Rakesh Agrawal's Blog — Founder, Investor, Houstonian

I’m all in on AI agents!

I believe AI agents are a new productivity primitive— akin to the word processor and spreadsheets in the 1980s. We’ll all soon be levering up everything with the help of these “genius math babies” (thanks for that label Fiona!) that make “hard things easy and easy things hard” (thanks for this line Matt!)

The day after I started using Tasklet, I did an “emergency” onboarding with a dozen influential people at Piping Technology (where we manufacture pipe supports and expansion joints for critical piping systems). 40 days later, we had 60 or so people using and building their own AI agents to

• performing engineering calculations
• accelerate workflows to deliver a better customer experience and shorten our business cycle
• increase sales through better sales management

The Tasklet team came out to capture our team’s story and along the way, captured the spirit of the company.

Beyond the productivity increase, beyond becoming a better partner to our customers, I’m proud of our team for joyfully embracing a new way of working. I’m proud of our team for being role models for other American manufacturing companies.

Everyone from the Pope to the Nobel prize winning economists agree: AI is going to disrupt society, it’s going to disrupt how we work and how we earn our livings.

I’m proud that our company is doing its part to help people get ahead of what’s coming.

Went to Casaema for Father’s Day and the roaster, Marlene was there and recommended this great fruity light toast.

Seen at… <checks notes> Shiv Sagar Veg Restaurant in Pune, Maharasthra!

Hexa-cones (seen on the tarmac before an Indigo flight):

And stainless steel cones (at a 5 star hotel in Gurgaon):

My dear friend took me to see the sunset and it did not disappoint. Here you can see the sun and moon trading places — sunset at Newport Beach and the full moon over the Laguna Hills.

I climbed to the top of the cathedral tower in Utrecht. And near the base, this member of a catering team was busy at work preparing appetizers for a party that evening. If I ever have an occasion to host a party in the Netherlands, it’ll be at the Dom Cathedral! The party space was one floor up with a 50 ft high ceiling, with stainglass windows on all sides. The acoustics have to be terrible in there but it looked… grand.

Miffy is upset that Labubus have become so popular.

In Utrecht, they’ve built these little ramps to save cats from drowning. Wut!?

I do a lot of coffee tourism when I travel— I visit great coffee shops and roasters. This was Black Gold, not too far from the Amsterdam Central Train Station. Great coffee and vinyl shop. The owner, Siebrand, was the nicest guy.

On to India: Most of my trip was in Delhi, but I spent one night in Mumbai visiting family. As we were headed to a Kevin Hart comedy show (wut!?), it was obvious that Durga puja season was in full swing. We passed a bunch of trucks carrying Mother Durga statues and devotees celebrating in the streets. The devotee I took a photograph of seemed to be in a trance. I was searching for a phrase or word to describe the look people have when they appear to be somewhere else in time-space and a friend suggested, “a thousand yard stare”— about right!

Side note, it was surreal to attend a Kevin Hart comedy show in Mumbai. He appeared to fill up NSCI which has a capacity of 8,000. From Coldplay to Ed Sheeran to Lolapalooza, western performance artists have discovered they can sell their wares in India!

One afternoon in Delhi, I met my cousins who are in the sari and lehenga business — the Indian bridal wear business — at their office/warehouse in Delhi’s old market of Chandni Chowk. Chandni Chowk is your paradigmatic old world market with narrow alleys, no cars, and packed streets with every square inch devoted to selling something and everything. When I was there it was especially packed because Navratri season had just begun. Witness the supersized auto rickshaw with the roof and interior full of this family’s shopping loot. They were probably on a family shopping spree for a wedding. This was on Naee Sadak (“new street”) where I’ve been a bunch of times. There’s a section of Naee Sadak where they sell textbooks and you can get the Indian edition of US college textbooks for 1/10th the price.

And we walked from my cousins shop to eat at one of my favorite sweet shops, Delhi’s famous Daribe wale gully jalebi shop. They’re famous for their thick jalebis — they’re so good. Especially when you’re eating them fresh from the ghee fryer. Mmmmm.

I went to State Bird Provisions in San Francisco on a whim and without a reservation. I got lucky and they seated me right away. Novel concept: standard a la carte menu items plus a dim-sum style tray or cart that came around and offered new dishes impromptu (“Don’t mind if I do!”)

The service was outstanding. My server highlighted all the vegetarian dishes and also offered up 1/2 portions of the larger dishes since I was dining solo. I was seated at the and members of the staff kept saying hi and asking me how I was doing. The dishes were inventive and tasty and delicious. Seated at the bar, I got to watch the staff in action. Lots of discipline and process and coordination in that kitchen.

High recommendations for a special meal in San Francisco!

Some of the food we enjoyed (OK, I enjoyed) on the Zipair flight (direct from Houston to Narita) over there:

Our first day in Tokyo — Tokyo Station and a walking tour around Shinjuku (largely to keep ourselves awake on our first evening!).

Morning coffee in Tokyo Station at Rokumei Coffee (outstanding coffee shop from Nara!) and then us putzing around the emperor’s palace (where we saw a unicyclist recording a video), Ginza (where we happened upon an open air market and the amazing Itayo stationary store) and then Shibuya, where we had lunch and met us with Ananya. And I met a newly wed Japanese couple while I was dropping off some shopping bags at our hotel and took a photograph of them!

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.