Aswath Krishnan

Supabase announced today that they raised $200M at a $2B valuation. They offer “Backend as a Service” or BaaS. Essentially, building blocks like auth, database, push notifications, etc. so that you can focus on building the unique aspects of your app instead of all the annoying cruft.  I used their competitor, Firebase, about 10 years ago to build a side project. I really needed what they offered, but it was painful to use because they only offered a document DB queryably with a clunky graphql.  That’s a perfect startup opportunity - a product that you really want to use and are willing to invest weeks of effort and money into, but has a major, fundamental flaw, that can be easily fixed by starting afresh.  I clearly didn’t recognize or pursue that, but Supabase did and launched in 2020. Their pitch was literally “Firebase but with Postgres database”. Their potential is even more today as they’ve become the de facto backend for AI coding platforms like Lovable and Bolt. K...

15 years into my career, it’s clear that peer groups are a powerful force. Many peers from university and from early/mid career roles at high performance companies are in key leadership roles, with influence, network, and insights to share. They have also become friends, advisors, and confidants.  People want to bond with those who are higher up in the chain. But the leaders above you aren’t as incentivized to reciprocate, and they will probably be retired when you are mid career. Your peers, on the other hand, have to and want to work closely with you; you form camaraderie and friendships, learn and shape each other, grow together in your career, and even become life-long friends. Peer relationships outweigh every other kind, except maybe a handful of mentors or managers.  It’s natural but also silly that people are most jealous of their peers. It stems from a scarcity mindset around limited opportunity in the particular environment and wanting the same scarce thing. But the ...

It’s typically much easier to upskill on procedural or declarative skills (just follow these steps/checklist or memorize these facts), compared to cognitive or creative skills (like analyze a situation and come up with a solution, or to compose great music). The path to developing higher order general intelligence is murky and abstract; probably a mix of natural ability and years of varied exposure and practice. Therefore it’s harder and longer to train and change.  Good news is that with GenAI, intelligence has become procedural now. Just ask ChatGPT to analyze the situation, suggest relevant frameworks and analogies, effective ideas, or to critically improve your approach. And lo…you’re immediately operating at a higher cognitive level! This was simply not possible before. It’s similar to how arithmetic turned from a mental ability to punching numbers into a calculator.  Most people use Chatgpt to improve their writing (with mixed results), but I think the bigger application...

Our media and information ecosystem isn’t optimized for truth. Or for helping us understand the world better. Or for calm. It’s optimized for engagement. And what gets the most engagement? Drama. Just think about it: which headline do you think gets more clicks—“Man landed on the moon” or “Man did not land on the moon”? It’s obviously the second one. It’s more provocative. It stirs doubt. It’s not about truth; it’s about traction. Drama gets attention. Attention gets clicks. Clicks make money. And because of that, everything we see—on social media, on the news, even in casual conversation—feels dialed up to 11. And the media cycles? They move fast. Tweets are flying every second. Hot takes drop every hour. Our grandparents might have heard one juicy piece of juicy gossip a year in their village. Now we get multiple scandals a day, from all over the world. The rate of drama has skyrocketed. And that has consequences. A society built on drama isn’t a thoughtful one. It doesn’t seek truth...

On weeks like this, as stocks plummet 20% because of a senseless trade war, you see clearly that currency and stocks are just fiction. Intangible entries in a ledger, and only of value because of our fragile shared imaginations and agreements. This isn’t the first time. In 2022, the market crashed because of inflation and interest rate hikes — an after-effect of the COVID shutdowns and stimulus. In 2009, it was the banks — over-leveraged, peddling toxic financial products dressed up as safe bets. Every time, the cause is different. But the outcome feels familiar. You wake up one morning, and the number in your brokerage or savings account — the one that’s supposed to map to something real, like a countdown to retirement or savings for a college fund, just doesn’t anymore. You realize that you're perched atop an economic Jenga tower. It's swaying, and your control is an illusion.  At the very base, there’s geopolitics — the invisible tectonic plates. Oil supply shocks. Wars. Sa...

When you consume information, you collect dots. But collecting dots isn’t enough. In fact, it can be confusing—especially when those dots are scattered, shallow, or incorrect. To make sense of them, you have to connect them. That’s where insight—and eventually wisdom—emerges. Connecting takes time. It requires thinking, pausing, synthesizing. This blog serves that purpose for me. But even that’s not the end of the journey. Collecting and connecting dots only matter if you do something with them. You also have to traverse the path—take action, test ideas, build, practice. That’s where you experience personal growth or material outcomes.  We live in an information-dense world. Everyone and their grandmother has a podcast, newsletter, or Twitter thread. And most of us fall into the trap of overconsuming—collecting way more dots than we need, often low-quality and redundant ones. It feels productive. But most of the time, it’s just addiction and procrastination—an avoidance mechanism t...

Most capable and healthy people enjoy their autonomy and boundaries - a way to exercise their own way of being and creativity. It tends to bring out their best and make them feel good. Conversely, most people have a visceral reaction to domination and authority.  Demanding and commanding may be apt when the situation is dire and answer is somewhat clear; like during a war. Or with a low-trust and low-agency audience where you have some leverage, power, or authority.  But in most cases, asking and influencing well will have higher ceiling and longer-term outcomes. It’s also more pleasant for everyone involved. “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”