.’” Of course, the realization soon struck that it was the streaming platform that was the real game-changer.
What happened next? Fast forward to 2014. “I get this call one day and the guy said, ‘Hey, we’d like to buy your company.’ And I distinctly remember saying, ‘It’s hard to buy something that’s not for sale’ … I had 42 full-time employees here in Oklahoma City, and 500 contractors all around the world.” Six weeks later, Patel had sold the company. “A lot of it was just the realization that if something was to happen to me, there was really no way for my wife to turn that equity into cash. She wouldn’t know how to run the company. My son was too young at the time, so I had no exit plan.”
Plus, the interested party, Pluralsight LLC, gave Patel 45 million excellent reasons to sell. Today, he pursues new dreams: “I work as a mentor and advisor for entrepreneurs at all stages in their careers. I help business leaders realize their own dreams, and I give them the tools to help make that possible,” he says.
As of this writing, the Patels have founded and sold a ground-breaking company, raised their son Nick, now a college student, built an exquisite home more akin to a luxurious mountain resort, bought a vineyard and produced their own house wines, plus they now live a stone’s throw from Patel’s parents, for whom he also built a home. Patel is also an award-winning author, sought-after motivational speaker and coach, and is now working toward a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, after which he will pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. “My goal is to open a practice where I exclusively work with founders and entrepreneurs and their families.” He’s got a slew of ideas, and he’s running full throttle into the future.
The LUXIERE List: About That House
Luxiere went one-on-one with Travis Neely, whose firm Neely+Queen Interior Design worked with the Patels to bring their dream home to life.
LUXIERE: The Patel home is in a league of its own — could you outline for our readers a few of its truly unique features/design elements?
TN: Thank you so much for your kind words. Their home is truly remarkable. One of the most inspirational design elements of the home became evident throughout the building process, and has become the defining feature for the Patels. A significant amount of steel was used to construct the home: exterior beams defining the curb appeal, beams in the entry and living area and the structural support for the floating staircase. The steel arrived on site with a reddish protective coating, and as the home started taking shape, Piyush came to us and stated he wanted to keep the steel red. He had grown to love it and wanted it to be highlighted. We therefore selected a more permanent red coating for all exposed steel, and #redsteelhouse was born. We then incorporated a bit of red into nearly every room.
LUXIERE: Was there a vibe you were going for?
TN: From architectural concept to the completed home, the Patels had a fairly significant evolution in their aesthetic desire. They travel often, and over the course of the initial design phase, when the floorplan was being developed in conjunction with Bockus Payne Architecture, they would come back with pictures of spaces they liked from the hotels in which they stayed. These photographs became the springboard for the design inspiration. The final goal was to create a personal resort for the Patels where they could live in the luxury they enjoyed while traveling. Upon completion, Piyush thanked us for helping create an oasis for their family.
LUXIERE: What were the most important things for the Patels?
TN: The Patels truly love to entertain, so they needed the square footage to accommodate large gatherings; however, it was incredibly important for them to feel comfortable in their home from day to day. Though some of the spaces are quite large, great care was taken to space plan and fully design each room to be inviting and useable.
As an example, in the entertainment suite of the home, a variety of areas were laid out to provide multiple conversation areas for guests to gather, yet they also function nicely for daily use. There is a seating group which can also function as a second living area. Off to the side is a restaurant quality bar where a professional bartender can be brought in to tend parties, and it also functions nicely for the Patels to fix drinks for themselves. Another area facilitates video game play where two televisions are positioned in an opposing 90-degree angle to keep players from seeing what each other is doing, a request of Piyush for the games he plays with his son.
Also in this area is a vestibule leading to their state-of-the-art theater. At the time it was built, it was the only privately owned
Dolby Atmos theater installed in Oklahoma. The cinematic experience is incomparable. The entertainment suite also has a large, sliding glass door that leads to the show car garage where Piyush keeps his favorite cars. This door can be opened to accommodate even more guests when necessary.
Piyush also thrives in the kitchen. He often includes his dinner guests in portions of the meal preparation process, so he asked for a large, highly functional kitchen with multiple “zones” to enable others to be involved. The solution includes a more formal side where all of the daily use items are positioned. The focal point of this area is a large U-shaped island in the core where the cooktop is centrally positioned with plenty of countertops for others to congregate. The backdrop is a pizza oven encased in book matched granite. The second half of the kitchen is a scullery with an assortment of other items that may not be utilized as frequently. This area can also function as a catering kitchen for larger parties.
LUXIERE: Which elements/ideas/directions do you find the most magical?
TN: As I mentioned, the theater is my favorite space in the home. I love film, and treasure the cinematic experience even more. I hold
certification from THX in home theater design, and creating a home theater that is not only aesthetically pleasing but also acoustically optimal is something I truly enjoy.
Overall, the Patels were simply incredible clients! They afforded us the opportunity to pay intricate attention to every aspect of their home, including detailed space planning, custom ceiling details, custom lighting features, custom knives cut to create one-of-a-kind baseboards and so much more. Also, I would be remiss without stating the opportunity to work with Tom Krone Construction on this project was one of the highlights of my career. His attention to detail feeds my soul.