Vishal Rao

TechBro. Inventor-Investor-Engineer. Rejuvenation Athlete.
Book a video call: read of your message:

[Vishal Rao @VishalRao]

Most self-made billionaires are master decision-makers. It's very difficult to become - and remain - that rich. These people have demonstrated that they have a an ability to make a sequence of decisions over decades that involving luck, dedication, ingenuity, and foresight: what to study, what to work on, what to invest in, what to promote, and whom to align themselves with. A culture that demonizes them leads to a society in decline. #kaliyuga

[Vishal Rao @VishalRao]

Congrats to my Alma Mater Studiorum. SCS 2000.

[Carnegie Mellon University @CarnegieMellon]

Carnegie Mellon University has achieved its historically highest position in the @usnews Best Colleges rankings, rising six spots to No. 14 nationally in the 2027 list.

The result marks a historic moment for CMU and reflects growing recognition of the university’s academic strengths, strong student outcomes and distinctive interdisciplinary model.

[The Reagan Caucus @NewReaganCaucus]

The anti-Indian, heritage American, BS needs to stop.

It is also disqualifying for political candidates to engage in it.

[Vishal Rao @VishalRao]

@FloridaManV @wordi25 If 0.001% of the violent rhetoric I've seen on just https://t.co/UEYR2pccX4 materializes IRL we've got a real problem because social media amplifies things (read: copycat crimes). Those other 3 demographics you list dealt with those things 100-120 years ago.

[Vishal Rao @VishalRao]

The parallels are striking. Definitely something to monitor...and prepare for.

[Wordita @wordi25]

I wonder if these were the sort of signs once the Nazis took power in 1933. The systemic targeting and ‘othering’ and if the Jews too didn’t think things would deteriorate so far so fast

[Vedant Nair @vedantnair__]

Much has been said by racists, politicians, and racist politicians (like Bo French) about Indians and UT Austin admissions. I thought I should shed some light so their racism could be slightly more intelligent.

I'm a brown kid. I grew up in Frisco, went to a massive Texas high school, and went to UT.

I would wager that the kids in this picture and I have practically the same background. Like me, they probably went to a massive, pressure-cooker suburban Texas high school, and survived the gauntlet to earn their admissions.

These aren’t foreigners. State law requires 90% of UT's freshman class to be Texas residents. 75% of those in-state seats go to automatic admission on class rank. These are Texans.

Texas, for better or worse, is one of the few meritocratic college admissions schemes in the country for a school of its caliber. The rules are simple. Today, the top 5% of a public school's graduating class is automatically accepted. There is nothing to game. You can’t fake being a competitive rower or have some consultant write your essays for you. There isn’t anything to steal; it’s all there on the table to compete for.

And the competition starts the moment the bell rings for your first period of freshman year. You are ranked in your class every single year, for us, #1 to #450. You knew exactly where you were, exactly how hard you had to compete. My year was even less competitive than it is today. The top 6% made the cut, so that’s an all-out war for ~27 kids to get auto-accepted into UT.

So we worked our butts off. Here's what my life was like, starting in kindergarten.

Every summer, before the school year started, I had to finish the upcoming year's math textbook.

I sweated over getting As, even in elementary school. One funny memory is walking to my parents' room, crying, to report my first-ever 89 on a report card.

I did Kumon, my least favorite thing in the world. I still hate that weird half-smile that is their logo.

I went to math and science competitions, where I always lost, and came home crying again. (Quite the crybaby, wasn't I!)

And everyone else around me worked just as hard. Actually, a lot of the kids worked much harder. I know people who took extra classes (zero period) just to boost their GPA. Who routinely slept 5 hours a night to nail every assignment they had after band practice. Who were distraught when they got a 98 instead of a 100. People who stopped doing things they loved, like sports or arts, because those classes dragged down their GPA.

People put their entire life force into getting into this school.

I wasn't even in the top 10% of my class. The competition was too good. I wasn't disciplined enough to hang with them. I got in as one of the 22.5% of admits who are at-large Texans.

These are American kids who earned their way into this school in the most American way possible. Competition. They were told the rules, they competed, and they got the number. And on Saturday they were in that stadium in burnt orange, screaming their heads off, like every other Texan at DKR or around the country. I can’t feel anything but pride for them. That they get to live the dream that so many of us dreamt growing up!

Kids like this have helped improve UT’s standing on the national stage. They made it out of the pressure cooker and placed well in Finance, Big Tech, and more recently, startups. They meaningfully contribute to the economies of our state and country. You should be proud of them too.

Overall, this seems like a meritocratic (albeit flawed) way for Texans to be admitted to our state’s flagship school. It’s racially blind. But politicians like Bo French are asking for something different. They want the student body to rebalance racially.

Surely they aren’t advocating for affirmative action, are they?

[Ritvik @ritvikrama]

I usually don't comment on politicians' posts. Making an exception for a timeline. Dates and quotes only.

2022:
- @KenPaxtonTX tells the Supreme Court "The University of Texas was wrong" to use race in admissions
- @tedcruz leads a brief signed by @JohnCornyn and 80 other Republicans: race-conscious admissions "inflict a heavy toll on Asian-American students"

2023:
- @GregAbbott_TX signs a ban on DEI offices at state universities
- The Supreme Court rules their way. UT stops considering race

Since then:
- Texas law auto-admits the top of every high school class by rank, as it has since 1997; this year, the cutoff is the top 5%
- 90% of freshmen must be Texans by law
- 4% of undergrads are international per @UTAustin's 2025-26 Common Data Set

9/13/2026:
- @bofrench, Republican nominee for Railroad Commissioner, posts a photo of South Asian students at UT and calls it "the problem"
- As of writing this post, two students in the photo have spoken to reporters. Both are US citizens

9/14/2026:
- Asked about it on the Mark Davis Show, French says letting UT administrators "select their preferred groups of people" is racism
- His fix - "prioritize Americans"

Race-blind admissions were requested and delivered. Changing who is in that photo would require bringing back affirmative action, which the Cruz-Cornyn brief called "unconstitutional on its face" and French even said letting UT administrators "select their preferred groups of people" is racism

Sources:
- Paxton brief ("The University of Texas was wrong"): https://t.co/6yYvrrOfCI
- Cruz-Cornyn brief, filed 5/9/2022, both quotes and signer list: https://t.co/Ptys9ZTw2S
- SB 17, signed June 2023: https://t.co/1xRkDNTWRx
- Top 5% rule: https://t.co/Ux0gAUsCzT
- 4% international undergrads, UT Common Data Set 2025-26: https://t.co/8XfFWFIisO
- The students in the photo: https://t.co/AwBLTQpLoO
- Mark Davis Show quotes: https://t.co/BGo0cNSjld
- "Prioritize Americans": https://t.co/seKKtVbRBf

Thanks to @vedantnair__ for inspiring me to post

[Vishal Rao @VishalRao]

Pretty much exactly why I stopped voting in US elections. Replace your "conservative" with "Libertarian" and "Veteran" with "TechBro". From my perspective, political donations to PACs are higher leverage than my measly 1 vote. Just keeping it a buck. Or more like a lakh.

[Kris Patel 🇺🇸 @KrisPatel99]

I’m a conservative Indian-American tax paying Veteran. I have 2 choices in November…

1. Party that’s increasingly becoming Socialist…

2. Party that’s increasingly becoming racist towards people that look like me…

Anyone else in a similar predicament?

[Vishal Rao @VishalRao]

@JeffBezos on being customer obsessed and not competitor obsessed. Talk appears to be from early February 2005.

[JORDAN @iamjordan]

This 50-minute lecture by Jeff Bezos will teach you more about business than a 2-year MBA program.

Bookmark it and give it 50 minutes today, no matter what.

[Michael Batnick @michaelbatnick]

Amazon.toast

The future is hard to predict.

https://t.co/kaNf0rgwzy

[Vishal Rao @VishalRao]

@iamjordan Based on the details at around 23 minutes, this talk is from February 2005.

[Vishal Rao @VishalRao]

@davj @naval @eladgil @gokulr @Benioff @paultoo @fabricegrinda @scottbelsky @edyson And to those being critical that this is a numbers game...that's partly true. I have only one big win so far (targeting a 10x DPI on $CBRS after picking it up at a 57% last round discount) but I won't know how successful I truly am until mid 2034; I'm mostly a seed investor.

[Vishal Rao @VishalRao]

@davj @naval @eladgil @gokulr @Benioff @paultoo @fabricegrinda @scottbelsky @edyson Hmm...not sure how I randomly saw this since I'm not on X that often but I'm at @VishalRao in case you need my handle . Thanks for the call out. 🙏🏾 A lot of those deals were done while I lived in Boston so I'm not sure if I deserve 1st place in Austin, so there's that 🙂.

[Vishal Rao @VishalRao]

@linqtoinc Why is this holding up those that have elected to receive their distributions via the closed end fund administered via @vaneck_us? Help me understand the math here. It's not making sense. The two pools of distributions (closed end fund vs. liquidating trust) are unambiguously divisible after the vote in February.

[Linqto @linqtoinc]

Chapter 11 Update

What Happened at the July 28 Status Conference
- Linqto asked the Court for additional time to continue working with Forge Global to identify a path forward.

- During the hearing, Forge Global, the Debtors, and the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors (UCC) each confirmed they are working collaboratively toward a resolution.

- As a result, the hearing on both the adversary complaint and the Section 1142 motion have been rescheduled for Friday, August 7, at 9:00 a.m. CT.

Upcoming Hearing
Friday, August 7 @ 9 am CT

Telephonic Participation
- Dial-in Telephone: [phone]
- Conference Code: 282694

Video Participation
- - https://t.co/x6eElHpXHR

[Vishal Rao @VishalRao]

I believe the apt word is "antifragile", coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and expounded by the book of the same name.

[Vishal Rao @VishalRao]

The blunt phrasing by Milken makes me a bit uncomfortable (could be interpreted as racist), but today after seeing @MicronCEO interviewed by @LizClaman, I looked into Micron Technology $MU (NASDAQ:MU). According to Google AI: "The definitive Compound Annual Growth Rate for Micron Technology stock since Sanjay Mehrotra became CEO is 43.86%."

Disclosures: I have no stock positions of $MU and am not an employee, director, or advisor.

[Deedy @deedydas]

Billionaire Michael Milken joked “if a US company replaces the US-born CEO with a CEO born in India, I buy the stock”

But he reveals he hasn’t backtested the idea.
So we did.

In the last 15yrs, that would’ve 50x’d your money: 7.5x more $$ and >2x IRR vs S&P500: 30% vs 14%!