Rajat Gupta

5 Lacs+ concurrents mark was made possible by amazing love and affection of all our fans. Thanks everyone. @pvivek @gsinha @Timesinternet #BrainBaazi twitter.com/BrainBaazi/sta…

This is a great anecdote from Atlassian. The fear everyone was that AI agents would somehow compress the role of enterprise software. Generally the opposite will be true, assuming the software company executes effectively (either startups or existing players). Enterprise software that brings along useful work will make organizations more productive, encouraging more use of the software overall for either the people or agents. The biggest benefit is that now SaaS products, which were once capped by the existing number of users that could utilize the tool, now have uncapped upside in the form of consumption with agents. There of course will be plenty of exceptions to this, but if you can successfully combine a system of record, or a place where a person naturally goes to do work, with AI agents, that’s going to be a powerful combination in the future.

@thejamescad Profound. Looking forward to go through the guide .

Customers don't Google blue links to decide what to buy anymore. They ask ChatGPT. Google currently drives $2.4 trillion of commerce. In 5 years, $1 trillion of that will shift to ChatGPT. Becoming ChatGPT's #1 recommendation could be worth $100M+ to your business. Here's what should terrify every CEO: - ChatGPT hit 700M weekly users, growing 4X year-over-year - 47% of consumers already use answer engines like ChatGPT to research purchases - ChatGPT handles 1 billion+ queries daily (1/8th of Google) - At current growth rates, AI assistants will drive 30% of all product decisions by 2029 If your company generates >$1M from SEO, you're facing an existential threat: ranking #1 on Google will soon be as relevant as ranking #1 in the Yellow Pages. Here's the paradigm shift: In the SEO era, you optimized articles to rank for keywords. But answer engines don't crawl your SEO-optimized pages. They form opinions from authentic discussions on Reddit, niche forums, and community blogs. The brands dominating these conversations become their default recommendations. Every company built on SEO is about to watch its distribution channel evaporate. That's why we built @tryprofound: the generative engine optimization (GEO) platform that gives you control over how your brand is being discovered across all answer engines like ChatGPT. Today, I'm thrilled to announce our $35M Series B led by @sequoia, with continued backing from @kleinerperkins, @khoslaventures, @Saga_Ventures, and @southpkcommons. In under 12 months, over 2,000 marketers at companies like Ramp, US Bank, Indeed, MongoDB, DocuSign, and Chime have used Profound to: - Monitor how answer engines describe their brand - Identify which Reddit threads and forums shape AI opinions in their category - Drive up to 700% increases in AI referrals - Generate six-figure revenue directly from AI recommendations Today, we're launching a game-changing update: Workflows. - Profound identifies which forums and communities answer engines reference for your industry. - Workflows then automatically create authentic, valuable content for the platforms most relevant for you to be picked up by answer engines like ChatGPT. - The $2.4 trillion commerce pie isn't growing as much as it's being redistributed. From SEO to GEO.

@kmr_dilip Let’s go . Count me in.

This blew up 😅. Dint expect it. I’m going to ping each one of you who shared their names the invite soon.

If you’re a founder, Rainmatter by Zerodha wants to cheer for your health. Most founders get advice on how to acquire customers, sell products, and raise capital. I think what is not been said enough is- Founder’s overall health is the moat of the business. Your mental health is the real runway. Your fitness defines the sustainability. And your anxiety levels determines the stability. We can’t invest in every startup or founder. But I believe every founder deserves someone in their corner, especially when it comes to their health. I wish something like this existed when I was a founder. Maybe I would’ve felt a little less broken- physically and mentally. Whether you’re funded by us, someone else, or no one at all. It doesn’t matter. No eligibility here. Just need to be a founder who wants to start prioritising their health. We want to hangout with you where we workout together with other founders. No pitch decks and no small talk. We will- run, lift, cycle, jog. Do something to grind together with other founders. You just need to show up. If you’re in, drop your name here. I’ll send you an invite with details. We start this weekend in Bangalore. And will do this in all other cities. Why we are doing this? Because you are the most valuable IP of your business. Just don’t screw it.

Three Microsoft CEOs walk into a room on Microsoft’s 50th anniversary … and are interviewed by Copilot!

It is easy to criticise consumer internet startups in India, especially when you compare them to the deep technical excellence being built in US/China. Using our example, the reality is this: there are almost 1.5 Lakh real people who are earning livelihoods on Zepto today - a company that did not exist 3.5 years ago. ₹1,000+ Crores of tax contribution to the government per year, over a billion dollars of FDI brought into the country and hundreds of crores invested in organizing India's backend supply chains (especially for fresh fruits and vegetables). If that isn't a miracle in Indian innovation, I honestly don't know what is. Why doesn't India have its own large-scale foundational AI model? It's because we still haven't built great internet companies. Most technology-led innovation over the past 2 decades has originated from consumer internet companies. Who scaled cloud computing? Amazon (originally a consumer internet company). Who are the big players in AI today? Facebook, Google, Alibaba, Tencent etc. (all started as consumer internet companies). Consumer internet companies drive this innovation because they have the best data, talent, and capital to put behind it. We need to build great local champions in internet that are generating hundreds of millions of dollars in FCF first if we ever want to get a piece of great technology revolutions. The startup ecosystem, the government, and the owners of large pools of Indian capital need to actively support the creation of these local champions, not pull down the teams that are trying hard to get there. Zepto is still far away from being a great Internet company that can hold a candle to the global best. But we are executing day in and day out to get there. I can promise that any capital we generate from this business (and it honestly looks like we will) will be invested towards long-term innovation and value creation in India. That is essentially what I am dedicating the next few decades of my life to try to do: create dynamism in the Indian economy and our capital markets, in the same way the Americans have for decades. We have the talent and capital; we just need the execution.

Everyone’s worried they’re late to AI. But if you look closer, the signs tell a different story. We’re not late. We’re early. Very early. And the confusion you’re feeling? That’s not a problem, it’s the signal. In fast-changing environments, it’s easy to mistake discomfort for falling behind. But the people who actually are early often feel exactly like you do: A little disoriented. A little skeptical. And deeply unsure of what “good” even looks like. Here are 5 signs you’re still early and why that matters: 1. You feel disoriented, not behind. If you’re constantly thinking “This doesn’t feel right yet,” that’s not a red flag. That’s your intuition recognizing that the defaults haven’t settled. 2. The tools don’t quite fit your workflow. You’re still shaping them to your needs, instead of reshaping yourself around them. That’s a good thing. It means the tooling isn’t calcified yet. 3. You’re asking more questions than you’re finding answers. In mature ecosystems, the questions get boring. In early ones, the questions are everything. 4. You see contradiction everywhere. “This AI tool saves time… but the output is generic.” That tension means the values still conflict and the opportunity lies in resolving them. 5. No one agrees on what “good” looks like. When success metrics vary wildly, the map hasn’t been drawn. Early means you get to help decide what becomes standard. The best part? You don’t need to rush. The future isn’t set. The rules aren’t finished. And we’re in the rare window where how we choose to work can influence what work becomes. So if you’re feeling overwhelmed, skeptical, or not sure you’re “doing AI right,” pause. You’re not falling behind. You’re just early. And early is where the leverage lives.

Business isn’t something you learn in books. Or posts. Or threads. You can’t read your way to the right hire. You can't consume enough content to produce a product. You have to do. You learn business by doing business. Hiring by hiring. Products by building them. We know this is true in music. Never pick up a guitar? Go read 100 books on guitar. You'll suck just as much. You have to play. You can only learn guitar by playing. Business is music. Some things can be taught. Some are just knowledge. Business isn't that kind of thing. Products aren't those kinds of things. Like music. Like sports. Like anything physical. You have to do the thing to get better at the thing. In that way, business is more physical than mental. It's not a formula you can learn. It's not a series of lessons you can internalize. It's not a list you can complete. Business is muscle memory. It's built by doing. Go do.

I'm teaching databases this semester at Berkeley. My students all seem unusually brilliant. Not many go to office hours, and not too many folks post on the course forum asking project questions. Weirdly, the exam had the lowest recorded average in my 10 semesters teaching it.

Below is all that matters. Everything else is just narrative, to whoever it suits best. - DeepSeek is an incredible feat in the evolution of AI, the next big inflection point after ChatGPT released in Nov 2022. - They have proved once again what we have known forever: in AI, talent over everything else. It was the very reason a non-profit lab called OpenAI was put together in 2015, to assimilate the best research talent to take on Google. DS has played the exact same move against OAI a decade later. - The difference this time is that the talent is not what you would typically think AI Research, but rather a crack team of software engineers, infra architects, mathematicians and DevOps. This IMO is as significant a moment as anything else, that to build great AI models you no longer need to compete for limited expensive AI talent ($1-5m salaries). - This would not have been possible without decades of AI research compounding, and without OpenAI o3 already being out there. DS used AI to generate data to build best in class AI. The hilarious part is OpenAI still makes a unit loss on their inference, which means DS caused them losses in more ways than one! - Even if DS is fabricating the costs, the paper proves it is still an order of magnitude cheaper than anything else so far of similar quality. This will lead to an explosion of more teams & companies building models, and many will play in specific niches. This is a very very good thing. - As a result, the eventual demand for compute will still stay in a similar range, or maybe even to up because so many players will now get into the game. Jevons Paradox in full action. - Cheaper models will lead to cheaper inference. Cheaper inference will lead to startups using AI for all sorts of things for both building products and internal tools. Cost of company building will go down and the one person $1b enterprise that Sam has talked about is no longer a pipe dream. - This also has implications on Venture Capital in AI. IMO there will be small funds and then very large funds. A $1m seed can now probably take you very far, even profitability. And then you need serious growth capital for world dominance. Good time to be in private equity. What a time to be alive, and fortunate to be working in this industry. Time to put India on the map! 🚀🇮🇳

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha 😂 Fantastic use of a popular Diwali 'meme' in its Diwali 2024 ad by Zomato! Hands down, the funniest Diwali ad (while also being apt for Zomato) so far. Conceived in-house (says a lot about the kind of talent that exists inside Zomato) and produced by Ryde Studios. #advertising #marketing #diwali #deepavali

I am excited to introduce peercheque origins. A program designed to help you navigate the -1 to 0 phase of starting up. Your co-pilot in figuring out what to build next. w/ @miten peercheque.com/origins

Everyone, yes everyone, is far right! 😂

A thread on choosing what to build. I’ve built around fifty products in the last fifteen years. Forty seven with zero users. Three got to a hundred. One reached close to ten million users. There was luck and turning it into skill is what this thread is about.

Harsha Bhogle said "I remain the teller of the story. Not the story itself". Harsha with gift of the verse made cricket more romantic and interesting. While cricket was played on the field, he served it in his own flavour into our drawing rooms. 1. When Geoffrey Boycott once said Sachin may be a great batsman but he never got his name at the Lord's honours boards, Harsha said - "So whose loss it it? Sachin's or the Honours Boards'?" 2. Explaining how Cheteshwar Pujara is a fine Test player but the T20 format doesn't suit him - "Pujara is a classical musician in the era of Yo Yo Honey Singh." 3. After Dhoni sent a Mitchell Starc delivery to the boundary - "He had all the time in the world. He could have read a newspaper." 4. On a Tendulkar straight drive against Ishant Sharma in the IPL - "open the text book. Turn to page 32". 5. About Rahul Dravid's devastating form - Ask him to walk on water and he would say, 'how many kilometres?' 6. About Glenn Maxwell’s batting - "He just loves to storm through. I guess if he had a car, he would probably start it in 4th gear." 7. After Sehwag was dropped yet again during a tour of New Zealand - "Its that kind of a day, Sehwag can walk blindfolded across a busy highway today and not get run over." 8. When Michael Clarke got caught at slip but was still waiting for the umpire’s decision - :I think he is waiting for tomorrow's newspaper to declare him out." 9. During Sachin’s last Test match against the West Indies - "Sachin playing well and looking positive. I think that couple of fours he hit settled the nerves. Dont know about his nerves, I am talking about the nerves of each and every person in the crowd." 10. Looking at the pitch in a recent England tour : "Looks like Suarez was here". 11. India's last man Narendra Hirwani was coming into bat when Bhogle was asked by his co-commentator Ian Chappell whether Hirwani could bat - "If you make a team with all the No.11s of all the teams, Hirwani would still come at No.11 in the line-up." 12. What a way to welcome Sachin when he was coming in to bat in a Test match! "Eruption of joy in the fall of an Indian wicket would only mean one thing". 13. When India's 11th man, Varun Aaron, was coming into bat - "Cricket is the only sport in the world where you are absolutely horrible at something and you still need to go out and do it." 14. Dhoni was whacking one shot after another until Sachin got on strike and caressed a delivery towards covers - "We have a surgeon at one end and a butcher at the other." 15. After Dhoni lost the toss yet again - "MS Dhoni has yet again called for heads to the coin which has two tails." 16. While co-commentating with Rahul Dravid in a Test match that India was losing to England - "The only man who can save the match is the man sitting next to me." 17. After a diving Kieron Pollard could not take a catch - "If Pollard can't reach it then it's not a catch." 18. When Sachin got out off Michael Vaughan's offspin in 2002 - "Oh what a shame! It's like a soldier who survived the war when all the bullets were flying by his nose and then got run over by a bicycle in his native town." 19. When the batsmen are scrambling for singles and twos at the end of an innings - "It's like the end of a scrabble game at this stage, India will take whatever they can get." 20. What a way to sum up why we call Dravid The Wall! - "Is there a more calming sight in the world than Rahul Dravid taking guard." 21. And this is what he said during a lecture at IIM-A and someone asked him what his CGPA was as a student - "I learnt this very early in my childhood. Remember the good, forget the bad."

100 years difference in athletic ability

Father, Balwant Singh was martyred in the Kargil War - Kulwant followed him yesterday at Poonch ! *All gave some, some gave all* 🌷🙏🌷

The world would be a better place if people spent some time watching documentaries about the universe and try to fathom how un-fathomably large it is It is human arrogance to believe that their books, priest, fathers, poojaris or imams have the faintest idea about it's creator

This took 17 years of training to accomplish 🏹 I started gymnastics when I was 6 ☺️ twitter.com/ShannenJPEG/st…

Happiness is free 🎶✨❤️ via WA