Tanmai Gopal

Parag Agarwal challanges GPT's with Parallel 'Parallel is backed by Silicon Valley names, including Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, Index Ventures, and others. Its founding team includes veterans from Google, Twitter, Stripe, Airbnb, and Waymo, many of whom worked on large-scale infrastructure and applied machine learning systems. Though still early in its journey, Parallel already claims to be powering millions of research tasks daily.' https://lnkd.in/gs_gDRqm

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The Orchestrator's Dilemma: exploring the role of technical architects in AI-assisted development through building SetoBazaar, a classified marketplace, in days rather than months. When AI handles implementation, the human role transforms from code writer to system architect, providing guidance, debugging oversight, and quality verification while AI generates the code. https://lnkd.in/dq8ywnE9

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"I can't be that engineer who is doing all the coding anymore, but I can be the person who's giving them the direction they need." Abhishek Chopra, Founder and Chief Executive and Scientific Officer of BQP, talks about shifting your role from execution to leadership on Tech Scenes Unplugged. #venturebacked #vcbacked #venturecapital #leadership #ceo #founder #operatingsystem #peakOS #foundermode

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We wanted to test this on something that actually stresses systems. So we picked the Meesho app - huge surface area, tons of flows, real world complexity. And it ran beautifully. Introducing the full version of what we teased earlier: Parallel execution in Mahoraga by Quash with effectively no cap. Most platforms: “2 parallel devices”, “you hit your limit”, “upgrade for more”. Quash: run everything at once. No ceiling. Spin up hundreds of tests → everything fires in parallel Results → live, within seconds Testing that doesn’t wait for its turn. Divyesh Kiran Anand Sreejith Vijayendran Kumar Prasanna Arunachalam Navneet Chandra Alok Sharma Aditya Prasad M Feedback?

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Big moves for Indian deep tech! The government has announced that the next Startup Fund of Funds ₹10,000 crore (about $1.2 billion) will be almost entirely dedicated to deep-tech ventures, supporting AI, clean energy, quantum, semiconductors, biotech, advanced computing and more. Why does this matter? Funding for India’s deep tech startups surged from $36 million in 2016 to $677 million in 2023, a CAGR of 52% over 7 years. This momentum is fueling innovation and opportunity like never before. The impact of this new StartupnFund of Funds could be historic. Just as SIDBI’s existing Startup Fund of Funds has already committed ₹11,147 crore, catalyzing over ₹75,000 crore of private capital, creating 200,000+ jobs, and supporting startups across every state, this ₹10,000 crore Startup Fund of Funds aims to empower deep tech founders, e.g. the 2.4 million STEM graduates India produces annually to build the next India in cutting-edge technology. This targeted capital will help founders retain ownership, avoid early sellouts and build world-class, India-based companies. Leading venture funds like Speciale Invest, Navam Capital, pi Ventures, YourNest Venture Capital Ventures and Tenacity Ventures are active investors in deep tech, spearheading innovation and growth in this space. If you're investing in deep tech whether as a fund or as an LP comment deeptech below to join the conversation. #DeepTech #IndiaStartups #Innovation #VC #FundOfFunds #Policy #ChangeWealth

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The next AI superpower won't be the one with the most GPUs. It’ll be the one that speaks to a billion people in their own language. India isn’t just building another LLM. It’s building BharatGen—a multilingual, multimodal AI rooted in our context. And with Sarvam AI leading the IndiaAI Mission, we're not racing to catch up. We’re carving a new path: → AI that understands regional nuance → Infrastructure that supports sovereign innovation → Leadership that bets on inclusive, homegrown intelligence I see this as more than a tech milestone. It’s a shift in mindset: from importing intelligence to owning it. India’s future in AI won’t be decided in Silicon Valley. It’ll be shaped in places like Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and IIT labs across the country. If you're a tech leader building for India—this is your moment to think local, scale global. The world has built AI for the West. Now, we build it for the rest. #AI #IndiaAI #Leadership #DigitalSovereignty #BharatGen #VishalRustagi #TechForIndia

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Am noticing a tendency to go after low-hanging use cases amongst Indian AI founders. These include copy-cats, inserting “agents” into SaaS-era use cases without fundamentally re-imagining things, use cases that are prone to getting some early traction but lacking eventual depth etc. It’s also striking that in almost all cases, founders don’t have a particularly strong fit with the chosen market and therefore, lack a right-to-win against US competitors. I would suggest deeply thinking through upfront which problem statements to solve for. The whole point of this transformation is to reimagine things from first principles. Putting a fresh lens on underserved markets. Or unlocking new value that exponentially expands existing markets. Equally important is to layer in your own founder-market-fit in an intellectually honest way. Why is your team positioned to win against global competitors? What is the rabbit hole that you have gone down further than likely anyone else? What is the aspect of the problem that you just uniquely “get” more than 99% people out there? This thought-space is where great companies get initiated.

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Artificial Intelligence, H1B Visa & The Test Of Accountability  I have been thinking about the brouhaha over the H-1B visa and believe a deeper look at Indian IT is in order. The sector’s under fire on two fronts:  →Due to the hike in H1B visa fees to $100,000. →From the disruption by artificial intelligence. Indians make up 70% of H1B visa recipients, with China trailing behind at 12%. The new fees surpass 60% of Indian workers’ annual salaries in the US, as they draw lower median wages, hitting us more than global peers. Indian IT companies could also see a drop in profit margin.  Besides that, AI is threatening to eliminate entry-level jobs. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that he's confident customer service jobs will be among the first to go, along with those who do routine coding tasks. It’s disheartening that highly skilled professionals — from developers to creators — who help build the system are under threat. They are stuck in bloated teams and face delays as they await endless approvals. While they bring value, creativity, and problem-solving skills — essential to enable differentiation in products and services — they are struggling to prove their worth. The service-model mindset is partly to blame. The role of the 'knowledge worker' has been diluted, from someone who applied expertise in solving complex problems and innovating to merely executing tasks. By including people in the decision-making chain who add no value but facilitate communication, we end up hindering agility. Corporate organisations are filled with pointless mid-management roles that reduce accountability. It’s possibly the result of an experiment gone wrong or an inability to fix the basics. Anthropologist David Graeber used the term "bullshit jobs" to describe such redundant positions in his 2018 book. In the era of AI, when information can be aggregated and distributed without intervention, it’s a wonder why we retain such roles. The lack of accountability that drives the current top-down system has to be fixed. So far, the skilled went abroad to become system builders, while India was left with mid-level staff. Now, we need to reframe India as a launchpad. Educational institutions, startups, and R&D labs must turn co-creators and lead skilled talent to use AI as a catalyst for creation. We need to set clear expectations for tech workers, provide resources and autonomy, give feedback, and establish a culture of ownership. The NEP 2020, which aims to integrate application-based learning within mainstream education, could prove to be a game-changer for early years, but companies also need to create pathways and opportunities for innovation at home. It’s only through such interventions that we can change the mindset that the only path to success lies abroad. So, yes, we do need to rethink some roles. But it’s not that of a highly skilled tech professional. #ArtificialIntelligence #H1BVisa #Software #IT #Technology

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Top 10 AI news this week: 1. Microsoft’s Maia Chip Delayed – Microsoft postpones its in-house AI chip “Maia” launch to 2026 due to design and staffing issues. (Reuters) 2. AI Avatars of the Deceased – New tools allow families to create lifelike AI avatars of lost loved ones, raising ethical questions. (TIME Magazine) 3. €70M EU AI Factory – Netherlands to host a massive AI research plant, aimed at transforming agriculture, health, and industry. (Reuters) 4. Tesla Hires Henry Kuang – Tesla recruits ex-GM Cruise exec to lead AI division, fueling its robotaxi and autonomy plans. (Reuters) 5. US Targets Chinese AI – New bipartisan bill seeks to ban Chinese AI tools like DeepSeek from federal use over security risks. (AP News) 6. UK Investigates Google AI – Regulators eye Google’s AI Overviews for potential anti-competitive behavior in search results. (The Guardian, NY Post) 7. Microsoft Pushes Balanced AI Regulation – Chief Scientist Eric Horvitz calls for innovation-friendly AI governance over rigid regulation. (The Guardian) 8. AI-Powered Olympics – 2028 Olympics to use AI in athlete training, judging, and broadcasting for smarter sports tech. (Axios) 9. OpenAI Buys Jony Ive’s Startup – OpenAI acquires Apple legend Jony Ive’s hardware firm for $6.5B to design future AI devices. (Wikipedia, The Information) 10. Gemini Replaces Google Assistant – Gemini AI becomes Google’s default assistant from July 7, handling messages, calls & tasks. (Medium Digest) #AInews #technews #ArtificialIntelligence #DrAIAcademy https://lnkd.in/gKtPMZMS

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Will smaller AI models win over large language models? Sudarshan Kamath grew up in Mumbai, taught himself AI before most Indian companies were even hiring for it, and bought the domain "smallest.ai" for $100 in 2022, two years before the company existed. Today, he is building smallest.ai with Akshat Mandloi. Sudarshan started with self-driving cars, training large models and compressing them to run on vehicle hardware in real time. That's where he first saw what small models could do: a hundredth of the size, almost no loss in accuracy. Two years later he put in his own $150K, got some GPUs, and started training. Eighteen months later he had a seed round, a Series A, a seven-figure enterprise deal, and a $150M acquisition offer he turned down. Most of the data that goes into large models is noise. Strip it out, train small, and you get a model that matches a giant at a fraction of the size and runs in real time. That insight is what Smallest AI is built on. Episode is out Now. Link in comments.

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Yes, Indic AI is not inspiring enough for Indian developers. But whose fault is that? Of course, Indic AI is not at the level of AI in English. But there are good enough options. The question is, are Indian developers thinking from a first principles approach. Do they realize that everything is up for grabs? I will try to do a series on this once I come back from the US. But we can now build applications for the 800 million non English speakers in India. Yes, maybe 600 million of those can't pay for apps. But they remaining 100-200 million can pay and they are already paying. We know they are paying for content, astrology and other things. It's upto us as developers to create the right experiences for them to start using our products. If we build copycat US applications and try to target the Indian consumer, it might not succeed. Better to do something completely different. And I know it just takes one. One success and you will see how many developers will follow. Including the Indian VCs who are giving different gyan now.

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🚀 सहज जीवन: probably the first open-source, collaborative, public, and live Marathi book, built transparently on GitHub. 🚀 The first part is a translation of Leo Babauta's "The Effortless Life" in Marathi, and the second part is open for contributions. I’ve already added a couple of chapters there myself. The idea is simple: anyone with useful insights about leading a good life can join and contribute. Contributions are voluntary, no money involved. 💡 Eligibility criteria for contributors: - Fluency in reading and writing Marathi - Basic GitHub literacy (fork, commit, PR). LaTeX expertise is not required - And yes, you must have read almost all of PuLa. That’s non-negotiable 😉 You can either refine the translation of the pending chapters or add fresh chapters of your own. Just fork the repo, add your changes, and send a PR. You can also  your add your name as co-author, thus build your own version of the book into a PDF, print it for yourself, and even publish it for wider circulation. I’m planning to self-publish a slightly updated version via Notion Press, which will naturally come with some costs. Feel free to do the same, the PDF is freely available in the repo. If you want to add a chapter, just place it at the end and submit a PR (Pull Request). If you are not comfortable with LaTeX or GitHub, you can share me the content via Google-Docs or email, I will add that on your behalf. 👉 If you’re interested in this whole “effort,” drop a comment below or message me your Gmail ID. I’ll schedule a short online meet or create a chat group to align next steps. IMO, this is not just a book, it’s a movement: bringing open-source culture to Marathi literature. Imagine being part of a collective that publishes a free, evolving, community-owned book! 📎 Repo name: yogeshhk/SahajJeevan (... on GitHub). 📑 Attaching the partial draft PDF here for a quick taste. (It’s a very rough draft, just to give you the idea.) जय महाराष्ट्र ✨

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Protocols over Products - the paradigm shift most are missing. Products compete. Protocols compound. WhatsApp: 2B+ users, one company wins UPI: 400M+ users, entire ecosystem thrives Products create companies. Protocols create economies. The shift:  • Products build walls → Protocols build bridges • Products extract value → Protocols expand value • Products create dependencies → Protocols create capabilities India isn't just adopting this with #UPI, #ONDC, and #Beckn. We're showing the world how it's done.

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Bye bye Whoop 👋 The Google Fitbit wave is about to shake up the India market 🇮🇳 For the longest time, Whoop built a strong niche around serious fitness users but its subscription model made it hard to scale in a price-sensitive market like India. Now enter Google's Fitbit Air. Here’s why this could be a big unlock in India: → No subscription friction Pay once vs recurring fee - that’s a huge behavioural shift for Indian consumers. → Mass affordability + scale Fitbit sits at a far more accessible price point compared to premium wearables. → Better ecosystem connectivity Seamless integration with Android, Google Health, and a broader device ecosystem. → From niche → mainstream What was earlier for elite athletes can now become everyday health tracking. → Data + AI upside With Google’s backend, this could evolve from tracking → actionable health insights. The real play? India isn’t a “premium subscription” market at scale. It’s a value + utility market. And that’s exactly where Fitbit wins. Whoop built aspiration. Google might build adoption. #HealthTech #IndiaMarket #Wearables #Fitbit #Google #Startups #ConsumerTech

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#BookRecommendation #ByteDance I am a staunch believer that the India technology ecosystem can benefit immensely from key learnings ("What to do?" and also, "what NOT to do?") from mature markets like China (one of the key reasons PROMAFT exists today!). 'Attention Factory', the book does a brilliant job of deeply researching the evolution of ByteDance - a company that has been rather obscure for it scale and impact. The book immaculately captures - 1. Thinking hard about the 'Consumer need' - Social network or Content Platform - using data to prove the same. 2. Evolution to 'Product-Market-Fit' - they were not the first to market! 3. Investing behind scalable technology - a recommendation system that 2x'ed' retention rate and usage in a matter of weeks 4. Rapidly scaling post 'Product-Market-Fit' - customer acquisition, M&A, offline activation - leaving gargantuan competitors like Tencent behind Super valuable for any entrepreneur looking to build & scale globally. Can't wait to re-read this again. Matthew Brennan

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On February 18, during India's AI Impact Summit, a company called Sarvam shipped a 105-billion-parameter model trained from scratch in India on government-subsidized GPUs, designed for 22 Indian languages. It outperforms DeepSeek-R1 on certain benchmarks at one-sixth the size. The same summit produced $200 billion in investment pledges from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Reliance. The headlines were about the money. The real story was Sarvam. This post examines in detail why it took this long, what changed, and whether Sarvam is the first crack in an old equilibrium or a lonely exception. "Indians Rule Big Tech. Why Can’t India Build?": Link in comments.

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Agilitas x Virat Kohli partnership is one of the masterstroke deals I have seen in recent times. Virat invests 40 CR in Agilitas for a 1.94% stake, putting Agilitas’s valuation around 2000 CR. 📈 In turn, Agilitas acquires one8world, making Virat a co-founder and shareholder. They now get two very important growth levers: ⬇️ 1. A powerful manufacturing (via Mochiko Shoes - a 600 CR+ footwear brand that Agilitas acquired in 2008 ), 2. India’s biggest athlete — exclusively aligned. Easily becomes a 4000 CR revenue brand in the next 5 years. Footwear + retail scale requires capital — but this partnership compresses customer acquisition, product cycles, and brand-building like few others. Even Virat said in his podcast with Abhishek Ganguly, the co-founder of Agilitas that, “I didn’t want a brand deal… I wanted to build something that outlives me.” And Abhishek said something even beautiful - “An ambition to build from India but be globally relevant.” This isn’t marketing. This is legacy building with shared skin in the game. And that is how startups work - shared ambition with one goal (to make the company big) and food (read stake) in the table for everyone! A company that can be built in the long term with culture, capital, and conviction aligned. This might be the first time in India, where an athlete joins hands with a sport company to re-imagine and build the sport ecosystem of India - truly revolutionalising the game with a clear vision. 🙌

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I wrote a practical guide to hiring top AI engineers in India so founders can move faster and hire smarter. India offers breadth of talent, cost advantages, and deep technical expertise — but success comes from clear project definitions, targeted screening, and competitive offers. In the post I break down: defining project needs, channels that work (LinkedIn, university ties, niche forums), real-world screening tips, and retention strategies like growth paths and hybrid work models. If you’re building AI-powered products and need help sourcing or scaling a team, Devlux Software Studio & Startup Ventures connects you with vetted AI engineers and supports fundraising and scaling efforts — so you stay focused on product and vision. Read the full guide and take the next step toward building your AI team: https://wix.to/Br6osFq #AIHiring #StartupGrowth #DevluxStudio

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