Arvind's Newsletter

1.Tiger Global, SoftBank set to end funding winter with $300 million round in Meesho, reports Moneycontrol

The current fund raise values Meesho at $3.9 bn, 20% lower than last fund raise valuation at $4.9 bn in 2021. Both Tiger Global and Softbank, two of the world’s most prolific tech investors, had shied away from making investments in India over last 18 months. Once complete Meesho’s $300 mn funding round will be among few large rounds that have materialised in India.

Meesho’s latest round is being lead by Tiger Global and Peak XV Partners (Formerly Sequoia India) who are together putting in $150 mn. The balance investment is being made by Softbank, Singapore’s Mars Growth Capital among other investors.

2.Billionaire Raj ? Mumbai has narrowly eclipsed Beijing as Asia’s billionaire capital, according to a new “rich list” from a Shanghai-based research firm.

 India’s financial hub is now home to 92 billionaires, behind New York with 119 and London with 97. The wealth shifts signal how “confidence in the [Indian] economy grew to record levels,” the report’s researcher told Nikkei. China still has the most billionaires — thanks in part to AI-related success — but they’ve shrunk by 155 since 2022, while India’s roster grew by 94. China’s elites are increasingly looking to move their money overseas or relocate in the face of crackdowns on the finance sector and a rocky geopolitical climate, The Guardian reported last year.

3.Tales of transitions

Indrajit Gupta, Co-Founder of Founding Fuel’s posts are always insightful. In this one he describes the transition of two professionals -Dr Santrupt Mishra, formerly a CEO and senior executive with Aditya Birla Group joining Biju Janta Dal, and Manish Khanduri, formerly journalist and senior business executive with global media companies CNN and Meta, joining the BJP. He opines that while many competent leaders from different domains aspire to join public life, the transition is never an easy one.

4.The U.S. proposed a $50 billion bond program backed by frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort, Bloomberg reported.

The $280 billion immobilised by G-7 countries earns billions in interest a year, two-thirds of it in the European Union. Western allies are struggling to boost support for Ukraine, and selling so-called “freedom bonds” would allow investors to loan Kyiv cash safely and at good interest rates. War bonds are an old idea: 85 million Americans bought them during World War II, raising $185 billion, and the very first government bond ever was issued by the Bank of England in 1694 to support one of the country’s frequent wars against France.

5.A New Philosophy of Productivity

Computer scientist and author Cal Newport, offers a new philosophy of productivity in this post.

“The relentless overload that’s wearing us down is generated by a belief that ‘good’ work requires increasing busyness,” he writes. “Faster responses to email and chats, more meetings, more tasks, more hours. But when we look closer at this premise, we fail to find a firm foundation.”

However, Newport does not suggest we throw out the idea of being productive. Instead, he says, we need to rethink what productivity looks and feels like—a lesson he started to understand after learning about the slow, deep work of legendary author John McPhee.

In this post, Newport shares that lesson, along with three principles that can help us do the deep, meaningful work we aspire to do.

6.Tyler Cowen reviews Suno, AI generated Music in his blog Marginal Revolution.

Try Suno  here, click on the right on the mention of making full, two-minute songs and use the Explore tab.  To me, opines Tyler, it is remarkable the resulting AI-generated music is as good as it is.  But it still isn’t anything I would listen to, other than out of curiosity.  It is best at edm, standardized genres such as routine heavy metal, and certain ethnic musics, especially if “the affect” can be created by methods of layering.  Its weakness is an ability to generate the simple, memorable melody, a’la Sir Paul or the other Paul namely Paul Simon.  For my taste there is “not enough music in the music.”  Suno cannot yet create the ineffable something, which is what I listen to music for.

That said, it is not worse than what most people listen to.  It remains to be seen at what pace progress will be made, or whether current approaches,

 extrapolated to allow for further improvement, can get us to real music, rather than stuff that sounds like music.

7.Several people are feared dead after a cargo ship hit a bridge in Baltimore, causing it to collapse.

 The Francis Scott Key Bridge, spanning the Patapsco River, is part of the busy 695 highway around the city. Shocking footage shows the whole length of the bridge falling almost instantly into the wayer, with cars visible on its carriageway.

U.S. road infrastructure is aging: Just 58% of interstate bridges were rated in “fair” condition in a 2020 Congress-commissioned report, and bridge collapses are not uncommon, with others reported in 2007 and 2013. 

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