Alwin John

frontend engineering @AtlanHQ • building @malabarjs - js community in kerala • fingerstyle guitarist • shoots and edits for fun

[Alwin John @alwinjohn]

@sreeharijayara2 @KeralaJS exists actually

[Alwin John @alwinjohn]

See you in Kochi on August 22!

[Malabar JS @malabarjs]

Registrations for the next MalabarJS Meetup are now open! 🥥

Join us in Kochi on 22nd August

��️ Register: https://t.co/oXnEpHvzaK
🎤 Want to speak? https://t.co/0WTt1uxyW2

[Alwin John @alwinjohn]

@Sherhin55 🫡

[Alwin John @alwinjohn]

@arshadyaseeen I've sent a DM

[Alwin John @alwinjohn]

Frontier isn't about using more AI
It's about using AI to solve better problems

Amazing read! 🙌, @prukalpa. Super excited for this!

[Prukalpa ✨ @prukalpa]

https://t.co/eEImp1mhDS

[Alwin John @alwinjohn]

Nice! Got my handle updated to @alwinjohn via the marketplace, thanks @nikitabier

[Alwin John @alwinjohn]

@gaushn_ korach over aayale aalkkaar shraddhikku 🤣

[Alwin John @alwinjohn]

Look at that, I have a badge on my profile now

[Alwin John @alwinjohn]

@fyzanshaik hoi, how was the roadshow?

[Boshen @boshen_c]

I want to recognize that Yuku from @arshadyaseeen is faster than Oxc.

It uses data-oriented design everywhere, which is truly amazing.

I’m glad there is something faster for us to learn from.

Oxc needs really big breaking changes to get to the same level of performance, but I'll consider it.

https://t.co/9D7z8St5Jt

[Malabar JS @malabarjs]

Something's brewing. 🥥
.
MalabarJS Meetup.
.
Coming soon.
.
#MalabarJS

[shadcn @shadcn]

Starting today, we are making @base_ui the default component library in shadcn/ui.

First, a bit of history. When shadcn/ui launched in 2023, it was built on Radix. At the time, nothing else came close. Headless. Accessible. Composable.

Fast forward a few years and the team who built Radix are building something new: Base UI.

[Alwin John @alwinjohn]

@FrancescoCiull4 @googledevs @Google @GoogleAIStudio Congratulations✨

[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.

[Alwin John @alwinjohn]

Found some old high school notes today and realized I've been unconsciously using hyphens between every sentences since childhood - and I still do sometimes.

Back then it was just a random writing habit. Now it feels like I've been training to write like AI all along. xD

[Felix Josemon @Felix_Josemon]

Kerala just put India on the semiconductor map. And it opens a much bigger conversation.

This week, @netrasemi did something most thought was years away.

Their flagship NETRA A2000 chip, designed entirely at TrEST Research Parkin Trivandrum, is officially production-ready. The chip can power smart cameras and drones while running AI directly on the device without needing a cloud connection.

Backed by Zoho and Unicorn India Ventures, Netrasemi has raised a total funding of Rs 125 crores to date.

The architecture, the IP, all of it is built right here in Kerala.

It also opens a conversation our tech and hardware manufacturing ecosystem needs to have.

The mass production of the A2000 will happen in Taiwan. Not in Kerala. Not in India. (yes, i know it’s not easy to read). And that is completely fine “for now”, this is actually how the global chip industry works.

Building a semiconductor fab takes billions of dollars, years of infrastructure, and an entirely different industrial ecosystem. And to be honest India does not have a single commercial wafer fab capable of handling this today. So TSMC in Taiwan is not a compromise. It is the only realistic option.

Even tech giants like Apple and NVIDIA rely on TSMC for their semiconductor chips.

The Indian government is already working on this through the India Semiconductor Mission.

Tata Electronics is building a wafer fab in Dholera, Gujarat. And just a few days ago, Tata signed a massive strategic partnership with ASML, the Dutch giant that builds the world's most advanced lithography machines to equip the Dholera fab.

India's first homegrown wafer fab is expected to produce its first chips around 2028-2029, starting with foundational designs and building toward more advanced ones over time. And even then, advanced chip manufacturing will take years beyond that.

But here is what I keep thinking about.

Kerala has clearly proven it has chip design talent. Our institutions and incubation centres are producing people who can compete on a global stage and Netrasemi is proof of that.

Now what happens if the manufacturing catches up?

Software-driven IT has been Kerala's economic backbone for a long time. But hardware manufacturing brings deeper capital inflow, long-term industrial infrastructure, a whole different kind of economic resilience for the state.

If Kerala already has the talent to design chips that get manufactured by the world's best fab imagine what it would mean for jobs, investment, and the state's economy if the manufacturing happened here too.

NETRA A2000 is 100% from Kerala but it will be made abroad, for now.

That "for now" is what our tech and hardware manufacturing ecosystem needs to work on.

Congratulations again to @JIndirabhai and the Netrasemi team. You have done the hardest part.

The question now is whether the rest of us policymakers, investors, institutions will build the infrastructure to match that ambition.

[Kerala Tourism @KeralaTourism]

Here's our high note for the day! Kerala's Aksomaniac makes it to #4 on the Global Viral Charts with his Malayalam track, Amsham.

#Aksomaniac #GlobalCharts #KeralaMusic #KeralaArtist #KeralaTourism

[Zed @zeddotdev]

We've shipped more than a thousand versions of Zed, but all of them began with zero. Today, that changes.

https://t.co/AJ0crNOFhU

[Warp @warpdotdev]

Warp is now open-source.

[Zed @zeddotdev]

The best thing about open source is doing it with friends

Thank you @opencode 🤝