Science is not a process, a credential, or an institution. It is the unflinching pursuit of truth, carried out by the few, co-opted by the many.

I really like this article. I think that the capabilities of a country are fully dependent on the local buying capacity and the size of the local economy. Whether physical or digital, the farther away you have to distribute something, the more expensive it is. Local distribution is always much easier but if local buying power is low then companies have to export which carries a bigger distribution cost because you have to compete against locals in other countries who have a much lower distribution cost. Actually it’s not just distribution: it’s everything from consumer insights to feedback to key relationships that are a distance away. So if you do innovate but you have to necessarily export that innovation to make money, you’re at a disadvantage against local players. One personal example is that India has never made high quality games simply because the local purchasing power is low. If we had a lot more PCs things would be very different. China has roughly 320 million PC gamers and India is about 39 million. So on players alone, China’s PC base is roughly 8x India’s. BUT China’s PC game spend is on the order of 80–100x India’s, even though its player base is only like 8x larger. The difference mainly is monetization as Indian gamers spend much less (core ARPU has run around $0.29/month), so 39M PC players translate into very little premium game revenue. Game Science’s art director Yang Qi confirmed that nearly 70% of Wukong’s sales came from China itself. Knowing a local buying market exists justifies spending. The only way we can justify what we are spending now on UTA is because we found inroads into global markets through content otherwise this would be a money losing exercise. The other problem is that low purchasing power economies have too tiny a market for early adopters. If you built an OpenAI in India before anyone else 50% of people wouldn’t believe you and 50% of people will tell you it won’t work or doesn’t have use cases. I think you need a crackpot high purchasing power early adopter network with high failure and bullshit tolerance to make truly innovative things and also forgive crazy companies during early mistakes because history teaches us that the best companies all had v0.1s that were not very convincing to the masses. Thats why it’s critical for anyone who wants this country to succeed to first really create more jobs, more disposable income, even if that means creating the nth packaged food brand (American grocery stores still have a much wider variety of biscuit brands than India for example) or food delivery apps before they take bigger bets. Not because they need the capital themselves to try bigger bets, but so that they can diffuse more capital into the ecosystem via jobs and the rewards of equity ownership such that that cohort of people become early adopters for other innovative companies. Success comes from satisfying local market demand (sometimes like in the case of Tesla or Ford there is hidden demand and entrepreneurs need to unlock it) and rarely comes from creating something that has no local demand. After studying Chinese social media so much I have a long thesis on why they did well (bans on global social media platforms constrain desire of products to local players only who now get revenue and profit to do RnD. Think about what % of disposable income from India is being spent on global brands where the desire to buy starts on a global social media platform). Anyway people complaining about India building “easier businesses” are really not spending the mental energy to think second order. And 9/10 times this same type of person will completely ignore local innovation that is almost always happening in parallel but gets less media coverage.

Your entire life will change when you realize that anything above zero compounds. That showing up consistently matters more than showing up perfectly. That small things become big things. Never allow optimal to get in the way of beneficial.

The only truly wasted time is time spent wishing you were somewhere else.

I used to think successful people had more discipline. Now I think they're just better at NOT negotiating with themselves every day.

To the moon 🌖 or mars and back !

If you don’t want this moment, then you will never be happy.

Be forgiving with your past self. What's done is done. No sense in beating yourself up about it. Be strict with your present self. Win the moment in front of you right now. Be flexible with your future self. There are many paths to success. You don't need life to be a certain way to live well.

If your phone is not always listening to you, then how does it know when I say "hey siri?" :) This still haunts me

Question: Given that you can build so many things with AI, what are you building? Or, what is the dream AI product you most want to build?

Keyboards 🎹 made it easy to make music. Didn’t make it easy to make music that people like. AI is doing the same thing to apps.

I didn’t “think I was qualified”. There was no other choice. No one good would join a rocket startup as chief engineer that they thought was destined for failure.

The product is the mission.

Software platforms are going to be rebuilt for agent-first.

The thing nobody tells you about exponential change is that it feels like nothing is happening right up until the moment everything happens at once.

When you join a new organization, it is quite natural to feel a strong urge to fix things. Let me ruffle some feathers here... You will notice processes, tools, or practices that feel inefficient, outdated, or even wrong. Maybe the team uses Jira instead of Linear, Java instead of Go, MongoDB instead of MySQL (for a use case), or Tabs instead of Spaces. It will be tempting to point it all out immediately. Resist that urge. Do not get overwhelmed by outrage. Every organization has quirks, and yours is no exception. Complaining loudly in your early days won't make people rally behind you. You may be right, but what you lack is context. What looks foolish from the outside might have made perfect sense at the time. So, start by asking why. Be curious. Ask questions, and listen closely. The more context you gather, the clearer the rationale will become. At first, focus on integrating rather than fixing. Show reliability, do good work, and build relationships. Once you have established credibility, you'll find that people are more open to your perspective. That's when you can choose your battles carefully. Keep this simple framework in mind: - Ask why before suggesting what - Listen more than you speak - Build trust before pushing change - Pick one thing, not everything Prove your ideas with small wins, and show that you understand the context. Over time, you will gain the influence to bring major changes and improvements. You can't fix everything on day one, but you can ruin trust in one. Hope this helps.

the longer you survive without comfort, the less power comfort has over you same goes for approval, habits and people

The human brain isn’t designed to process all of the world’s breaking emergencies in realtime.

Grit, agency, some raw intelligence

A man expresses love through duty.