November 03, 2024

Ep 89 - Anil Varanasi from Meter on AI and networking hardware, spotting talent early, on China and Cinema

2 hours 10 minutes

Some helpful links
Meter - https://www.meter.com/
Meter command - https://command.meter.com/
Link to Tyler’s book on culture - https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Commercial-Culture-Tyler-Cowen/dp/0674001885
Sam Hinkie - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Hinkie

0:00 - Intro
3:48 - Anil’s early years and background
5:23 - Unconventional parenting
9:35 - Anil's journey to entrepreneurship
12:30 - Sleeping in factories in China
15:22 - China VS U.S.
18:30 - Why Networks are so important
21:35 - Why networking is still an unsolved problem
24:10 - Is hardware too hard?
26:11 - What does Meter do?
37:17 - How does Meter work?
41:08 - Future of enterprise software
44:00 - Human interaction with AI models
46:30 - Why Meter is building AI models
50:50 - Spotting young talent
54:00 - Anil's framework to find good talent
57:30 - How Anil helped Dwarkesh Patel start his podcast
1:02:00 - The “X factor” in Anil’s investments
1:02:00 - Raising the ambition bar
1:06:55 - Escaping the competitive Indian dynamics
1:08:38 - How cinema influences entrepreneurship
1:17:25 - Why don't we know how planes fly
1:19:20 - Lessons from Sam Hinkie
1:21:04 - Kindness as an operating principle
1:22:10 - Why hasn’t Anil had a more public brand?
1:24:03 - US Immigration
1:28:00 - Aarthi, Sriram and Anil show?
1:30:44 - Best Indian restaurant in London
1:32:50 - Has sneaker culture peaked?
1:34:25 - Why don’t wealthy people build monuments anymore?
1:38:04 - London’s rich history
1:40:30 - Why does Sriram have sriramk.eth?
1:42:00 - Should all startups go direct on comms?
1:47:07 - Are Aarthi and Sriram “too online”?
1:49:10 - Sriram’s Silicon Valley groupchats
1:49:46 - Will Aarthi and Sriram move back to India?
1:48:12 - Aarthi and Sriram’s failures in tech
1:53:55 - Netflix’s 3D and streaming software
1:58:18 - Popfly
1:59:55 - Microsoft success under Satya
2:02:00 - On tech execs
2:03:10 - Nonfiction book that Aarthi and Sriram would write
2:06:27 - Aarthi and Sriram’s favorite Indian movie before 2000
2:09:48 - The End