The most important skill of an entrepreneur is the ability to make decisions based on incomplete, inconclusive, and frequently contradictory information.

Today's a special day for @LightspeedIndia. Introducing INDIA ASCENDS'2026, a program purpose-built for India's youngest (>25yo), boldest, cohort of world shapers & change makers. If you are one of them, put your headphones on, turn to volume to max, click on the video, and read on :) Building something is hard but building something the world has never seen before is nigh impossible. There is this concept of not just building a kingdom, but building a kingdom at the edge of a precipice -- founders who want to go all the way to the edge of what’s possible, beyond which there is no land, there is no road, the compass stops working, and they look into the abyss, and say ‘yes, this is for me, this will be my life’s work’. These are the rarest of birds that take the plunge and know they’d fall before they fly, but when they fly, oh how glorious do they look. We @lightspeedindia have been fortunate to partner with several of these founders. We met @PixxelSpace when the founders @awaisahmedna @kshitijgokul were just 22yo. We backed @Airbound_Aero when @TheRealNamzoo was just 17. We’ve backed many others doing their life’s work at absolute cutting edge of what’s possible - @Arun_Vinayak_S of @ExponentEnergy, @pratykumar & @vivekrag of @SarvamAI @devdutdalal & @XaviLaguarta at @MittiLabs and more. Beyond our portfolio, there is some amazing founders doing their life’s work - @PawanKChandana @SkyrootA , @sohamsankaran @PopVaxIndia , @khushhhi_ @AsperaAero, @nagokul @CynLr00, @adrnschm @sarlaaviation, @deepigoyal @lataerospace & @temple, @Manu_J_Nair @EtherealXTech & many more. We need more of these founders coming out of India. Not just that, we need to fill gap that exists in this market which is in backing really young (<25yo) founders who are tinkering in school or college labs, or spending their weekends building, experimenting and failing fast, and are truly building globally competitive and de novo tech that, if it works, can have huge consequences in the world. To that end, we are proud to launch INDIA ASCENDS'2026 -- our flagship yearly program for the most cracked young builders in the country doing incredible cutting-edge research in robotics, quantum, space, energy, AI, bio or more. Our program applications open today and we’ll select 12-15 of the best, boldest ideas that we think has the potential to shape the future. We’ll bring them all to BLR for a 2-day program. Each participant will get ~$100K in support from our partners @AnthropicAI @GroqInc , @googlecloud @awscloud and we’ll also select 3-4 winners who will get venture funded to build their dream starting from $200K all the way to $3M and almost $500K of non-dilutive credits & grants from our partners. We look forward to seeing the boldest ideas you've been working on. Link to apply in the first comment:

.. "all the mental energy... Could be far better used.."

It’s a bird, it’s a crane! The world’s largest crawler crane has landed in Silicon Valley to help build Applied Materials’ new EPIC Center. 🏗️ Standing as tall as two Statue of Liberties and just a few feet shy of Seattle’s Space Needle, this powerful crane will help to lift the roof trusses onto our state-of-the-art lab later this summer. #AppliedEPICSiliconValley appliedmaterials.com/us/en/s…

Early-stage market analysis for tech startups is often useless and misleading. Take Canva and Adobe. Instead of having its market share cannibalized by Canva's stunning growth to over $3B in ARR, Adobe's value has 8X-ed since Canva launched.   We tend to treat markets like fixed pies where one company's gain must be another's loss. But the reality is much more interesting. When Canva made design accessible to millions who had never touched Photoshop before, it created new users. It expanded the very definition of who could be a designer.   Canva massively expanded its TAM.   We can see similar patterns across industries. • Uber created a market of people who'd never hailed a cab while multiplying the number of professional drivers • Airbnb unlocked millions of empty rooms that were never part of the hospitality market   Great technology products create their own demand.   The same principle applies even more dramatically with the proliferation of AI. Those tiny niche markets that seem too small to matter can become enormous when AI makes previously impossible things possible.   Of course, there are limits. No matter how good your software is, it's not likely to reverse an end market that is in terminal decline. AI for post offices is unlikely to expand the post office market. But generally speaking, I've learned to be extremely open-minded about market size, especially when great founders are involved.   That's because the best founders push the boundaries of any market they enter. That's what Canva, Uber, and Airbnb did. And that's what the next generation of AI companies will do.   So when evaluating opportunities, I ask myself: What could this market become if this product succeeds?   While the traditional VC playbook says to analyze TAM, SAM, and SOM, those metrics assume static markets.   The most successful startups create new markets or radically expand existing ones.

Great to see Dr. Melkote take on leading ME Georgia Tech- excellent leader to lead the department! He has been my PhD advisor, and beyond grad school he has been a mentor, champion, overall a great human! @MEGeorgiaTech @gtalumni @GeorgiaTech

Materials Science and Mechanical engineering students coming up with a PCB board manufacturing alternative! Go jackets @gtalumni @MEGeorgiaTech more here: commercialization.gatech.edu…

We’re thrilled to welcome back alumnus @DeveshRanjanGT as the 10th dean of the College of Engineering @UWMadison! He comes from @MEGeorgiaTech, where he led one of the country’s largest and highest-ranked engineering programs. engineering.wisc.edu/news/de…

We are proud to once again be ranked as the #1 Public Mechanical Engineering program in the nation and No. 2 overall. It's an honor to work alongside members of the Woodruff School community — remarkable students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends — who make this all possible.

Advancing decarbonization is critical to the future of the semiconductor industry. In our latest blog, Chris Librie outlines three priority areas where systems engineering practices can move the needle in the right direction. Read more here: bit.ly/3F2zU9U

Quantum is the new Nano? ⁦@molecularfndry⁩ #MFAUM2022 ⁦@BerkeleyLab⁩

#ClimateAction #climate #pandemic

Registration closing soon for the Annual conference at @molecularfndry with career panel, symposiums, and networking in Bay area, website usermeeting2022.foundry.lbl.… @BerkeleyLab @LBNLpathways

#PlasticFreeJuly TIP: Swapping liquid soap for bar soaps is an easy way to reduce consumption of single-use plastics. Bar soaps come in different blends for body washing, face wash, shampoo, and shaving, so your line-up of bottles may become a line-up of bars.

Registration is open to attend our Annual User Meeting! Sign up to join us in person or tune in virtually on August 18-19. You can also still submit an abstract to present a poster through June 30. Learn more here: usermeeting2022.foundry.lbl.…

Excellent advice on slide design

You inspired a lot of us, thank you Professor Cobb. Even in different departments apart from @GeorgiaTechEAS. Grateful for your impactful influence, for us to be aware about climate science. @GeorgiaTech family will miss you @coralsncaves.best wishes for your work at @BrownEnvt