Mithun Srivatsa

Building Blowhorn | All views are personal | Keep on keeping on

[Mithun Srivatsa @m1thun5]

Never give up ..
https://t.co/mUSjaghqhR

[Gokul Rajaram @gokulr]

YOU CAN’T STARVE YOUR WAY TO GREATNESS

It’s amazing to see how much companies are able to get done with 2 people today.

It’s good to be frugal but I will always remember what my own investor, the legendary @davidsze at Greylock, told me: “Gokul, you can’t starve your way to greatness.”

Founders: don’t let frugality descend into starvation mode, and don’t shy away from making high ROI investments, even if they are large. Greatness demands smart high conviction investment of capital, time and people.

[Dharmesh Ba @dharmeshba]

Calling India price sensitive is lazy.

Yes, price matters. Of course it does. In a resource-constrained country, every rupee has a job. But people are not simply optimizing for the lowest price. They are optimizing against regret.

Will this product fail? Will the return happen? Will my family blame me? Will I look foolish? Will I lose money? Will the cheaper option become expensive later?

That is why the same person who bargains for two rupees on vegetables may dream of an iPhone. The same household that compares grocery prices may buy a dishwasher. A Tier 2 buyer may buy a premium fridge because it solves a household problem and signals progress.

Value is not price. Value is price plus trust plus aspiration plus reliability plus social meaning.

In India, price is visible. Regret is hidden.

The best brands understand that the consumer is not asking, "What is cheapest?"

They are asking, "What will I not regret buying?"

[The White House @WhiteHouse]

Today, we remember a legend.

On this day in history, Harambe would have celebrated another birthday. An icon that became part of internet history, American culture, and an entire generation’s timeline.

Tomorrow marks 10 years since we lost him. Ten years since the moment the world stopped scrolling and collectively mourned something bigger than a meme.

He became a symbol of loyalty, strength, chaos, unity, and the strange beauty of the internet bringing millions of people together for one cause: never forgetting Harambe.

Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. And somehow, a decade later, his legacy still lives on.

Gone, but never forgotten.
Rest easy to a true patriot. 🕊️🇺🇸

May 27, 1999 — May 28, 2016
Forever in our hearts.

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

Americans are going to extraordinary lengths to get their hands on Indian mangoes. “I literally stop whatever I'm doing.” https://t.co/GyFcSrmiYG

[Sam Altman @sama]

!!

[DFS @DFS_India]

Government of India has approved formation of ‘Bharat Maritime Insurance Pool’ (BMI pool) of ₹13,905 crores (USD 1.5 Billion) for Indian flagged or controlled vessels or vessels destined to or starting from India, backed by a sovereign guarantee of ₹12,980 crores by Government of India, to facilitate continuous maritime insurance coverages.

The pool would cover all maritime risks like Hull and Machinery, Cargo, P&I and War risk. The Pool will help to manage liability insurance locally, tailored to Indian Shipping conditions and regulatory requirements, develop specialized Marine underwriting, claims management and legal expertise within India. BMI pool addresses global volatility, geopolitical instability and reduces external insurance dependency of Indian vessels.

Read more: https://t.co/qpiJyp5P9Z

[Tanay Padhi @tanaypadhi]

how did Allbirds pivot to AI compute hardware before the shoe company literally called ASICS

[Desi Batman @desibatman_27]

That kannada translation is k!lling me😭😭

[Arjun Malhotra @BadCapitalVC]

https://t.co/2k6IW9z19x

[Narendra Modi @narendramodi]

Today, India takes a defining step in its civil nuclear journey, advancing the second stage of its nuclear programme.

The indigenously designed and built Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam has attained criticality.

This advanced reactor, capable of producing more fuel than it consumes, reflects the depth of our scientific capability and the strength of our engineering enterprise. It is a decisive step towards harnessing our vast thorium reserves in the third stage of the programme.

A proud moment for India. Congratulations to our scientists and engineers.

[𝔭𝔬𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔩𝔩 @poellll]

did you know a bokka (歩荷) is a traditional Japanese mountain porter profession specialized in transporting heavy goods—supplies, food, and fuel—to remote mountain guesthouses inaccessible by vehicles

[le.hl @0xleegenz]

Top male canon events

- Grandparents die
- Finding out WWE is fake
- Blacking out for the first time
- 19 years old summer
- Know the family lore
- Seeing mom cry
- November 2021
- Discover gym after break up
- Go to a third world country and realize you're not that good guys

[ Q-Cap  @qcapital2020]

Hi Claude, build me the Renaissance Medallion Fund with better returns and less risk , don't make any mistakes

[shaurya @shauseth]

startup idea: we sell hand made artisanal code

[Arjun Jain | Fast Code AI @Arjunjain]

I am standing on SP Road in 2002, holding 5,000 rupees. My friends have 40,000. They're walking into the proper shops. Pentium 4s in shiny boxes. They'll be running Windows XP by tonight. Playing Quake 3 by the weekend.

I turn into a shop that sells scrap.

Cables hang from the ceiling. Motherboards stacked like garbage. A man speaking Hyderabadi Hindi shows me what he has. I point to a Pentium 1. Gray. Heavy. Obsolete. I take the bus from KR Market with the CPU on my lap. Then I go back for the monitor.

My allowance is 2,000 rupees a month. Mess fee takes 1,100. Mobile bill takes 200. I've been saving for months to buy this machine that nobody wants.

The DJ Block hostel at RV College. 2 AM.

Down the hall, my friends are playing capture the flag. Landing railgun shots. When I try playing on someone else's computer, I can't hit anything. The kind of terrible where people stop picking you for their team.

So I stop trying.

I stay in my room. The Pentium 1 can't run Windows XP. It can barely breathe. But it can run Linux—if I make Linux small enough.

So I learn.

I install Gentoo from an LFY magazine CD. Compile the kernel myself—strip out everything this machine can't carry. I configure mplayer from the command line to watch a movie.

I mount SMB drives and set up FTP. My friend Vrijesh and I wire the hostel LAN with our own hands (I still remember the wire order for crimping)—the same network that everyone else uses to play Quake 3.

I stay up late. Packet sniffing. iptables. Wine to run Windows apps. I follow Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza. See them at Linux Bangalore.

I learn Linux so well that Vinay Y S, the college sys admin, chooses me to take over after him. The college website. The browsing center. The servers.

2005. A lovely office on Ramana Maharishi Road. Pi Corp—the hottest startup in Bangalore. The interviewer asks: "How do you untar a gzipped file?"

My mouth answers before my brain does.
𝚝𝚊𝚛 -𝚣𝚡𝚟𝚏

Muscle memory. Hundreds of nights. Compiled into five characters.

Same day offer.

That night, I call my mother.

"𝘞𝘦'𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦."

(Photo: Me on a friend's computer.)

[Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays]

A Final Message From Scott Adams

[Arjun Malhotra @BadCapitalVC]

I’m looking to hire an Executive Assistant to practically run my life. You’d own my calendar, communications, travel, operational coordination and special projects.

More info on the role here, and pls help spread the word!

Applications close Jan 5th: https://t.co/2VTCf4ShVZ

[Ivan Zhao @ivanhzhao]

https://t.co/fxHYR6S29D

[Abhijit Iyer-Mitra @Iyervval]

Absolute cracker of a read. Most Indians seem to have forgotten about this episode.

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

Don't think of LLMs as entities but as simulators. For example, when exploring a topic, don't ask:

"What do you think about xyz"?

There is no "you". Next time try:

"What would be a good group of people to explore xyz? What would they say?"

The LLM can channel/simulate many perspectives but it hasn't "thought about" xyz for a while and over time and formed its own opinions in the way we're used to. If you force it via the use of "you", it will give you something by adopting a personality embedding vector implied by the statistics of its finetuning data and then simulate that. It's fine to do, but there is a lot less mystique to it than I find people naively attribute to "asking an AI".