Introducing Varya. Built by @Avataar, #Varya delivers frontier-quality results at materially lower inference cost. Deeply grateful to #IndiaAIMission and @SecretaryMEITY for the support, mentorship and conviction in helping bring this to life. Thank you @RajanAnandan, @brettsingh, @shaileshlakhani for your invaluable partnership through this journey. @GoI_MeitY @peakxvpartners Try it: varya.avataar.ai

This is big: all access to Mythos and Fable AI models disabled for everyone outside America. First thoughts: 1. Technology is the ultimate weapon. National sovereignty, national security, all of it is now about technology. 2. Globalization is dead and Bharat must find her own way ahead. We must keep these two ideas in mind. What can our government do right now? Ensure that orgs in India embrace smaller models, both Indian and Chinese open source ones. With a bit of effort, we can make them work. Anyway, why pay money to people who don't even want to sell to you? We must deepen our R&D. Sarvam has been on it and we have been on it but remember that the latest models cost not only huge GPU budgets to train, the GPUs themselves are restricted. So we can't afford the scale of money (of the order of $100 billion to even get in the game!) and even if we could come up with the money, we can't get all the GPUs. I would not like to ask the government to fund tens of billions of dollars on this anyway - the money has far better uses. Zoho has been pursuing alternative R&D approaches that are far, far less expensive but by its nature cutting edge R&D takes time and we are patient. I am confident we will get there. Any remaining people in India who have delusions about globalization should wake up now.

Zoho Mail has won the SE Labs UK Security Award for Enterprise E-mail Security Services, along with Cisco and TrendAI (link in comment). Our teams have spent multiple decades of painstaking, un-glamourous R&D work with email security and anti-spam. We entered the enterprise email market dominated by Microsoft and now we are winning global recognition for the hard work by our R&D teams. As a result of that work, Zoho Mail is doing well with enterprises and governments around the world today. A lot more R&D in the pipeline!

America’s digital economy relies on our physical infrastructure and the electricians, pipefitters, welders, manufacturing workers & more who build and maintain it. Today, we’re making an additional @googleorg commitment to help 300K American workers prepare for these in-demand skilled trades careers, expanding on the $1B we’ve already provided for digital skills and training globally.

Critical thinking isn't a single skill. It's a cycle. You notice a claim. You check where it came from. You ask what would have to be true for it to be wrong. You update — or you don't — based on what you find. Then you do it again with the next claim. Most of what passes for critical thinking online is step one: noticing a claim and feeling clever about doubting it. That's not thinking. That's posture. The work is in the loop. Source. Test. Update. Repeat. It's slower than having opinions. It's also the only thing that beats them.

Our Nathu La server, unveiled today, took years of hard work by our Nagpur R&D team, led by Mangesh Sadafale. It is going into production in Zoho data centers around the world and will save energy and money. We are also working hard to make our entire software stack much more compute and memory efficient. R&D to the max!

My honest advice to someone who wants to make a lot of money. 3 things nobody told you: 1. The only way to make a lot of money is to create a lot of value. No one hands out money. No one is going to pay you just because they like you or think you're cool. That's not the way the world works. Money earned is a direct byproduct of value created. Create value, receive value. If money is the goal, value has to be the focus. This isn't just some vague idea: The only way to get rich is to create an enormous amount of value for others, and capture a small portion of that along the way. It's not talking about the thing, it's not brainstorming about the thing, it's not asking about the thing, it's not thinking about the thing. The only way to create value is by doing the thing. And if you don't know where to start, look around you. Customers, colleagues, bosses, shareholders, employees. Every single one of them has a problem. What problems can you solve for the people around you? Figure them out, solve them, scale that solution. That's how you make money. 2. You have to demonstrate excellence in everything you do. Your income scales proportional to the amount of excellence that you're able to demonstrate. Strategic incompetence is a lie. You don't get to pick and choose when to show up, because the world will ignore your best and judge you for your worst. Everything matters. Every single thing. Top performers show up with energy and enthusiasm for the little things just as much as they do for the big things. If you're in the top-10% of performers, there's no ceiling for what you can do. But the self-awareness to identify where you currently stack up, and adapt to the honest feedback on it, is very rare. If you're in the top-10%, you know it. If you're not, figure out why and fix it. 3. You don't need passion, you need energy. I still have no idea what it means to follow your passion. You don't have to be passionate about your professional pursuits, you just need to find energy in them. You just need to feel a pull towards them. You just need to feel that spark of curiosity in them. Passion is usually a byproduct of energy. When you have energy for something, you'll give it your deep attention to learn more. You’ll ask the right questions. You’ll figure it out. You’ll win. *** And remember: Nobody is coming to save you. It’s just you. There’s a power in that. Go do the thing.

Salesforce is running an ad claiming 40% off to beat Zoho. We have watched this playbook for years where they give deep discounts to get you in, followed by aggressive escalation once you're locked-in. Before you switch anything, ask them to show you standardised multi-year pricing. If they don't, that's your answer. Enterprise software is a con-game of "discount" bullshit by vendors like Salesforce. Buyer beware! As for "old CRM", Salesforce is a garbage bin of acquired enterprise software companies over decades, held together with bubble gum and duct tape.

Everything that matters most in life will sometimes bore you. Your marriage will bore you. Your career will bore you. Your kids will bore you. But boredom isn’t a sign that you chose wrong. It’s a signal that you have chosen to make something more important than your own momentary pleasure. It’s the hidden fee that comes with purpose and meaning.

Every day you are faced with an infinite number of things that come at you. Let’s call them “dots.” To be effective, you need to be able to tell which dots are important and which dots are not. Some people go through life collecting all kinds of observations and opinions like pocket lint, instead of just keeping what they need. They have “detail anxiety,” worrying about unimportant things. Sometimes small things can be important—for example, that little rattle in your car’s engine could just be a loose piece of plastic or it could be a sign your timing belt is about to snap. The key is having the higher-level perspective to make fast and accurate judgments on what the real risks are without getting bogged down in details. #principleoftheday

I'm convinced that adaptability is the highest form of intelligence. Knowledge matters, but the ability to learn and unlearn matters more. To change your mind in response to new information. The rigid cling to what was. The adaptable adjust to what is. The future belongs to them.

vTitan medical equipment update: we have been shipping steadily and a big shipment of syringe pumps is getting ready at the factory! We also have an affordable pump for Thalassemia (vTitan AccuFlow Thala pump) and over a thousand patients have benefited from it. Our R&D team is working hard on many more products. Our particular focus is on affordability. vTitan is teaching us a lot about hardware design and manufacturing.

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

Same Thoranamalai scene today during my commute, with the monsoon clouds covering the hills in the background and a steady drizzle which we call "saaral" in Tamil. The weather has turned very pleasant too. Glorious day to be alive 🙏

LIFE AFTER SUCCESS For most of my life, people introduced me by my designation. CEO. Chairman. Founder. I won’t pretend I didn’t enjoy it. Then one day, those titles mattered a lot less. What surprised me was not what I lost. It was what I found. The freedom to learn again. The freedom to build without targets. The freedom to contribute without needing credit. Many people spend their lives preparing for success. Very few prepare for what comes after it. The question is not: What will you do when you retire? The real question is: Who will you become when nobody needs your title anymore? That is when the real shift begins. From achievement to purpose. Perhaps that is what it means to be Human First. Your value was never in the position you held. It was always in the difference you kept making after the position was gone. Link to Business Today @business_today Article in first comment #HumansFirst #StayInspired

Everyone needs to hear this…

Knowledge grows when you ask stupid questions. Stupidity grows when you don't ask anything.

“My parents had just one expectation from me — study honestly, and they would handle the rest.” ❤️📚 Growing up in Tirupati, Indumathi knew what sacrifice looked like. Her father drove a lorry to support the family. Money was limited, uncertainty was constant, but her education was never allowed to suffer. After Class 10, several private colleges offered her free admissions because of her excellent marks. But one teacher suggested a different path—join a government polytechnic, reduce expenses, and build her future step by step. She trusted that advice. Indumathi excelled in her studies, earned a gold medal in engineering, and soon secured a software job worth ₹10 lakh per year. For many, that would have been the dream. For her, it was only the beginning. She left the job and moved to Delhi with a bigger goal—preparing for the UPSC Engineering Services Examination. There was no financial cushion. No expensive support system. But there were people who believed in her. Teachers helped with expenses. Supporters arranged coaching assistance. They invested not in her circumstances, but in her potential. And she carried that faith with her every day. When the results were announced, Indumathi had secured All India Rank 75 in the UPSC IES examination. 🇮🇳✨ Later, she returned to her school, bowed before her teacher, and quietly said: “This journey began because you showed me the right path.” A lorry driver’s daughter. A gold medallist. A UPSC rank holder. Proof that when determination meets guidance, extraordinary things happen. ❤️ #UPSC #Indumathi #InspiringStory #Education #StudentSuccess #NeverGiveUp #IndiaProud #Motivation 📚✨

Everyone needs to hear this: Effortlessness is earned.

Karuvi update: these are the major issues that come up in power tools design. At 11000 rpm, does it overheat, does it vibrate too much and does it produce too much noise? We have to find parts that work well and are also price competitive. Low end Chinese power tools won't pass all the tests but they are very cheap. We decided we have to pass all the tests the Japanese and German tools would pass. Finally we have the product that meets that quality bar shipping to trial customers locally. Tooling costs are another major issue. We are planning a tool room. All this has taught us a lot of lessons. We will roll out a full line of tools later this year. To build anything that truly lasts, it takes time!