Managing Partner @SakaVentures. NYC & India. Investing in seed startups targeting large global markets. Previously @500GlobalVC, @TLabs, @SSCGlobeOp.
New York, NY
Joined April 2008
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Stop visiting the U.S. market. Start living in it.
If you're building for America from abroad, two-week trips won't cut it. Here's what actually works ๐งต
Privacy is the best reason not to do 1 and 2.
Self hosted open weights models have gotten so good that running a competent Hermes install on a dedicated Mac w/ 64GB of RAM is doable. 256 is great!
Signal > Telegram > WhatsApp
Pankaj Jain ๐ retweeted
Heโll never know this but Patrick Stewart showed countless boys how to be men. He showed that strength didn't have to mean intimidation, that intelligence should come with humility, and that you could - and should - stand up for what was right even when it cost you something.
Pankaj Jain ๐ retweeted
I am grateful for having worked for @davewiner back in 2001.
He started, or helped push, so many things we take for granted today. RSS, podcasting, blogging. Even this website was somewhat inspired by him.
And he doesnโt get enough recognition.
Every time I hear the term "podcast" in a story or even when people win big awards for their podcasts, I wonder why I have never gotten any kind of recognition for this and other contributions.
I know there are people who think my contribution was just adding an element to RSS at some point, not even sure I actually added that element, but that isn't how you make a medium come to life. You have to iterate, evangelize, look for talented people who can make the medium happen and when all that doesn't make it happen, do it yourself, and show everyone that you don't need to be a CNN or NPR or MTV to do it. It's one of the reasons we have so many diverse sources of ideas and information. When I get tired of a podcast I look around and find a new one to explore and learn from. The medium may never make enough money to make anyone rich with money, but it has *always* been a source of wealth of knowledge, first about itself (in 2004) and today about every damn thing.
So far the only mega-rich famous dude who has credited me is Jason Calacanis, which is strange because he and I had a falling out in the early days of RSS, over an event at a now-defunct conference.
At first I didn't trust it, we were feuding for years, it seems. But he has had a rebirth it seems, and some of the things he does and says make me uncomfortable, but on the other hand, you take the recognition where you get it. And I am starting to trust his generosity of spirit.
I'm going to release the most ambitious software of my long career pretty soon. I got so tired of the way Google is running the web as if it were a corporate platform, I thought why don't we try starting over with the web, use all the formats and protocols that work, but totally eliminate the corporate ownership. The reason this project worked now is Claude Code. In the last year I've built or restored four real products that combined define the web as if Markdown, RSS and Websockets existed when Netscape came out, and instead of evolving around JavaScript and CSS, the power belongs to the users, not the content providers. That simple change of rules for the web says if you want to write and publish via the web, it can't be fucked with by a Google-size monopoly or even a Substack-size monopoly.
I'm 71 years old, and haven't needed money since my first and only IPO in the 80s. I invested conservatively, and occasionally bet on a long shot, and one of them came out great.
I don't have the kind of money @jason has, but I don't need it either. I have what I call "transcendental money" -- ie it accumulates value through appreciation and interest all on its own, and I don't spend as much as it makes so it transcends time. Which has made it possible for me to practice my art all this time, which is developing and showrunning software as a medium. That situation aligned me with the web perfectly, because it doesn't need money to keep going either.
Anyway I want to thank @jason for having a big heart, and hope many other people who perhaps I have offended by speaking my mind, will be as generous. I did more than get podcasting off the ground, and I ain't done yet! ;-)
PS: I can't believe how old I am. But I have taken reasonably good care of myself, and managing large projects has gotten a lot easier for one person thanks to the AI tools that have come along and finally come to sufficient maturity that you really can manage large complex projects that way.
India funding rose 7%. At the same time, the number of startup rounds fell 37%.
Tech startups raised $10.3B through Sept 2026 but the number of rounds fell to 1,134
The top 10 deals took 37% of the capital. Fewer at-bats but larger checks. Capital is concentrating rapidly. This also means, higher valuations (+ higher hurdle for the next round). Seed and post Series A are becoming harder. It's a big opportunity for foreign investors if the Indian gov't would make it cheaper and easier to invest.
cio.economictimes.indiatimesโฆ.
Pankaj Jain ๐ retweeted
โWith the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.โ
Captain Picardโs great defence of freedom of speech. Rest in peace @SirPatStew
Pankaj Jain ๐ retweeted
Just learned that Patrick Stewart has passed away. Such a sad loss. Here he is in one of the best things ever put on television, the Star Trek episode โThe Measure of a Man.โ I show it to my students in Philosophy and Science Fiction every year.
Pankaj Jain ๐ retweeted
SIR PATRICK STEWART (1940-2026)
Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end. You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt. Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.
We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago but we werenโt in the same productions. My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in 'Star Trek'. โBut Patrick think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to riskโgetting lost in Hollywood for years and years?โ. Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences, who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes ('X-Men' of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in Londonโs West End and on Broadway.
America was his adopted home, where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin. But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire.
His farewell performance in 'Avengers: Doomsday' is yet to be seen.
Ian McKellen 29 October 2026
Photo: University of Huddersfield
Everyone complaining that apps on the Duo look terrible should be sending their feedback in droves to the app developers.
RIP Mon Capitaine.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to:
Johns Hopkins Alzheimerโs Disease Research Center Fund ย ย
alzresearch.org/giving/
Alzheimerโs Foundation of America Caregiver Resources ย ย
alzfdn.org/donate/
Photo Credit: Tommy Garcia
Pankaj Jain ๐ retweeted
Built from the ground up in India๐ฎ๐ณ, Tested under full load, Developed for flight!
Today marks an important milestone for Astrophel: weโve successfully completed full-load bandwidth testing of our in-house actuator.
#SpaceTech #Actuators #Aerospace #MadeInIndia #ReusableRocket
This was the missing link for marketers!
Launching @segwise_ai Agent 2.0 - Don't just make videos, Make video ads that win.
You can muck around on Higgsfield, making iteration after iteration with no context on what's working.
Or make it on Segwise, leaning into creative patterns already proven to work for you, and always on brand.
Anyone can make 100 ads now. The hard part is knowing which 100 to make.
Ask Segwise and it will:
- turn your winning patterns into new briefs and videos
- find what competitors are doing that you're not, and turn it into ads to try
- make variations, language versions and every size you need
Higgsfield gives you videos.
Segwise gives you winners. Go to segwise, and sign up for the trial.
Wish restaurants would serve red shishito peppers. A completely different flavor than green shishitos. Growers, allow them to fully ripen before harvesting.
Underdog 1.3.13. Ran into this @0xSigil @underdogai:
Underdog is connected to my Apple Calendar app. Apple Calendar pulls my personal and work Google calendars. When I asked Underdog to add an event, it required direct access to my Google calendars. Why then should I give it Apple Calendar access?
Underdog 1.3.13. Ran into this @0xSigil @underdogai:
When in mail, the rendering of most emails is just plain text. If Underdog is going to be my mail reader then I need to be able to see the email content. If it's not meant to be my mail reader then I'm confused why it's there.
During a recent trip to Europe, I was shocked at how bad the 5G was. We were trying to get on a train from Ghent to Amsterdam and though I saved the ticket in Notes (on my device), it was all in German and I had no way of translating it. #TravelSmart #TravelTech
Big props to @1kunalbahl and @rohitkbansal on the IPO!
Snapdeal parent AceVector made a stock market debut, listing at โน28.30 on the BSE, an 11.6% discount to its โน32 IPO price. ๐
On the NSE, the stock debuted at โน28.32, down 11.5% from the issue price. At its BSE listing price, AceVectorโs market capitalisation stood at โน1,540.1 Cr, compared with its IPO valuation of โน1,741.4 Cr.
AceVectorโs โน420 Cr IPO was subscribed 4.93X, with the company raising โน287 Cr through a fresh issue and โน133 Cr through an OFS. The company plans to use โน132 Cr of the fresh proceeds for Snapdealโs marketing and business promotion, while โน50 Cr will go towards technology infrastructure.
Founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, AceVector reported a 64% decline in its restated net loss to โน45.5 Cr in FY26, while operating revenue grew 29.2% to โน510.3 Cr.
๐ AceVectorโs IPO may have seen strong subscription, but the Snapdeal parent made a muted debut on the bourses. Read the full story here: 4-2.co/4zcREsK
#AceVector #Snapdeal #IPO #StockMarket #News
Pankaj Jain ๐ retweeted
India sat at the centre of the ancient world's trade network for at least four thousand years.
Marco Polo travelled to China overland in 1271 and came home by sea in 1295, dispatched by Kublai with a Yuan princess to the Persian Ilkhan, Fujian to Persia by ship and then Black Sea to Venice. Sea travel was, and is, safer, and it carries far more. He was one of perhaps hundreds of European merchants who ever made that journey, against the thousands of Arabs, Persians, Indians and Southeast Asians who used the Indian Ocean routes as a matter of routine. The Silk Road of popular imagination, a highway from Chang'an to the Mediterranean, was in reality a scatter of local overland links, and the volumes it carried were dwarfed by what moved by sea, where Indian merchants and Indian gold held the centre of the network.
Mesopotamia is conventionally called the cradle of civilisation. Its ancient economy rested on sheep-farming and woollen cloth, traded for Anatolian metal and shipped eastward for what resident Indian merchants and artisans, well documented in the Mesopotamian record, were bringing in. Meanwhile the Indus-Saraswati sites keep getting older. Bhirrana is now dated to before 7,000 BC, and the submerged material off the Gulf of Khambhat, and more recently off Poompuhar in Tamil Nadu, points to port cities that predate almost everything currently taught as the beginning. The Khambhat evidence rests on dredged rather than in-situ material and remains contested; the Poompuhar and Dwarka surveys are ongoing.
The maritime story has been missing from the standard history. It is finally being addressed, especially around the Indian coast, and there is still much to do.
My full conversation with @rschoudhary108 below.
Was Mesopotamia really the only cradle of civilization?
My conversation with maritime historian @nickcollins1953 explores Indiaโs central role in ancient oceanic trade long before the Silk Road.
Watch: youtube.com/watch?v=6GIjbV8Mโฆ
#AncientIndia #MaritimeHistory
@GarudaPrakashan
