Tushar

he/him | 26 | tech @blinkit | SDE-3 | VIT ’21 | Just thinking out loud here

[Tushar @__l3nz__]

🫡

[Deepinder Goyal @deepigoyal]

I started Zomato with a spirit of service. Blinkit Ambulance is what that spirit of service looks like today.

In the last 2 years, we have served ~20,000 emergency cases (~42,000 cases in total). We haven't charged a single rupee for any of them. And we want to keep it that way.

With everything free, a growing share of bookings are for routine checkups, hospital visits and hospital-to-home transfers, trips that an Uber or private transport could have handled just as easily. Every such booking keeps a fully equipped emergency ambulance with paramedics off the road when someone's life may depend on it.

So we are making a change from now onwards: Emergency transfers – free, as always. Non-emergency transfers – ₹2,500, charged after the trip. Broadly in line with what private ambulances charge. This money goes to Eternal Foundation, which runs these ambulances and will help us scale them even further.

We hope that this charge will dramatically drop the usage of our Ambulances for non-emergency cases. 10-minute ambulances have saved and can save thousands of lives, and we need to keep them available for emergencies that need them the most.

One more thing. Scaling high quality ambulances is hard. The biggest bottleneck is trained, empathic paramedics. Our training academy is scaling as fast as we can without compromising on quality, and @albinder and team are committed to bringing Blinkit Ambulance to all major cities in India in the next 2-4 years.

Stay well, and I pray you don't need us. @sparsh_sehgal – I wish your grandma a speedy recovery, and I am so glad we were able to be there on time.

[Deepinder Goyal @deepigoyal]

Does @temple really monitor blood flow to the brain, or just the scalp?

In our second validation study, we tested Temple BrainFlow against time-domain NIRS, one of the few technologies that can separate brain blood volume changes from scalp blood volume changes. We had 60 participants go through three physiological challenges: head-down tilt, stand-to-squat, stand-to-supine.

Across all three challenges, Temple BrainFlow tracked brain blood volume at r=0.84-0.91, significantly more than scalp blood volume. The most significant result came from head-down tilt, where Temple's correlation with the brain was 0.91, and scalp correlation was just 0.49.

Key takeaway: Temple tracks the brain, much more than the scalp.

Why this matters: Cerebral Blood Flow responds to almost everything longevity-oriented people already do. It rises with aerobic exercise, and VO2max correlates directly with it. It rises with cold exposure. It rises with meditation. Better sleep sustains it. It drops when you sit for too long. It drops when you are dehydrated. It is one of the most responsive and integrative biomarkers of how well your body is actually running, and aging.

Until now, you could only measure it in a clinical setting, in a single snapshot. Temple measures it continuously, in real time, while you live your life. And Temple is, as of today, the only wearable in the world with validations against brain blood volume, and not just scalp.

This study was guided by our Scientific Advisor, Prof. David Boas, Director of Boston University's Neurophotonics Center, and the mind behind several new, high-impact, biomedical optical technologies in neuroscience, including NIRS.

This is the second modality Temple BrainFlow is now validated against, after Transcranial Doppler. More coming soon.

Link:
https://t.co/zETs9gn5Cg

The paper is posted as a preprint and submitted for peer review. We encourage researchers to replicate this. We'll happily loan Temples to any qualified researcher who wants to pressure-test any of our metrics independently.

Cc @agingroy

[Deepinder Goyal @deepigoyal]

Temple's first validation study is out.

Researchers tested Temple's Brain Flow index head-to-head against Transcranial Doppler (TCD), the gold standard for measuring cerebrovascular function. 23 healthy adults, two challenges: cycling and a standing-to-supine postural shift.

The result that stood out most to me: when participants lay down, their heart rate dropped, but their brain blood flow went up. Temple tracked this accurately, right alongside the Doppler. Any device that only measures heart rate would have gotten this completely wrong.

Across both challenges, Temple's Brain Flow tracked Middle Cerebral Artery velocity (MCAv) with within-subject temporal correlation of r≈0.8 (p<0.001), which is very high even for medical devices.

The paper is posted as a preprint and submitted for peer review. One study, two interventions, healthy adults only, but it's the first step. More validations on Brain Flow, as well as on Entropy with different modalities are underway across the globe. We will keep sharing them as they trickle in.

We encourage researchers to replicate this. We'll happily loan Temples to any qualified researcher who wants to pressure-test any of our metrics independently.

https://t.co/86vUY9YQbV

Cc @agingroy

[Deepinder Goyal @deepigoyal]

Agree.

I repeat – gig workers is one of the largest organised job creation engines in India. And we provide insurance, fair, timely and predictable wages.

Gig doesn’t need more regulation, it needs less regulation. It will bring more people into the fold, who will be able to earn some money, upskill themselves and later join India’s organised workforce. Not to mention, consistently send their kids to school - which will fundamentally change the fabric of our nation one generation later.

[Deepinder Goyal @deepigoyal]

I am all for peaceful protests against anything and everything. But violent protests and stopping others who want to work from working is not okay (proof attached).

Here’s what we know – a number of these protestors were not even our delivery partners. They were agents of political interests, piggybacking on the narrative to gain political mileage.

[Deepinder Goyal @deepigoyal]

Last one on this topic, and I have been holding this in myself for a while.

For centuries, class divides kept the labor of the poor invisible to the rich. Factory workers toiled behind walls, farmers in distant fields, domestic help in backrooms. The wealthy consumed the fruits of that labor without ever seeing the faces or the fatigue behind it. No direct encounter, no personal guilt.

The gig economy shattered that invisibility, at unprecedented scale.

Suddenly, the poor aren't hidden away. They're at your doorstep: the delivery partner handing over your ₹1000+ biryani, late-night groceries, or quick-commerce essentials. You see them in the rain, heat, traffic, often on borrowed bikes, working 8–10 hours for earnings that give them sustenance. You see their exhaustion, their polite smile masking frustration with life in general.

This is the first time in history at this scale that the working class and consuming class interact face-to-face, transaction after transaction. And that discomfort with our own selves is why we are uncomfortable about the gig economy. We want these people to look our part, so that the guilt we feel while taking orders from them feels less.

We aren't just debating economics. We are confronting guilt. That ₹800 order might equal their entire day's earnings after fuel, bike rent, and app cuts. We tip awkwardly, or avoid eye contact, because the inequality is no longer abstract. It's personal.

Pre-gig era, the rich could enjoy luxury without moral discomfort. Labor was out of sight. Now, every doorbell ring is a reminder of systemic inequality. That's why debates explode. It's not just policy. It's emotional reckoning. Some defend the system (“they choose it”), others demand change (“this isn't progress, its exploitation”).

And here’s the uncomfortable twist: the unsaid ask of clumsy ‘solutions’ isn’t dignity. It is about returning to invisibility.

Ban gig work and you don’t solve inequality. You remove livelihoods. These jobs don’t magically reappear as formal, protected employment the next day. They disappear, or they get pushed back into the informal economy where there are even fewer protections and even less accountability. Over-regulate it until the model breaks, and you achieve the same outcome through paperwork instead of slogans: the work evaporates, prices rise, demand collapses, and the people we claim to protect are the first to lose income.

And then what happens?

The rich get their old comfort back. Convenience returns without faces. Guilt dissolves. We go back to clean abstractions and moral posturing from a distance. The poor don’t become safer, they become invisible again: back in cash economies, back in backrooms, back in shadows where regulation rarely reaches and dignity isn’t even debated.

The gig economy just exposed the reality of inequality to the people who previously had the luxury of not seeing it. The doorbell is not the problem. The question is what we do after opening the door.

Visibility is the price of progress. We can either use this discomfort to build something better (which we keep doing continuously as delivery partners are our backbone), or we can ban and over-regulate our way back into ignorance. One of those choices improves lives. The other simply helps the consuming class feel virtuous in the dark.

[Deepinder Goyal @deepigoyal]

Update 3.

[Tushar @__l3nz__]

@HarshitPrasad8 Patience game now

[Deepinder Goyal @deepigoyal]

Out now - Our Q1FY24 Report: https://t.co/C7AScxXN3A

If you have any further questions or feedback, please email us at [email protected]. Always listening!

Quick snapshots of how we’re powering India’s changing lifestyles 🧵

[Tushar @__l3nz__]

From apples 🍎 to Apple

[Albinder Dhindsa @albinder]

iPhone 14 in minutes!

We have partnered with @UnicornAPR to bring Apple iPhone and accessories to Blinkit customers within minutes. Available in Delhi and Mumbai for now. Update to the latest @letsblinkit app version on your iOS and Android phones to buy.

[Tushar @__l3nz__]

@kunalstwt @PrerakDosi @sarthakdando uber driver 🙏

[Tushar @__l3nz__]

Problem with grindset, long weekend and I have nothing to do😞

[Tushar @__l3nz__]

@mayankshah__ @FederalBankLtd

[Deepinder Goyal @deepigoyal]

Read our Q1FY23 results here: https://t.co/V7TeukVYbC

Big thanks to the entire team and the ecosystem for pulling this through.

[Tushar @__l3nz__]

@cryptus_neoxys 🤌🤌🤌🤌

[Tushar @__l3nz__]

@PrerakDosi @AnkaraPedri Don’t be so sad, pretty sure you would’ve forgotten Spanish too.

[Tushar @__l3nz__]

@Arushit Unless its a p0 issue and you are sitting on a firefighter call, knowing with each passing second your business is bleeding 🥲.

[Sid Palas @sidpalas]

DevOps is dead 💀, long live Platform Engineering!

1) Developers don't like dealing with infra
2) Companies need control of their infra as they grow

Platform Engineering (and Internal Developer Platforms) enable these two facts to coexist. Here's how:

(1/n)

[Tushar @__l3nz__]

@AnkaraPedri @DeepanjaliPande @sarthakdando Blackcurrant milkshake, bhai psycho confirmed @AnkaraPedri