The Exchanges

Q So you did engineering at IIT. And then came to the US for your masters at Carnegie Mellon in biomedical engineering, and then business in Stanford. Which part of this academic career formed you or shaped you today?

A You know, I would say every step was about a particular goal. Engineering at IIT was because I was interested in technology, and electrical engineering seemed pretty damn interesting. There was nothing called computer science back then. That was, I joined IIT in 1971. Um, so that was interesting, and then I got curious about biomedical engineering. Um, there wasn't really such a discipline. We did some projects in India in biomedical engineering, but there was no biomedical engineering department anywhere in India. And I got involved with a professor there, Professor Guha, and we did some things between IIT Delhi and All India Institute of Medical Sciences. I was curious, and then I just said, ah, well, master's in biomedical engineering would be cool. And so, I came to the U.S. to do my master's, but my real goal was to get to Silicon Valley and start a company.

AI assessment note: “I would say every step was about a particular goal.”

Q Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. And they all use the same means to approach this problem. And AI is as democratic as it is right now. Wouldn't they all then arrive at the same solution?

A Um, I think there's massive difference in the quality of entrepreneurs. And the outcome will be a result Of the quality of the entrepreneur, how they think from first principles, how strategically they think. Almost certainly, the people who only think a year out will be obsoleted by the people who think, what do I want to build in five years? But what can I sell next year? What can, but where do I want to head in five years? Swalong is a good analogy for entrepreneurs that I love. Imagine you want to climb Mount Everest, and you have two people setting out, and one says, I'll get to base camp, then to camp one, camp two, camp three, I think there's camp four and then the peak, right? Um, it's not a straight path, right? Another entrepreneur says, I'm going to get the most revenue in year two, year one and year two. They won't go to camp one, uh, base camp or camp one. They'll pick the highest peak that doesn't then lead to something beyond. The path to Everest through these camps is very strategically picked. To have the long-term vision of getting to have, uh, to Everest. Most people maximize revenue for the short term and are not thinking strategically. So the strategic entrepreneurs will do better. The entrepreneurs who pick better employees who help them think through strategy will do better. So people selection or team building will become the most important characteristi…

AI assessment note: “I think there's massive difference in the quality of entrepreneurs.”

Q So in a tier three, four, five town with a scarce population of, say, I'm making a case for urbanization turning around. De-urbanization almost. Say instead of millions of people crowding around one city center, you have smaller cities, fewer people, far spread out. Does public transportation work from that lens?

A Yes. For the following reason. And this is what I mean by these are conceived as hard engineering pro, hard problems, but if you're clever, you can solve them. Um, in fact, you're exactly right. That's the model for India. So in the year 2000, I wrote a blog. They weren't called blogs then. Called the Bicycle Commuting Economy for India. And essentially, I speculated instead of having everybody from the villages migrate to the major cities, and having huge, huge cities like we are starting to have, There should be a city-like aggregation of people, so you get economies of scale, within a bicycle commute of the hometown or the home village of every person. All billion and a half people in India. It was less than a billion and a half back then. And I figured there'd be 3000 major cities. There's 700 districts in India. So the idea that there was sort of an aggregation of a million or two million people in each side as the optimal size of a city, where it's still small, And personal, and within a bicycle commute, but people aren't moving from Bihar to Mumbai, uh, and not able to go see their family very often, which leads to social isolation, broken up families, drinking, all that other stuff.

AI assessment note: “Yes. For the following reason.”

Q Or does capital continue to remain the moat going into a world like that?

A It's very hard to tell. It depends on policies each country adapts. And I think each country or at least each region will make different choices. Um, so, why do we have capitalism? It was fundamentally for economic efficiency. The world of Adam Smith was about economic efficiency. And the idea that if, if a human is doing a job, they'll be much more efficient if they're doing it for themselves and earning more income. The need for efficiency may decline dramatically in most areas, not in all areas, you know, you'll still need to be efficient in the amount of steel or cement or copper you use, but Efficiency's role will decline, and hence, ah, how you structure it, and how you give the benefits of these technologies to everybody is, is a social choice. It's not a technology choice. It's not a choice entrepreneurs will make.

AI assessment note: “It's very hard to tell. It depends on policies each country adapts.”