Old Life, Old Mind, Old Ways
I am again working on a startup, building team, looking out for VCs who will find the project worthy. Although, I don’t have much time. But I have more experience now, experience giving presentations, experience understanding what they want to know in the meetings, what they want to see.
I am hoping I will be able to get some traction before I leave for HCL. See, I do like my job, in fact I love Semiconductors more than anything. Semiconductors paid for my MBA (i.e cryptomining). But, right now I am on a street where paths diverge into two, and there are too many trees and fogs on both of them and I can’t see much into the future. People used to call me visionary because I was able to predict things, but I have lost my tech edge now. World has moved on while I was hibernating for two years.
Even the stack I’m picking up is old by now. But I only know how to build something functional with that. Obviously if I had more time I would have learnt the new tech and started my footing right. But since the time is a constraint, I am just trying to get something up and going before the timer beeps.
All the old mates are gone, the new team is completely new, don’t know how much to trust whom. But I am certain these people listen to instructions correctly and shares what they know will work best, so they will be able to carry it forward.
I am writing all this, because something hit me today. You know, whatever I learnt in those two years didn’t change anything about me. Coming to Patna didn’t even took me two days to settle back in old habits. The work I do is still the same that I used to do earlier.
Yes, I am a bit depressed and serious now. But, apart from that, everything remains same. Which I had not expected. I had thought there would be some finesse some more professionalism that will get added. I might change the way I communicate, the way I brief people, but honestly nothing. If I would say I learnt something, that would be just accounting. And towards the end of the MBA I honestly tried to perfect my accounting skills, It was not fun honestly, as you know I don’t like repetitive work or anything that is just practice, not something new. But I told myself, at least I need to learn this completely before I go back, and that I did. My DCFs are still the same, my modelling and forensic skills are still the same. It’s like I was just showing off my prior knowledge to the folks there, just in more material format.
Right now, Not sure, If I should have even wasted my two years like that. Yes, finally I have degree that tells VCs that this man might be serious, but honestly it was not that much of a big deal earlier as well.
I am the old romantic, I will tell you hundred good things about something that others might not like, and you will think I am faking. But, I am honest in that regard, I can actually see hundred good things where people can see none.
And sometimes this is what allows me to see into the future. Jensen Huang is on a killing spree right now, and I still think about Lisa Su. She was the hero of my time, taking away the throne from Intel and then winning over the server architecture race. But all of that is now in jeopardy because she couldn’t envision the obvious that was in front of everyone.
I have always admired Elon, the fact that he was on board of Open AI is the testament to that. He is the kind of person who has just got bored of his life and now knows nothing that could keep it interesting, because he tasted success too early in his life. Meanwhile people like Huang had to wait for end of their career to see their investments finally paying off. I think Lisa is planning something too, but it’s just the fact that Nvidia’s management is so precise, so tightly knit that they can make changes very quick, the lowest level engineer is just 5 ranks below the CTO.
If I ever built a successful startup, my management model will be based on Nvidia’s. All these other tech companies they hire hundreds of thousands and then fire the same, but I bet if you have ever heard, Nvidia fired more than 1 people at a time, or Apple did. Nope, these are the companies that understand bureaucracy might please Investors but it doesn’t makes a company successful.
Just look at Google, Facebook, and other FAANG level companies, beautiful minds being wasted on projects that will never see the light of day. But Investors are happy, that’s all what matters to them.
I have followed people like Ray Dalio and Cathie Wood, my entire Investment journey, yes there is a lot of luck that goes into these kind of things, but vision still wins. Cathie Woods commitment into Tesla into Nvidia is not luck it’s vision.
My vision is a bit lost right now, but I am working again to get it back on track. I want to proud participant of next gold rush, and this time I will be selling the forks and shovels.
I was not sleeping though, I followed the AI revolution, developed a few custom trained AI models for myself as well. I was planning on doing a workshop for the peeps at my college as well, but that didn’t see the light of day. Still I am attaching a link to my training PPT, it might be useful for a Novice. Link: https://tinyurl.com/aitrainpptmtx
What’s Next….
There are several challenges in front of me, right now. All of them complicated but thankfully not complex. I will resolve them one by one, and then let’s see what the future holds for us.
Yes, I am excited and I am nostalgic, But the biggest addiction is the high that you get when you finish a project and right now, I am chasing that. And I am sure my addiction is stronger than anything else. Distraction and can do nothing when you have an addiction.
At the end. Farewell TAPMI. It was fun while it lasted, then it was a drag. But we all have our own lives to go through. So Adios!
