S L Vishnu

Passionate about tech

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@aktiwari1201 @DrSJaishankar @MEAIndia @DrSJaishankar expecting prompt assistance

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@jituswami1202 @tarunsmehta update, cruise control is not coming. tarun confirmed in a previous tweet 🙃

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@tarunsmehta ather official crash guards are coming? absolutely buying them!

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@LiuHue1 @CriticalZR @options_seller7 @CommonMan9073 @insultsrare This is a very cute flowchart with assumptions which in no way disprove god's existence. Saying god is neither good nor loving doesn't disprove its exist. These terms are from the lens of 'human experience', maybe god is optimising for an experience that we are not aware of.

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@atherenergy

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

building an aspirational brand out of nothing. brilliant.

[Carl Pei @getpeid]

News! @nothing has closed $96M in funding, led by @HighlandEurope, with participation from @GVteam, @EQTVentures, @CCapital, @swedishousemfia and others.

We saw a lack of vision and inspiration in the consumer tech industry, and decided to do something about it.👇

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@iamsrk @sachin_rt ne sunaya hoga 😏😏

[Tarun Mehta @tarunsmehta]

https://t.co/FvC1s1KmRF

Quite agree with Director Kamakoti.

This is a two sided problem though.
A small story:

Part 1: Getting a chance to Build

Most of us coming to IITs dreamt of a great job at the end of it. This was THE ticket - low cost, hard earned and guaranteed high paying jobs at the end of it.

For most of us by the end of the first year itself it was quite obvious that engg jobs weren't a prized lot except for computer science and some electronics graduates. Most of us the dream job already was a McKinsey, or a BCG or a Credit Suisse/ Goldman. No alternate reality for all practical purposes. If you were academically inclined - a masters/PhD in US was the logical choice.

I was no exception. I dreamt of getting that sweet consulting gig and hopefully a MBA from a Stanford/Harvard to cement my life's success.

I looked at my leadership role in the entrepreneurship club or the umpteen engg projects from a perspective of whether it will help to convince a consulting company that I had 'breadth'. And that I was truly 'smart'. A decent CGPA helped.

The idea of picking up an engg job seemed like a loser's cause for many of us. Low pay, poor career prospects, super slower growth - nothing to offer.

Things stared to change for us at IIT Madras for a few reasons. I met @swapniljain89 and started working on his idea of Sterling engines in our free time and started dreaming of building a decentralized energy company. This was followed by some amazing years at the Dept. of Engg Design with Professors like Dr Sandipan, RKK and others building robots, construction equipment and filing patents. For Swapnil equally rewarding was his years at @CFI_IITM building FSAE cars and other cool stuff.

It was years of building, breaking and learning in the process that changed our perspective. It gave Swapnil and me the opportunity to discover each other, find the cofounder that worked, discover our values and principles and build a shared dream. Classes that encouraged us to go meet customers, pitch, fabricate and build that product - it might seem common for engg graduates but I can guarantee you it isn't. Heck I don't think even our own department was able to continue the same coursework after our batch. It's super hard to create this environment and IIT Madras has come pretty close to creating it a few times now.

There's a reason that IITM has the highest density of hardware and product companies in the country today. I think some of it might have been accidental but there's a learning for our educators. That practical experience is very, very critical. Those years should not be wasted in learning books or writing the CAT. Those are the times to form your mental models, develop your ideas and form life long partnerships.

Part 2: Make it Worth it - JOBS

The second part is equally important. One may want to build much but if the industry that they are stepping into is stuck in a rot then there’s little hope for them. Engine design is very, very complicated. But the industry is older still. There are people 3X your age who have been designing engines for the last 40 years and even if you are smarter, they have 40 years of experience that’s super valuable. You are up against knowledge and pure smarts won’t be enough, not until you earn the experience over decades. This guarantees a slower growth and hence by extension a poorer pay.

You need an external situation where talent can create a larger impact over experience.

Like EVs.

Automotive platforms have existed for decades but when a seismic shift like electrification hits the industry ALL platforms need to be REBUILT. And they now need to built differently for a newer technology. A perfect opportunity for talent to potentially shine through and capture a serious upside. While @atherenergy was the first one, there are literally hundreds of EV startups staffed with tens of thousands of engineers hoping to hit gold with their stock options and career progressions doing stuff that otherwise would have meant a promotion every decade in the ICE world.

That opportunity attracts talent. It incentives young and bright engineers to actually stick to engineering because there’s a potential pot of gold at the end of their journey.

++++++++++++

I believe we are at a point in India where engineers can unlock a lot of value across industries, not just the internet.
Not just EVs, but semiconductors, drones and aviation, agri-tech, pharma - across the board there’s disruption due to new tech bursting up. And a lot of that’s happening in India now.

Pure experience is not holding all the keys. There’s an entrepreneurial energy that’s pushing for changes faster and wants it done locally with Indian talent, not joint ventures.

I think more and more engineers will choose ‘core’ jobs out of IITs and across colleges in the coming decade. Exciting times!

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@RohanKhare14 @tarunsmehta 450 Sport ? 🤔

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@tarunsmehta Completed 4k+ kilometres, still every ride is a delight. I look forward to my office commute and back everyday just because of that. (that's 22km daily) 🤌

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@dontistperio @tarunsmehta @deepigoyal Ather is mostly optimised for performance. I feel like a version that is optimised for range can be the most beneficial for last mile delivery (delivery cost efficiency + reducing charging down times) Not sure if Ather would want to shift their focus.

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

AI enabled community notes are the future of social media and you can quote me on this!!!

[Whole Mars Catalog @wholemars]

Twitter 2.0 Review

1. All of the spam bots are gone from my mentions. Major promise fulfilled.

2. With only 20% of the original staff, Twitter is iterating, trying new things and shipping things 20x faster. This is extremely impressive.

3. More Twitter employees tweeting and soliciting feedback directly on the platform. Very cool.

4. My account is now treated equally to mainstream media accounts that often get the story wrong and has a blue checkmark

5. Revenue I’m making from Twitter has more than doubled

6. Longer video support allows me to post on the platform where my audience is rather than having to link to YouTube

7. Blatant misinformation has become an endangered species with community notes

8. I and others can speak freely without fear of being deboosted or kicked off the platform for some trivial “not woke enough” transgression

9. Twitter trending towards sustainable profitability

10. First female Twitter CEO, @lindayacc, a veteran expert in advertising hired

And yet the media constantly mocks Elon and Twitter as a disaster. Ironically, if you look at the financial statements of these media companies you will realize it is really *their* business that is a disaster and falling apart.

IMO, Twitter’s future looks brighter than ever

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@tarunsmehta Or keeping 3 instances of ather grid charging in a month free/low tariff and anything more than that substantially higher might help. Low/medium linear tariffing may not help as much.

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@tarunsmehta What I can personally do to help might be if there is an option to charge till a lower cut off slab (say 50%) I'd choose that for my top up (sometimes it so happens that I don't need 80% charge but I might be away after plugging in.)

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@tarunsmehta Mumbai too!

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

https://t.co/UA5Mfpg6qE

[S L Vishnu @SLVishnu3]

@Casey @nothing My moment to shine 😄