Gangesh Pathak's Linkedin Analytics

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

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