Vinit

Beginning my discovering-AI arc

Entrepreneur. Trekkie. Jedi. Seldon. Sheldon. Cyclist. Bookworm. Techie.

[Vinit @vinit]

The absolute inconceivable backwardness of Indian banking apps such as @ICICIBank to add "security theatre" features.
The newest is demanding screen overlay feature disabled. Bonkers.

Fire your CTO/CPO.

[Vinit @vinit]

@nikunj @ansh_chokshi Kyu? Better for the back 😛

[Vinit @vinit]

@ProductHunt I had a feature idea last evening and spent all night building and testing it.
But I've got to make payroll tomorrow.

[Vinit @vinit]

Tired of big closed-model AI co's "we'll tell you what's good for you. so be a good toddler and listen to us"?

It's clear: Sovereign AI is the only way

1. Open source models (current options: many chinese, some US, zero Indian).
Pros: Open source
Cons: Requires heavy lifting or dependency on future versions

2. Companies providing Sovereign on-prem AI (@hexoai, @Recursive_SI, @IneffableLabs, etc)
Pros: Buy once, improves itself
Cons: Top 3 companies are early-stage

3. Anything else I missed?

[Vinit @vinit]

@vaibhavbetter Ohh the reminders of "Shouldn't AOL acquire Time Warner"?

Maybe not same-same, but not too different.

[Vinit @vinit]

@chamath @matthew_kruer @8090_Factory Ok, upon rereading I realised my 100% hand typed, all human response might feel like ai gen.

So here's me following up to prove my humanness 😅

[Vinit @vinit]

@chamath @matthew_kruer @8090_Factory Early customers leave the deepest imprint on both the product and on how the team thinks of customer-centricity.

[Vinit @vinit]

@chamath SETI is alive and kicking, 3 decades on :)

[Vinit @vinit]

"Have the cookie, Vinit", Shoaib ji would say whenever we met for coffee. He remembered my sweet tooth even in the midst of serious strategy conversations.

This level of closeness and warmth could only come from someone who was both my mentor and a dear friend.

How I wish every founder finds a mentor like him.

Even after nearly a decade of friendship, I couldn't get myself to call him by just his first name because of how much I respected him.

Will miss his kindness, his empathy and his very very very tough-love.

He always was and will be Shoaib ji, to me.

[Vinit @vinit]

@Jason The reason we are seeing extreme opinions is:
People who need internet everywhere won't care for $200 an hour
Everyone else will not pay over 5.

Barbells everywhere.

[Vinit @vinit]

@bratrat ... Nodi

[Aleph @alephneuro]

We recently obtained the highest-resolution 3D images of the human brain ever taken from outside the skull. This is the first look.

Introducing Aleph, a research lab building brain interfaces for the telepathic future. (1/n)

[Vinit @vinit]

@maiab The reason it feels weird:
Self selecting great founders wouldn't just send that email, they would proactively set expectations, ask for suggestions, etc.

It's binary.
Founders who care, do more than email.
Founders who don't, won't even mention shutting down.

[Vinit @vinit]

Cred's @kunalb11 knows customers better than they know themselves

Proof of cutting teams down to the bare minimum and keeping it top heavy with taste-definining orchestrators. Kunal is the case study in how far having "taste" + ability to orchestrate can take you.

[Deedy @deedydas]

The founder of Indian startup Cred, Kunal Shah, will be global head of the most used daily product in the world (2.3B+ DAU), WhatsApp!

Let’s take a look at the business of Cred:

Cred’s valuation has flip-flopped from its peak but in 8yrs, they built a $4.5B biz with ~1000 employees doing $333M/yr growing 17%yoy, with Meta buying 20% of it for $900M. Kunal says they’ve hit they’re first quarter of operating profit (exact loss numbers for FY26 here are speculative) but the business is definitely trending up. Cred has ~17M users and 12.6M monthly transacting users at $26 per user per year ARPU (~₹2500). 1% of Indians use Cred, 1 in 3 of the country’s credit card users. Credit card penetration in India is 3-4% vs say 66% in the US, 50%+ in high income and 25%+ for other lower/middle income countries; perhaps if that grew more quickly, the business would have an even better outcome. When I analyzed it in 2022, I was too harsh about its future prospects. The business has grown significantly since with a path to sustainability.

More importantly, this is the first time I’ve seen a non-silicon valley founder catapulted to lead such a critical product. Think what you may of Cred, it was a big bet that’s come off quite well. And this appointment is just testament to Kunal’s tenacity as a founder and leader.

[Vinit @vinit]

@deedydas @kunalb11 knows customers better than they know themselves

Proof of cutting teams down to the bare minimum and keeping it top heavy with taste-definining orchestrators. Kunal is the case study in how far having "taste" + ability to orchestrate can take you.

[Vinit @vinit]

@kunalb11 @hnshah Congratulations @kunalb11

I think the energy you will bring should deliver wonderful product features to long term users. Looking forward to what you help build

[Vinit @vinit]

@paulg @davefontenot As has always been, it won't come from the well-funded lab of BigCo.

Young team in a garage/hackerhouse/dormroom is my bet.

[Vinit @vinit]

@nikunj GTFOH

That's sweetness. Clickety keys forever

[Vinit @vinit]

170+ startups
60 seconds each
Incredible energy

Still no excuse to skip demos/product videos

Show. Don't tell.
@garrytan ... We need more!
@ycombinator

[Vinit @vinit]

"Don't ship agents, ship coworkers"
@garrytan @ycombinator FTW

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

The Gestalt Prayer by Fritz Perls

I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful; if not, it can’t be helped.