Punith Reddy

. | CRED | Unacademy | Engineer

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way. this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or
4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the
worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the
gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.
you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter,
it’s the only good fight
there is.

- Roll the Dice by Charles Bukowski

[pH @pHequals7]

https://t.co/noKIgZK9aG

[Rahul Sanghi @RahulSanghi1]

For the last three years, a startup in Bangalore has been obsessed with a pursuit that typically invites raised eyebrows, naked skepticism, and accusations of stealing from sci-fi:

@dognosis is training dogs to detect cancer.

And until you've spent time at their facility - a former pomegranate farm in the outskirts of Bangalore - perhaps skepticism is the rational response.

But Dognosis isn't betting on some pie-in-the-sky idea or some charming novelty act, they're betting on evolution.

@akadogluk and @Itamar_Bitan based their company on the fact that the dog's nose - a product of fifteen millennia of co-evolution with humans - can detect the faint chemical trace of cancer in your breath at a resolution that our machines, algorithms, and laboratory tests have never come close to matching.

We've known this fact for decades. We've consistently failed to do anything meaningful with that knowledge.

The missing link has been figuring out what the dog's nose knows, and applying it in a standardised, scalable, and clinically validated way.

Dognosis is building this missing piece of the equation i.e. the translation layer that allows the dog's nose to speak a language medicine can understand, enabling us to harness an ancient biological intelligence and plug it into our modern medical infrastructure.

Maybe you've read the paragraphs above and retained your skepticism. That's fair. But this past Friday, the Journal of Clinical Oncology - the world's most influential cancer journal - opted to make life much harder for the skeptics.

On Friday, the JCO published Dognosis' landmark study on breath-based multi-cancer detection - the largest of its kind ever conducted - showing that a team of trained dogs, equipped with sensors and AI, could detect multiple cancers from breath alone at 90%+ accuracy - including at Stage I, when it matters most - for $2 a test.

According to Akash, it proved "that everything we’ve known about the dogs is true".

Needless to say, it's a genuine milestone for Indian healthcare, health-tech, deep-tech, and, uh, dog-tech, that deserves far more attention than it's gotten so far.

To help change that, we were lucky to have Akash stop by the Tigerfeathers editorial desk this past week to unpack the Dognosis journey - helping us understand what they're building, how they're doing it, why it matters, and what comes next.

From where we're sitting, Dognosis is an n-of-1 Indian startup with an n-of-1 story that everyone in the Indian tech ecosystem should be aware of. If you've been intrigued by what you've read so far and you're keen to go deeper, dive into our piece here👇

https://t.co/limlGrgxJ1

[Om Patel @om_patel5]

stripe's CEO explains how to move fast

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

the execution by @architnanda_ and @rachitbansal99 over the last 12 months has been nothing less than exemplary. huge congrats to the entire team 👏👏

[Archit Nanda @architnanda_]

🙌🏼12 months ago, we shut down what was “working” - a social app with 2.5M users

And we rebuilt from scratch. New category, new muscle, new fear

Thrilled to share that we’ve raised $5M to accelerate our mission of instant fashion🚀

Excited to partner with 12 Flags who join us with this round, with participation from existing investors @KaeCapital and @theboundlessvc

To every customer who said “thank god this exists” - we heard you

To our investors who backed the crazy vision - thank you

To the team that sprinted through every midnight - onward

Instant fashion is just about to get fashionable!💕

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

.

[Paras Chopra @paraschopra]

Unsolicited tip to all my friends:

Never ask to borrow books from people who keep a lot of books at their home — they keep them around precisely because they’re irrationally attached to their books :)

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

making money is probably the most important reason for most people to start a company

[Aviral Bhatnagar @aviralbhat]

Do not start a company if you're primarily driven by:

- Making money
- Getting famous
- Doing better than others
- Calling yourself CEO/founder

Only do it if you're crazy enough to do whatever it takes to solve a problem you deeply care about

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

Open source this please! @harimenon_bb
Will help if more people can learn and produce everywhere!

[Hari Menon @harimenon_bb]

What began as a small sustainability experiment is now one of our fastest-growing product lines.

Over the past few months, we’ve seen a loyal fanbase grow around our leaf plates on @bigbasket_com

When we realised most disposable plates in the market were either plastic-coated or prone to fungus, we could either sell what’s common or create something better.

So we joined hands with the tribal communities of Odisha to source Siali leaves... strong, compostable & grown in abundance. Then ran some R&D to make them even tougher & more antibacterial.

With just 5 SKUs, these leaf plates now account for over 25% of our sales in the segment.

More than that, it means less plastic in landfills, more dignity in rural livelihoods & higher food safety on our table.

This is how much of innovation really happens. You look at the standard & think… are we sure we can't do this better? 💡

#bigbasket #sustainability

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

@UltrahumanHQ this, when?

[nav @naveedg]

an ai wearable that you can talk to, but it…

doesn't invade your privacy.
doesn't try to be your friend.
doesn’t have friction to use.
doesn't ruin your fashion sense.

[David Senra @FoundersPodcast]

New episode: "How Elon Works"

This episode covers the insanely valuable company-building principles of Elon Musk

A few notes from the episode:

1. The mission comes first.

2. Retreat is not an option.

3. A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle.

4. Product design should be driven by engineers.

5. You should not separate engineering from product design.

6. Having separate design and production departments is bullshit. Keep everything together and feedback immediate.

7. The leader should be on the front lines. You should be a battlefield general.

8. "If they see the general out on the battlefield, the troops are going to be motivated. Wherever Napoleon was, that's where his armies would do best."

9. Apply The Algorithm constantly. (1) Question every requirement. (2) Delete any part of the process you can. (3) Simplify and optimize. (4) Accelerate cycle time. (5) Automate.

10. Repetition is persuasive. "I became a broken record on the algorithm. I think it's helpful to say it to an annoying degree."

11. You should go ultra-hardcore on deletion and simplification.

12. Camaraderie is dangerous. It makes it hard for people to challenge each other’s work. (Refer to point #1)

13. Never ask your troops to do something you wouldn’t do.

14. Hire for attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant.

15. Good attitude = A desire to work maniacally hard.

16. The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.

17. Keep your entire company committed to a common goal.

18. If things aren’t going well, throw away the existing design, start from first principles, question every requirement based on fundamental physics.

19. Find the limit. You want to delete as much as possible and you can’t do that unless you find the limit.

20. If you aren’t adding back at least 10% of the things you deleted, then you didn’t delete enough.

21. Maintain control. Avoid joint ventures. Eliminate middlemen.

22. Have a relentless dedication to questioning every requirement.

23. No work about work, just work.

24. Go to the problem. Get on the plane. Fly to the source. Go to the exact location in the factory. Go to the problem and stay there until it's resolved.

25. The best part is no part.

26. Be wired for war.

27. Do not fear losing. It hurts the first 50 times but then you’ll be able to play with less emotion. You will take more risks.

28. Stay heads down focused on doing useful things for civilization.

29. When something is important and has to be done quickly, have meetings every 24 hours to run the algorithm and check on the previous days progress. You'll be shocked at how fast this speeds things up.

30. Life needs to be interesting and edgy.

31. Delete, delete, delete, delete.

There are 100 more ideas in the episode. I hope you listen to it. 30 years of Elon’s career + 60 hours of reading and research and me just absolutely ripping through idea after idea at 2x speed for 90 minutes.

It will be hard to find a better use of time.

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

adulting is probably when you realise that your parents’ investment thesis of just buying gold or real estate is the best among all other options, now that everything around you is volatile.

physical assets > digital assets

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

more dashcams and more public outrage is the only way…

[Fundamental Investor ™ 🇮🇳 @FI_InvestIndia]

This Guy fills E20 fuel & pays Road Tax for his Vehicle. Who will pay for his Spine? 🙂

#FI

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

@PESUniversity 👏🏾

[Deedy @deedydas]

The new CTO of Anthropic and ex-CTO of Stripe is from PESIT.

Imagine being a non-IITian, from the #83 college in the country, and having anywhere close to this career trajectory in India.

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

All this, plus the suggestion is from a know fraud…

[krithika sivaswamy @krithikasivasw]

You learnt ikea, Volkswagen, Samsung, xiaomi , armani, porsche . Now learn this. Its 1 word.

[Andrew Côté @Andercot]

$1 of cash on NVIDIA's balance sheet is worth $1.

But $1 of revenue at ~50% net margins with a 50x P/E ratio, is worth $25.

[Nikunj Kothari @nikunj]

In today's 996 chest-thumping culture, don't forget about the quiet ones keeping your company together..

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

CFO who squandered company funds on fno trading and a company who didn’t figure it out for years, makes for a great movie…

[Chandra R. Srikanth @chandrarsrikant]

Former Gameskraft CFO diverted company funds to F&O trading, incurring Rs 250 crore losses, FIR says

By @ChristinMP_ and @tsuvik

https://t.co/1RLZSoTkky

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

the invisible hand of the markets in action

[Monika Halan 🇮🇳 @monikahalan]

Competition between states gets real!
Good to see.

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

🤌🏾

[Naval @naval]

Starting a company is solving a simultaneous equation - you’re convincing the money that you have the talent, and the talent that you have the money.

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

Well, this is exactly what European colonisers did everywhere they went.

[Sriram @SriramMadras]

Here’s a clip of the Ganesh celebration in Germany. Is this right? Enforcing Indian culture in foreign soil fuels resentment against Indians. Keep celebrations inside temples and your homes at least in foreign soil.

[Punith Reddy @punithreddya]

Whatever is the stats, it’s important that we have finally started!