Perplexity's Aravind on being an underdog, avoiding enshittification, playing cricket..
You can scale up your users without enshittification if you maintain quality.
Perplexity founder, Aravind was recently interviewed by Stanford Graduate school of business and here are the big ideas from almost an hour-long conversation.
"If the core value of the product is preserved, monetization can find its sweet spot."
Building a Culture of Excellence and Knowledge
Aravind credits his Chennai roots for fostering a culture of valuing knowledge over wealth, emphasizing deep learning and excellence.
Cricket taught us basic statistics before we formally learned them
He highlights how growing up in a city where respect came from being well-read shaped his intellectual and professional ethos. The influence of cricket, with its obsession over statistics and consistency, added another layer of analytical thinking to his approach.
“Being scholarly and well-read was valued even more than being rich.”
