I wear many hats. Currently building Liste - a powerful read/watch/listen-it-later system.
internet
Joined May 2010
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Suvil retweeted
We all want to root for Sarvam. But wanting isn't enough when you're selling duty and technical jargon instead of desire. It’s a narrative problem.
Right now, my perception of Sarvam's unsaid positioning feels like "We’ve done some cool technical stuff. Support us because we're Indian AI."
A semi technical idiot such as I can’t make head or tail of what they’re claiming to have achieved. The latter bit is also the exact narrative trap that didn’t end up helping Koo, Hike, and every other "patriotic alternative."
In 2025, when every other day brings a new AI breakthrough, you can't ship a model and expect the world to care just because it handles Indic languages. Even if you build something revolutionary tomorrow, adoption needs more than good intentions and GitHub stars.
The "we're going B2B" defense doesn't hold either. Today's enterprise buyers discover through consumer buzz. The lines have blurred beyond recognition.
Here's the playbook that I, a technical dumbo thinks might actually work?
1. Make magic, not models
Nobody (aka semi technical idiots like me) cares about your 24B parameters. They probably care about their grandmother finally being able to use technology the way they do. Show that. Ship a demo that makes someone cry because their regional poetry finally sounds beautiful in AI. Or whatever it is that you can pull off. It’s an emotional game. Don’t wait on me to figure out what you’re capable of.
2. Own the conversation
Where are your founders showing up? Your engineers? In 2025, faceless companies die. Perplexity has Aravind. OpenAI has Sam. Sarvam has... a Twitter account and a blog? Get your smartest people on camera daily. Make them influencers. Yes, it's ‘cringe’. Do it anyway.
3. Buy the hype you deserve
Those "organic" Silicon Valley hype cycles? You already know they cost millions. Stop being precious. Deploy ₹1Cr on strategic amplification. Seed Twitter. Pay influencers. Create FOMO. The best tech with the worst distribution equals failure.
4. Pick a fight
"Big AI doesn't understand when your mom mixes three languages in one sentence. We do." That's a story. "Support Indian AI" isn't. Make Google the villain. Make context-blindness the enemy. Give people something to rally against. Some bait. Please.
5. Ship experiences, not infrastructure
One viral consumer moment drives more enterprise leads than hundred cold emails. Ask Jasper. Ask Notion. Ask any AI company that matters. Or ask Ghibli.
Stop asking for support. Start demanding attention. Show us one thing — just ONE thing — that makes us go "Holy shit, only sarvam can do this."
Do that, and we won't just rally behind you. We'll evangelize for you.
Help us visualize why this matters to our lives, not our national pride or something. The market of dumbos like me is waiting.
Suvil retweeted
Lots of alpha in knowing how to ask for advice
1. Ask only credible people (Ray Dalio: "have done the thing successfully, multiple times, and can articulate how")
2. Consider their incentives (don't ask a barber whether you need a haircut)
3. Ask for frameworks, not answers (never delegate your thinking)
4. Make sure you fully understand the advice — ask for examples, repeat the advice back and ask if you got it right
5. Backtest the advice: think of times you could have followed it, think of what would have happened
6. Once you've accepted the advice, take immediate steps to implement it! Surprising how often folks (incl me) skip this step — no point in receiving good advice and doing nothing with it
Suvil retweeted
If I may add my own thesis to what Marc writes:
I believe we have created a society that's based primarily on critique. Some critique is always needed in any society, but we focus far too much of our energy and intelligence on critique.
We need to shift back toward creation.
Suvil retweeted
To design a lifestyle based on your own preferences, you must learn how to defeat the sunk cost fallacy.
No matter how much you've invested in your current path, you must be be willing to write it all off. Otherwise you'll likely get stuck enduring an existence you dislike.
Suvil retweeted
The fact that (almost) all degrees have the same duration regardless of the complexity of the underlying field is the best evidence that education has been built around the universities’ needs, not the students’.
Suvil retweeted
“I’d like to thank Google, who’s making a website. Going to be very fast, unlike websites of the past.”
damn even trump’s talking shit about javascript – at San Francisco, CA
Suvil retweeted
The Overreaction Paradox:
When the result of taking effective action is that nothing happens, which makes your effort seem unnecessary and like an overreaction even if it was the right thing to do.
Suvil retweeted
This is a very lucid explanation of what we currently know about coronavirus spread: medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coron…
The graph you should be most concerned about is the one that demonstrates that, at the point you know coronavirus has taken root in your area, it is *very* widespread.
Suvil retweeted
A few days ago, there was a lot of discussion about salaries, and not many focused on one of the most critical aspects: equity. A good base salary is great, but equity is how you become wealthy. E.g., Jeff Bezos isn't wealthy because of his salary, but because of ~4% of Amazon.
Suvil retweeted
Moving JIRAs to the next sprint.
nitter.cf/Tokyisma07/status/1204…
Suvil retweeted
Folks often ask me how to make a software business.
"What if I can't code?" Learn sales.
"What if I can't code or sell?" Learn a lucrative business' processes cold.
"What if I can't code or sell and know nothing?" You can fix all of those over time.
"What if I don't?" Bad news.
Suvil retweeted
Precisely backwards. If there is no money at stake then there is no proof this is about principles.
It's a Strategy Credit.
stratechery.com/2013/strateg…
Since we are getting questions: This decision was based on principle, not money. As context, we’ve disclosed that political ad spend for the 2018 US midterms was <$3M. There is no change to our Q4 guidance. I am proud to work @twitter! #LoveWhereYouWork
Suvil retweeted
#ISRO
First set of beautiful images of the Earth captured by #Chandrayaan2 #VikramLander
Earth as viewed by #Chandrayaan2 LI4 Camera on August 3, 2019 17:28 UT
Suvil retweeted
Age gets you in the end, but what gets you in the medium term are bad habits whose consequences you blame on age.
Suvil retweeted
Overuse of outrage is dangerous like overuse of antibiotics.
There is much to be truly outraged about. Use it wisely, so it works.