Hollywood Blockbuster Independence Day's Digital Effects Producer shares Proven Tactics for Deep Work, Focus, and Achievement
Tue Jan 13 2026
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Steven Puri is one of the few people on Earth who has been a senior executive at two motion picture studios and also raised over $20MM in venture capital. He’s produced the digital effects for Independence Day, which won the Oscar for Visual Effects, and in addition to his film work, he’s founded 3 start-ups - one successful exit and two failures. He lectures now on the lessons in sustainable high-performance he learned working alongside some of the world’s most productive people.
Background
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, which 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 (Star Trek 11, Transformers 1&2, Eagle Eye, Transformers: Prime, et al.).
After Fox, Steven returned to building tech companies and had two failed start-ups before founding The Sukha Company - ‘sukha’ means ‘happiness from self-fulfilment’ in Sanskrit. The Sukha is a focus app that bundles all the tools necessary to enter into a Flow State, and have a healthy, productive workday.
Steven now lives in Austin, TX.
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Send us a text Steven Puri is one of the few people on Earth who has been a senior executive at two motion picture studios and also raised over $20MM in venture capital. He’s produced the digital effects for Independence Day, which won the Oscar for Visual Effects, and in addition to his film work, he’s founded 3 start-ups - one successful exit and two failures. He lectures now on the lessons in sustainable high-performance he learned working alongside some of the world’s most productive people. Background 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, which 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 (Star Trek 11, Transformers 1&2, Eagle Eye, Transformers: Prime, et al.). After Fox, Steven returned to building tech companies and had two failed start-ups before founding The Sukha Company - ‘sukha’ means ‘happiness from self-fulfilment’ in Sanskrit. The Sukha is a focus app that bundles all the tools necessary to enter into a Flow State, and have a healthy, productive workday. Steven now lives in Austin, TX.