Work's a joke anyway, so they made it a game!

How to Lend Money to Strangers

Brendan le Grange

Credit, Fintech, Management, Lending, Banking, Business, Careers

5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Suren Rastogi started his career in financial services, but, called to do something a little more exciting, he has broken away to pursue his dream of launching a board game. We'll talk about his roots, his pivot, and what it took to create Burnout: a chaotic strategic party game about mental health and the daily grind.

Head on over to https://www.burnoutgame.com/ to get on the waitlist, it's the perfect office Secret Santa gift!

Follow the team on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/end_burnout/

And follow Suren on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/surenrastogi/ - you can chat to him about game development, corporate tie-ins, and just about anything to be honest.

I'm on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

And if you're interested in other lending folk following their dreams, check out Gideon's episode at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-55

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Because in today's world, it doesn't matter whether you meet your KPI, it doesn't matter how much work you did.
0:05.4	What's more important is your reputation.
0:06.8	So we thought reputation would be one of the counters that we take.
0:11.0	And the other one is mental health.
0:12.4	So you also have a limited mental health capacity and that goes down or up with every action that you take.
0:18.8	So we wanted to kind of bring out the balance between the two to make it feel like it's
0:23.8	a bit more realistic.
0:25.3	But one of the things that I've always been interested in is in game theory.
0:29.0	And there's a lot of that in both gaming and learning how to balance the game, bringing a
0:33.0	bit more mathematical on a view into it, but also kind of mapping out how people will interact at certain
0:40.1	points of the game and to kind of predict their behaviors it is a very long process to create a
0:46.0	board game that was something that i read about in the early parts but i did not properly realize
0:53.4	that we were inside it.
0:55.4	I think about a year ago, we said, you know what, I think let's do this properly.
1:00.0	Otherwise, there will always be a side project.
1:01.9	Let's do it properly and see where we can take it.
1:04.5	Welcome back to How to Lane Money to Strangers with myself, Brendan LaGrange, who you find deep in the middle of summer holidays,
1:14.3	which since I work from home means the kids running around looking for activities.
1:20.0	Now, we don't want them on screens all day and the English weather means they can't be
1:23.8	outside all day every day. So we've got the puzzles out, we've got the board games out,
1:29.0	and it made me feel a little nostalgic for the days before everything was digital.
1:35.3	But I don't bring up board games just for the sake of it.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Brendan le Grange, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Brendan le Grange and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.