Startup Ecosystem in Kolkata: Bootstrapping vs Blitzscaling

Join us on Thursday, July 20, at 8:30 p.m. IST / 8 a.m. PDT for a special roundtable program: Brainstorming on Eastern India Startup Development. Come share your perspective, sign up to Speak and we will accommodate as many as possible with a few minutes to talk, register here. In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here.

The startup ecosystem around the world is driven by the notion that Venture Capital funding is essential to building companies.

This isn’t true.

Startup Ecosystem in Kolkata: A Strategy Discussion

Join us on Thursday, July 20, at 8:30 p.m. IST / 8 a.m. PDT for a special roundtable program: Brainstorming on Eastern India Startup Development. Come share your perspective, sign up to Speak and we will accommodate as many as possible with a few minutes to talk, register here. In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here.

This weekend, I had hundreds of interactions on LinkedIn around the subject:

Why did Kolkata miss the startup momentum that has gained ground in the other 6 major metros? What can be done to catch up and leapfrog?

Generative AI: A Strategy Blueprint for Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship

Ever since ChatGPT was made available to the general public, everybody is talking about how it will impact the world as we know it. 

ChatGPT is a generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3 family of large language models (LLMs). Generative AI is trained on vast amounts of data that enable it to understand and respond like a human. It helps create new content from previously created content. It can write and debug computer programs, compose music, plays, and student essays, and answer test questions. 

OpenAI’s Journey and Financials

OpenAI was originally founded in 2015 with a stated goal of promoting and developing friendly AI in a way that benefits humanity as a whole. Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, AWS, Infosys, and YC Research pledged over $1 billion to the venture. 

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The Unbearable Heaviness of Being: On the Passing of Naren Gupta (Part 9)

On Christmas morning, Dominique and I had breakfast in bed and watched a film on Charles de Gaulle. It specifically focused on how, as the French President capitulated to Hitler, General Charles de Gaulle went to Churchill to reverse that decision and keep fighting in World War II.

In an unorthodox, typically Churchill way, he was supported. One single man. A man with no country, as France had taken away De Gaulle’s citizenship. One man with no resources.

One man with conviction.

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The Unbearable Heaviness of Being: On the Passing of Naren Gupta (Part 8)

Our last free-flowing conversation was on November 14 in our garden.

I didn’t know that this would be the last time I would cook for him. I specifically cooked a lightly spiced Indo-French meal so as not to overpower the wine we were going to drink.

Like many Indians, Naren and I didn’t grow up drinking wine. However, we’ve learnt to enjoy good wine. Dominique, of Belgian-French origin, grew up in a wine culture. Naren always enjoyed the wines Dominique would introduce him to.

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The Unbearable Heaviness of Being: On the Passing of Naren Gupta (Part 7)

After we received our vaccines this year, we started getting together in person once again. One August evening, we spent five hours on Naren and Vinita’s lawn. Conversation flowed, tumbling effortlessly from topic to topic.

We had originally only planned for a socially distanced, masked, one-hour of catching up.

We ended up still physically distanced, but in a five-hour intoxication of serious and frivolous conversational intimacy.

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The Unbearable Heaviness of Being: On the Passing of Naren Gupta (Part 6)

Naren was very close to his brother. They used to speak everyday. Sometimes several times a day.

I always found it beautiful to hear him talk about his brother and how much he meant to him. How they went to Madagascar, just the two of them. One of their most recent trips was to go see polar bears in Canada. Just the two of them.

My father was repeatedly swindled by his brothers.

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The Unbearable Heaviness of Being: On the Passing of Naren Gupta (Part 5)

I have been writing for almost four hours. The rain has stopped. It is sunny outside. There are fewer golden leaves on my pear tree. The ones that are left now glisten as the soft winter sun touches them.

I am unspooling reels of memory.

I am playing recordings of conversations.

Naren loved to travel. Wilderness held a particular appeal for him. Denali. Bandhavgarh. Kaziranga.