The real deeptech is in the magic that @ananyabananyaa and co are baking at Bob's Brownies, literal spiritual experiences in a box. Bob's will likely have enough spare capital in 5 years to start a VC fund and solve all of our problems ;)

It's not just that Indian VCs tend to have far less risk-appetite than US VCs, which is frustrating but one can be charitable (straitjacketed by LPs, European and other geo VCs are similar). It's the delta of quality between US vs Indian VCs that makes founders lose respect. (n = 80, 65% US) 1. I can't think of any US VC interaction that went past 4 weeks and didn't lead to a check, most tend to say no quick. I can think of multiple (5+) Indian VCs that dragged things on with multiple calls and field visits, asking the same questions, then passed for inane reasons. The worst just ghosted us (happened at least 3 times) 2. Related - For our preseed/seed, US VCs often passed for not having conviction in idea/team. Indian VCs often passed for "lack of commercial traction". This is pissing off for anyone building in deeptech/bio and short-circuits how ambitious founders can be 3. While many great US VCs were never founders themselves, as others have noted, there are enough former-founder VCs + higher level of respect for what it takes to be in the trenches, that it reshapes cultural norms to be way more founder-friendly 4. Related - While there are many great Indian VCs, the proportion with partners/analysts who drip with arrogance is much higher than it should be. Every founder can tell you awful stories about the fresh-off-IIT/IIM analyst who thought they knew more about their tech/business from an hour of chatGPT. What does it tell about the funds that their hiring process leads to having such ppl gatekeeping their dealflow? 5. In general, being a founder in the US is higher status than being VC, the reverse seems true in India

Dogs will eat the world!!

Ok, multiple people have pinged me with warhound and I obviously have thoughts that I feel like unleashing so here goes Maximally charitable ones first (= what their marketing leans on) - 1. We are already doing genetic engineering with dogs, albeit crudely and slowly, and we do not do it with dog welfare in mind. The pug gasping for air with a nose fashioned to be cute, the inbred golden with 2.5x cancer mortality, the dachshund whose short legs come with 50x odds for intervertebral disc disease, there is no patting ourselves on the back with the status-quo here. 2. K9 units are already a thing and they send dogs out in dangerous situations like sniffing for explosives and dropping out of choppers, with a cottage-industry of small players building ear/eye protection and other equipment. But there's a huge gap between what human soldiers get vs dogs, and it's hard to argue against balancing this out. Thoughts on the business - 3. When @Itamar_Bitan and I ran the numbers, we estimated total budget of K9 units globally to be around a billion, incl everything (dogs, people, equipment etc). 1.2B val implies at least a 10x higher multiplier, which makes me curious on the story here. Personal security is the obvious one, and perhaps K9 units take bigger bites out of budgets with good ways to deploy capital. The funner version is scaling plays like sniffing out screwworms, gen biosecurity shield, gas leaks and all the other olfactory needle-in-haystack problems. Maybe an eventual consumer play with designer pets. 4. This seems like a classic 2026 kingmaker-VC move, a phenomenal team to bet on, and ex-Palantir CEO/In-Q-Tel (CIA VC) backing + main buyer being US govt. I'd be curious how the geopolitics plays out though, and it leaving room for the underdogs (EU/Asia). Less charitable thoughts - 5. Do you optimize for your german shepherd to be healthier, or to be more aggressive/fierce/stronger? There are always trade-offs and I'm not sure I see the incentives to keep the dog's health/welfare at the forefront 6. Same q but on drawing a line on the body when it comes to tech. There are already companies wanting to drill holes in dogs and implant electrodes. Where are the incentives to not do this (except the ones where we still don't know how to do this safely ofc) Philosophical parting-barks - 6. I think it's wise to be thoughtful about how the line between dogs being companions (subjects) vs tools (objects) can easily be blurred and modulated. E.g. I usually correct people when they describe @dognosis as "using dogs to sniff out cancer" to "working with dogs" and I'm not trying to be pedantic, I genuinely think that it's an important difference worth emphasising. As usual, Haraway says it better. At a time where we're trying to figure out what aligning different intelligences entails, it's worth paying closer attention to how we work with our best friends

i have to admit that it is rather satisfying to no longer need to do long explanations on why e-noses are not making dog noses redundant anytime soon. now i can just point to @shaunmmaguire, @PalmerLuckey, and @BenLamm and their $200M bet on dogs and their inimitable abilities

I highly recommend Adrian Tchaikovsky's fantastic book Dogs of War. Rivals his Children of Time series imo, with exactly this premise + genetically and technologically augmented bees and bears

always a great conversation when asked about John Lilly and dog telepathy, alongside technical talk on confounds and prospective data! thanks to @m_goes_distance for a great conversation!

Like @TheRealNamzoo , @PraveenByBuy is one of the founders I most respect and am bullish on, and @RahulSanghi1 once again does a terrific job at covering his ‘counterintuitive but makes complete sense’ bet at @tohands_

Aaryaman, @caleb_friesen , and @RahulSanghi1 are absolute forces of nature and are single-handedly reshaping the narrative of Indian tech. And they’re all just genuinely great guys and a blast to hang with. So glad to gave them with us in the trenches!

Had the joy of hearing Janis talk about this incredible finding back in March - super excited to see it out in the world!

Banger by @A_Bengani and @theachyuttiwari

unfathomable to the deedys of the world but some of us accept being the underdogs, having worse odds, and still swing for the fences to win big. and sure, you can punch your numbers in your excel sheet and believe its the wrong choice but life is too precious to live by myopic utilitarian calculus

your regular reminder that chinese scientists gave autistic dogs LSD and it increased their neural synchrony with humans, among other things, as measured by hyperscanning EEG

i actually don’t think most of them are happy and i think it should give us pause. if we’re not able to embody what true alignment should look like when we are the superintelligence, why would it be when we’re not?

dwarkesh in the flesh, like tyler cowen, did not disappoint

had fun sharing our schemes at @dognosis of making dog millionaires at a neurotech meetup at frontier tower hosted by the incredible @neurotechfuture and @NeuroTechX