Venkat N

Engineer, cynic and lover of dogs. Always curious, sometimes judgmental. Opinions are my own.

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

“Any symptom of indifference is a sign of complicity.” #StandWithUkriane

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

The Auschwitz Memorial statement on the situation in Ukraine.

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

Like many, my first introduction to Mr. Purja was through the documentary 14 Peaks. While his dedication to mountaineering was evident, it was his passion for representing the sherpa community and his commitment to highlighting their contributions that stuck. RIP 🙏

[CNN @CNN]

The famed Nepalese climber Nirmal Purja, who made history over the years by trekking some of the world’s highest peaks, has been confirmed dead after an avalanche struck an expedition in the Himalayas earlier this week. https://t.co/qOQ2BXDl1r

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

#TeamBison

[Bison @Bisontwting]

Good morning to everyone except that tourist who almost got me euthanized

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

Freddy’s back online and if for a brief moment all is well in the world.

[Freddy🇩🇪 @FreddyLA7]

Hello again.

We’re currently in Clemson, South Carolina. I’ve decided to come back here to document the final part of our road trip.

The main reason I deactivated my account two weeks ago was that things became increasingly toxic. For some people, it’s unfortunately unfathomable that a good story can exist without some kind of hidden agenda behind it. There was even a Reddit group going through my entire account trying to find anything they could use to reveal my identity.

I know this was only a small percentage of people, but after a while it became exhausting. During the last two weeks, I received so many kind messages on Instagram, and they really made me realize how many people genuinely enjoyed following the trip. Some people even told me that their grandparents regularly ask them, “What are the Germans up to today?” I think that’s really cool.

I decided to continue because I realized that the overwhelming majority of people loved following along. A small group of very loud people shouldn’t be able to ruin something that brought so many others joy.

I also want to clear something up, as people who follow me on Instagram already know.

I’ve been to the United States before. This is not my first visit, and I’ve never claimed that it was. The last time I was here was in January 2022, when I visited New York and Philadelphia.

A lot of people shared my Raising Cane’s post from November 2025 to make it look like I was secretly American. That post wasn’t from the United States, it was from my trip to Saudi Arabia.

This is my first time back in the U.S. in more than four years, and apart from Boston, I’d never visited any of the places we’ve been to on this trip before. That’s probably why many people assumed it was our first time in America, because for all of these places, it actually was.

And let me tell you, Ohio and Alabama are very different from New York City or Los Angeles.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks for reading.

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

If I was Sorloth, I’d find my own ride back home.

[Geronimo Morgans @GeronimoMorgans]

This angle of Sørloth ignoring Haaland. The reaction from Haaland says it all man. He was frustrated and disappointed, just like the rest of us.

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

I’d settle for a dishwasher that actually washes and cleans the dishes.

[Jake Rivera @FidelCacheFlow]

Society been fucked since the smartest minds of our generation decided to build consumer convenience apps for unicorn exit instead of innovating infrastructure, hardware, logistics, politics, and philosophy

MIT grads making to do list apps

Society dosen’t need OPUS 10.0

We need microwaves that don’t cause cancer when you reheat leftovers

We need energy efficient light bulbs

We need laundry that’s done in 10min

We’ve had zero innovation for a while

Household tech still 1940s

[Dwarkesh Patel @dwarkesh_sp]

My family moved to the US when I was 8, but by the time I turned 20, my dad was still on an H1B (waiting to get processed for a green card).

Once I turned 21, I would age out as his dependent, despite the fact that I basically grew up in the US.

I thought I'd have to become a code monkey after college, and even that only if I was lucky enough to win the H1B lottery.

Otherwise, back to India.

I had become a huge fan of @paulg's essays in college. I was actually depressed that my desire to start a startup or do something entrepreneurial was basically hopeless.

Working on the promising podcast I was doing as a side project? A beyond impossible pipe dream.

Even after 9 years, my dad wasn't able to get a green card - and the lines were only getting longer over time. I figured I'd be an old man before I could quit some FANG job and build my own thing.

By some miracle, COVID travel restrictions cleared out the lines, and I got my green card literally months before I would have aged out.

If not for this unbelievable coincidence, I would not be hosting the podcast.

In the best case, I would be shifting pixels around in the 3rd sub-sub-menu of some big tech software.

I'm incredibly grateful I made it through.

But it's unconscionable that we put the kids of high skilled immigrants through all this anxiety, and in many cases make them repeat the nerve-racking indentured life trajectory that they had to watch their parents go through.

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

@aleabitoreddit $BWEN It’s pivoting hard from low-margin wind towers to high-margin precision gearing & industrial components. Surging orders, AI/data center + grid tailwinds, deeply undervalued microcap. Clean reset with major re-rating runway. Risky but asymmetric.

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

@dwarkesh_sp Shawn Achor (@shawnachor) would be a welcome change on many levels.

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

@nikitabier Downy fabric softener (fr)

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

🤦‍♂️

[Elahe Izadi @ElaheIzadi]

A Washington Post investigation finds that DC Water had planned to reinforce the aging section of the failed Potomac Interceptor years ago but repeatedly delayed construction as federal officials studied potential environmental impacts: https://t.co/gXTG7oauXn

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

The ads are the product, we’re the inventory, and the AI finishing our sentences incorrectly is the only honest joke left ‘cause even the machines are half-assing it now.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

@buccocapital Agree. This essentially captures the difference between Dwarakesh and Lex.

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

@space_colonist Their next LinkedIn update is likely going to look like this

[Hank Green @hankgreen]

Look, I'm not an oncologist but I am frustrated by the way this dog cancer story is being interpreted from a bunch of different angles and I think basically all of this can be cleared up if people understood like...six things.

You should know these 6 things about cancer:

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

@GitaGopinath For daily basic use I’d recommend Cursor.

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

@TheNBACentel Yeah they aren’t stopping anyone either.

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

Free: join me & 1,000+ AI experts, startups, investors & digital professionals at AI SKILLS'2026 Virtual Conf on Jan 22 (Zoom). Register: https://t.co/YSJ3XQjHy2

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

Riefenstahl would be so proud.

[CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil @CBSEveningNews]

"On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we've taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you."

That changes now. The new CBS Evening News starts Monday at 6:30 p.m. ET on CBS.

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

@rao2z @RealAAAI AI Agent to review AI papers 😜

[Venkat N @sumdudeiknew]

@BleacherReport @SkyedOKC @KDTrey5 @FinalsJDub