The Neon Show

Hosted by Siddhartha Ahluwalia

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Jun 2026

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Hi, I am your host Siddhartha! I have been an entrepreneur from 2012-2017 building two products AddoDoc and Babygogo. After selling my company to SHEROES, I and my partner Nansi decided to start up again. But we felt unequipped in our skillset in 2018 to build a large company. We had known 0-1 journey from our startups but lacked the experience of building 1-10 journeys. Hence was born the Neon Show (Earlier 100x Entrepreneur) to learn from founders and investors, the mindset to scale yourself and your company. This quest still keeps us excited even after 5 years and doing 200+ episodes. We welcome you to our journey to understand what goes behind building a super successful company. Every episode is done with a very selfish motive, that I and Nansi should come out as a better entrepreneur and professional after absorbing the learnings.

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June 11, 2026Episode 3741 hr 31 min

Questions Every Founder Must Answer Before Taking an Acquisition Offer | Shashank Saxena, VNDLY & Pantomath

Most AI failures won't come from a bad model. They'll come from bad data.Shashank Saxena spent most of his career on the buying side of enterprise technology before founding VNDLY which was acquired by Workday for $510 million. He then joined Sierra as a Managing Partner before going full time as Co-founder and CEO of Pantomath, a data operations center for enterprises that are betting their future on AI agents.We discuss why data quality is becoming one of the biggest challenges in enterprise AI. An AI agent fed bad data for 12 hours doesn't go rogue. It just makes 12 hours of wrong decisions: rejecting insurance claims, issuing credit cards, or drilling in the wrong location. As more business decisions are delegated to AI systems, companies will need far greater visibility into what is happening across their data infrastructure.Shashank also shares the decisions that led to VNDLY's acquisition, the advice he'd give founders evaluating acquisition offers today, and why a Michael Jordan analogy continues to motivate him as a second-time founder.If you're building enterprise software, selling to large companies, or trying to figure out whether experience is an asset or a liability in the AI era, this episode is for you.0:00 - Trailer01:00 - How Shashank became a second-time founder07:20 - Where Pantomath sits in the data stack10:55 - How a broken Tableau report turns mission-critical with AI12:55 - Who Pantomath sells to15:35 - Solving for a problem that doesn't exist yet19:03 - How have founder expectations changed today?20:31 - Series B companies pre- and post-AI21:26 - The Michael Jordan example23:57 - How a repeat founder chooses investors25:10 - What value Snowflake adds as a strategic investor27:05 - Data is not an open category today28:34 - The astounding Databricks outcome29:08 - The reality of the $100 million ARR number31:48 - Will non-human workers 100x in the next few years?36:00 - How to protect data in motion37:26 - How comfortable are we giving full access to agents?39:47 - Where is automation fastest today?42:09 - Why entrepreneurs tend to like uncertainty43:28 - Why Shashank chose to be a founder45:48 - A customer-driven $510M acquisition48:32 - Employees vs contractors in any organization51:22 - Building from Ohio vs the Bay Area53:14 - Learnings from selling to enterprises56:31 - How Shashank raised from Tier 1 US VCs59:19 - Heads down or network as a founder?1:02:47 - First-time vs second-time founder edge in AI1:06:22 - Hiring as a repeat founder1:08:08 - How enterprise sales has changed1:10:52 - How do you sell for a problem that isn't visible today?1:12:58 - Best piece of advice1:16:27 - The only advice for a founder considering M&A1:21:06 - Position yourself to be capable of taking risks1:24:51 - What matters to an enterprise buyer?-------------India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us Fan Mail

June 9, 2026Episode 37351 min

94% CAGR: What the Inference Boom means for your AI costs | Vamshi Ambati

Vamshi Ambati has spent more than two decades in AI, through the symbolic era, statistical era, and the neural wave we're experiencing today. A CMU PhD, founder of LatentStructure and Predera (which was acquired), now an investor at Virama Ventures, he's one of the sharper voices on what's actually happening under the hood of the AI boom.We discuss a simple question: Who wins when models become cheaper and more abundant? And try to answer this by looking at how inference spend v/s compute spend is shifting, and why inference may become the biggest infrastructure opportunity of the next decade.Vamshi explains what actually goes into the cost of a token, why AI is simultaneously getting cheaper and more expensive, and why the inference market alone could reach $1.3 trillion by 2030. If you're building in AI or someone who wants a clear mental model of where this industry is headed, this conversation is for you. 00:00 - Trailer0:45 - How an AI researcher thinks after 20 years05:53 - Where enterprise AI adoption is headed08:35 - Drawing parallels between cloud and AI11:20 - If building is cheap, what's valuable?13:37 - Can computing get cheaper?16:41 - What is inference, really?22:22 - Why coding and customer support got eaten first?26:48 - Which technologies are overvalued and undervalued?29:56 - An accidental entrepreneur's journey33:15 - Why is healthcare slow to adopt technology?38:59 - Landing Walmart as a customer42:36 - Should founders build in services if product isn't visible?43:47 - Is Palantir a product company or a services company?44:15 - How to win as a forward-deployed company46:23 - What it takes to land large enterprise customers49:20 - Building sales muscles as a technical founder-------------India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us Fan Mail

June 3, 2026Episode 3721 hr 7 min

This Startup Can End China’s Grip on Global EV Supply Chain | Bhaktha, Chara Tech

China processes nearly 90% of the world's rare earths.Rare earths are hidden inside everything from EVs and smartphones to fighter jets, making them one of the most critical materials powering the modern economy.When China restricted rare earth exports in April 2025, the world saw the huge risk of depending on a supply chain controlled by a single country. For Bhaktha Keshavachar, however, it was validation of a bet he had made 6 years earlier.After exiting Ezetap, Bhaktha founded Chara Tech to create electric motors that don't need rare earth magnets at all. The journey was anything but easy. Six years of R&D. Investors who didn't understand the problem. Customers who weren't convinced. And a motor technology that engineers had known about for over 200 years but never successfully commercialized at scale.Today, Chara is shipping hundreds of motors, signing major customers, and finding itself at the center of a global geopolitical shift. Bhaktha explains how software became the breakthrough that made rare-earth-free motors practical and what it takes to build a deep tech company long before the market believes the problem exists.If you are interested in building deep tech for the world, this episode is for you.0:00 - Trailer01:10 - When China bans rare earth exports04:15 - How today’s rare earth shortage is like 1970s oil embargo05:26 - Are rare earths really rare?07:23 - Why China has a monopoly11:43 - 3 reasons why Chara was founded15:11 - How Chara made a 200-year-old technology practical16:45 - How software protects deep tech startups18:53 - The conviction to build deep tech in 201621:52 - Why electricity is still the biggest opportunity26:59 - 4+1 technologies every country should possess28:17 - The story of 6 years in R&D33:16 - The response from early customers36:10 - How China’s ban changed Chara’s journey39:30 - Why Growth-stage fundraising for DeepTech is Hard44:28 - What India needs to win in deep tech52:53 - 3 things needed for a deep tech startup55:10 - Why the wealthy should invest in deep tech58:00 - Where Chara is today01:03:47 - Why Intel lost the race it was winning-------------India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/neon-fund/X: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Nansi on:LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/nansi-mishraX: https://x.com/nansi_mishra-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us Fan Mail

May 20, 2026Episode 37139 min

What if AI has Immunity like Humans? Ft. Animesh Koratana, PlayerZero

Will your software soon be a living organism with its own immune system?Animesh Koratana, founder of PlayerZero, started his software career long before he founded the company. Growing up in Atlanta, he spent his childhood inside his father’s software business, watching engineers sitting through the unglamorous work of QA and keeping systems alive after launch. He saw early that writing software was only half the problem. Maintaining it was the real battle.Years later at Stanford, he witnessed the birth of GPT-2 and Codex, the very foundation of GitHub Copilot. While much of the world focused on how AI would help engineers write software faster, he became obsessed with a different question: What happens when companies are flooded with AI-generated code that no single engineer fully understands?With PlayerZero, Animesh is building toward what he calls self-healing software: systems that behave less like static machines and more like living organisms with their own immune systems.At the center of that vision are “Context Graphs” which captures the "institutional memory" of a company: the deep knowledge held by a senior engineer who has spent years understanding how complex software breaks, the failure modes it develops, and the decisions behind fixing it.If you are building software today and wondering how reliability, debugging, and ownership will work when machines write most of the code, this episode is for you.0:00 — Trailer0:45 — Building Self-Healing Code2:03 — First Exposure to LLMs Through GPT-23:45 — What Is PlayerZero?5:42 — Institutional Memory of a Senior Engineer7:10 — How Context Is Built10:06 — The Viral “Context Graph” Piece16:24 — The Outcome PlayerZero Delivers19:59 — When the Agent Tells the Human What to Do23:43 — Who Is PlayerZero Selling To?26:56 — Why Software Should Be Treated Like Biology28:54 — The PlayerZero Customer Pitch30:37 — Can Software Really Have an Immune System?35:15 — How Animesh Chose His Investors36:55 — What’s Next for PlayerZero?-------------India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us Fan Mail

May 15, 2026Episode 37046 min

Why Your AI is Still a Demo: Lessons from Braintrust’s Field CTO

85% of AI teams will hit a serious production failure this year. The only thing separating them from the 15% who don't? Evals.After nearly two decades of building AI systems at Microsoft, Facebook, and Dropbox, Ameya Bhatawdekar is now Field CTO at Braintrust, the AI observability platform used by Airtable, Notion, Stripe, Dropbox, Vercel, Cloudflare, Lovable, and Replit.We discuss a shift that most teams underestimate. The winners in AI are not just shipping faster. They are building systems that behave predictably, improve continuously, and earn user trust over time. As traditional monitoring breaks down in a probabilistic world, observability now requires learning how an AI system reasons, not just how it performs. This leads to a new paradigm where agents are no longer just executing tasks, but also analyzing and debugging other agents.The episode also traces the evolution of machine learning itself. From feature engineering to deep learning to transformers , each leap increased capability and reduced control. Evaluation is now where control sits.Ameya is clear on one point. Moving fast with weak evaluations feels like velocity, but it compounds into technical debt, unpredictable failures, and ultimately a loss of user trust. The teams that win are the ones that invest early in rigor, especially in understanding context, which is quickly becoming the hardest and most critical layer in AI systems.If you are a founder or engineer moving beyond the demo phase and trying to build durable, high-quality AI systems, this episode will change how you think about shipping.0:00 — Trailer00:55 — What’s Braintrust?05:01 — What agents are shipping today07:54 — What evals look like in practice for Notion & Zapier09:44 — Evals vs Classic monitoring11:33 — Who is the Field CTO?16:35 — What goes wrong when agents fail18:26 — Agents analyzing other agents24:17 — Evals are existential in vibecoding25:52 — Ship fast with weak evals or slow with strong evals?25:41 — What makes enterprises trust an LLM?29:25 — Do AI startups know how good their product is?30:23 — 3 ML systems: Microsoft, Dropbox, Meta36:30 — How the 2017 transformer paper changed everything38:20 — All algorithms are predicting the next word43:40 — What LLMs will do in 1 year-------------India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us Fan Mail

May 11, 2026Episode 36939 min

The Art of Enterprise Sale: Selling Startups to Giants with Poojan Kumar

What does it take to build a company that industry giants want to buy?Poojan Kumar built and exited two enterprise infrastructure companies, PernixData to Nutanix and Clumio to Commvault.He began his career at Oracle, where he wrote the original code for Exadata and helped scale it into a billion-dollar product line. But his real founder journey began when he left the corporate world to chase what he calls the “Discontinuity Thesis.”At PernixData, that discontinuity was the shift from hard disks to flash storage. The company scaled to $25 million in revenue before being acquired by Nutanix. At Clumio, the discontinuity was public cloud. Clumio went on to raise $186 million to build a cloud-native backup and cyber resilience platform before being acquired by Commvault, where Poojan now serves as GM of the business line.If you want to understand how enduring enterprise companies are actually built and acquired this episode is for you.0:00 - Trailer0:48 - 25 Years in Enterprise03:02 - Founders Should Look for Discontinuity04:25 - $25M ARR, $60M Funding & an Exit in 6 Years06:28 - The Thesis Behind Clumio's Acquisition07:36 - The Landscape of Data Backup09:08 - What Should Founders in Security & Data Build?11:48 - Cloud vs AI: The New Data & Storage Stack13:59 - The Unanswered Questions Enterprises Have Today16:38 - How Infra Changed Between Pernix, Clumio & Today18:31 - Scaling to $25M Before Acquisition, Twice20:43 - Why is AI Adoption Bottom-Up, Not Top-Down?21:26 - Claude vs Codex vs Copilot22:34 - When Cloud Outgrew the Backup Playbook25:41 - Are Fragmented Clouds Silent Killers?28:06 - Fundraising Takes You from Point A to Point B32:29 - Selling to Commvault vs Nutanix34:33 - What Leads to an 8-Figure Exit?36:55 - How a Technical Founder Excelled at Sales-------------India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us Fan Mail

April 30, 2026Episode 36839 min

Vignesh Kumar on Why Healthcare is Moving Faster in 2026 than the Entire Last 10 Years of SaaS

Healthcare has never moved this fast.Pharma giants are no longer just buying software. They are writing $50 million checks for access to a single foundational model. Systems of record are being replaced, and the shift is unfolding fastest in a place most people did not expect: healthcare.Vignesh Kumar, Partner at Sierra Ventures, has spent 13 years at the center of this enterprise shift. He has sourced and invested early in companies across Enterprise AI, including two unicorns, Phenom and Reify Health, with Reify reaching around a $4B valuation and Phenom crossing $1B.Over 40 years, Sierra has backed 300+ startups, resulting in 11 IPOs, 7 unicorns, and 104 acquisitions, and manages over $2.4B in assets. Today, the firm is a focused early-stage enterprise AI investor, writing first institutional checks while staying disciplined on fund size, growing from $150M to $270M.This episode is on how the next generation of companies in Enterprise AI will be found, funded and scaled. If you are building in AI or exploring healthcare, this will help you see the shift earlier and act on it with more clarity.0:00 – Trailer1:04 – Where Sierra Ventures invests?3:33 – How to keep fund size aligned with stage5:19 – Sierra's historical DPI5:52 – Deals that drove big returns8:25 – Sierra's exits9:53 – The formula for high returns11:47 – The perfect US–India founder example13:07 – What outcomes VCs expects from startups14:34 – How the partner consensus works15:56 – Why Sierra invested in Smallest AI17:28 – From first meeting to term sheet17:57 – Healthcare has never moved this fast23:20 – Where Vignesh invests24:39 – Only one foundational model bet25:28 – Is SaaS dead?27:44 – How PMF changes in the AI era30:16 – How a VC calculates market risk31:19 – What kept Vignesh at Sierra for 13 years33:17 – How to bet on futuristic startups34:58 – The anti-portfolio35:50 – First-time vs second-time founders36:43 – Why great storytellers attract best talent-------------India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us Fan Mail

April 23, 2026Episode 3671 hr 20 min

Can the Indian Market Alone Take You to $100M ARR? | Aneesh Reddy, Capillary Tech

Are recessions actually the best time to start your company? Aneesh Reddy, the founder of Capillary Technologies, believes that economic downturns are the ultimate filter for identifying products that have a "right to exist”,which is only earned when a product solves a deep, non-negotiable pain point for the customer. This idea has shaped Capillary’s journey that led to a 4500 Crore IPO, 250 million consumers and 100,000+ stores worldwide.We explore the internal culture at Capillary that has not only retained 20% of its core team for over a decade but has also served as a launchpad for 50+ startups. Aneesh offers a contrarian view on leadership that founders should micromanage their teams for the first six months to instill the right DNA before scaling. We also discuss expansion into the US market, detailing the "Risk vs Reference" framework that defines how sales strategies must pivot when moving between continents. He shares what went wrong in Capillary’s early attempt to enter the US, the lessons from that experience, and what eventually helped them succeed in the market the second time around, leading to the US now contributing over 50% of their revenue.If you are a founder building in SaaS or looking to scale from India to the world, this episode with Aneesh Reddy is for you.00:00 – Trailer01:50 – What to build that has not been commoditized05:20 – Customer-facing or fast-changing products will survive09:08 – How Capillary hit early PMF13:54 – Risk vs Reference in the US & Asia18:10 – How Capillary won the US market (after failing first)24:56 – Outbound & partnerships that work better in the US30:30 – Right to exist differs in startups vs large companies35:34 – Micromanage in startups for the first 6 months40:47 – How Vipassana changed the founder49:57 – How 1/5th of the team stayed for 10+ years55:29 – The culture that created 50+ startups58:24 – The right metrics to go IPO in India01:01:53 – The choice to build a product company01:05:24 – Pioneering acquisitions of US startups01:09:18 – Why not build a roll-up to get $200 million ARR?01:10:43- 5 major decisions behind Capillary’s journey01:14:46 – Why are top SaaS stocks down?-------------India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us Fan Mail

April 16, 2026Episode 3661 hr 9 min

The Internet Is Getting a Billion New Users. None Are Human | Sudheesh Nair, Thoughtspot, Nutanix & Tinyfish

From employee #16 to $1B ARR at Nutanix, then scaling ThoughtSpot to $150M ARR and a $4B+ valuation now building for a world where agents will drive the internet.Sudheesh Nair joins the Neon Show.The internet as we see it today was optimized around human strengths and weaknesses, using algorithms to monetize our greed and fear. But as agents take up more of the internet, that playbook starts to break. We are moving from a web of discovery to an outcome-driven internet, where agents care only about the destination, not the journey.As an operator who has scaled companies, Sudheesh believes sales is a noble profession where there is no middle ground. You are either a hero or a zero. Sales is not a function at the edge of the company, it is the primary job of every employee in a company. When that happens, teams stop acting like mercenaries chasing targets and start behaving like missionaries focused on customer outcomes.Beyond agents, we also discuss building companies and whether there are right or wrong reasons to start. Sudheesh’s view is simple. There are no right or wrong reasons, but you have to be brutally honest with yourself about why you are doing it.This episode is one hour of clear thinking on agents, sales, and the realities of company building.00:00 – Trailer01:49 – What % of the internet is agents today?10:25 – How far are we from trillions of agents?12:47 – Why isn’t the internet ready for agents?18:31 – Consumer is a tough game19:49 – Selling to enterprises = high value / low risk22:14 – A noble profession with only heroes or zeroes24:41 – Only 3 reasons why people buy anything26:14 – How we got Fortune 500 customers in just 18 months27:28 – The wrong reasons to start a company31:05 – Cursor vs Claude vs Codex34:30 – Do investors prefer failed founders over first-time founders?35:06 – 3 reasons why an enterprise will sign your startup39:52 – PMF has to be proven every day41:21 – What’s the play b/w OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic?45:12 – Drivers vs passengers in companies47:17 – The muscles you build as an operator50:45 – Hire one person when you actually need four51:41 – Why is marketing the most in-demand skill?53:50 – Nutanix: from 0 to $1B ARR in 26 quarters54:55 – The hardest choice Nutanix made59:25 – Talent is universal. Opportunities are not01:04:08 – Selling is everyone’s job01:05:58 – Passion comes from value creation-------------India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us Fan Mail

April 9, 2026Episode 36547 min

Why $1T Construction still runs on Spreadsheets (And How AI Fixes It) | Sneha & Graham, Merlin AI

Can AI Rebuild the $1 Trillion Construction Industry?Construction is one of the largest industries in the world, yet most projects still run on Excel sheets, fragmented tools, and disconnected workflows.Sneha Kumari (Co-founder, Merlin) and Graham Blake (CPO, Merlin) break down why construction has remained one of the least digitized industries and why that is finally starting to change.We explore why traditional ERP systems like NetSuite or Dynamics fail construction companies, how Merlin is rethinking enterprise software for builders, and why AI may finally make it possible to coordinate the massive complexity behind modern construction projects.Sneha also shares her journey from industry operator to first-time founder, how Merlin found early product-market fit, the power of word-of-mouth growth in construction, and what it takes to build a vertical SaaS company in a “non-sexy” but trillion-dollar industry.If you're curious about how AI can transform deep, complex industries this conversation is for you.00:00 – Trailer00:40 – Merlin x Neon 02:07 – Software for construction04:37 – What convinced Graham to join06:25 – Founder insights that discovered the pain points08:43 – The team behind Merlin10:15 – Challenges of building tech in construction11:51 – Biggest pain points for Merlin’s customers17:16 – Does ERP need a revolution?17:55 – Merlin’s end-to-end ERP approach20:39 – Why customers aren’t happy with existing solutions24:36 – Why an AI-native approach makes sense28:23 – What % of construction budget goes to tech30:37 – How Y Combinator changed a first-time founder31:50 – The role Neon played in Merlin33:34 – Current players that excite the founders36:43 – What it takes for Merlin to reach $10M ARR39:57 – How to build with zero sales constraints43:06 – Why become a founder?45:56 – Build only for an industry you truly understand47:41 – Why construction over manufacturing48:38 – When customer called previous software a “black box”-------------India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us Fan Mail