Capitalism is the (american) religion.
Wealth is the new god.
Hustle is the new prayer.
And motivation men are the new pastors.
Wall street is the pilgrimage.
- via @prvkhvr
What I told 2,000 future founders in Bengaluru today:
1/ We believe we are at the start of a second wave of Indian companies that will build world-class AI native products for the global market. Emergent and Giga are the model of the future.
2/ Just because a space seems crowded doesn't mean it's too late. Zepto, Emergent, Giga - none were first movers. Second mover advantage is real.
3/ In fact, a good formula for finding startup ideas is to look at ideas that are showing some promise and just execute them better. Execution is everything: if you're an exceptional engineer, and you can build and move faster than your competitors, you'll win.
4/ There is every reason to believe Indian teams can beat US teams building global products. The level of engineering talent here is on a whole different level, and that's the key input.
5/ In the AI era, the best founders are the ones building at the edge of what's technically possible. You need to be experimenting wth the latest models, the latest open source projects.
6/ Stay in the flow of information. Watch the right podcasts, follow the right people on X. With AI changing this fast, you need to know what the smartest builders are thinking.
7/ Most of the best startups don't come from someone explicitly trying to start a company. They start from someone building a project just for fun, or tinkering with a new technology because they are curious. India needs more of this "tinkering" culture - this is how you have novel ideas when technology is shifting quickly.
8/ Founders are getting younger. Aadit was 18 when he started Zepto. The Giga founders were 20 when they came to SF. Young people who can learn very fast have the advantage right now.
9/ The best founders are pushing AI coding to the max. You can now write 20K lines of code / day. One person can do the work that just a year ago would take a 100 person team. The best builders are taking advantage and building at Garry Tan speeds.
when spacex was getting started, the first and last men to walk on the moon testified before congress against it.
gene cernan told congress commercial space companies "do not yet know what they don't know."
he said the boeings and lockheed martins were "the folks who have been working on everything we've done for the last 50 years. they know how it can be done."
neil armstrong said he was "not confident" the newcomers could achieve their goals.
together with jim lovell they warned it would put america on "a long downward slide to mediocrity."
spacex now launches more rockets than every country on earth combined.
the experts will always tell you it can't be done. build it anyway!
These two images were taken by @astro_reid only minutes apart. The stark difference is the result of camera settings. In the first, a longer shutter speed let in much more light from Earth, while the shorter shutter speed in the second emphasizes our planet's nighttime glow.
@anishmoonka This is good, but $1.2 billion is still less. We need a pot of atleast north of $200 - $300 Bil, easy. Access to capital and the resourceshas to be democratic, not bureaucratic.
We should encourage founders, individuals & companies to take moonshots.
A mentor once told me this: Life will test you with the same challenge until you learn the lesson. The same fight in every relationship. The same burnout in every job. The same regret in every missed chance. Until you do the inner work, the outer world won’t change.
Sales is the most seductive tarpit for founders. You feel productive because revenue moves, but you're trading leverage for busywork. My co-founder staged an intervention on me. I cut calls, pushed to self-serve, and more customers converted without me. Sales has a ceiling. Product doesn't.