Vikesh Khanna

I'm a traveler. Of both time and space. CTO & co-founder @ambientai, Previously @dropbox, @microsoft, @linkedin. CS @stanford '15, IIT Roorkee '11

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

My team @ambientai is hiring an Engineering Manager for our product team (SF Bay Area). If you love working on groundbreaking stuff, reach out to me and my team at [email protected]

https://t.co/cNxi5stVcS

[Joe Schmidt IV @joeschmidtiv]

https://t.co/i7teOUTWgZ

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@amix3k What is a moat, really, and who has one?

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@bendee983 Correct, but does it matter that the responses are different if a set of tests pass?

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@VicVijayakumar I think we ascribe far more soul to the code than it deserves. You now get to spend so much more time on the actual soul - the UX, the long tail and last mile that really matters but always gets deprioritized; you can ask it to create four versions and see what feels best.

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@elonmusk

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@HarryStebbings As of now, #2 is largely happening in the smaller set of forward looking companies that are often the most vocal. Makes it seem like a bigger trend than it is in reality, but it’s an important leading indicator.

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

What a wonderful time to be alive.

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

⎿  Tip: Start with small features or bug fixes, tell Claude to propose a plan, and verify its suggested edits

Urge: Consolidate my 15 repos into a monorepo and build one-click deploy.

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@docmilanfar Some men, you just can’t reach.

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@levelsio Hotels like this should definitely exist but I suspect most people will not like them. It feels soulless and lacks the charm of staying at a hotel. But it does seem like an attractive proposition for people who travel frequently for business if there’s enough price arbitrage.

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@StefanFSchubert @paulg In what many are calling a first for The Internet, local man admits to not knowing something on X .com

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@stevesi Much like human progress (and bankruptcy), this will go slowly at first and then all at once.

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@wmf @martin_casado Community server farms - sustainable, organic and locally sourced hardware 🥰

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

Unfortunately, nearly all paths to success in software companies go through a mountain of tech debt. It’s rarely avoidable since you have to optimize for velocity above all else in the early days to find product-market fit. Tech debt is natural and overrated - you just fix it as you find success.

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@prime_cai No, you don’t. It’s real-time!

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

Long-lived moats in technology companies are much rarer than people think. Most successful companies do not really have a moat. You typically have an ephemeral innovation advantage that you must convert into go-to-market advantage quickly - so, although momentum is not a moat, it’s a good signal that that conversion is happening.

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@ekuyda Yes! Successful consumer product creation requires an intersection of taste, scientific inquiry, deep insight of human nature and radical honesty about the nature of the world - it’s a very small overlap.

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@diya_gk Radical for 2025 but many such cases 1600s-1800s

[Vikesh Khanna @vikeshkhanna]

@mpopv It’ll have to be Tt Popovich, sorry to say.