Sam Altman once predicted that the AI boom would create a new wave of billionaires and trillionaires. Among them, one whose story has truly inspired a nation is Indian-origin billionaire Aravind Srinivas, founder of AI firm Perplexity. The CEO, whose search engine was last valued at $20 billion, counts Nvidia, SoftBank, and Jeff Bezos among his investors.
Lessons from Jensen Huang
On an episode of the '20VC' podcast released on Monday, Srinivas revealed two important entrepreneurship lessons he received from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Tesla CEO Elon Musk that had stuck with him. From Huang, he said he learned the importance of always staying on your toes. "Think about it. $5 trillion, guaranteed to make $500 billion in revenue in the next two years. He has the most advanced chips in the world," he said about Nvidia. However, he noted that Huang still operates with the mentality that he could be 30 days away from going out of business. "That is what it takes to be Jensen Huang," he added. He also shared that Huang tells others around him that the chip company is a month away from going out of business.
Lessons from Elon Musk
From Tesla CEO, SpaceX owner, and trillionaire Elon Musk, he said he learned the importance of working for more than the money. "If you look at his pay package for SpaceX, it's structured around creating a colony on Mars with a million inhabitants," said the Perplexity CEO. "It's not motivating to be worth 10 trillion in net worth or something."
Aravind Srinivas' Secret
According to Srinivas, the clock is always ticking. He said that one should assume that "if your company is something that can make revenue on the scale of hundreds of millions of dollars or potentially billions of dollars, you should always assume that a model company will copy it." He emphasized, "You've got to live with that fear and you have to embrace it. Realize that your mode comes from moving fast and building your own identity around what you're doing because users at the end care." Moreover, he added that he doesn't agree with the entrepreneurship mindset of founding a company, selling it, and then staying home once you have generational wealth. He said that it allows children of founders to have trust funds but did not set a good example for them to see their dads sitting at home. "You always need to be doing something," he said. "You need to work forever."
