Audio
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Hemant Charaya on how Log9 built its cell tech team and a glimpse into their innovation efforts
In this episode, Hemant Charaya, senior vice president for battery cell technology at Log9 Materials, talks about how this Bengaluru venture is attempting something that's never been done before in India. One factor that's helped is that "people stuck around", he says, which helped him build a team of over 40 cell and battery tech specialists. Charaya also attempts some simple descriptions of the cell chemistries, processes, and materials Log9 has selected, as India's first commercial EV cell manufacturer, and the innovations it has developed
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Byju's latest valuation knockdown, and whither India's edtech sector
In today's ToThePoint, Forbes India's Rajiv Singh offers his perspectives on what ails India's edtech sector in the backdrop of Byju's travails, including the latest—a 62 percent knock-down in the startup's value by Blackrock. Rajiv points out that it's a "season of markdowns" and no sector has been spared. There are also factors such as a lack of transparency, edtech startups playing fast and loose with their advertisements in India and the plain absence of good business sense among some companies that's landed them in a pickle
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Ola Prime Plus—and what the backlash signifies
In ToThePoint today, we teamed up with Rajiv Singh, to discuss transportation woes of consumers—a conversation triggered by the many irate comments on social media in responses to the introduction of Ola's Prime Plus service, which promises no cancellations, no operational hassles and clean cars in return for higher fare. Rajiv argues that this is an example of how the 'asset-lite' business model is overrated and why the numbers about large volumes by these businesses belie the problems they are beset with, prime among them being the absence of a great consumer experience
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Gaurav Sharma's trip from AdSense money in his mom's account to building Sequoia-backed SaaS Labs
In this episode, Gaurav Sharma talks about what inspired him to turn software entrepreneur, the first in his family of air force officers, and how he built SaaS Labs, in Noida, into a company that went from bootstrapping profitably in the initial years to a VC funded startup — backed by investors including Sequoia Capital. Gaurav is a serial entrepreneur who started coding at the age of 15. At SaaS Labs, leading a team of some 300 employees, he aspires to make life easier for the millions of contact centre agents around the world, most of whom work for small and medium sized companies
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IPL 2023: Dhoni's historic win, washout threats and the growth of a decacorn
In ToThePoint today, our sports expert Kathakali Chanda gives us a sense of what's at stake if today's IPL final match, already on its reserve day, gets washed out due to rains. Katha reeled off numbers, sentiments, and some serious perspective on the "business of cricket that's grown with IPL," especially in the past few years. Then there's MS Dhoni's last mile, as "no one except the man himself" can say when his last match might be, she points out. She also offers some food for thought on the prospects for women's cricket
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Can there even be a global AI non-proliferation treaty and what role can India play
In ToThePoint today, we invited Jaspreet Bindra, the former chief digital officer of Mahindra Group and currently an AI and ethics researcher at Cambridge University, to help us make sense of the growing unease around the dangers of AI and calls by government and industry leaders for global regulation of these technologies. Bindra draws parallels with nuclear energy to explain how AI is "dual use"; and can be harnessed for great good as well as evil. And are there ways in which India, which is not a leader in hardcore AI tech, plays a meaningful role in this global conversation?
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Ankit Jain and Sidhant Pai on StepChange's new funding, and climate decision platform for large financial clients
In this episode, Ankit Jain and Sidhant Pai talk about how they arrived at their sharper focus on large enterprise customers for their software platform, StepChange, for climate change-based decision-making. Of particular interest is their ability to help large financial clients model the likely implications and trajectories of investments from a climate impact perspective and form an impact-due-to-climate point of view. The entrepreneurs recently raised $4 million in seed money, which will help them invest in further product development and target a 4-5X increase in their customer portfolio t
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The US debt ceiling crisis, what you should know and why you should care
In ToThePoint today, Forbes India's Neha Bothra caught us up on what the jitters are all about on the US' looming loan default crisis, for the 79th time this time around—when US lawmakers need to agree on their government's borrowing, so it can pay bills, save job losses and prevent the economy from spiralling into a bad recession. It's only a matter of days before a decision needs to be made. And Neha points out that while historically there seems to be no playbook on this, the US has always avoided catastrophe
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Why Indians aren't buying laptops anymore and should you buy one today
In ToThePoint today we catch up with Forbes India's Rajiv Singh, who's been tracking PC and smartphone sales in India and around the world. Rajiv gives us his perspective on why consumers are holding back on laptop purchases, and the dilemma between upgrading a phone versus a laptop. We also speculate a bit on what Apple might do to go after a bigger share of India's smartphone market—dominated by the much more affordable Android phones
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Rajen Vagadia unpacks Qualcomm's invent-and-licence model that made Snapdragon a household name
In this episode, Rajen Vagadia, vice president at Qualcomm and president of its India and SAARC operations, explains the semiconductor company's hugely successful invent-and-licence model, with its chips such as the Snapdragon line being a dominant force in smartphones around the world. They will increasingly be found in connected vehicles as well, he says. Vagadia also gives us an overview of the company's operations in India, where Qualcomm has been present for 27 years, and today employs 17,000 engineers, who helped generate more than 1,600 patents for the company last year
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The 2000 rupee withdrawal from circulation and what you should know about it
In ToThePoint today, we asked Forbes India's resident expert on banking and money, Salil Panchal, about the Reserve Bank of India's recent move to withdraw the Rs2000 currency note from circulation, while it will remain legal tender. Panchal explains how this is very different from the demonetisation of November 2016, and why this will likely only have a limited, short-term impact on individuals and businesses alike. He also talks about high-value currencies and inflation and how withdrawing notes should not be a frequent exercise