Ep 89 - Anil Varanasi from Meter on AI and networking hardware, spotting talent early, on China and Cinema

Some helpful links Meter - https://www.meter.com/ Meter command - https://command.meter.com/ Link to Tyler’s book on culture - https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Commercial-Culture-Tyler-Cowen/dp/0674001885 Sam Hinkie - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Hinkie 0:00 - Intro 3:48 - Anil’s early years and background 5:23 - Unconventional parenting 9:35 - Anil's journey to entrepreneurship 12:30 - Sleeping in factories in China 15:22 - China VS U.S. 18:30 - Why Networks are so important 21:35 - Why networking is still an unsolved problem 24:10 - Is hardware too hard? 26:11 - What does Meter do? 37:17 - How does Meter work? 41:08 - Future of enterprise software 44:00 - Human interaction with AI models 46:30 - Why Meter is building AI models 50:50 - Spotting young talent 54:00 - Anil's framework to find good talent 57:30 - How Anil helped Dwarkesh Patel start his podcast 1:02:00 - The “X factor” in Anil’s investments 1:02:00 - Raising the ambition bar 1:06:55 - Escaping the competitive Indian dynamics 1:08:38 - How cinema influences entrepreneurship 1:17:25 - Why don't we know how planes fly 1:19:20 - Lessons from Sam Hinkie 1:21:04 - Kindness as an operating principle 1:22:10 - Why hasn’t Anil had a more public brand? 1:24:03 - US Immigration 1:28:00 - Aarthi, Sriram and Anil show? 1:30:44 - Best Indian restaurant in London 1:32:50 - Has sneaker culture peaked? 1:34:25 - Why don’t wealthy people build monuments anymore? 1:38:04 - London’s rich history 1:40:30 - Why does Sriram have sriramk.eth? 1:42:00 - Should all startups go direct on comms? 1:47:07 - Are Aarthi and Sriram “too online”? 1:49:10 - Sriram’s Silicon Valley groupchats 1:49:46 - Will Aarthi and Sriram move back to India? 1:48:12 - Aarthi and Sriram’s failures in tech 1:53:55 - Netflix’s 3D and streaming software 1:58:18 - Popfly 1:59:55 - Microsoft success under Satya 2:02:00 - On tech execs 2:03:10 - Nonfiction book that Aarthi and Sriram would write 2:06:27 - Aarthi and Sriram’s favorite Indian movie before 2000 2:09:48 - The End Follow Sriram: https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/ https://twitter.com/sriramk Follow Aarthi: https://www.instagram.com/aarthir/ https://twitter.com/aarthir Follow the podcast: https://www.instagram.com/aarthiandsriramshow/ https://twitter.com/aarthisrirampod