Vinay Rao

Reforming the design + innovation industry.
Co-Founder BangDesign*.
Enabled $500Mn in new revenue
75000+km bicycling

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@Rachit_Arora26 @1shankarsharma @ActusDei Same Indians and India-origin Americans rock it in the US though. SpaceX' director of Starship Operations is Shyamal Patel!

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@nithinkd If there's space for one more frontier model to be built within $1Bn, we (some people in India) should take that bet.

But yeah, for now, also focus on the application layer. And lightweight model derivatives dedicated to specialized tasks.

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@x_rahulraj Yes but also, in CHN, someone magically invests a $ Bn in a factory, and is happy if at 90% capacity it breaks even, and at 100% it makes 7% profit. This makes no business sense. But that's how they aggregate demand, and in turn let people focus on the craft.

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@krishnaraobsf Had the exact same issue, and recommendations, in 2023. What kind of sandal are you running in?

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

So many people want to design, build and market a physical product. Even if they get over the time it takes to agonize over the details that make a difference, tool costs and inventory invariably get them.

This is a good reminder of what it takes.

[Prakash Dadlani @prakdadlani]

The mixer in your kitchen costs you ~ ₹3,000.

And you think it's expensive.

But the moulds used to make it can cost ₹20 lakh.

The machines running those moulds can cost ₹1 Crore+.

And that's before:
* Factory
* Motors machinery
* Jar making
* 100+ components
* Packaging
* Labour

And much more.

You see a mixer.

Manufacturers see years of sweat & investment.

That's the thing about manufacturing:

The hardest part is invisible.

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@vrexec @kylecordes Must be in slow industries, or very large companies in tech/telecom?

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@shimapooooo Newton running had a similar line in the early 2010s

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

Making a good anything takes time, and is really hard.

[Greg Koenig @gak_pdx]

Having worked at Leatherman myself, and with one of the core MKC engineers having been Leatherman’s chief production engineers… making a multitool is a 10x step to making a folding knife.
Think of all the small scale knife guys going nutty getting lockup and openings dialed in and reliable… now do that with a sandwich of implements. Really exceptionally hard to do.
MKC is about $5 million invested to launch their first folding knife at mass production scale.
Leatherman invested about $25 million (in 2018 dollars) on the Free line- primarily to tighten overall tolerances to eventually make entirely interchangeable implements on a multi-tool (i.e. go on the website and order a Leatherman with all the implements you want, custom assembled).
Making a good multitool is really hard!

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@gak_pdx Wow. I love Leatherman.

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@amitranjan A question we ask often. It's not that we can't make our products rugged, or beautiful, or intelligent, or all of it. It's that we don't have the budgets, and/or can't command the price that Dyson does. A semi-vicious cycle.

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@deepakshenoy @grok in case the Rupee depreciates further, how do the banks guarantee a 7% return in foreign currency? Will RBI resort to quantitative easing, printing, to help the banks pay it back?

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@vedicakant @HindolSengupta What do those of XYZ know who only XYZ know.

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@hthieblot Where is Biotech/ Biomed?

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@youwillmakemaps No LEDs for each pixel?

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@Runner1187 Different for different people, and different activities?
I'm screaming up a 1km slope while riding a road bike at 110 HR (checked with both chest strap and wrist device). But a run at a moderate easy breath conversation speed easily hits 140 on a simple slope.

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

Bezos watches the same shows but on a better TV. Eats the same/similar ingredients but in a different mix, form and presentation.

[Charles @wotancore]

The ultraturbomega wealthy omnichronologitarch elites live the same lives as the upper middle class but bigger and louder. They go to dinners, drive a car, live in a house, go on vacation. Who cares? If wealth cannot open the door to truly new experiences, SENSATIONS, who cares?

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

A "no" email, but the prospect forgot to NOT copy the part the LLM said "Certainly - I'll phrase it in a friendly, clear way, without coming across as too harsh:" 😀

[Vinay Rao @wizardofid]

@rajeshsawhney Of course. But the claim that number of employees will be overtaken by number of agents (which are background tasks)? Sounds comical.