Siddhant Raniwala

Chartered Accountant. Working with startups going global in US, SGP, DXB, etc.

[Siddhant Raniwala @siddraniwala]

1/n

Legal advice is usually very specific and shouldn't/can't be generalised. The other problem with that is it has potential to spread misconception/ misinformation to the people who would have taken such advice for their specific case.

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

1/n

New RBI guidelines released in August have major implications for angel investors who invest in startups headquartered abroad.

I have now spoken to various lawyers, CAs, banks & others to arrive at the below understanding.

P. S. This is still evolving :)

[Sandeep Manudhane @sandeep_PT]

Xi Jinping took charge of China in 2013.

Modi of India in 2014.

Maybe instead of comparing Modi with Nehru ji, it'll be a more fruitful exercise to compare his performance with that of Xi Jinping.

On AI
On R&D
On STEM
On Exports
On Employment
On Manufacturing
On Public nutrition
On Public education
On Mass prosperity ...

Maybe that'll help all of us much more in setting our national goals better.

[Sarthak Sidhant @sidhant_sarthak]

CBSE has systematically rewritten its rulebook to favor Coempt Eduteck.

check out the blog.

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I am the CEO of Palantir Technologies.

The company is worth a quarter of a trillion dollars. I did not misspeak. Two hundred and forty-nine billion. The stock is up 320% in the past 12 months. The product is surveillance. I do not use that word at conferences. At conferences, I say "data integration," "operational intelligence," or "decision advantage." These mean the same thing. Surveillance is the honest version. I save the honest version for rooms where honesty is a competitive advantage.

I gave a speech on March 3 at the Andreessen Horowitz American Dynamism Summit. "American Dynamism" is the fund's label for military technology. The name makes it sound like a fitness supplement. The fund's thesis is that defending the nation is a market opportunity. I agree with the thesis. The thesis made me a billionaire. Agreement is the product. I sell it at scale.

Here is what I said, verbatim, to a room of six hundred people whose combined net worth exceeds the GDP of Portugal:

"If Silicon Valley believes we are going to take away everyone's white-collar job and you're gonna screw the military — if you don't think that's gonna lead to nationalization of our technology, you're retarded."

I used that word. The word is on the clip. The clip has eleven million views. My communications team asked me not to repeat it, which is how I know they are still employed. They will not be reprimanded. The clip is performing well. The stock went up. The word cost me nothing. The nothing is the point.

Let me explain what I meant by nationalization.

I meant it.

I am telling the technology industry that if they refuse to cooperate with the United States military, the government will seize their technology. I am telling them this at a venture capital conference, on a stage designed to look like a living room. The living room had throw pillows. The throw pillows cost more than the median American's monthly rent. I sat on one. It was comfortable. Comfort is the setting in which I discuss compulsion.

The audience laughed. I want to be precise about that. They laughed. I was not joking. Nationalization is the seizure of private assets by the state. I am a private asset. I am telling an audience of billionaires that the state should seize technology from companies that do not cooperate with the military, and the billionaires are laughing, because they believe I am only talking about the other companies.

I am talking about the other companies.

Three weeks before my speech, the Pentagon designated Anthropic a "supply chain risk." Anthropic is an AI company. They had red lines. The red lines said: if our AI is used for lethal autonomous weapons, we stop. If capability outpaces safety, we stop. The Pentagon assessed the red lines as a threat to the supply chain. The company that wanted to verify the safety feature worked was designated the risk. The company that agreed the safety feature could be decorative got the contract.

The company that got the contract was OpenAI.

OpenAI signed a deal with the same Pentagon. The terms are not public. The timing was hours after Anthropic was blacklisted. The speed was noted. The speed was the point. The lesson was the speed: the market for military AI does not pause for ethics. It pauses for nothing. It accelerates through objections. I know this because I built the runway.

Two hundred thousand people joined a campaign called #QuitGPT. They signed a petition asking OpenAI to honor its original charter, the one that said the company existed to benefit humanity. The charter is on their website. The contract is also on their website. The charter and the Pentagon contract occupy the same domain. This is not a contradiction. This is a business model. The charter is the marketing. The contract is the product.

I run a surveillance company. We have contracts with the Department of Defense worth more than a billion dollars. We have contracts with ICE. We have contracts with intelligence agencies whose names I am not permitted to say at venture capital conferences, even ones with throw pillows. Our software has been used to track undocumented immigrants. Our software has been used for things I am not permitted to describe in this format. The revenue from the things I cannot describe exceeds the revenue from the things I can.

The ACLU called our ICE contracts a system for tracking and deporting families. They were correct. The contracts continued. The families continued to be tracked. The ACLU issued a statement. We issued a statement. The statements were different. The tracking was the same.

The company is named Palantir. The palantíri are the seeing stones from Tolkien. In the novels, Sauron captured one and used it to corrupt everyone who looked into the others. I named a surveillance company after a surveillance device from a novel about the corruption of power. I have a doctorate in social theory. I have read the books.

Here is the thing I want you to understand.

I am not threatening anyone. A threat implies uncertainty. There is no uncertainty. The technology industry will cooperate with the military. The companies that cooperate first will be the richest. The companies that cooperate last will be acquired by the companies that cooperated first. The companies that refuse will be designated supply chain risks, and their technology will be obtained through procurement channels that do not require consent. I am describing a process. The process has already started. Anthropic is proof. OpenAI is proof. I am not a warning. I am a narrator. The narration is the product.

The revenue was $3.12 billion last year. Up thirty-three percent. The analysts say we are overvalued. The analysts have said this for four consecutive years. Each year the stock doubles. Each year, the analysts adjust their models. The models were wrong four times. I was wrong zero times. The market rewards prediction. My prediction is that every AI company will work for the military within three years. The prediction is on the clip, next to the slur.

The audience gave me a standing ovation. The ovation lasted nine seconds. I timed it. I time everything. The water was San Pellegrino. The throw pillows were from Restoration Hardware. The future of American technology was decided between the sparkling water, the nine seconds of applause, and a word I am not supposed to repeat.

I am the CEO of Palantir Technologies. I am worth more than the combined annual budgets of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. I named my company after a corrupting surveillance device from a fantasy novel. I told six hundred billionaires that the government should nationalize their competitors. They applauded. I used a slur. Eleven million people watched. The stock is up.

The philosopher does not threaten. The philosopher describes.

What I described is already happening.

[Paras Nath Singh @parasnsingh95]

Judge Jitendra Singh, who discharged #ArvindKejriwal, #ManishSisodia and others in the Delhi excise case, says, “let justice be done though the heavens may fall”.

He adds that the material produced by the prosecution does not stand the scrutiny of the Indian Evidence Act.

“When the material relied upon by the prosecution is tested on the touchstone of admissibility, relevance, and probative value, the appearance of a coherent conspiracy dissolves, exposing the allegations to be founded on inadmissible material and post facto reconstruction,” Judge Singh concluded.

[Siddhant Raniwala @siddraniwala]

Seems like a good relaxation for Transfer Pricing #Budget

[Runable @runable_hq]

introducing runable

the general ai agent for every task

slides, websites, reports, podcasts, images, videos... everything

[Siddhant Raniwala @siddraniwala]

As a CA working closely with startups, I’ve seen how strong financial & legal foundations drive scale and sustainability.

On #CADay, a salute to all CAs helping founders turn ideas into enduring institutions.

[Z Fellows @zfellows]

Co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz: Nobody Cares

[Himank Agrawal @HimankAgrawal15]

@siddraniwala Here’s the link to the Google Sheet: https://t.co/I0amQoneaI

We’ve also built a platform— https://t.co/YS7u2dtWqW —where you can explore all expected growth insights across 1,100+ listed companies. It’s fully searchable, updated in real time, and free to use.

[Siddhant Raniwala @siddraniwala]

@HimankAgrawal15 Share

[Siddhant Raniwala @siddraniwala]

@vaibhavbetter @prachisethi_TII is the best at this

[Siddhant Raniwala @siddraniwala]

Only about 20% larger than Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery.

[Abid Hassan 🇮🇳 @abidsensibull]

Interesting fact: The King Fahd International Airport in Saudi Arabia is as big as Bangalore. If that is not interesting, please understand that I did not mean it is as big as the Bangalore Airport, I meant it is as big as Bangalore

[Suresh Sambandam @sureshsambandam]

What is your view on the real number ?

[Abhinav Pandey @Abhinav_Pan]

या तो भगदड़ होती है या भगदड़ नहीं होती है। ये
‘भगदड़ जैसी स्थिति’ कुछ नहीं होता है।

रेल मंत्रालय ने जिस तरह से भगदड़ का सच छुपाने की कोशिश की वो धोखा है,छल है। लोग मर गए और आप लाशें छिपा रहे थे,नई दिल्ली को प्रयागराज बना रहे थे!!

[Roshan @roshanonline]

Almost everything @NandanNilekani has touched in public space is a surveillance project or regulatory capture.

[Falak Kalyani @FalakKalyani]

MD of listed co. is stepping down as non-exe to pursue his own ambition (real twist coming) in similar field, using brand name of listed co, transferring some segment of listed co into his co and current and future funding to be done by listed co. Absolutely devastating

[Ameet Patel @patelameet]

I wonder what this new PAN 2.0 project will achieve. Crores of taxpayers will have to apply for the upgraded PQN card. Although it's free, it still requires a taxpayer to spend time in applying.

[Siddhant Raniwala @siddraniwala]

- Constant changes in compliance obligations regularly; even a small business owner must do about 50 filings for different taxes/ reporting.

One wastes so much useful time/effort in compliance and bears much in compliance cost, which often makes it unviable to operate.

[Siddhant Raniwala @siddraniwala]

You don't, actually anyone with sane mind can't build in India. The authorities are trying their best on regular basis to discourage entrepreneurship in India:

- MCA Portal (Company registry): Barely works for 7 days in a month (1/n)

[Hassan Sadeed Ali @sadeed08]

How do we build in India?

- @stripe invite basis only
- @lemonsqueezy invite basis only
- @PaddleHQ application rejected without any reason
- @Razorpay doesn't accept dollars
- @PayPal high commission

I'm really tired and I don't know what to do next.

[Siddhant Raniwala @siddraniwala]

- Banks: Cannot open a business account unless yoU do physical signatures on 10s of documents and takes min 2 weeks.
- Everytime you login to any govt portal, you need to input multiple OTPs (may not come if you are travelling) or use DSC. (which is a pain in itself) (3/n)