Tigerfeathers

In 1985, Rajiv Gandhi said that "of one rupee spent on welfare in India, only fifteen paise reaches the poor". No wonder then, that 66% of India lived below the poverty line in the 1970s. By 2009, the figure was still as high as 33%. Today, it's in single digits. One of the main reasons is the success of Aadhaar, which expands the reach of welfare programs and plugs thousands of crores of leakages every single year. But Aadhaar almost died before it was even born. Due to an incredible technical challenge which required quadrillions of computations per day, experts predicted that the Aadhaar system would be too expensive for a country like India. But thanks to some good old fashioned ingenuity on the part of Pramod Varma and the talented Aadhaar team, the system not only survived but became the bedrock of India's modern development. Read on to find out how a bold bet on Moore's Law helped turn around a nation's fortunes. Only on Tigerfeathers. Sponsored by Finarkein Analytics.

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The Tigerfeathers Rahul Sanghi x Anupam Gupta interview covering Anupam Gupta's recent book on Asian Paints was fascinating. Rahul says: "the stories of our oldest businesses aren’t just economic stories, usually they’re also windows into a specific time." This is very true, and the story of Asian Paints is also the story of India's corporate sector's emergence. Asian Paints was the first Indian (nonIT) co to buy a computer (in the 60s). They were the first Indian co to hire MBAs fm IIMs etc. It was in fact my dream job on campus though I got nixed by them on campus! (Bharat Puri was one of the interviewers though I didnt reach the interview stage). I am glad such books are being written, and Champaklal Choksey (Asian Paints' key cofounder who i had never heard about) is being profiled. Would love to read more about India corporates in the 50s-70s (some glimpses of this era came from HUL CEO Ashok Ganguly's book Afterness). Link to interview: https://lnkd.in/gQaM7CFg Link to the book: https://lnkd.in/gg8HnZtn

Early proof of concept for computers in India - stadium lighting ?? (via ?????????????? ?????? ????????: ?????? ???? ?????????? ???? ??????????)

Thanks very much Rahul Sanghi for giving me the honor to appear on your newsletter. I had a great time doing this interview and thank you for your pain-staking effort in writing it up. You've done great justice to the topic of Champakbhai, Asian Paints, my book, and so many other topics. I really hope your readers find this useful. Thank you! https://lnkd.in/d-AnTdXK

Dive into the 19th century startup story of the ice trade that linked Boston to Bombay!Discover how shipping ice??across the globe??left a lasting impact on Mumbai. Check out ICE ICE BOMBAY by Tigerfeathers and TEAM for the full story. https://lnkd.in/dpazui-A

Vignette from a new Tigerfeathers piece about work in the Internet age??

The crypto markets are back in the spotlight. Just today, the price of Ether shot up by 18.7%; this is partially attributed to a rumour that the US SEC will greenlight the Ether spot-ETF applications filed by Van Eck, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, and Blackrock, amongst others. Whether or not this ETF comes to pass, the very fact that the giants of Wall Street are throwing their weight behind public blockchains like this signals a sea-change in the maturity of crypto as an asset class.But not only is the industry rising in terms of market cap and financial acceptance, it is also making strides with regards to technology and user experience. Interestingly, a lot of the new projects in crypto are helmed by Indian entrepreneurs and teams. This isn't just playing out in India either, a lot of talented Indian founders are swinging for the fences and building global protocols that are reshaping crypto (eg. Sreeram Kannan, the Chennai-raised founder of EigenLayer, a protocol which has attracted over $20 billion worth of deposits on Ethereum in the past few months). So with that in mind, we thought we would find out what the top Indian crypto entrepreneurs were doing and thinking. In part two of our series on What To Watch In Crypto, we're fortunate and grateful to bring to you the insights of: - Sumit Gupta, CEO of CoinDCX - Varun Deshpande, CEO of Juno - Yash Agarwal, researcher at Superteam India - Ankita Verma, CEO of Persona - Ishaan Negi, co-founder of a stealth startup - Edul Patel, CEO of Mudrex - Swaroop Hegde, CEO of Powerloom Protocol These esteemed contributors identify several noteworthy trends in crypto, from Web3 gaming through to decentralized physical infrastructure and on-chain interest rate swaps. You can find all these learnings and more in the latest edition of Tigerfeathers, presented in partnership with the great folks at Antler India! Nitin Sharma Neha Reddy Rahul Sanghi

"If you’re reading this right now sitting in an air conditioned room in a hot country while sipping on an iced latte, you’ve been the victim of a 19th century propaganda campaign. Sorry to break it to you." ? Last Friday on Tigerfeathers we published an essay documenting the incredible story of how ice came to India in the 1800s. Spoiler alert: "The ice came from Boston. In the United States. Cut from the surfaces of several frozen lakes across the state of Massachusetts in the depths of winter. And then shipped across the Atlantic over four months and 16,000 miles to the seaside seats of the British empire in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras (starting with the inaugural shipment of ice to Calcutta in September 1833). That’s how commercial ice first came to India." Not only is it one of the most fascinating chapters in Indian history, but it's also a glaring example of how a single relentless visionary can reshape the world in their own image. The commercialisation of ice set the foundation for any activity or venture that depends on regular access to the cold (i.e. a big chunk of modern civilisation). Like any other novel product, ice had to be cleverly marketed and promoted before it could be adopted around the world (which is weird to think about today). And that's part of the merits of studying the 19th century 'frozen water' trade - "not the realisation that things have changed so much, but rather that they haven’t changed much at all" If you're building a company, priming a new market, or just attempting to achieve something that's difficult, there's no chance you won't take away something useful from this story. As far as hitting the Tigerfeathers sweet spot between history, business, and technology, we haven't done a piece that's come this close before. If you haven't seen this cross your timeline yet, dive in here ?? https://lnkd.in/dxf5kMgJ

The greatest influence on my career has been intellectual curiosity. Whatever good things have come my way have come because I have waded out into the proverbial ocean and drunk in everything that I could learn. In particular, I have loved learning about business, technology, and history. Not only are these three fields critical in shaping the past, but they are also the building blocks of the future. We started Tigerfeathers as a way to learn more about these domains and share them with the world. And the latest piece that Rahul Sanghi just published perfectly epitomizes what we're all about. It is a deeply engrossing and repetitively mind-blowing saga of the ice trade in India. Yes, ice - aka frozen water. Almost 200 years ago, a slightly insane and extremely relatable entrepreneur in Boston began to ship giant blocks of ice to Bombay, Calcutta, and dozens of other warm-weather cities around the world. Literally - he stored ice in boats, sailed them to the other side of the world over months-long journeys, and then sold the ice to heat-stricken populations. For huge profits. Without this man, the world would probably not be the way it is today. The industry of cold comforts - that we enjoy so frequently and unthinkingly - would definitely not be the same. And this story matters, because not only is it cool (hehe), it is also highly illuminating. It contains many secrets and lessons that reveal a lot about how the world used to be, and about how it still is and will likely always be. That's the crazy thing about this piece for me - it shows that the principles of entrepreneurship, ambition, marketing, and science that were applicable centuries ago are still very illuminating in the modern era. So if you want to learn something incredible and quench your curiosity, have a nice refreshing drink from the Tigerfeathers fountain. https://lnkd.in/dHy5GwJz