Phones. TVs. Refrigerators. Homes. Hair transplants. MRI machines.
Bajaj Finance has lent for all of them — and somewhere along the way, became bigger than the business it was once a footnote to.
Episode 2 of Intermission → May 11.
For Ashish and Pranav, the co-founders of Optimist, the initial few conversations weren't about a product, but about a problem — energy efficiency. Enter: an AC designed for Indian summers, easier on the pocket.
But that is only half the battle.
I write for @TheKenWeb
India’s AI ambitions force a new game for IT services
One company’s many reinventions mirror an industry facing its biggest technological shift in decades
Optimist's AC has a 6.05 ISEER rating, the highest among 5-star 1.4–1.5T split ACs on Amazon. Priyal's story explores how the energy-efficient AC startup prioritised engineering and services before expanding its retail presence.
Read the story here: https://t.co/AxESaovC1c
Optimist wants to reinvent the AC. Daikin and LG don’t need to
The energy-efficient AC startup prioritised engineering and services before expanding its retail presence. But slow and steady brand building has a cost
Why Big Tech is tokenmaxxed out
Leaderboards, exploding budgets, and a metric that stopped measuring productivity the moment it became a target
Listen on today's Daybreak:
The story of how Jio Financial Services was born is nothing short of a magic trick.
In Rohin's words, it was like a 1,600-pound gorilla emerging from the mist!
Episode 2 of Intermission covers this in the larger story of how Bajaj Finance got built: https://t.co/cRAo9gBTuz
India built a Rs 50,000 crore MSME fund to fight VCs’ tech bias. It still became a tech backer
Of the 750 companies the fund has invested in, 7 of 10 are tech-heavy—defying the fund’s intention of backing traditional manufacturers
Read in today's story https://t.co/dm4V24u1Fr
When a bonus is not really a bonus
A misnomer, bonuses declared by companies like LIC and Reliance Industries are neither free nor a reward, just shareholders’ own money, handed back to them as shares
Read in today's Ka-Ching!: https://t.co/ipTo77F2Sx
Google is now Andhra Pradesh's first private electricity company. You'll be paying for that
Andhra Pradesh handed Google its own electricity licence to attract data centres. The state grid will be picking up the tab
Lossfunk is the third space for Indian AI, beyond industry and academia
A look into the making of a ‘cosy home’ for ‘independent researchers’
Listen on today's Zero Shot: https://t.co/J7BuffVLIN
Across the country, people are recording themselves cooking, cleaning, folding clothes and moving through their homes, earning ₹250-300 a task from data-collection companies…
1/4
Tesla and Figure AI are building robots to act like humans. Indian workers are teaching them how...
…for a few hundred rupees. It may be a Faustian bargain, once again
Read in today's story: https://t.co/ktegI2rEWN
Stock-market investors go all out on an energy-hungry India
And they don’t care what the electricity source is
Read in today's Long and Short: https://t.co/GBpB3nS8su