What is a Beautiful Nerd, exactly?

Episode zero of the Beautiful Nerds Podcast is here to explain all (sort of).

• Beautiful Nerd's Origin Story in Power BI DC
• Why the speaker community is so dang lovely
• How season one of Beautiful Nerds will help fill in that conference and community event hole in your podcasting life with interview highlights from the Fall 2025 conference season.

Welcome, you beautiful nerd! I'm glad you're here.

Lakshmi's secret weapon is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi named Casper. At least he would be if Lakshmi wasn't already her own secret weapon.

This episode covers

• Lakshmi's speaker origin story
• Navigating language barriers in the tech community
• Overlapping challenges between ESL and Neurodiversity
• How Lakshmi's 31 days of KPIs challenged her, and when she'd recommend throwing in the towel.

Note: this episode was recorded while Lakshmi and I were sitting on her living room floor playing with Casper the dog. If you listen closely, you'll hear some occasional panting from Casper himself:)