Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️

Investments @ | Ex-Chief of Staff @ Lossfunk, Prev. Co-founder and CEO @hq_paperplane

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@Ayussheth Hey, we've been doing this at @lossfunk and @scaletogether would love to offer our office space and see how we can do this collaboratively

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@ishaaniguess Man, someone’s in love 🙈

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

I suspect a huge class of expats/NRIs will move back to their native geography and take the founder route to play the equity game with the home base advantage.

Big fish in a small pond >> fish in a large pond

[Deedy @deedydas]

The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen.

Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders - have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope AI estimation).

Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job for their whole life and never get there.

Worse yet, layoffs are in full swing. Many software engineers feel like their life's skill is no longer useful. The day to day role of most jobs has changed overnight with AI.

As a result,
1. The corporate ladder looks like the wrong building to climb.
Everyone's trying to align with a new set of career "paths": should I be a founder? Is it too late to join Anthropic / OpenAI? should I get into AI? what company stock will 10x next? People are demanding higher salaries and switching jobs more and more.

2. There’s a deep malaise about work (and its future).
Why even work at all for “peanuts”? Will my job even exist in a few years? Many feel helpless. You hear the “permanent underclass” conversation a lot, esp from young people. It's hard to focus on doing good work when you think "man, if I joined Anthropic 2yrs ago, I could retire"

3. The mid to late middle managers feel paralyzed.
Many have families and don't feel like they have the energy or network to just "start a company". They don't particularly have any AI skills. They see the writing on the wall: middle management is being hollowed out in many companies.

4. The rich aren’t particularly happy either.
No one is shedding tears for them (and rightfully so). But those who have "made it" experience a profound lack of purpose too. Some have gone from <$150k to >$50M in a few years with no ramp. It flips your life plans upside down. For some, comparison is the thief of joy. For some, they escape to NYC to "live life". For others still, they start companies "just cuz", often to win status points. They never imagined that by age 30, they'd be set. I once asked a post-economic founder friend why they didn't just sell the co and they said "and do what? right now, everyone wants to talk to me. if i sell, I will only have money."

I understand that many reading this scoff at the champagne problems of the valley. Society is warped in this tech bubble. What is often well-off anywhere else in the world is bang average here.

Unlike many other places, tenure, intelligence and hard work can be loosely correlated with outcomes in the Bay. Living through a societally transformative gold rush in that environment can be paralyzing. "Am I in the right place? Should I move? Is there time still left? Am I gonna make it?" It psychologically torments many who have moved here in search of "success".

Ironically, a frequent side effect of this torment is to spin up the very products making everyone rich in hopes that you too can vibecode your path to economic enlightenment.

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@archiexzzz Is the talent good enough?

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@HarveenChadha Post training a model, is the new "coding"

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@himanshustwts I have my concerns about databricks, 160 billion as a private company, that too not a high growth/growth story like model making, could also be a value erosion story @himanshustwts

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@regalstreak PARTY BUS !!!

[Shubham Gupta @shubg]

The best founders don’t just build products. They build communities around a shared obsession.
@emergentlabs gets this. #vibecon2026 is proof.

Across our portfolio, the companies that compound fastest are always the ones that make their users feel like they’re part of something bigger. Watching this play out live is a privilege.

This is the place to be right now. 🙌
@scaletogether @mukundjha

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

Super excited for this Hackathon, OpenClaw is slowly becoming the defacto "harness" to use AI

Let's see what the ecosystem builds :)

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

I have enough evidence (anecdotal + primary) that this form factor for consumer apps (specifically “dating”) should work.

Now we’ll let the free markets decide.

Best of luck, team @heywavelength. You guys are in for a ride :)

[Vinit Sarode @vinitsarode_]

Wavelength app is finally live.

In December, we built an app-less experience. Chat based, completely scrappy. Whatsapp blocked 80% of our messages, emails went to spam. We were literally texting people manually to tell them they had a match.

And it still worked. We matched about 250 couples and people went on real dates.

Then we rebuilt everything voice first. You talk to Wave, she listens, questions, and matches you based on what she actually hears. Efficacy and satisfaction went up by 6x.

Now our app can actually ping you when your match is ready and ask how your date went.

Love is coming to Bangalore.

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@archiexzzz @scaletogether @prathamgrv @evilmathkid It was great hosting you @archiexzzz let’s do it again soon!

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@paraschopra Contrarian optimists are a rare breed :)

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@suhasasumukh @localhostIND My boy is finishing exams on 18th and then organising one of the most creative hacks in BLR - founder mode pro maxx 🚀

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@_yogeshsingh @yashrajnayak @gabrielchua @therahulgoel @pragyamisra @harshitm29 @Mayank9856 @reach_vb @harshilmathur @GrowthX_Club @vishnuacharya94 @OpenAIDevs @sama @steipete Thanks for dropping by, it was great to host you :)

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@rakshith_twt Yo! Just drop by at the office! Happy to accommodate you :)

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@workslikejenga The equity upside of being part of a company that will eventually become a PSU is huge, gov can print cash to buy anything ;)

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

Bangalore has ideas.
This is about execution.

RunTogether: a 10-hour hackathon to go from idea → MVP → pitch.

🏆 $1K cash
🚀 Up to $1M via SwarmSpace
📅 Jan 31 | Bangalore
Apply → https://t.co/9FEo3qUWRP

@runable_hq @skau98 @ShivamkRajvansh @shubhg @scaletogether

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@suhasasumukh @localhosthq @KunalKSavita 🙌🏻

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@suhasasumukh @AadityaYuvraj 100% agreed

[Devansh Swarup 👨‍✈️ @swarup_devansh]

@suhasasumukh something's cooking 😉