Prateek

Director of Product @Twilio , obsessed with data, solving problems. @Columbia_Biz, aircraft designer @gulfstream

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

Welcome to @Meta @kunalb11 .
Going from 17M members to 3B DAU should be the kind of change that gets you going!

[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.

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

@pmarca 's career principles are spot on.

[Sam Altman @sama]

we bought a lot of silly baby things that we haven't needed

but definitely i recommend a cradlewise crib and a lot more burp rags than you think you could possibly need

[Eric Morillot @EricMorillot]

Quel génie a fait ça ??? 🤣🤣🤣

#Ukraine #Russie #USA

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

America offers meritocracy and all the other ingredients.

But it loses talent due to the artificial instability imposed by H1b quotas and the green card backlog.

It is “America first” to steal global talent. It is what made this country great, in the first place.

3/3

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

The USA is a magnet for talent.
High skilled Immigration depends on how attractive a place is in 6 dimensions-

1) stability: how reliable will it. Can I move my family over

2) economic opportunity: How easy is it to make more money than at one’s home country & save more

1/3

[Aaron Levie @levie]

High skilled immigration has been central to America leading the world in tech.

The biggest misunderstand about high skill immigration stems from people thinking that the market opportunities in tech, and tech-adjacent fields, are zero sum. This essentially imagines innovation is finite and we’re all fighting over the same job or opportunity pool.

This may be true of a few very legacy, slow growth industries, but it’s categorically not true for any important industry in the past 50 years or the next 100. Biotech, AI, advanced manufacturing, software, EVs, new energy sources, and dozens of other fields of the future are our high growth industries. And there’s no inherently fixed volume of companies or talent that the market needs.

Tesla being started or not started in America is the difference between 100,000’s of jobs here - and leading in EVs globally - and not. Apple being started here is the difference between potentially millions of jobs being here - and leading consumer electronics globally - and not. You could go through this list all day long.

Tech is not zero sum. More startups, pursuing more ideas, ultimately create more innovation and ultimately more jobs and prosperity. And that means you need the right talent to both work at these companies, and start the next ones. High skilled immigration has directly made America dominant technically and thus economically, and create far more jobs in America for others than are supposedly displaced.

Even briefly imagining the alternative scenario, it’s obvious how disastrous this would be. The demand from tech companies for this top talent will remain, yet America won’t benefit directly from their hiring. That talent will go to another company that competes with the US and makes our dominance harder to maintain. You’re just increasing the odds you have more competition in the future.

And even in the “best case” scenario (for our competitiveness) where a larger company like Google hires the same people internationally that would have otherwise moved here, when that person leaves Google to start their next company, it will be in their country of origin, not America.

This is how you lose the tech war within one or two generations. There’s simply no good game theory in anything that reduces our talent access.

Yes, we absolutely have and need to continue to educate and train incredible talent that grows up in the US, but equally having access to the world’s smartest talent has always been a huge advantage for America.

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

3) Language: how easy will it be to communicate with people (language)

4) cultural openness: how feasible it will be to build a community & feel at home

5) how the laws are setup to encourage working & reducing friction

6) meritocracy - if I’m good, can I thrive?
2/3

[Giuliano @Giuliano_Mana]

The most complex systems are rooted in deep simplicity.

This pattern is seen across physics, biology, and chemistry.

Thread breaking down this astounding book and idea:

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

If you're a Burner, or have ever wondered what the hype is about, or want to marvel at what human ingenuity can create.

It was the happiest week of my life, and I can't wait to hear what you think of it.

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

A city is built in a stark desert, it grows until it reaches a deafening crescendo, and then it burns.

But before the desert is returned to its dusty barren self, the Burners come to play. Welcome to Burning Man 2024.

by @prateekdhakra https://t.co/4B3kcppHcn

[Paul Graham @paulg]

When you start something like Airbnb, people don't just use it to rent existing spaces. It enables them to create new spaces as well.

Starting a marketplace is like making a tool. People will use it in ways you never imagined.

[David Perell @david_perell]

Common trait amongst highly successful founders is a strong bias for action. Quick to reply. Constant follow-up. Meetings end with next steps. Able to make decisions with a lot of ambiguity. Moving things forward is more important than being right when you can course correct.

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

@nytimes
My father is visiting and so I ordered a paper delivery on 3/12. 2 weeks have passed and not even 1 paper has been delivered. I've reported this online, I've called, I've complained repeatedly. Is this how newspapers die? They just stop serving paying customers?

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

@realyogeshdarji @eshanchordia Congrats @realyogeshdarji ! Big milestone, excited for the momentum ahead!

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

@snowmaker Like content review teams in the fraud and misinformation wars. Anyone building a venture to help those ops teams scale their reach and increase their accuracy, reach out!

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

@ShayanKrsna New Tesla use cases!

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

This is a dream partnership! @thomsonreuters a global industry powerhouse , and @truewindai an innovative accounting rocketship!

Great article @lucindashen

[Alex Lee @AlexLee611]

Funding announcement day 🚀 -- I'm thrilled to announce that @TRVentureCap is investing in @truewindai

https://t.co/mLJpntFkOR

🔥 @ShenLucinda @axios covered our seed announcement just four months ago. Naturally, we wanted her to cover the exclusive of our latest story.

📇 In 1952, IBM released its first large computer and accountants are amongst the first to use them. And yet, 70 years later, accounting remains an unsolved problem. The process is slow, error prone, and quite frankly, confusing.

⛵️ We are empowering the accounting industry using artificial intelligence and large language models. With an AI copilot, we are unlocking accountants and financial analysts to become true partners to their business unit counterparts.

🏔️ This partnership marks another step towards that vision. Thomson Reuters, with their expertise and leadership in accounting, combined with their proven track record of partnering with early stage companies made them a perfect fit for Truewind.

Welcome Joseph Dormani and @thomsonreuters to the Truewind family! It’s been a joy to partner with you and I’m thrilled for the work we will do together.

More details to come in a blog next week.

#ai #generativeai #accounting #fintech

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

Boomer, GenX, Millennial, then…GenZ then Gen Alpha…

What’s the next generation going to be called?
—> Gen AI 🙃

Happy 2024 everyone! 🚀

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

@knshkvshsht @iankar_ Should edit to say “let me know what you construct” isn’t it @knshkvshsht !

[Prateek @prateekdhakra]

@knshkvshsht @josh_coyne I hope this one takes off!