US serial founders like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos are building space rockets, fighting cancer through their second startups while Indian serial founders like Kunal Shah are building credit card apps/toys.

Most startup’s are not founded with great altruistic purpose to elevate human condition. Most startup’s are founded where founders know they can make money or earn status points through little schemes of leveraging their network of investors. Most of them know they can earn more income by just raising some money from friends or VCs. Build a small tech tool and burn through money trying to acquire and retain customers. All this while hiring 100s of employees selling false narratives. What bugs me the most isn’t the thousands of people getting laid off, salary corrections or bankruptcies, it is the mafiaesque organisation built to “create wealth for some by exploitation of countless others” Most startup founders use brute force of content and media coupled with ignorance of people to perpetuate this cycle. It’s the virtue signalling and holier than thou attitude of most founders and VCs justifying all their mindless brutality in the name of strategy and growth which destroys aspirations and outcomes for the many. It’s more relevant in India because of large scale ignorance about money and large scale trust on educated individuals with the right college tags! If you have seen sopranos, most founders are like Anthony soprano - summarily violent, manipulative and ruthless behaviour primarily driven by selfish greed but juxtaposed with moments of vulnerability and struggle justifying his action with a facade of providing for his family. *Replace Anthony soprano with your founder/ceo name* 1. VSS was playing fast and lose with rbi regulations resulting in stock crash and layoffs 2. Byju’s systematically destroyed his own company and wealth of his employees just to ensure he retains majority control 3. Ashneer G and his wife manipulated company books 4. Zerodha founders cheated in chess match or lied about their system failures which lost a lot of capital PS: I refer to most founders because there are few exceptions who don’t fit into this narrative.

Lol

There are multiple companies worldwide leading the forefront of AI, with inovative strides in GPTs, Multi Agent models, GANs etc. However, most Indian AI startups are not working on the cutting edge. Rather, most of them are building wrappers around GPT-4 for a consumer experience. With the lack of any meaningful innovation within this space, is it unreasonable for Indian founders to raise on similar multiples as our counterparts in the west? Because honestly? I can see a lot of "crypto-nerd" founders shilling the new oil called "AI" after their previous NFT/crypto/ICO-crap didn't float.

Startup founders who are trying to turn influencers are always trying to paint themselves as champions and superbeings while the real truth about being a Founder is that one always feels vulnerable. Is this behaviour by startup founders leading to TOXIC POSITIVITY?

I have been following the Indian startup scene for a while now, and I have to say that I am not impressed. It seems like most of the startups here are nothing more than people chasing quick bucks and the entire scene is a circlejerk of people doing everything, attending these stupid conferences and gatherings than actually building something game-changing. Every founder is chasing nothing more than a valuation just so they can exit and there’s nothing wrong with it but don’t sit on a moral high ground talking about building business etc. There’s a reason we don’t see startups here penetrating west because most of the founders in the Indian ecosystem reek of ego and it’s all because we don’t judge business on merit but based on the degree the founders have. We all can count stupid startups draining money all because they are from some IIT or IIM or now some fancy degree from Ivy and yes it takes effort and hard work to reach there. Still, it automatically doesn’t translate to you naturally being better than a guy working his ass off to make up that difference. Also, just because you used your dad’s money to start a 'Venture Firm or be an angel investor after college doesn’t mean you’re an expert at everything. You’re just adding to the noise and the hype that is already too much in this space. You’re not helping anyone but yourself and your ego. So a friendly reminder can we all actually focus on building things based on hard work and merit instead of glorifying this circlejerk. Can we stop being obsessed with funding rounds and valuations and start being obsessed with solving real problems and creating value for customers and society? Can we stop being influenced by the media and the hype and start being influenced by the data and the feedback? Can we stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution?

I'm seeing so many posts where startup employees are cribbing about things like layoffs, work culture etc etc. Doesn't seem like they have perspective on everything it takes to build a startup. I've built a failed startup myself and have immense respect for founders who are grinding it out there in such difficult recessionary circumstances. And then you have so many of the engineers and PMs cribbing about basics without talking about important things like learning growth, building for the future etc. Why such myopia? I work at a big tech and envy the speed at which startups move, the big responsibility everyone gets to handle, the fast career growth. All these things are being cribbed about. They crib about founders wanting more. Their job is to ensure success, not to give lifetime jobs to entitled people. They have more headaches you can imagine. In my small startup I had a million headaches. I can only imagine how hard it must be to run larger ships. Is everyone joining a startup these days looking for a get rich quick scheme?

Kya dikat hai bhai, udane do paisa. Tumhare thodi hai. Good firms genuinely perform well and return money. The ecosystem is not forgiving -- you don't survive very long if you don't create any big wins. It's an extremely high stress job with very little WLB. You do make money but it comes at a cost. Layoffs are sad but at least those jobs existed in the first place? They wouldn't without VC money. India's VC scene is extremely young and it'll take time before we produce a Google. Entrepreneurs are not always right, they are not always nice either; but they definitely are courageous.

As a vanity Indian founder of a startup, you have overcome certain very complicated social issues to reach here. While this is important, founders also engage in mindless hedonistic activities while all throughout claiming the company in loss or market crash. 1. I engage in individual interests selflessly while the employee might have to go through a pay cut or salary hold up. For ex: Founders minting expensive tickets for horse polo or football finals abroad, the same month employees were laid off. 2. I engage Celebrity Warlords and build fancy academies to bring stardom while mercilessly laying off people and trampling over their familial relations. Throughout I ensure through PR that my company forecasts are always on top. 3. I maintain a fancy following in the office who sings Bhajans on me and my life and stories. For ex: They prefer passouts from small towns or Tier 2- 3 colleges so they accept without questions. 4. I need a hot female in the office who can help compensate for my emasculated and punctured ego. For ex: this lady will get hikes and unconditional promotion in a year or so. 5. I hire more than I can afford so this is my way of buffering and validating my own immature decisions. This way I don't lose out on supposed opportunities but I ensure that my company always looks buoyant and alive. 6. I don't believe in any political correctness but if the business needs it I will engage people to write for my company as promoting ideas and ideologies superfluously. 7. I want my organisation to be a vanity circus rather than for hiring quality folks. I market as hiring for diversity but this is just the PR stunt.