venkat subramanian R

[venkat subramanian R @venkat_sr]

@chandrarsrikant Please note CEOs who diss the stock market invariably do it on down days- they never call the market dumb on euphoric days! Explain the rationale in greater detail and stay calm.
Completely uncalled for outburst- “let the results speak” is a good operating principle

[venkat subramanian R @venkat_sr]

You may want to point out that TN voters have done the exact opposite of what Mr Chidamabaram is accusing them of (voting mindlessly in exchange for welfare schemes). TN Voters had a very good look at the existing as well as promised welfare measures, they absorbed money that was thrown at them and ended up pulverizing the party that gave all of that. Any reasonable observer would call this democracy at work! Even Mr Chidambaram and his party agree - switched side after the polls!

[Blake Scholl 🛫 @bscholl]

I’m fundamentally pro-business, but some businesses do real evil.

One of the most common business evils is using the power of government under false pretenses to hamstring competition.

Because this is so obviously shameful, it’s hidden under a moral smokescreen and often filtered through third parties. I believe Boeing was behind most of the 1970s opposition to supersonic—to protect themselves after their supersonic jet was cancelled.

Today we see the same thing with AI doomerism. The rate of innovation in AI is extreme — and tomorrow’s leading AI company could be one that hasn’t even been founded yet.

So it’s mighty convenient for the lazy and evil who are on top today to wrap would-be competitors in red tape.

This is wrong and destructive. And should be illegal and socially unacceptable. We must call this out where we see it.

[Chandra R. Srikanth @chandrarsrikant]

🚨Can Kunal Shah turn WhatsApp's scale into revenue?

At CRED, founder Kunal Shah built a business around exclusivity, targeting a relatively affluent slice of consumers.

As WhatsApp's new global head, he faces the opposite challenge: creating value and revenue from one of the world's largest and most diverse user bases.

WhatsApp today operates at an entirely different scale. With more than 3 billion users worldwide, it is the default messaging platform for much of the world.

India accounts for roughly a fifth of that user base, with millions relying on the app daily to communicate through voice messages and regional languages.

Yet scale has not translated into proportionate revenue. Despite its central role in users' digital lives, WhatsApp has struggled to build meaningful monetisation engines. Its push into payments through UPI has gained limited traction, leaving it a distant player behind market leaders such as PhonePe and Google Pay.

Shah himself alluded to the opportunity ahead in a recent social media post. “While it has come very far, the delta between WhatsApp today and its full potential is massive,” he wrote

Good one by @AnandJRAnand

https://t.co/8zZNgdDDXz

[venkat subramanian R @venkat_sr]

Long term Revenue guidance, Through casual conversation on X!

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

@JonErlichman I think SpaceX might be able to reach approximately $1T revenue in 2030

[Mises Media @mises_media]

A government bureaucrat earns $100,000 and pays $20,000 in taxes. That's not a taxpayer—that's a tax consumer of $80,000. Every government employee at that level requires four equivalent private-sector workers to fund. @DrMarkThornton #MinorIssues

[venkat subramanian R @venkat_sr]

Affluent NRIs frequently complain about the frictions of investing/doing business in India. Not entirely baseless! However, this group gets a lollipop from GoI/RBI once in every 5-7 years, that ends up giving a massive mid-teens tax free low risk inv opportunity. The same inefficiencies and frictions that you face in India forces @RBI to come to you with this opportunity. Therefore, NRI friends( the affluent variety) , go easy on India, next time you feel hassled in India. You are getting adequately compensated!

[Latha Venkatesh @latha_venkatesh]

RBI announces bunch of steps to boost dollar flows
-will bear part of hedging cost when PSUs raise FX foreign debt
-will bear hedging cost when banks raise Foregin curr deposits
Rupee strengthens nearly 0.5% since Guv’s speech as mkt sees inflow of close to $50 be at least by Sept 1/3

[Harsh Goenka @hvgoenka]

A student once explained how wild pigs are trapped:

First, they are given free corn in the forest.
They return every day for the easy food.
Then slowly, fences are built around them, one side at a time.
At first they resist. Then they adapt.
Finally the gate shuts and the pigs, now dependent on the free corn, have lost their freedom without even realizing it.

That is how freedom often disappears in societies too. Not suddenly through force, but gradually through dependence.

Free rations. Free electricity. Free cash transfers. Endless subsidies. Political promises of “something for nothing.”
Each may appear harmless in isolation. But over time, citizens begin depending more on the State than on their own enterprise, effort and initiative.

And when dependence grows, freedom quietly shrinks.

A nation becomes truly strong not when more people vote for benefits, but when more people create, build, innovate and contribute.

There is no free lunch.
Someone always pays the bill.
And sometimes, the hidden cost is freedom itself.

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

Q: How are job postings for software engineers rising rapidly despite AI agents automating coding?

A: Because there’s far more code to manage than ever before. We’re already seeing a 14x YoY increase in GitHub commits, and it’s accelerating.

AI has dramatically lowered the cost of writing code, so it’s now being used across far more businesses, applications, and use cases.

We’re at the beginning of a massive productivity boom driven by the proliferation of bespoke software throughout the entire economy.

Coding has been AI’s breakout use case this year. The fact that it’s increased demand for software engineers — rather than decreased it — should call into question the entire “AI will cause mass job loss” narrative.

[venkat subramanian R @venkat_sr]

AI Native!

[Vishal Sikka @vsikka]

While doing some cleanup this weekend, @VTSikka and I found this old gem. The fall 1988 issue of intelligent systems review had a paper with me as co-author, then a ~21 year old Senior at Syracuse University, called "Making Robots Intelligent: Incorporating Al Techniques in Robotics"...
Interesting to see that several things we wrote there held up over the past 38 years!

[Brett Caughran @FundamentEdge]

A big pivot from Ken Griffin on AI:

“Number one is, in the last few months, there has been a step change in the productivity of the AI toolkit. It is profoundly more powerful than it was just nine months ago.

And for us at Citadel, that has allowed us to unleash a much broader array of use cases for AI. And it has been really interesting to watch, to be blunt, work that we would usually do with people with masters and PhDs in finance over the course of weeks or months being done by AI agents over the course of hours or days.

These are not these are not mid-tier white collar jobs. These are like extraordinarily high skilled jobs being, I'm going to pick a word, automated by agentic AI. And I gotta tell you, I went home one Friday actually fairly depressed by this because you could just see how this was going to have such a dramatic impact on society.

When you witness it in your own four walls, when you see work that used to be man years of work being done in days or weeks, it's like, wow, like that's the first time I've seen real impact in our four walls.”

This echoes my own experience with agents and the conversations I am having with students, friends & clients. The toolkit has dramatically transformed and it feels like in finance, for the first time, AI is real.

[Bryan Johnson @bryan_johnson]

If Hantavirus mutated into a global threat, it would unleash AI + biotech unlike anything we've ever seen.

> genome sequenced and public in 4 hours
> AlphaFold maps every protein target
> AI screens 10,000 drugs in 24 hrs
> 50 vaccine candidates designed simultaneously
> AI designed antibodies in days
> risk of death computed instantly
> decentralized trials launch globally
> enroll from home
> 20 countries manufacturing at once
> first doses in three weeks
> real-time dose characterization
> your genome + biomarkers determine your protocol
> variant map updates every hour

No one would wait for governments.

[venkat subramanian R @venkat_sr]

@JohnLeFevre @MisterCommodity Besides being a bad advice, this is illogical. If young people as a category prefer not to drink, why would they miss out meeting other colleagues who don’t drink. You seem to be representing “alcohol” not the youth!

[krishan sharma @krishan_sharmaa]

A case of very strong yet weak Economy

Whenever the dollar strengthens, a strange thing happens.

An economy that otherwise appears strong, fast-growing, and optimistic suddenly starts looking fragile.

Why?

Because India adopted a domestic consumption-led growth model without building sufficient manufacturing and export strength underneath it.

Almost every major Asian success story China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan
first became manufacturing and export powerhouses before becoming consumption-driven economies.

India attempted the reverse.
We accelerated domestic consumption first.

But even after decades, manufacturing still contributes less than 15% to GDP far below what is required for a large economy aspiring for long-term external strength.

The consequence is predictable:

High consumption + relatively weak manufacturing competitiveness + modest export share = persistent dependence on external capital and dollars.

Despite being a nearly $4 trillion economy contributing around 3.5% to global GDP, India’s share in global merchandise exports still remains below 2%.

That gap matters.

Because global trade is what brings durable dollar inflows.

And when an economy structurally needs dollars for energy imports, electronics, defence imports, capital flows, and external stability, every phase of dollar strength exposes that dependence.

👉This does not mean India is weak.
But it does mean India remains externally sensitive.

👉Programs like Skill India, Scale India, and Make in India were well-intentioned efforts to correct this structural imbalance.

But the scale of manufacturing transformation required has still not been achieved.

That is why every sharp dollar rally creates pressure on the rupee, external accounts, and market confidence.

The issue is not temporary sentiment.
The issue is economic structure.

#economy #trade #gold #dollars #exports #imports

[Geiger Capital @Geiger_Capital]

Stock market bubbles throughout history…

AI stocks now ~40% of the market.

[venkat subramanian R @venkat_sr]

Congratulations @pravchak, De facto finance minister of TN!

[CNBC-TV18 @CNBCTV18Live]

#TamilNadu Government Formation Live Updates: #TVK’s #Vijay to take oath as #CM on Saturday at 11 AM

https://t.co/aPMAi9iH20

[venkat subramanian R @venkat_sr]

@kirubaakaran Should try it out

[Kyunghoon Kim @Kyunghoon_Kim_]

Leaders matter, but so do strong underlying institutions in a democracy.

I don't have sufficient information to comment on TVK or its leader (congrats! @TVKVijayHQ), but my bet is on the upside considering Tamil Nadu’s skilled workforce 👩‍🎓, infrastructure 🛣️, & ...

(2/n)

[venkat subramanian R @venkat_sr]

@dampedspring Hi Andy, Thank you for sharing. Couple of questions-1) If the puts are 4% of AUM, would it be a much higher % of Equity? 2) Does a 4% of AUM bearish bet constitute the highest conviction bet or would you go even higher under different circumstances?

[venkat subramanian R @venkat_sr]

Risk capital meets favorable Demography! Dividend could follow

[Jared Friedman @snowmaker]

Just wrapped Startup School India.

One big takeaway: the ambition has shifted. The founders I met today aren't just thinking about building "the Indian version of X." They're building for the world - and they have the technical chops to pull it off.