Aathifnihas

personal views only.

[Kunal Shah @kunalb11]

It’s been a minute.

2015–2018
- Exited FreeCharge. Spent time learning and investing.
- Pondered about: Why can't trust be rewarded? Started with $1M of personal capital.
- Launched CRED to reward people for paying credit card bills on time.

2019–2025
- Built a system run by a team that values ownership, judgment, and craft.
- Grew from 0 to 17M members by aligning incentives with behaviour.
- Built several products during COVID lockdowns.
- Raised $900M+ from global investors. Did 4 ESOP buybacks.
- Made Indiranagar and IPL ads slightly more interesting.
- Received a full stack of regulatory licences.
- Lost 35 kilos.
- Scaled from 0 to ~$325M ( ~₹3,200 crore) in annual revenue across payments, lending, insurance, commerce, wealth, and credit cards.
2026
- First profitable quarter (yet occasionally asked what our business model is)
- Raised another $900M from Meta in primary and secondary capital.
- Announcing our 5th ESOP buyback.

Today

CRED is ready for its next phase. I am stepping back and @miten steps in as interim CEO, partnered with an incredibly talented team. He has been heading strategy and finance and suffering me since 2020. I’m stepping away from the operating role and will continue as a shareholder. My commitment doesn’t change. Just the role.

Extremely grateful to our members, partners, regulators, and investors who made this possible. And to our board, Shailendra, Micky, Saurabh for their extraordinary conviction.

Team CRED, I’ll still expect you to be a 10x version of yourselves.

As for me, I’ll be joining Meta to lead WhatsApp globally.

Meta comes in as a minority investor in CRED. No access to member data.

While it’s come very far, the delta between WhatsApp today and its full potential is massive. I look forward to working with Mark, Chris, and the leadership across Meta for the next step in WhatsApp’s journey. Will, thank you for scaling something the world relies on quietly, and for making this transition smooth.

Onwards.

[Pascio @IAmPascio]

Still can't get over this.

It's one of those pieces that I can keep reading every single day of the week:

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

😂

[Harsh shekhawat @wordofshekhawat]

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is lucky kid saar , vaibhav is playing on flat decks saar 🤡

> While people were busy watching web series during COVID, 10-year-old Vaibhav was practicing hard in scorching 45°C heat

Salute to the hard work of Vaibhav 🫡

[OldMonkofCricket @OldMonkOfCric]

Watched this 100 times… and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s reaction still gets me every time 😭🤣 https://t.co/e0NXqU35TJ

[Gurdeep Singh Sappal @gurdeepsappal]

White towels are a legacy of British era, when there were few roads, fewer cars and no ACs. Officer toured on horses and towels were an integral part of hygiene routine.

British left, horses were sent away, but towels stayed!

It’s not just towels, the size of tables and colour of ink are also defined by hierarchy.

When I was working at Joint Secretary level with the Vice President of India, I had to fight a stiff battle of sorts to order a smaller table that would fit better in my office. The system would not approve of a smaller table!

Regarding the colour of ink to be used for noting and signature, Sh. Arun Shourie has written a hilarious, if not ridiculous, memoir as minister.

In 1999, two officers in the Ministry of Steel made notings on files using red and green ink.

This raised a furore as they were junior officers. The seniors were scandalised and an enquiry was initiated.

India’s bureaucracy spent 13 months debating which colour ink officers could use on files.

The enquiry was routed through several ministries and departments:

Ministry of Steel wrote to Dept of Administrative Reforms

It referred to Directorate of Printing (ink experts)

Printing referred to Dept of Personnel & Training (DoPT)

DoPT threw the ball back: “it’s your Manual, you decide”

National Archives was consulted for longevity of ink colours

Ministry of Defence consulted for Army ink hierarchy

Conclusion after 13 months: juniors wrote in blue-black or blue ink, because that has the longest life of impression. In British era, the files had to travel to Britain, so juniors would write in ink that would stay for the longest.

The top brass would sign in green and red.

Ruling:

Two new paras were added to the manual of office procedure:

Para 32(9) says that only officers of Joint Secretary level and above may use red or green ink, and that too only in rare cases. Para 68(5), on the other hand, does not limit the use of these colours to any particular rank (as modern ball pen ink have no issues of shelf life for any colour!)

The white towel on the officer’s chair. The red telephone on the desk. The peon standing at the door. The green ink reserved for the senior sahib.
These are not accidents of history. They are architecture, the physical grammar of a bureaucratic culture that worships hierarchy.

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

This is an email I sent earlier today to all employees at Coinbase:

Team,

Today I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%. I want to walk you through why we're doing this now, what it means for those affected, and how this positions us for the future.

Why now
Two forces are converging at the same time. We need to be front footed to respond to both.

First, the market. Coinbase is well-capitalized, has diversified revenue streams, and is well-positioned to weather any storm. Crypto is also on the verge of the next wave of adoption, with stablecoins, prediction markets, tokenization, and more taking off. However, our business is still volatile from quarter to quarter. While we've managed through that cyclicality many times before and come out stronger on the other side, we’re currently in a down market and need to adjust our cost structure now so that we emerge from this period leaner, faster, and more efficient for our next phase of growth.

Second, AI is changing how we work. Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. Non-technical teams are now shipping production code and many of our workflows are being automated. The pace of what's possible with a small, focused team has changed dramatically, and it's accelerating every day.

All of this has led us to an inflection point, not just for Coinbase, but for every company. The biggest risk now is not taking action. We are adjusting early and deliberately to rebuild Coinbase to be lean, fast, and AI-native. We need to return to the speed and focus of our startup founding, with AI at our core.

What this means
To get there, we are not just reducing headcount and cutting costs, we’re fundamentally changing how we operate: rebuilding Coinbase as an intelligence, with humans around the edge aligning it. What does this mean in practice?

- Fewer layers, faster decisions: We are flattening our org structure to 5 layers max below CEO/COO. Layers slow things down and create coordination tax. The future is small, high context teams that can move quickly. Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. Fewer layers also means a leaner cost structure that is built to perform through all market cycles.

- No pure managers: Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams.

- AI-native pods: We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact. We’ll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including “one person teams” with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role.

In short: AI is bringing a profound shift in how companies operate, and we’re reshaping Coinbase to lead in this new era. This is a new way of working, and we need to leverage AI across every facet of our jobs.

To those who are affected
I know there are real people behind these decisions — talented colleagues who have poured themselves into this company and our mission. To those of you who will be leaving: thank you. You’ve helped build Coinbase into what it is today, and I am sincerely grateful for everything you've done.

All impacted team members will receive an email to their personal account in the next hour with more information, and an invitation to meet with an HRBP and a senior leader in your organization. Coinbase system access has been removed today. I know this feels sudden and harsh, but it is the only responsible choice given our duty to protect customer information.

To those affected, we will be providing a comprehensive package to support you through this transition. US employees will receive a minimum of 16 weeks base pay (plus 2 weeks per year worked), their next equity vest, and 6 months of COBRA. Employees on a work visa will get extra transition support. Those outside of the US will receive similar support, based on local factors and subject to any consultation requirements.

Coinbase prides itself on talent density. Our employees are among the most talented people in the world, and I have no doubt that your skills and experience will be highly sought after as you pursue your next chapters.

How we move forward
To the team that is staying, I know this is a difficult day. We’re saying goodbye to colleagues and friends you've been in the trenches with. But here’s what I want you to know as we move forward together:

Over the past 13 years, we have weathered four crypto winters, gone public, and built the most trusted platform in our industry. We’ve made it this far by making hard decisions and by always staying focused on our mission. This time will be no different – nothing has changed about the long term outlook of our company or industry. And most importantly, our mission has never been more important for the world. Increasing economic freedom requires a new financial system, and we’re building it.

The Coinbase that emerges from this will be more capable than ever to achieve our mission.

Brian

[Rahul @sairahul1]

Two Anthropic engineers spent 24 minutes exposing every Claude Code feature you didn't know existed.

Most people will scroll past this. Don't be most people.

[Rahul @sairahul1]

MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST WATCH

[Colombo Stock Exchange @CSE_Media]

Record-Breaking Momentum📢
The Sri Lankan Stock Market makes history as ASPI crossed 23,000 points during trading hours.
A powerful reflection of investor confidence in Sri Lanka’s dynamic market growth. Confidence is high. Momentum is strong. The time to invest is NOW.

Start your journey with the CSE Mobile App today! 📲

#Cse #ColomboStockExchange #Milestone #CapitalMarket #InvestSmart

[Virat Kohli @imVkohli]

The only time you truly fail, is when you decide to give up.

[khabib nurmagomedov @TeamKhabib]

First of all, I need to clarify that it was @FlyFrontier not AlaskaAir.
Lady who comes to me with questions was very rude from the very beginning, even though I speak very decent English and can understand everything and agreed to assist, she still insists on removing me from my seat. What was the base for that, racial, national or other one, I'm not sure.
But after 2 minutes of conversation, she called security and I was deplaned from this aircraft, after 1,5 hour I boarded another airline one and left to my destination.
I did my best to stay calm and respecttul as you can see on the video.
But those crew members could do better next time and just be nice with clients.

[Gayan Lakmal Alwis, CFA @theGayan]

Just for Fun:
If you want to appear bright even after speaking, join @Toastmasters.

On a serious note:
Toastmasters has changed many lives, including mine.

And hopefully, yours.

Note: Image credit belongs to the original creator.

[Rohen Wijeyesekera @rohenw123]

If you’re eating, then eat. If you’re working, then work. If you’re relaxing, then relax.

Be present.

Multi tasking is destroying any chance of achieving a semblance of self awareness

[DCU Brief @DCUBrief]

The Superman trailer is releasing this week, so here's EVERY reveal of the movie so far.

A THREAD 🧵

[Sanjiva Weerawarana @sanjiva]

Wow Sri Lankan Prof. Gishan Dissanaike becomes Dean of the Judge School of Business of the University of Cambridge: https://t.co/w3GMlMosv2

@Cambridge_Uni

[Jori Lallo @jorilallo]

Didn’t expect Ben Affleck to have the most articulate and realistic explanation where video models and Hollywood is going

[Maoist Landlord™️ @fleshsimulator]

tip: when big companies upgrade laptops, they typically sell off the old ones in bulk, flooding the market with one specific model of very pricey niche enterprise laptop

I paid $300 for a Thinkpad P1 w/ a 6-core Xeon E-2276M, 64GB RAM, Nvidia Quadro T2000

This was $2800 in 2020