Varun Aiyar

Indie Game Developer
Θ
Grokpilled

[Varun Aiyar @AiyarVarun]

I've realized that you can't fight biology. If you want to do deep work, take care of your body, first and foremost. Or you will spend most of your energy fighting unnecessary battles.

[Varun Aiyar @AiyarVarun]

@KobeissiLetter Overpriced garbage becomes more overpriced

[Startup Archive @StartupArchive_]

Mark Zuckerberg on the best advice Peter Thiel ever gave him

“Peter was the person who told me this really pithy quote that, ‘In a world that’s changing so quickly, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk.’ And I really think that that is true.”

Mark continues:

“Whenever you get yourself into a position where you have to make some big shift in direction or do something, there are always people who are going to point to the downside risks of that decision — and locally they may be right. For any given decision you make, there’s upside and downside. But in aggregate, if you are stagnant and you don’t make those changes, then I think you’re guaranteed to fail and not catch up. So to some degree, I think it’s really right that, over time, the biggest risk you can take is to not take any risks.”

Source: @ycombinator (Aug 2016)

[Varun Aiyar @AiyarVarun]

@chryslerguy01 @DNIGabbard He was preemptively pardoned by Mr. Autopen

[Pavel Durov @durov]

India’s IT ministry banned Telegram for one week because some users shared leaked exam questions.

This punishes 150M+ ordinary Telegram users in India — not the insiders who leaked the exam materials.

And the ban hasn't stopped anything. The leaks just moved to other apps.

[Varun Aiyar @AiyarVarun]

@Polymarket He was amazing last night. Unbreakable wall. Rooting for Cabo Verde now 😂

[Naval @naval]

The only truly wasted time is time spent wishing you were somewhere else.

[Startup Archive @StartupArchive_]

Telegram founder Pavel Durov on what separates A Players from B Players

“I can recall a few instances in my career where firing an engineer actually resulted in an increase in productivity,” Telegram founder Pavel Durov begins.

He gives an example of two Android engineers building an app that are having a hard time hitting deadlines:

“You think, ‘I probably have to hire a third engineer.’ But then you notice that one of [the engineers] is really weird — falling behind schedule, complaining, not assuming responsibility — and you ask, ‘What if I just fired this person?’ Then you fire this person, and in a few weeks you realize you never needed a third engineer. The problem was this guy who created more issues and problems than he solved. It’s so counterintuitive because in developing tech projects, you tend to think that you just throw more people into something and things get solved miraculously.”

Pavel continues:

“The other thing that people don’t realize is how demotivating working with a B Player is. Everyone can tell if the other engineer they’re working with is really competent. If the person is asking the wrong questions and they keep lagging behind, at a certain point if you’re an A Player, you get get this dissatisfaction and feeling that you are not able to realize your full potential and accomplish what you’re really meant to accomplish because of this person working next to you (or pretending to work next to you).”

Pavel reflects on what it is exactly that separates these B Players from A Players:

“In some cases it’s not because the person is lazy . . . It’s not about experience. More often it’s about natural ability and persistence. In 90% of cases, it’s just the inability to focus on one task for an extended period of time. Not everybody has this ability. So for people who do have this ability, it’s an insult to work alongside someone who is distracted and cannot go deep in the projects that they’re responsible for.”

Source: @lexfridman (Sep 2025)

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Helpful tool for improvement. It’s just physics thinking in the limit.

[Varun Aiyar @AiyarVarun]

@HLPClips It's a delicate balance.

[Huberman Lab Clips @HLPClips]

How fasting impacts your ability to focus:

"When we are fasted or when our blood glucose is very low, we aren't able to perceive and think about things as clearly."

"If our gut is full, it diverts blood to our gut and we become sleepy and we can't focus as well."

"Being fasted is great for focus and concentration, provided you're not thinking about food the entire time, and being fed is terrific for focus and concentration, provided that you didn't eat too much food."

@hubermanlab

[Bryan Johnson @bryan_johnson]

How to avoid tons of life problems:

go to bed on time.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

As the recently expanded partnership with @AnthropicAI demonstrates, @SpaceX is offering AI compute as a service at significant scale.

We are in discussions with other companies to do the same.

Over time, especially with orbital data centers, we expect to serve AI at extremely high scale.

[Naval @naval]

If it’s not one of the best books you’ve ever read, don’t read it.

[Varun Aiyar @AiyarVarun]

@pushmeet @demishassabis @GoogleDeepMind AI is in good hands with Demis at the helm

[Varun Aiyar @AiyarVarun]

@zerodhamarkets Indian stocks are about as attractive as dog poop currently

[Varun Aiyar @AiyarVarun]

@80Level @compliantvc a potential investment

[Varun Aiyar @AiyarVarun]

@TimSweeneyEpic I've got a song for Apple
https://t.co/ZHtELJ9wEl

[Varun Aiyar @AiyarVarun]

@michaelricks @brianjamesgage Sorry to hear that, man.

[Founders Inc @fdotinc]

He reinvented the 3D printer

Introducing the polysynth mini:

[Varun Aiyar @AiyarVarun]

@dhh @segacollection I wouldn't use an Apple product even if I got it for free