Gangesh Pathak's Linkedin Analytics

from 30 job rejections to a $200b empire—jack ma’s story isn’t just inspiring, it’s founder legend. -he didn’t have a tech resume. -no ivy league degree. -no elite network. -no coding skills. but jack had one unfair advantage: relentless belief. in 1995, on a trip to the u.s., he discovered the internet. searched for “beer.” no chinese results. that flipped a switch. -he built a site listing chinese businesses. -emails started pouring in. -but the startup flopped—lack of funding. -so he regrouped. networked. learned. in 1999, he gathered 18 friends in his apartment and pitched a bold idea: help small chinese businesses sell globally. they called it alibaba. venture capitalists laughed him out of the room. silicon valley said it wouldn’t scale. but jack kept building. -raised $5m from goldman sachs -raised $20m from softbank alibaba nearly collapsed in the dot-com crash. -jack shut global ops. focused on china. -beat ebay. -got $1b from yahoo. -raised $25b in the biggest ipo (2014). from english teacher to internet tycoon. jack ma didn’t beat the odds. he outlasted them. jack ma’s story is proof that: rejection is feedback to every founder who's underestimated: don’t wait for the world to say yes. start building anyway. #startups #innovation #india

from iit to ai unicorn: the rise of Aravind Srinivas not many people challenge elon musk on his own platform. Aravind Srinivas did. a bold tweet. a $500B funding claim. a direct shot at the richest man on earth. who is this guy? 30-year-old engineer. iit madras. ex-openai. ex-deepmind. by 28, he'd been inside the world’s best ai labs. now he’s co-founder & ceo of Perplexity — the ai answer engine taking on Google and ChatGPT. he didn’t build a new model. he built a better product. Google gives too many results, not enough clarity. ChatGPT gives confident answers, without sources. Perplexity gives answers with citations — fast, accurate, real-time. no hallucinations. just facts. in 2 years: -$9B valuation -75M+ monthly users -backed by amazon, nea and other top funds -4th most-used ai app globally and here’s the kicker: if google or openai get sued for model output, perplexity stays clear —because arvind didn’t reinvent the model.  he reinvented the experience. he’s not just building a company. he’s rewriting the rules of search. arvind’s story is a reminder: you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. you just need to know where it’s broken— and have the courage to fix it. if you're building in ai, search, or deep tech—perplexity is your blueprint. don’t follow the hype. solve the gaps the giants left open. #innovation #technology #startups #ai

from no funding to every pocket: the Android story Andy Rubin didn’t plan to change the world. he just kept building. -no hype. -no big vc rounds. -just relentless product thinking. early career? robotics engineer. dream job? apple. first startup? danger — the team behind the t-mobile sidekick. but in 2003, things got real. -he started android with a radical vision: -an open-source os for phones. -investors walked. cash ran out. -he didn’t quit. he called steve perlman no pitch deck. just urgency. steve wired $10,000 the next day. fast-forward: 2005 — google acquires android for $50m 2008 — android launches today — android powers 85% of smartphones worldwide rubin didn’t just build an os. he took on apple and microsoft — and changed tech forever. founder takeaway? -don’t wait for perfect conditions. -don’t wait for validation. -keep building. your $10k lifeline could be the first step to a $1.5b revolution. #innovation #technology #startups #ai

will ai kill startups — or make the best ones unstoppable? some say yes — ai will automate everything, flatten moats, and make new ideas obsolete before they’re even built. but here’s the real take: ai won’t kill startups. startups that ignore ai will kill themselves. the game is changing — fast. ai can write code, generate campaigns, vet candidates, analyze user feedback, and even predict your next feature. founders who embrace ai move 10x faster, operate leaner, and test ideas before others finish onboarding. but ai isn’t magic. vision still matters. startups still need humans who feel the pain, see the gaps, and build what truly matters. ai just removes the friction — so execution matches ambition. so no, ai won’t kill startups. but it will expose the ones stuck in old thinking. vote below ⬇️ #ai #startups #agenticai #futureofwork

the man who shook OpenAI from the inside: Ilya Sutskever he wasn’t loud or famous, but he changed the course of AI. not your typical rebel: soft-spoken, deeply idealistic. in 2015, ilya co-founded OpenAI with elon musk and sam altman. while sam became the face, ilya stayed behind the scenes—leading the team that built gpt-4 and asking: -how do we build agi that’s safe for humanity? as openai grew, so did the pressure: -a $13b deal with microsoft -a shift from open research to closed launches -agi advancing faster than expected ilya worried openai was drifting from its mission. in november 2023, he voted to remove sam altman—citing concerns about transparency and safety and chaos followed: -700+ employees threatened to quit -Microsoft offered to hire them all -sam was reinstated -ilya called it “the most painful decision of my life.” months later, ilya quietly stepped down. now? he’s building safe superintelligence inc.—a lab focused on safe agi, no board, no distractions. takeaway: -missions drift unless someone defends them. -quiet minds can shape the future. -sometimes, you must walk away to build what truly matters. #innovation #technology #startups #ai

from teenage tinkerer to defense disruptor: the saga of Palmer Luckey most people know palmer as the teenage prodigy behind Oculus VR. but his real startup story? it starts where most great ones do—alone in a garage, soldering scraps into something the world wasn’t ready for. -at 19, he dropped out. -launched a kickstarter for oculus rift. -raised $2.4 million from gamers who believed in the impossible. -got on zuckerberg’s radar. fast forward: Facebook buys oculus for $2 billion. luckey’s living the startup dream. until he’s not. -in 2017, he gets fired from facebook. -controversy hits. -he gets pushed out of his own company. palmer got louder—just in a different arena. he built Anduril Industries: an ai defense startup that's now a multi-billion dollar force. a unicorn in a space that hadn’t birthed one in decades. -autonomous drones. -surveillance towers. -battlefield ai. from gamer to government contractor. in a sector where startups rarely survive, he built one that’s redefining national defense for the US, UK, and allies. palmer’s story isn’t about following the rules. it’s about breaking them then rebuilding your own. #ai #startups #entrepreneurship

I’m a community partner for the upcoming Founders Bay VC/LP Summit — bringing together institutional investors, family offices, and top VC firms — right before The Chainsmokers concert 🎶 📍 The Midway, San Francisco - May 25 | 11AM–10PM 🎟️ RSVP now: https://lnkd.in/gXhdVHeT 🔥 Use code OWOW for 30% off (Tickets include entrance to The Chainsmokers Block Party ($100+ value) 🧠 Headliners: 🎤 Peter Walker Head of Insights Carta: “State of VC 2025 – AI, Bridge Rounds & Fund Performance” ⚡ Nader Khalil, Director of Dev Tech NVIDIA: “The Future of Generative AI” 💼 Shruti Gandhi, Founding Partner Array Ventures : “What LPs Want – A VC’s Guide to Institutional Expectations” 👥 In the Room ($50B in AUM): Family Offices: Frontier Group, Paris-Roubaix Group, Avestix Group, Verda Family Office VCs: PayPal Ventures, Village Global, AI Fund, Bay Bridge Ventures, Array Ventures, Event Horizon Capital, Founders Bay Ventures This is where capital meets culture—and real relationships begin. 🎟️ RSVP here: https://lnkd.in/gXhdVHeT (Tickets include entrance to The Chainsmokers Block Party ($100+ value)) Mariane | Janet | Kristopher | Grace | Tod | Eli | Colton

from selling fax machines to becoming the youngest self-made billionaire: Sara Blakely imagine getting rejected again and again for two years.  that was Sara Blakely before she built Spanx into a billion-dollar brand.  what if we had failure all wrong? growing up, Sara Blakely’s dad had an unusual dinner table tradition. instead of asking, “what did you achieve today?” he’d ask, “what did you fail at?”—and celebrate it.  that mindset changed everything. to her, failure wasn’t losing—it was not trying. she didn’t grow up with connections or funding. At 22, she was selling fax machines door-to-door, facing rejection daily. but she had an idea—one that no one believed in.  she wanted to reinvent women's shapewear.  no one took her seriously. every manufacturer she approached said no. but she didn’t stop.  for two years, she knocked on doors until one factory owner finally gave her a chance. She spent her entire life savings—$5,000—to bring her idea to life.  then came the real challenge: selling it.  retailers weren’t interested. but she hustled. she personally convinced Neiman marcus to stock Spanx, demoing it in the bathroom. then Oprah named it a favorite—and everything changed. today, Spanx is a billion-dollar brand, and Sara became the youngest self-made female billionaire. her story is proof: Success isn’t about avoiding failure—it’s about embracing it and taking action anyway.  so, what would you try if failure didn’t scare you?  #Entrepreneurship #India #Innovation

ever failed so hard…...you accidentally built a billion-dollar company?  meet Stewart Butterfield — the man who broke the rules, bombed twice, and still built Flickr and Slack.  -he didn’t just fail once—he failed twice.   -two ambitious online games. two flops.  but instead of giving up, he did what most founders won’t:  he pivoted. radically.  pivot #1 → Flickr  -game neverending → flopped.   -salvaged the photo-sharing feature → Flickr.  and sold to Yahoo for $25m.  pivot #2 → Slack    -glitch → flopped (again).   -internal chat tool they built to run the team? that became Slack.   sold to Salesforce for $27.7b.  stewart didn’t chase trends.   -he listened to problems.   -solved his own.   -then scaled them.  takeaways? -pivoting isn’t failure—it’s strategy   -internal tools might be your next billion-dollar product   -ditch the roadmap when the real need shows up  -no pitch deck predicted this.   -no investor asked for it.   -but stewart kept building what people actually needed.  fail. pivot. repeat.  that’s how legends are made. #india #business #startups