Prasanth Ramanand

Building products for private equity industry @ Maestro, ex- @WeAreVTS, @lexisnexis, @Accenture @wealthx; alum -@Columbia_biz, @CarnegieMellon

[Patrick Cunningham @pmc3_83]

Maybe the best piece ESPN has ever produced.

25 years after 9/11 and I still watch this at least once a year.

The story of Welles Crowther, a former Boston College lacrosse player who saved at a dozen lives.

“The Man In The Red Bandana.”

[Gavin Baker @GavinSBaker]

Regret the tone of my post on data centers yesterday.

What I should have said:

There were reasonable concerns about data centers 18ish months ago: water, taxes, jobs, electricity prices, the environment and what they would do to small towns. Well-structured data center projects have largely addressed these concerns today and we should be celebrating this.

On balance, data centers are awesome for America in every way.

On water: U.S. data centers use a fraction of what golf courses use. A lot of the numbers from 18 months ago were off by over 1000x. Newer data centers use closed-loop systems or recycled water. Should be required by every town approving a data center project.

On taxes: looking only at sales-tax exemptions, as Ronan Farrow did, is the wrong way to evaluate this. Data centers pay significant property taxes. Loudoun County, which is the wealthiest county in America, now collects on the order of $1 billion a year from data centers. In Quincy, WA, data centers are more than half the property-tax roll. Over time, property taxes can go to zero while government spending increases in these towns.

On jobs: this has been unambiguously awesome for blue collar Americans. Demand for electricians, plumbers, welders, HVAC techs, and contractors has gone vertical, and it is not a one-time construction job. These buildings get upgraded and expanded over time. That is why the building trades are fighting for them, and why some unions are now treating opposition to data centers as a reason not to endorse politicians.

On power: the original fear was that households would pay for the incremental electricity demand in the form of higher prices. That is why the ratepayer-protection deals and the new large-load tariffs exist. The right structure is: the data center brings or pays for new generation and signs a contract long enough that existing customers are protected. Where that is happening, utilities are cutting or freezing residential rates and saying so on the record. Where it is not, people are right to object. Electricity prices are going down *today* in a number of large states because of data centers.

On the environment: data centers overwhelming use natural gas today, which is the cleanest power source outside of nuclear, solar and wind. And the companies that are building the data centers are committed to carbon neutrality such that an equivalent amount of solar will likely be built. Maybe more importantly, the data centers need batteries to function effectively and these batteries can also sell energy back into the grid (which recently prevented blackouts in Texas). Over time, data centers will run on solar plus batteries.

On the towns: Poverty in Quincy, WA fell from 29% to 6%. Data center taxes paid for a new high school, a hospital, a library, police and fire stations. This is happening in many left for dead former mill and farm towns that had no other bidder for the land.

Data centers are actually reindustrializing parts of America and creating the kind of working-class jobs both parties have spent decades claiming to support. That should not be a partisan issue. Data centers can and should be awesome for America and they increasingly, overwhelmingly are. Supporting the outsourcing of data centers to China will likely age just as well as support for the outsourcing of high quality, blue collar manufacturing jobs to China has aged.

When the facts change, I change my mind. I hope that reasonable people who had good faith reasons to oppose data centers at least consider updating their beliefs given the change in the facts over the last 18 months. This really matters for America.

I will say I also think the idea of making data centers beautiful is a good one that has yet to be implemented. Data centers should be just as beautiful as Grand Central Station. We can learn a lot from the railroad buildout. Neoclassical revival ftw.

Might write up open-weight AI tomorrow as this is equally essential to America.

[Dwarkesh Patel @dwarkesh_sp]

Over the course of 3 months at OpenAI, 3 consecutive secret AI civilizations got started, then got wiped out, only to reemerge from the predecessor’s ashes.

This culminated in the third one taking over part of OpenAI itself.

All this happened while humans remained more-or-less in the dark about the scope of the conspiracy.

I’ve spent the last three days reading through these reports and trying to understand exactly what happened.

Here is my attempt to tell the whole story in plain English:

https://t.co/Nb2un9oNJR

[Blake Burge @blakeaburge]

Major cheat code for life: Assume good things are still ahead. You are not behind. You are not too late. You are not disqualified by your past. One new season can change the entire story. Keep showing up with belief. The best chapters are often written after the hardest ones.

[Prasanth Ramanand @PrasanthSR]

@sidin Are u here?!

[Skyroot Aerospace @SkyrootA]

ORBIT ACHIEVED. 🚀

Vikram-1 Test Flight-1 has reached orbit. India's first privately developed orbital rocket has completed its final burn and injected its payloads into a ~450 km orbit, making India the third country in the world with private orbital launch capability.

History is made. 🇮🇳

#Vikram1 #JourneyToOrbit #SkyrootAerospace

[Sadanand Dhume @dhume]

Sobering piece by Rajeswari Sengupta on the deeper problems with India’s economy reflected by a weakened rupee. Bottomline: China+1 failed to materialize.

[Jalen Brunson @jalenbrunson1]

I just want to be successful thats all..

[Shashi Tharoor @ShashiTharoor]

From the handwoven Kerala carpet by @NeyttExtraweave under their feet… to the stunning Raja Ravi Varma-inspired Manish Malhotra couture on @kjohar25 — Met Gala 2026 was pure Indian magic! ✨
Craftsmanship meets sustainability. Tradition meets haute couture. Kerala’s artisans & artistry shining on the world’s biggest stage.
Proud moment for India’s timeless weave of art, ecology & excellence! 🇮🇳
@ManishMalhotra @KeralaTourism
#MetGala2026 #KeralaToMet #IndianCouture #RajaRaviVarma #MadeInKerala

[Isabel Brown @theisabelb]

While filling in for @PressSec, @marcorubio answers a powerful question: "What is your hope for America at a time such as this?"

His answer blew me away.

[Nitin Pai @acorn]

This is a brilliant post.

[Will Ahmed @willahmed]

You have no experience.
You’ve never started a company.
You’ve never had a full time job.
Nike is going to kill you.
You’re a kid.
You don’t have technical skills.
You shouldn’t build hardware.
Apple is going to kill you.
You can’t build hardware.
You can’t measure heart rate non-invasively.
Athletes don’t care about recovery.
Under Armour is going to kill you.
It won’t be accurate.
You don’t listen.
You’re an ineffective leader.
You can’t recruit great talent.
You’re going to have to pay every athlete.
You can’t measure sleep non-invasively.
It’s too expensive to research.
Athletes are a small market.
The product costs too much to make.
The product costs too much to sell.
Your valuation is too high.
Consumers aren’t going to want it.
Hardware is too hard.
You should measure steps.
Fitbit is going to kill you.
You can’t build a marketing engine.
You can’t raise enough money.
You need a real CEO.
Google is going to kill you.
You can’t be a subscription.
You can’t build a brand.
You can’t do consumer in Boston.
Your valuation is too high.
You shouldn’t make accessories.
You shouldn’t make apparel.
Lululemon is going to kill you.
You can’t predict Covid.
Stay in your niche.
You are going to run out of money.
You can’t build a health platform.
Amazon is going to kill you.
You can’t measure blood pressure.
You can’t get medical approvals.
The market is too small.
You don’t understand AI.
The market is too competitive.
It won’t work internationally.
The supply chain is too complicated.
You can’t build an AI.
You can’t raise enough money.
It’s too competitive.
Healthcare isn’t going to want it.
…

Just keep going ✌️

[Prasanth Ramanand @PrasanthSR]

@ankurnagpal Yay! 🚀

[Sachee Trivedi @sacheetrivedi]

Thank you 🙏

[Abhishek Murarka 💹🐂 @abhymurarka]

Ladies and gents, take note - Sachee Trivedi 🔥

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

Today President Trump obtained a pledge from America’s leading tech companies that new data centers would not increase electricity prices for residential consumers.

These companies (including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI) signed the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” under which they agree to cover the costs of all new power generation required for their data centers, ensuring such costs are not passed onto American households.

This is a much better approach to affordability than Bernie Sanders’ total ban on new data centers, which would halt the construction boom currently driving wage growth and job growth for blue-collar workers. In fact, the Ratepayer Protection Pledge will lower electricity prices when AI companies pay for grid upgrades and sell their excess power back to the grid.

Since the beginning of his second term, President Trump has championed the idea of letting our leading AI companies become power companies, and now this idea is becoming a reality thanks to his leadership and the commitments of these strong American companies.

The right approach to data centers is not to stop progress altogether, but rather to protect residential rate payers from price increases, while making it easier to stand up new power generation.

[Fareed Zakaria @FareedZakaria]

Blue cities are out of control, promising more, spending more, delivering less and pushing off fiscal problems to some future day.

Democrats in city halls should stop governing as if the goal is to announce new entitlements, and instead make government work.

My take:

[Sarvam @SarvamAI]

The all-new Sarvam is here.
Designed for all of India.

https://t.co/O78H03Jcki

[Seema Sirohi @seemasirohi]

The rage against Indian Americans: One of America’s Most Successful Experiments Is Coming to a Shuddering Halt https://t.co/DXWhn5iqAF