Krish Kapadia

19, co-founder @vorelios (YC F26)

[Krish Kapadia @krish_k07]

@alymoursy we*

[Blake Scholl 🛫 @bscholl]

12 years ago I founded Boom, as a software engineer doing hardware for the first time. I’m probably the least handy founder in hard tech. My 12 y/o son does my soldering and 3D printing for home projects, and I’ve struggled with imposter syndrome the whole way through. What business does a software guy have building supersonic jets and turbines?

More than a decade in, the most insane realization is that software is the key to reaccelerating hardware engineering. But in a way that I don’t think is widely understood or implemented, even in the burgeoning hard tech community.

Most hardware engineering is actually software engineering in disguise. It’s spreadsheet “code,” engineering calculations done as one-offs. Eg wing structural loads in, spar sizing design out. Thermal loads in, air conditioning system sizing out.

Everything is a calculation, and calculation is software. But these calculations are done essentially by hand, as if we are doing arithmetic but have not yet discovered algebra.

Hardware engineers have baby software, built in spreadsheets, the kind of crappy software I wrote as a kid before I understood architecture, unit tests, APIs, version control, and everything else that makes modern software good.

Our airplanes and engines are built with the software sophistication of a script kiddie.

So what we tell our engineers: don’t design the hardware, design the *algorithm* for designing the hardware. And take the algorithm seriously—as an algorithm and as a first-class engineered software system.

Never design a piece of hardware, such that you couldn’t redesign it tomorrow with a different set of assumptions.

This all sounds obvious, yet our experience at Boom is that it changes everything.

Ten years ago we couldn’t afford to build much software. We had a small team—and there were few software engineers with the curiosity, brilliance, and vision required to learn hardware engineering.

But now AI changes the equation. Now everyone can code. The software engineers define the architecture. The hardware people bring the physics and engineering know-how.

We have a turbomachinery design tool that lets one engineer do in realtime what previously took 100 engineers six months. Another tool auto-generates 65% of entire aircraft structure. I’m sure we’ll figure out the other 35% too. Eventually these should not be multiple tools, but one integrated physics model of a complete vehicle, airframe and powertrain.

The results speak for themselves. A boomless supersonic airplane built by 50. A full scale supersonic turbine made by 150. And with this approach, I don’t think we’ll need that many more people to build and certify a supersonic airliner.

You don’t need a big team to build big things—not when everyone on the team is a software engineer.

[Krish Kapadia @krish_k07]

@Haixu_Wu_1998 congrats! your work was a big part of our inspiration to start Vorelios, so it's awesome to see you building a startup around it. excited to follow along.

[Krish Kapadia @krish_k07]

@KlausCodes lfg congrats!

[Krish Kapadia @krish_k07]

@alymoursy @shong0504 if only 😔

[Krish Kapadia @krish_k07]

so excited to share what we've been working on!

[Daniel McNeil @danielmcneil_]

Today we’re launching @vorelios (YC F26)!

We’re a research lab building AI that can engineer anything. Models that predict a design’s behavior in seconds and use those predictions to invent and improve designs autonomously. 🧵

w/ @krish_k07 , @ycombinator

https://t.co/NRqk1nTUGU

[Krish Kapadia @krish_k07]

@simantic might be the craziest launch video in the batch

[Simantic @simantic]

Simantic is the simulation layer that lets engineers and AI agents test and validate firmware at the speed of software.

Frontier AI models have made generating firmware code cheap and effortless, but testing still depends on manual hardware debugging, expensive equipment, and software designed more than a decade ago. Simantic is modernizing firmware testing with simulation built for the era of coding agents.

w/ @ycombinator @shong0504 @enough_ahnaf

[sulan @sulansart]

Introducing Vyra!

We're building the personal video editing agent for shortform content. Just upload your raw footage, prompt, and Vyra edits it for you.

Try now at https://t.co/GPSb6jY7YH

[Krish Kapadia @krish_k07]

@alymoursy didn't expect to get jumpscared when I opened this app...

[Aaron Epstein @aaron_epstein]

Tonight’s the deadline for the W27 batch.

Crazy that filling out a simple form on the internet not only changed the trajectory of my company, but also the trajectory of my life.

[Krish Kapadia @krish_k07]

so true

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

Consider this a sign.

https://t.co/OnqI05W53Z

[Axonnic @Axonnic_]

The internet of the physical world will be built by making something people want to use.

[Aaron Epstein @aaron_epstein]

Many of the best ideas come from Making Something You Want

[Krish Kapadia @krish_k07]

@KushHansAgarwal ymmv is doing a lot of work here

[Krish Kapadia @krish_k07]

@Axonnic_ @ycombinator @PatankarArsh @maximSwilliams keyboard demo is insane

[Axonnic @Axonnic_]

Human hands built the world. Let’s teach robots how.

Today we’re launching Axonnic (YC F26): an EMG sleeve that captures finger movement + force to train robots on real human skill 🦾

w/ @ycombinator, @PatankarArsh & @maximSwilliams

YC: https://t.co/94CdCs5e2Z

[Julian Weaver @juliver]

Today we’re launching @dydema (YC F26).

We’re building personal, programmable brain-computer interfaces: you pick a thought and bind it to anything, like a key, a game or an agent. No surgery required.

[Kush Agarwal @KushHansAgarwal]

At Aviern, we are making unmanned cargo airplanes for autonomous airports.

The US has 5,000 public-use airports, and we will fly freight autonomously to every single one of them.

[Felix Rieseberg @felixrieseberg]

The coding interview is dead, at least for my team at Anthropic. I've seen enough to know that it no longer provides signal. I removed it from loops this month.

I have a spicy, optimistic take - I think there's an opportunity for junior engineers: https://t.co/PVvpQCbQtK