Tag: technology

  • Kunal Shah on Wealth in the AI era

    Kunal Shah recently announced on X that he was taking a back seat in CRED to head WhatsApp Global. Meta also invested $900 million into CRED.

    He spoke at the Groww India Investor Festival 2026 in May 2026. This video was posted on their YouTube channel a few days back.

    If you assume that you do not have much control over the environment we are in today, then you should consider these points.

    Below are a few pointers from that talk:

    • Internet made information accessible. AI made intelligence accessible.
    • The largest employer in the world is inefficiency. The pace at which inefficiency is reducing is accelerating.
    • People are worried about job lay-offs. But, people must be equally if not more worried about per capita income not growing.
    • There is a big and increasing difference between people who use technology and who does not use technology. He gives the example of an auto rickshaw driver plying with and without technology. He claims that the driver who uses technology, he earns more.
    • People wait for corporations and governments to teach them about AI.
    • People must learn AI themselves. Everything is available. Bulk of the people use AI for frivolous use case (editing pictures and videos, talking to ChatGPT as a friend while getting rid of real friends, therapy, and astrology).
    • The most valuable wealth you have is time. How one spends the time is becoming more critical now.
    • We do not value time in India. For example, he states that there are no words for productivity and efficiency in Indian languages other than compound words.
    • Time is a post-industrial age concept whose importance India has not understood. Since Indians are not paid in hours, Indians think in months and not hours.
    • Shah claims that Indian internet usage is 35 GB per capita per month. It is extremely easy to waste time.
    • India has two extreme modes – panic or apathy. No modes in the middle.
    • Individuals must create a mission-mindset to think what we need to ride this wave. The time needed to do something or learn something has shrunk.
    • India has not built resilient industries.
    • India must increase participation of women in the workforce to increase the per capita income.
    • Individuals cannot say that they are not good with technology. Individuals must not make excuses. Do not take short cuts to success. Instead, build substance in yourself to become wealthy. Substance requires sacrifice.
    • Indians must become significantly more ambitious, more skilful, and understand things.
    • Notice that pain and struggle preceeds success. Removing that struggle makes success more difficult.
    • Privileged people need to take more risk. For example, if nothing failure as an entrepreneur can make you a great employee.
    • It is now possible to 10x your income.
    • You are the average of the 5 people you hang out with.
    • Protection by regulation will make India less globally competitive.
    • 90% of the code written by AI in CRED. 10% of the people in tech companies are infinitely ahead of 90% of the people because of the use of technology. These are the 10x people.
    • Final words on getting rich in the AI era:
      • Get extraordinary at learning.
      • Think of the people you are surrounded by. Think in terms of XIRR.
      • Think of yourself in terms of XIRR. Increase your XIRR.
      • Think of yourself as an app. Fix your bugs, make your features better, and ship constantly.
      • Learn tech from younger people. Learn values from older people.
      • Be extraordinarily adaptable.
      • Don’t waste your time at events.

  • Nobody would spend on science if it did not spin-off technology

    Very few organisations in the world fund the fundamental sciences – astronomy, high energy physics or even certain strands of biology whose only intention is to know what the universe is about. In many science talks that I attend many scientists also try to focus on how this idea will help the common man rather than focus on how science would advance the knowledge of mankind, in particular. Schools are only now beginning to teach any amount on quantum physics which surpassed several boundaries in the 1970s. Science taught in the schools today are at least fifty to seventy years old. This creates a difference in the perception of science among the scientific community and that seen by common man.

    I’ve been spending the whole of last week watching videos related to Jaggi Vasudev of the Isha Foundation. One of his conversations is with American neuroscientist Dr. David Eagleman inserted below.

    In the video at about the 17 minute mark, he brings up the topic of how the science we do today is so influenced by funding which looks at how it is beneficial to man. Vasudev says that science would really be more effective if it is delinked from that objective and one does it purely with the curiosity to understand the world we live in. He suggests that technology should be given the responsibility of figuring out how the knowledge yearned from science be put to use in benefit of humankind. Currently, both are intertwined so tightly that science is funded on the basis of its application, technology spin-offs rather than the fact that it would further the boundaries of knowledge, per se.

    This is an interesting distinction that I had not been aware of despite my grounding in science and some time I spent working with technology as an engineer. I shared this because I think it is an interesting insight to work with.