Best Place To BuildThe $8.5B question: Is India’s CHIP MISSION working? | Insider takes from Mindgrove Technologies CEO
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
60 min read · 11,579 words- 0:00 – 0:45
Intro
- UHUnknown Host
I wanna ask you before we get into that a bit, uh, just talk to me as if I'm Gen Z. [chuckles] What does a electronics engineer do?
- SRShashwath T R
I'll give you a very poetic answer.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
We make electrons dance, and when the electrons dance, they do useful work that, uh, really comes to the heart of modern life.
- UHUnknown Host
Can you give me an example from your early career, like-
- SRShashwath T R
On the top level, you're seeing a lot of data is the new oil, and if data is the new oil, semiconductors is the oil refinery which gets the data out. You can hardly go take 10 steps today in the modern world without encountering some kind of electronics, and all of that electronics is underlied by a semiconductor somewhere, which has been manufactured.
- UHUnknown Host
Hi, this is Amrit. We are at IIT Madras,
- 0:45 – 1:23
Welcome to the Best Place to Build podcast
- UHUnknown Host
my alma mater, and India's top university for people who like to build. We are here to meet some builders, ask them: "What are you building? What does it take to build? And what makes IIT Madras the best place to build?" [upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to The Best Place to Build Podcast. Today, we are sitting with Shashwath. He's the CEO and co-founder of Mindgrove Technologies.
- 1:23 – 2:00
Introducing Shashwath, CEO of Mindgrove Technologies
- UHUnknown Host
It's a semiconductor startup, doing really well. Uh, their office is in the IIT Madras Research Park. I also want to tell you that this will be a little different kind of podcast because we know each other really well. Um, and, um, we are the same age, I think within a few months.
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah, something like that.
- UHUnknown Host
And, and we're both dads, uh, and very involved dads, so we're gonna be cutting each other a lot. [chuckles]
- SRShashwath T R
[chuckles]
- UHUnknown Host
So please bear with me. [chuckles] If on the comment section you feel like I'm cutting him off too much, then my apologies in advance. Welcome to the podcast, Shashwath.
- SRShashwath T R
Thank you.
- UHUnknown Host
Shashwath, I have to ask you a question. What is the deal with semiconductors? Why has it captured everyone's
- 2:00 – 5:34
What’s the big deal with semiconductors in India?
- UHUnknown Host
attention? Before you start, I want to tell you, you are the fourth semiconductor guest. We had Sharan, we had Professor Kamakoti, we had Neil Gala, who is the co-founder of, um, Incore. And each of these podcasts, like, the highest views on our channel. [bird screeching] I don't get it. What is happening, boss? [chuckles]
- SRShashwath T R
[chuckles] I think... I mean, it's fun, isn't it? It's really fun to be a semiconductor engineer at this time in India. But, um, I think part of what we are seeing right now is what, uh, government has finally... I mean, government has tried it in a lot of different eras, but at this time it feels like it's really clicking, and they're putting so much time, and energy, and effort, and shoveling so much media attention towards where semiconductors is. The second thread is, uh, on the top level, you're seeing a lot of data is the new oil, and if data is the new oil, semiconductors is the oil refinery which gets the data out. AI doesn't work without semiconductors. That's the intelligence part of the artificial intelligence. But, um, there's a deeper undercurrent which is happening. You know, when we were growing up, [harp music] our cars had a mechanical carburetor, which was pushing fuel into the engine.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
Uh, not our cars, our parents' cars.
- UHUnknown Host
[chuckles] Yeah.
- SRShashwath T R
I don't think I've ever driven that.
- UHUnknown Host
[chuckles]
- SRShashwath T R
But, uh, as it goes, right now, pretty much every vehicle started with multipoint fuel injection using a microprocessor, but now the entire powertrain, um, automatic brakes, automatic, uh, windshield wipers-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- SRShashwath T R
... automatic lights.
- UHUnknown Host
So it's like the, the carburetor has become a smart carburetor?
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
The windshield wiper has become a smart-
- SRShashwath T R
Smart windshield wiper
- UHUnknown Host
... wiper. Yeah, fair enough.
- SRShashwath T R
And I mean, like, you can hardly go take 10 steps today in the modern world without encountering some kind of electronics, and all of that electronics is underlied by a semiconductor somewhere-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm
- SRShashwath T R
... which has been manufactured.
- UHUnknown Host
So this could be a sensor-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... or a microchip or a... Uh, sorry, c- can you just tell me what all could it be?
- SRShashwath T R
It could be a sensor, it could be a micro, uh, controller, it could be a device that takes analog signals and makes it digital. It could be a s- device which takes... Which, uh, let's say it's a transmitter, or a receiver, or a transceiver, which is both at the same time. Um, it could be a display, and most probably it is all of these things put together in one.
- UHUnknown Host
Hmm. Very interesting. So you're saying semiconductors is hot because, uh, the government is pushing it, uh, the government attention is in it, so everybody's attention is on it. You're also saying that devices around us have become, like, digital, they have evolved, they cannot work without semiconductors today?
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
So the scope has broadened.
- SRShashwath T R
And, um, I would say the government's interest is on it because of all of these other factors.
- UHUnknown Host
Makes sense.
- SRShashwath T R
It's, it's something that is so fundamental to our, uh, underlying economy today, that, um, to our lives today, in fact-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- SRShashwath T R
... that you can't escape it. And you, uh, as a big nation with ambitions and moving up, we have no choice but to go into these domains, which are critical in terms of our security and our, uh, well-being.
- 5:34 – 14:27
What’s a high-performing microprocessor in the age of AI?
- UHUnknown Host
And I remember the graphic that you put out, the age of semiconductors graphic that you put out when you raised your funding.
- SRShashwath T R
Yes. [chuckles]
- UHUnknown Host
Very interesting. Um, Shashwath, thank you so much. We had Sharan on the podcast, uh, a year back-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... almost similar time. Um, from then to now, your company has moved forward. So can you give... Give me an idea of what you've accomplished in the last one year. Is there an announcement? Something you can tell us? What is the next year looking like? Sorry, I'm bombarding you [chuckles] with too many questions. It feels like 10.
- SRShashwath T R
Uh, this one year has, uh, I wouldn't say aged, it's made us grow so much.... and it's made us, uh, move so much faster than I originally expected that things would move, um, but also slower than I hoped that things would move. But anyway, uh, we started in 2021. Um, if 2021 was the, uh, year of figuring out what to do, and 2022 was doubling down on semiconductors, 2023 was, uh, building a prototype, '23 and '24 were building a prototype. The theme for 2025 is going out into the world and growing up.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
So we've done... I can't count how many customers we've met, and then we've drilled down from that into a few pilot deployments that we are, uh, trialing now, um, with the prototype chips. Uh, we are- we took a bet that the prototype chip is working well enough that we could go for mass production, and that is happening right now.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
We should be hitting the shelves with chips that people can buy, um, sometime early next year.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay. So by early 2026, your chips will actually be available on stores?
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
By stores, I mean, like-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah, well-
- UHUnknown Host
I, I don't know. Where do people... Which kind of stores [chuckles] are these?
- SRShashwath T R
That's actually one of the interesting-
- UHUnknown Host
Can I go to Flipkart and say, "Mindgrove chips?"
- SRShashwath T R
That's ac- You can actually go to Amazon and... well, not get Mindgrove chips, but you can go to Amazon and say, "I want to buy a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino."
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
And that's pretty much the same thing that's, that we are, right? So for the electronics engineer, there are, uh, specific portals that we use, where we typically buy chips in bulk.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
The Flipkarts and Amazons of our world are, uh, slightly different. We call them Digi-Key, Mouser.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
The Indian version, um, there is a company called Robo, which I'm pretty sure a lot of engineers would be familiar with.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay, so your chips will be available there?
- SRShashwath T R
We will-- Our chips will eventually be available there. Initially, we expected to go into slightly higher volume, direct sales to big companies. Over the first half of the year 2026, we... I do expect that our chips will be available, our boards will be available for people to buy and try-
- UHUnknown Host
Okay
- SRShashwath T R
... on specialized e-commerce sites for electronics.
- UHUnknown Host
Nice. Congratulations on that. Um, what I hear you say is that the production is done. You're waiting for the chips. It's coming out soon.
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- 14:27 – 20:00
What are the near-future milestones & government schemes within the semiconductor industry in India?
- UHUnknown Host
point of view?
- SRShashwath T R
Sure. So there's been a vote of confidence from traditional Indian business in semiconductors. So we have Netersemi raising, uh, $10 million, with Zoho participating and Zoho leading. In fact, Agari Labs raised a seed round of $8 million, and they make GPUs.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- SRShashwath T R
So that is a very ambitious thing for somebody to build from India, or so people think.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
And apart from that, you're seeing a lot of the, um, manufacturing capacity starting to come online, all the... Uh, we can spend some time on the sup- supply chain later, but basically, the easiest manufacturing thing to bring online in semiconductors is what we call assembly.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
And when you take a chip and you see a chip, the, uh, plastic piece that you're holding is actually a package.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
The actual silicon semiconductor or the germanium semiconductor is a small piece inside. Taking that semiconductor and putting it in the plastic package with all the metal leads is a technically complex piece of engineering. It's a huge value add, and we are seeing multiple companies which started doing their manufacturing for these in India. The first was Micron. I think it was announced in '21, uh, '22. And, uh, right now, Tata's, well, Tata's coming online in Assam. CG Power's, uh, OAT is coming... OAT is, by the way, Outsource Assembly and Testing.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
So CG Power's OAT is coming online, uh, Keynes is coming online, and that's the first commercial semiconductor manufacturing that we are seeing coming online in India.
- UHUnknown Host
That's pretty-
- SRShashwath T R
That's really exciting.
- UHUnknown Host
Uh, you are a DLI awardee-
- SRShashwath T R
Mm
- UHUnknown Host
... uh, the, the Design Linked Incentive scheme that the government has announced. And of course, uh, some of the manufacturing setups you mentioned are PLI awardees, uh, Production Linked Incentive scheme.
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
So the government has done a lot, and we're just lucky to be in a place where-
- SRShashwath T R
We're just lucky to be in a place in... We're lucky to be in a country which has the wherewithal to do this, and the talent, and the need at the same time.
- UHUnknown Host
I want to ask you one question here that I've written down, that you, you are not making the most advanced chip. You're not making AI chips-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... you're not making GPUs. Uh, so, um, and, and you have said that you're making chips for the middle. So what does that mean? I also want to ask you, is there innovation to do in these kind of chips? Uh, isn't it a solved problem? Like-
- SRShashwath T R
It's one of my-
- UHUnknown Host
You mentioned biometrics, right?
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Biometrics already exists, so...
- SRShashwath T R
So yes, biometrics exists. So I'll give you a very small thing over here, right? Um, biometrics exist, but you need better biometrics, you need more secure biometrics, and you need to solve for that. Sometimes that involves inventing entirely new techniques. The middle is a strategy that we chose, because if you go really down into the market, it's very hard to make something and actually make money doing it. And as a company, o- one of the main, the important things that you need to do is to make money in order to survive.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
So if you go really down the market, it's very hard, the economies of scale don't kick in. But if you go really high, now, the least of your problems is technology. You have to go up against the, uh, industry majors-
- 20:00 – 24:45
How do you convince investors to invest in your semiconductor venture?
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
We're very lucky that there are investors on our wavelength whom we can talk to-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm
- SRShashwath T R
... and who understood the idea of the mass market and the volume that we can build by building for the middle. And a lot of the strategy that we have is also done in collaboration in, in, uh, conversation with our investors.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
So how do we position ourselves? How do we position our products? And we've been very lucky in our investors, starting with the IIT Madras, actually. [chuckles]
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah, IIT Madras was your first investor.
- SRShashwath T R
Yes.
- UHUnknown Host
And then I, I see that you have the cream. You have Speciale invest on your board, you have, um, Rocketship VC-
- SRShashwath T R
Yes
- UHUnknown Host
... uh, which is a global investor, and you have Peak XV.
- SRShashwath T R
[chuckles]
- UHUnknown Host
Um, it's amazing. Thank you. Uh, thank you for that, uh, sort of, uh, perspective. I'm wondering, um, we, we, we use the word great middle very loosely.
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
But what are the applications we are talking of? You, you spoke of biometrics, and you said maybe some automotive use case, but what, what else? And, and not just your first chip, but-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... over your next few chips, what is the strategy?
- SRShashwath T R
So the next chip that we are building is a camera chip, and, uh, we saw one of the news roundup of the year is that we saw a lot of use cases coming up from the Indian industry, the most important of which is CCTVs. And that blew up sometime, uh, in the middle of the year, and Government of India's, uh, doubled down and said, "Okay, now everybody needs to... Uh, all CCTVs need to be much more secure. We should not be leaking our, uh, most intimate data of our daily lives to other countries, so we need a lot more security. We need a lot more, uh, certification to go into this." And the CCTV manufacturers had just been merely importing stuff and selling it-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm
- SRShashwath T R
... um, which made sense.
- UHUnknown Host
No, I, I, I was just reading about this a few-
- SRShashwath T R
Mm
- UHUnknown Host
... days back, and I realized that the, the, of course, the government, uh, pushes CCTVs in many directions.
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
But I was looking at traffic CCTVs, and I realized that the biggest push for traffic CCTVs came after the Nirbhaya incident in, uh-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... I think 2012, '13, whatever, uh, that period.
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
And then the Delhi government said that we are going to, you know, flood the city with-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah
- 24:45 – 26:48
What’s the microchip innovation involved with building CCTVs & biometrics?
- SRShashwath T R
to saying that we make no secret of the fact that Mindgrove wants to go up to the auto- automotive world.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm. In each of these segments, actually, global giants exist, right?
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Do we have a chance to actually build a global giant microcontroller company from... microprocessor company from India?
- SRShashwath T R
Yes, we do. Because I think, um, it's a lot to do with, uh, meeting the needs of the industry. Intel was never- Intel didn't start off as a giant, did it?
- UHUnknown Host
Intel was a startup.
- SRShashwath T R
Intel was a startup at some point in time.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah. I mean, Apple was a startup.
- SRShashwath T R
Apple was a startup. And Intel, even as a giant, even at the peak of Intel's power, right in the mid-2000s, they were not able to make the mobile phone world work.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
And you had, uh, companies like Qualcomm and MediaTek coming in and building the processors that... And, of course, Apple decided that they were not going to rely on anybody else and build their own processors. So you have a lot of, um, churn in the processor industry. The big, uh, competition to Intel in the early days was Motorola. Mm, Motorola doesn't exist anymore in the processor world. So the story of semiconductors is a lot of churn, startups coming in, becoming big, getting acquired, or acquiring other companies, churning. So that is typically what happens in the semiconductor industry.
- UHUnknown Host
But all the names you mentioned are not Indian, so that's-
- SRShashwath T R
All the names I mentioned are not Indian.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- SRShashwath T R
Only now we have Indian companies trying to become giants in this field.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
Understood.
- UHUnknown Host
Shashwath, just dialing back a bit, uh, you, you by training and by your career experience, you're not a semiconductor person, you're a electronics engineer.
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
So I wanna ask you, before we get into that a bit, uh, just talk to me as if I'm Gen Z. [chuckles] What
- 26:48 – 37:30
What does an electronics engineer actually do?
- UHUnknown Host
does a electronics engineer do?
- SRShashwath T R
I'll give you a very poetic answer.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
We make electrons dance, and when the electrons dance, they do useful work that, uh, really comes to the heart of modern life.
- UHUnknown Host
Can you give me an example from your early career? Like, first-
- SRShashwath T R
Sure
- UHUnknown Host
... two, three years of your career, what would you have worked on?
- SRShashwath T R
So, um, I did a lot of ultrasound in my early career.
- UHUnknown Host
Ultrasound machines?
- SRShashwath T R
Ultrasound machines. Uh, I did a lot of the algorithmic side of the ultrasound, signal processing, and at one point, I got involved in the actual work of building ultrasound devices.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
And, uh, if you think about it, right, um, you take this device, it's a probe, which is connected to this other big device, which is the, uh, the machine, and you keep it, let's say, on somebody's abdomen, and you're take... trying to take an image. What is actually happening over here is that, um, the way this works, there's a tiny little piezoelectric crystal at the, um... or an array of these piezoelectric crystals at the edge of that probe, at the front face of that probe, and you need to make it vibrate, which sends vibrations down into whatever you're observing, and those vibrations reflect on something and come back.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm. That's how ultrasounds work.
- SRShashwath T R
That's how ultrasounds work, right? The challenge here is that you will have to put in hundreds of volts to make that thing move, and that goes into the, let's say, a person. I did a lot of stuff on mechanical devices, but then the principle is the same. And then what you get back after all the waves die down inside the, uh, medium, and then they get reflected and come back, you get millivolts.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm. So it's a very weak signal?
- SRShashwath T R
It's a very weak signal that you get back. So a very strong signal going in, and a very weak signal coming back. Now, you have to design a system which can produce that kind of power, shove it into this thing, very precise timing intervals, send it into the, uh, medium, bring it back, and then measure millivolts out of the same device. And you have to protect the operator and the patient from all of that high power. You have to still measure that low signal, that weak signal, and then you have to create an image out of it.
- UHUnknown Host
Understood. So it's not enough to say, "I'm just using vibration of-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... electromagnetic waves," but just taking that physical-
- SRShashwath T R
In this case, acoustic waves, but yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
I'm sorry. [laughing] Acoustic waves.
- SRShashwath T R
[laughing] Acoustic waves, uh, but w- what... The right way of saying it is that the- to make this actually happen, there's a lot of electronics that has to be built.
- UHUnknown Host
Yes.
- SRShashwath T R
And, and at a, at a early career, you would be thinking of how to get the mechanics of it, the-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- SRShashwath T R
... [chuckles] electronics of it.
- UHUnknown Host
Sure, the mechanics of it actually works because you're thinking of the mechanics of how signal flows-
- SRShashwath T R
Mm
- UHUnknown Host
... and how power flows, and you're choosing components, you're choosing connectors, because every connector you choose, for example, could change the characteristics of the signal.
- SRShashwath T R
Mm.
- 37:30 – 40:50
How has AI affected Shashwath’s role?
- SRShashwath T R
I, uh, I really enjoy doing stuff with my hands, so I still spend some time at least every month, if not every day anymore, doing stuff.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
Uh, as a lead- uh, as somebody in the leadership position, typically, what I do doesn't, uh, reach production. It shouldn't, because my stuff is a lot sloppier than it used to be.
- UHUnknown Host
Right.
- SRShashwath T R
But, um-
- UHUnknown Host
'Cause now you're not, you're not the engineer on the project, you're the-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah. I'm the guy who's telling the engineer what to do, but then I need to know what to do to tell them, so I still spend some time playing with, uh, electronics, playing with software every now and then.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
But, um, I don't know, because it's still a very, very fast-changing field. And at a very fundamental level, we are still seeing a lot of things changing. You know, uh, one of the things that happened is tools became smarter, and not just now, have been becoming smarter. I grew up with these cathode-ray oscilloscopes, which required, uh, well, let's just call it percussive maintenance-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm
- SRShashwath T R
... to make them work. And you had to stare at it and, uh, you know, twiddle a dial to get something, and then, um, squint at it enough and it looks like the signal you're looking for. But now you have oscilloscopes which are effectively small compute- not effectively, they are small computers. The last oscilloscope we bought, um, boots Windows, and you plug it into the device, uh, into the system under test, press a button. It'll, uh, analyse the signal that's going on in the protocol, let's say Ethernet or USB, and it'll break down the protocol into chunks and tell you what is going on, and it'll actually point out to the problem. And you're gonna see a lot more of that. You're gonna see a lot more of people, um, you know, iterating with a copilot. The open hardware, uh, movement is actually fueling that because there's a lot for those copilots to learn from. And I'm seeing a lot of initial forays, but I don't know how that's gonna turn out.
- UHUnknown Host
Very interesting. So electronics engineers today have to can prototype much faster, and now also they have a copilot, so they can actually code and-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... move much faster on everything.
- SRShashwath T R
And, you know, um, is that jumping a little bit into VLSI? We keep billions of... I mean, our devices have billions of transistors these days, and nobody keeps that in their heads, right? Billions of transistors, uh, gets done by effectively programming an design automation tool, effectively a CAD tool. You program the tool and have it do the circuit, right? And that's programming. That looks a lot like software engineering. And a lot of people have been experimenting with copilots in doing that kind of stuff. We don't know where it's going to lead yet because it's very early days.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
The data is not yet in. But a lot of people are experimenting with it.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah, it's an exciting time to be a semiconductor engineer or electronics engineer. I mean, of course, the government is pushing it-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... the industry is rising, more money
- 40:50 – 50:00
What are the skills required to enter the semiconductor industry?
- UHUnknown Host
is coming in-
- SRShashwath T R
Yep
- UHUnknown Host
... more opportunities. Um, I want to ask you, what are the skills-- s- supposing somebody, uh, now, even mid-career, not just early career, wants to enter semiconductor space broadly, what are the skills that are required?
- SRShashwath T R
Um, you know, the soft skill that's required is a lot of curiosity because, um, it's a really vast field, and you need to learn a reasonably substantial portion of it to be effective, especially mid-career, like I did. Even early career, the faster you can learn more stuff, uh, the more easily you can contribute.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm. Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
Uh, you need to learn a lot of electron-- The most fundamental skill that you need to learn is electronic devices: how a transistor works, what transistor to use for what, how the logic gates work. Uh, if you're going into digital, it's logic gates; if you're going into analog, it's just the transistor itself, resistors, capacitors. What we used to do on a breadboard level or a PCB level, it's just getting shrunk. And a lot of the hand-holding is done by the tools that we have.
- UHUnknown Host
So you need to know the tools.
- SRShashwath T R
You need to know the tools, for sure. So learning the underlying processes, learning what's going on under- underneath the hood of the tools, I think is very important.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay, understood. So curiosity, I'm writing this down. Curiosity, and of course, you... on the side, you mentioned that you need to know the tools, and you need hard skills of electronics.
- SRShashwath T R
Yes. What else? What else? What else? You need-- I think beyond that, a lot of trial and error, and, uh, the willingness to fail, because it can be very unforgiving. A circuit either boots or it doesn't, right? And a, uh, chip either boots or it doesn't.... and the willingness to take a risk.
- UHUnknown Host
Hmm.
- SRShashwath T R
The willingness to fail is a skill that we had to develop.
- UHUnknown Host
It's so interesting that you say it. I feel like Sharon also spoke about it, and Neil Gala also spoke about-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
-the idea of, you know, failing and getting up and whatever. Very interesting. Um, it must be a traumatic experience that the community has [chuckles] -
- SRShashwath T R
[chuckles]
- UHUnknown Host
-to switch on a circuit and not have it boot.
- SRShashwath T R
It is.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
And, uh, I think it did stop at-
- UHUnknown Host
Shared trauma. [chuckles]
- SRShashwath T R
It's a, it's a shared trauma that I wish more people would talk about, because they end up... I see a lot of people in-- Anytime three semiconductor engineers get together, uh, they go off into a corner and they talk about how many, uh, um... We call it a re-respin, when a chip goes out and it has to be, uh, redone. So you can just imagine the terror when you are, uh, sending out something. This is not like software, where you compile it, you run it, and you know it works-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
-or it doesn't work.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
Right? You compile it, run it, you do all the tests, and you build the file for manufacturing.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm-hmm.
- SRShashwath T R
It's not even like you're 3D printing. At most, you get an answer in two to three days.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah, here you're sending to Taiwan, and you have to wait for them.
- SRShashwath T R
You have to wait for, like, three months, and then you have the packaging time, and then it comes back, and the board is being designed in the interim, and then you hope, you pray, that the board works. Then you come and plonk a chip on it, and then it doesn't boot. Terror, right? [chuckles]
- 50:00 – 59:30
Shashwath’s personal story/journey in the semiconductor industry
- UHUnknown Host
where they are.
- SRShashwath T R
Well, and they were always there. That's the fun part, right? [chuckles] We didn't know that they were there, but they were there.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah. We are the same age, uh, and, uh, we're both Millennials. We both, uh, lived through the '90s, and, uh, I know from our, our conversations that we've somewhat similar interests. I'm very eager to know how, uh, you were as a child, and what are your influences early on that led you down this path of electronics, and now semiconductors, and now running a startup? [laughing]
- SRShashwath T R
[chuckles] Oh, all of it really comes from the same places, right? Uh, the close friends and family that I had when I was growing up. Um, my dad is not a techie, but he was very tech-adjacent. And, uh, you know, he's a lawyer, and a lot of his clients were techies or tech entrepreneurs or tech founders, and they would walk into his of- office and walk out saying, "This guy's more tech than I am," because he always has these, like, multiple screens. He has a monitor which he attaches to, to his computer, and then he has a, uh, a third monitor, which he screen shares.
- UHUnknown Host
You're talking about your father, who's a lawyer-
- SRShashwath T R
My father, who's a lawyer
- UHUnknown Host
... with monitors? Okay.
- SRShashwath T R
And, uh, like, he has a client in front of him. He gives him a, uh, iPad to read it on, and he's simultaneously editing it here. He was very disappointed in me.
- UHUnknown Host
[chuckles]
- SRShashwath T R
Uh, the reason he was disappointed-
- UHUnknown Host
Become a lawyer.
- SRShashwath T R
He is very disappointed in me, not because I didn't become a lawyer. He's- perfectly understands that. But, um, he, uh, he keeps telling me: "You... I made you an electronics engineer, and you can't even solve this simple problem for me." And his simple problem is this: "In my bedroom, I have an AC, a fan, and a window.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
I want you to build a device which will automatically sense that the temperature is at a particular place, switch off the AC, switch on the fan, and open the window." [laughing]
- UHUnknown Host
[laughing]
- SRShashwath T R
"Oh, why aren't you doing this?" I'm like: "Dad, I'm building a semiconductor company." "Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
That doesn't scan."
- UHUnknown Host
That's, that's fair. You're saying that, uh... Am I right in thinking that what you're saying is that your dad was a very curious person, very-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah, a very tinkery person.
- UHUnknown Host
Sort of nerdy.
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah. My granddad was the same. Um, I remember sitting and disassembling old, uh, two-stroke engines with him.
- UHUnknown Host
Oh, really?
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah. Um, he had those things sitting on his balcony. Uh, so I was very engineering-adjacent. Dad, who was, uh, independent, never worked... I mean, he, he did work for somebody for a few years, but then he started his own, uh, practice. Granddads never worked for anybody.
- UHUnknown Host
Nice.
- SRShashwath T R
Uh-
- UHUnknown Host
So not only were they tinkerers, they were also entrepreneurial.
- SRShashwath T R
In some sense or the other.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
And, uh, I married into a family which is very entrepreneurial. Mm, which is, um, my wife runs her own practice. She, she's an architect.
- 59:30 – 1:03:00
Can you start up as a non-IITian?
- UHUnknown Host
from a fundraising point of view, from a startup point of view, in India, there's this feeling that if you're from IIT, doors open, and if you're not-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... then it's really painful. Did you feel that?
- SRShashwath T R
Um, I didn't feel it, especially early on. It's changing a lot. There are a lot of deep tech founders who are not IITians right now, but then there are lots who are, and I think the IIT brand name has definitely helped us, um, in terms of both fundraising and in terms of access to customers, access to the market, because there is that buzz around the IITs. But I think that's changing, and a lot more- it's a lot more accessible to a lot more people to do a lot more things today.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm-hmm. Okay, so the two threads here are, one is that the world itself is changing. Not everybody really cares whether you went to IIT or not-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... but also IIT itself has changed, and there are a lot of collaborators.
- SRShashwath T R
A lot of collaborative work going on. I think, um, IIT has changed, uh, especially IIT Madras has changed to look a lot more outwards.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
You know, uh, there is this, uh, saying among a lot of alum whom I've met, that you don't see time passing inside the campus.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
And you know how it is, right? Uh, you walk in here, you literally don't see time passing.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- SRShashwath T R
It's such an idyllic place.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah, it's a very idyllic place.
- SRShashwath T R
But IITM, in the last few years, I think the last 10-ish years, has also started looking outwards to see what we can do in the world.... and, uh, that has made a huge difference in the kind of the quality of engagement and in the way that IIT stuff is going out. I really admire Ather in this sense.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
Being one of the first companies to come out of this deep tech innovation kind of a thing and actually make a splash in the market.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah, and a spectacular product.
- SRShashwath T R
Spectacular product. One of the first, uh, mobility products to come out in a really long time. Um, it's been great watching that.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah. Yeah, and we-
- SRShashwath T R
And-
- UHUnknown Host
- we, we, we got a ringside access.
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Got to hear how they're building that company.
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah, and, uh, Sharan talks about watching Tarun... He didn't know it was Tarun in Ather at that time, driving a prototype scooter round and round campus [chuckles] in the early days, um, before they launched. To me, I think there's a feedback loop going on between the industry and the academia. Um, Research Park is a beautiful ecosystem for that. Bringing in ideas, and that is reinforcing, uh, IITM's engagement outside, and that is bringing in more people who want to contribute and collaborate. I think that for outward-looking thing is something which is beautiful, and I think... I really hope that that continues for years and years.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah. That's fair. I mean, thank you so much. I mean, we've, we've spoken about a lot of things, and I had some things that I'd written down. I think I've covered everything.
- SRShashwath T R
Mm.
- UHUnknown Host
Um, I don't want to keep you for much long. I spent a lot of time already. I'll end with one very, very, very cringe LinkedIn-type [chuckles] question.
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- 1:03:00 – 1:06:56
Closing thoughts & reflections
- UHUnknown Host
I was just thinking when you were saying, if your startup started during COVID-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
- technically, it's a COVID baby.
- SRShashwath T R
It is a COVID baby. [laughing]
- UHUnknown Host
[chuckles]
- SRShashwath T R
And my son is just pre-COVID, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
Uh, he was less than one year old. He was just about one year old when he actually formally started. And, uh, you know, Sharan says you have to be crazy to do this. I don't think you have to be crazy to do it. I think you have to be passionate enough to do it, that peop- other people think that you're crazy. Mm. And, uh, you know, you have one co-founder who's, uh, raising a kid, now two kids.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- SRShashwath T R
I have the second one. And you have another co-founder who's doing a PhD under Professor Kamakoti in the CS department, which is one of the hardest PhDs in India, I think. [chuckles] But, uh, fa- fatherhood, for me, is... One of the things that really drove me to building the company was, "This is my last chance. If I get caught in the whole fatherhood thing, and, uh, parenting, and, you know, people are not gonna allow you to start up, so do it now." [chuckles] And another part of it was, I really wanted- want my kids to see me the way I saw my dad, as an independent person in his own right, um, building something and, uh, engaging with the world on his own terms. So that is the-- that is one of the reasons that I started up.
- UHUnknown Host
That is beautiful.
- SRShashwath T R
Mm. Another thing is, uh, you know, a young company is like a young kid, and I'm learning a lot about fatherhood from running a company, and about running a company from, uh, dealing with my kid. Patience. [laughing]
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- SRShashwath T R
Lots of patience. Take a deep breath. You won't believe how much reading parenting books and parenting blogs is teaching me about being a better manager. It's fun. [chuckles]
- UHUnknown Host
Nice. Um, on that note, let's stop. I want to just appreciate you before we, uh, close. Uh, there are times when... This is for the audience. There are times when we've been on call, and, uh, I can, I can see that he's, uh, holding his baby, uh, and still on the call or feeding his baby and still on the call. So it's, it's kinda nice to see, um, uh, like a very involved father, uh, very hands-on father.
- SRShashwath T R
Can I say something there?
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- SRShashwath T R
Um, you know, there is this picture of, uh, John F. Kennedy sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office?
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- SRShashwath T R
And, uh, his kids are peeking out from under the desk.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- SRShashwath T R
I subscribe to that image of fatherhood. I don't subscribe to the idea that your, uh, work and life... Work-life balance is something where you separate work and life so hard, that you don't have time for the kids or you don't have, uh, if you have kids, you shouldn't be doing this kind of work. Uh, I bring my kids to office all the time.
- UHUnknown Host
Nice. Uh, I, [chuckles] I wanted to share something really funny. I, I interviewed Srinath on this table-
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
... and, uh, Srinath is also a father, very involved father, and he was talking about how he took his kid, kid, kids, I can't remember, uh, to the launch.
- SRShashwath T R
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Uh, and the rocket launch, whatever, whatever. [chuckles] And I'm thinking in my mind: "This child must be thinking everybody's father is a rocket scientist." [laughing]
- SRShashwath T R
[chuckles]
- UHUnknown Host
Um-
- SRShashwath T R
You really wonder about that, don't you?
Episode duration: 1:07:02
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