(Screenshot from Google Deepmind Youtube Channel)

In cities, power rarely announces itself. You can feel it in the way traffic lights favor certain routes, in how park benches are missing in some neighborhoods, or how some areas stay forever under construction while others get beautified every election cycle.

For years, I’ve thought of this as the invisible hand of urban planning, quiet, consistent, shaping lives without debate.

Now, that same invisible hand is moving into the digital space. Algorithms have become our new city planners. They decide who gets seen, who gets heard, and who gets forgotten. The question I keep asking is simple: who plans the algorithm, and who lives in its blind spots?

In the episode “The Ethics of AI Assistants” from Google DeepMind: The Podcast, Iason Gabriel, Senior Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind, spoke about a future where “millions or billions of agents” could act on our behalf. He called it “a world quite different from the one we live in now.” When AI systems begin to make choices for us, much like city bureaucracies do, the consequences compound invisibly.

Gabriel also noted that these assistants will be “plugged into different kinds of tools that will allow them to take action in the world.” That is the moment when algorithms stop being reflections and start becoming actors, when a line of code can move resources, shape opportunity, or quietly deny it.

If algorithms are the new governance, then ethics must become the new activism.

Just as citizens once demanded transparency from municipalities, we now need to demand it from models.
Cities and systems both need public scrutiny; otherwise, progress becomes a gated colony.

https://youtu.be/aaZc-as-soA?si=ybTWv_mwdLluuppf

Arjun Kava has been building in video for nearly a decade, yet it has never really been about video itself. It has always been about presence, about the feeling of being seen and heard across distance. Each time the form evolved, the question stayed the same: how do you make digital connection feel alive?

Before founding VideoSDK, where he now serves as CEO, Arjun spent years inside the architecture of communication. As CTO at Zujo.co, he worked on social-video systems that let people interact through shared moments instead of static posts. Earlier, at Coruscate Solutions, he explored how performance, latency, and design could change how people experience one another online. Each chapter looked different, but the thread ran through all of them. What began as curiosity became continuity. The code changed. The intent never did.

Founders do not build companies; they build continuity. The ones who stay close to their question learn to see it from every angle. Doing your life’s work is not about chasing novelty. It is about refining one idea until it becomes part of who you are.

That kind of persistence rarely looks dramatic. It takes shape quietly, through small refinements and long attention. Over time, curiosity deepens into craft. The goal shifts from proving something to revealing something. The more you build, the more clearly you see what has been guiding you from the start.

Arjun’s journey shows what that looks like in practice. VideoSDK is not a new beginning but a continuation of a decade-long pursuit: turning moving images into shared experience. What once looked like a social app now powers classrooms, collaborations, and consultations where presence matters more than polish. Each layer of his work has made technology feel a little less mechanical and a little more human.

Doing your life’s work demands patience and conviction. It asks you to stay with one problem long enough to see its hidden dimensions. The tools evolve. The syntax changes. Yet the sentence remains the same. You grow with the idea until it starts to grow with you.

The reward of that persistence is quiet clarity, the moment you realize you have not been starting over at all. You have been writing one story in different dialects, learning to say the same thing more honestly each time. That is what it means to do your life’s work.

(Screenshot from Nikhil Kamath Youtube Channel)

Momentum is one of the most deceptive feelings in startup life. When it’s there, it convinces you that things are finally falling into place. The energy in the team, the attention from the outside world, the sense that progress is now inevitable. You start to believe that this is what success feels like. It isn’t. It’s just the high before the next adjustment.

Momentum doesn’t stay. It depends on too many things you can’t hold steady. Timing, team energy, customer mood, and market noise all shift. The smallest change can slow everything down. A person leaves, a launch misses its moment, or the excitement around your story wears off. The machine still runs, but the hum changes.

In WTF Is, the podcast hosted by Nikhil Kamath, a conversation with Nas Daily, Tanmay Bhat, Prajakta Koli, and Ranveer Allahbadia touched on this same idea. They were talking about creators, not startups, but the truth carried over easily. Nas said that no matter how good you are, there comes a point when you have reached everyone who could possibly like you. Tanmay added that even if the platform stays the same, the audience moves on. Every wave of attention eventually finds its level.

That is the quiet fragility of momentum. You don’t lose it all at once. It fades across ordinary weeks. Fewer replies, fewer sparks, fewer surprises. You try to bring it back by working harder, by making noise, by chasing motion. But momentum does not return by force. It comes back when the work, the story, and the people begin to align again.

The slower stretches show what the fast ones hide. They reveal which parts of your company truly hold together, who keeps believing when things get quieter, and what work still feels meaningful when no one is watching. These are the moments when founders learn to build from steadiness, not speed.

Momentum is never permanent. But the pause that follows is not failure. It is the space where clarity grows. You see what matters, what can be rebuilt, and what deserves your energy next. That is how motion begins again, slower but steadier, and often with more purpose than before.

https://youtu.be/JjDjDvNgkFo?si=ryBk49IZkCwE38rW

At eChai Ventures, our Unforgettable Lessons series highlights the defining truths founders learn not from success, but from the obstacles that shaped them.

For CA Swati Panchal, that truth was forged in the moments when ambition looked unreasonable, when starting over felt endless, and when resilience became her greatest strength.

Here’s how she tells it:

“I come from a small town where the idea of pursuing Chartered Accountancy was considered too ambitious, especially without a business background. But I took that leap. From Dahod to Ahmedabad to Mumbai, I followed the path less taken and embraced every risk that came with it.

At 20, I became a Chartered Accountant, and soon after, I built my own firm from scratch. Every setback, from personal loss to starting afresh after relocations, didn’t stop me. They shaped me. They made me stronger.

Over the years, I’ve worn many hats: Chartered Accountant, Author, Anchor, Startup Mentor, Podcast Host, and Advisor. My work has spanned forensic accounting, NBFC advisory, fintech, corporate finance, and startup mentorship. I’ve hosted TV shows, contributed to national platforms, delivered keynotes at leading forums, and written for business and finance media.

The recognitions, from Times of India’s 40 Under 40 Leader of Tomorrow to being honoured as Humanity Star by the Gujarat Police, are milestones, but not the measure. For me, growth has always come from the challenges that forced me to adapt, rebuild, and push further.

eChai has been a powerful part of that ecosystem, a space where knowledge flows freely, collaborations thrive, and founders build together. For me, entrepreneurship isn’t just about starting up; it’s about vision, resilience, and creating lasting impact.

From small-town dreams to mentoring startups at i-Hub, GTU, LJ University, and Parul University incubation centres, my journey is proof that every challenge carries the seed of growth, if you choose to see it that way.

Because you don’t grow despite challenges, you grow because of them.”

You know there’s a growing buzz online about a Silicon Valley reboot. It makes sense. We’re in another wild tech moment, AI everywhere, founders chasing impossible ideas, and every week feeling like an episode that never got written. Someone says, “They should bring it back. Imagine Richard Hendricks running an AI startup,” and the internet agrees. The show didn’t just mock startups; it understood them.

When HBO aired Silicon Valley in 2014, creators Mike Judge, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky turned startup chaos into comedy that felt real. The nervous builder, the loud visionary, the calm operator, the lucky drifter, we all knew someone like them. Even after the show ended in 2019, its language stayed. Founders still talk about “Hendricks moments,” quote Belson during pitches, or laugh at Big Head’s luck.

The jokes became a mirror.

At eChai Ventures, those names come up all the time. Over dinners, mixers and late-night chats, someone always asks, “Which character are you?” The laughter that follows is usually honest. A bit of Hendricks, a hint of Belson, a steady Monica, a wish for Big Head’s timing.

So one Saturday morning at DevX Lounge in Ahmedabad, we decided to take it off the screen. We hosted eChai’s Silicon Valley Quiz, four founders, one whiteboard, and coffee that went cold before round one ended.

Each of them brought a version of the show with them.

Ishani Upadhyay Dave (Shaadivibe) learned about the quiz just a day earlier. She watched one episode, asked ChatGPT for help, and came prepared.

Ayyan Karmakar (TAFCO) had watched the show recently. Fast thinker, faster talker, sometimes brilliant, sometimes bold guesses.

Umang Rajyaguru (C3) moved slow and steady, careful, focused, unshaken.

And Rishit Shah (Kinetic), the superfan. He had watched every episode, quoted lines before we began, sure he was going to win.

Round one told a different story.

Ayyan 150. Umang 145. Ishani 65. Rishit –15.

At one point I let Rishit pick the next question. He chose it, answered confidently, and still got it wrong. Everyone laughed, the kind of laugh founders know when experience doesn’t save them from a miss.

Round two tightened things. Ayyan and Umang kept trading the lead. Ishani stayed calm. Rishit didn’t move up but refused to give up. 

Then came the twist, a final question worth 800 points. Whoever got it right would win it all.

I typed a character name on my laptop, closed the lid, and asked for guesses.

Umang said Gavin Belson.

Ayyan said Richard Hendricks.

Ishani said Monica.

Rishit smiled and said, “Nelson Bighetti.”

The laptop turned. That was the name. Eight hundred points. Game over.

The room erupted. Rishit had done it. The irony was complete. The superfan who lost throughout the game, who became the living parody of bad luck, won it all by naming the one character whose entire story is about stumbling into improbable victory.

He didn’t just answer correctly. He became the story.

For a few seconds, no one spoke. Then the cheering started again. The man who had missed almost everything won with the one answer that made perfect sense. Big Head had found his reboot, right here in Ahmedabad.

The Silicon Valley still matters. The show didn’t invent these people; it gave them names. You still see Hendricks in every founder who overthinks, Belson in every polished pitch, Monica in every steady teammate, Big Head in the one who somehow always lands on his feet. Once you notice them, you start spotting them everywhere.

When the quiz ended, people stayed back, trading stories and favorite episodes, the compression benchmark, the three-comma club, Gilfoyle’s calm chaos. The scoreboard didn’t matter anymore. The room felt lighter, as if everyone had just lived through a new scene together.

And as we packed up, someone asked what we had all been thinking:

If Silicon Valley were really to be rebooted, what would it look like now?

Would Hendricks be trying to fix AI ethics? Would Belson be giving TED talks about balance? Would Monica finally run her own fund?

Would Big Head still be the one who somehow wins in the end?

Till that reboot happens, we’ll keep building, keep learning, and keep living these stories, one founder room at a time.