Vikram Rajagopal

🚨 "India should aspire for 100% ethanol blending in the near future," says Minister Nithin Gadkari.

What I told 2,000 future founders in Bengaluru today: 1/ We believe we are at the start of a second wave of Indian companies that will build world-class AI native products for the global market. Emergent and Giga are the model of the future. 2/ Just because a space seems crowded doesn't mean it's too late. Zepto, Emergent, Giga - none were first movers. Second mover advantage is real. 3/ In fact, a good formula for finding startup ideas is to look at ideas that are showing some promise and just execute them better. Execution is everything: if you're an exceptional engineer, and you can build and move faster than your competitors, you'll win. 4/ There is every reason to believe Indian teams can beat US teams building global products. The level of engineering talent here is on a whole different level, and that's the key input. 5/ In the AI era, the best founders are the ones building at the edge of what's technically possible. You need to be experimenting wth the latest models, the latest open source projects. 6/ Stay in the flow of information. Watch the right podcasts, follow the right people on X. With AI changing this fast, you need to know what the smartest builders are thinking. 7/ Most of the best startups don't come from someone explicitly trying to start a company. They start from someone building a project just for fun, or tinkering with a new technology because they are curious. India needs more of this "tinkering" culture - this is how you have novel ideas when technology is shifting quickly. 8/ Founders are getting younger. Aadit was 18 when he started Zepto. The Giga founders were 20 when they came to SF. Young people who can learn very fast have the advantage right now. 9/ The best founders are pushing AI coding to the max. You can now write 20K lines of code / day. One person can do the work that just a year ago would take a 100 person team. The best builders are taking advantage and building at Garry Tan speeds.

Checked out Uutopia's special. It's called Dum Porotta. Layers of flaky Kerala parathas with fried and roasted variants of chicken, meat, eggs in between. Towards the bottom, the parathas get drenched in savoury coconut milk. Meat lovers, must try!