Hype Cycles with Nitesh and Vineet

Nitesh and Vineet
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What's been going on in the tech and the business world? What's trending, what's recent, what's getting hyped...and what might be behind it? Nitesh and Vineet go deep into one topic each week, to find out.

  1. 5 APR

    From Cement to Cinema: The Aditya Birla Group's New Playbook

    We recorded this one live from Jayanagar, Bangalore, and as usual, we couldn't resist a few pitstops before the main story. In this episode: We open with a quick "financial year-in-review", even though no one invited us for any cool financial new year eve parties. We touch on the HDFC Bank chairman's mysteriously worded resignation that sent markets into a tailspin, a genuinely bizarre emergency analyst call (Reuters was on it - enough said), and the comedy of corporate crisis PR done spectacularly and awkwardly wrong. Then: Saregama's awkward earnings call moment - promoting Dhurandhar 1's music on one call, then forgetting about individual movies on the next. A quick detour into LVMH selling their Nashik vineyard to Sula - and why the India-EU trade deal might make that a brilliantly timed exit for one party and a slow-motion problem for the other. We also check in on the AI world: Sora is dead, Claude's surge pricing landed with all the grace of Wile E Coyote, and we make the case that the real winner of the AI cost crisis might be locally-hosted open source models. Plus - the data center energy crunch, gas turbines, and why the Iran war might quietly reshape where compute goes. Then the main story: the Aditya Birla Group. From Swadeshi-era commodities traders to a pre-liberalisation multinational to Kumar Mangalam Birla taking the helm at 28 under tragic circumstances - we trace the arc. Then we dig into what's changed in the last five years: paints (Birla Opus), jewellery (Indriya), fashion, Hakkasan, Applause Entertainment (yes, the Scam 1992 people), a new film studio, and now RCB. And the bigger bet: the Birlas are positioning to occupy the consumer trust space that the Tatas - strategically adrift, over-reliant on TCS - may be quietly vacating. We end with a recommendation (Malcolm in the Middle, the original, not whatever the sequel is), a brief detour into the new Harry Potter trailer, and Vineet getting told to vamoose and go back to Delhi.

    1hr 6min

  2. 23 MAR

    IOUs on IOUs: How Private Credit Is Secretly Funding the AI Bubble

    The AI boom is being built on borrowed money - and not the kind you can easily track. This week, Nitesh and Vineet go deep on private credit: what it is, why it exploded after 2008, and how firms like Blue Owl are now sitting on billions of dollars of opaque, leveraged loans made to AI data center operators - some of whom used to be crypto miners. We break down listed retail investment vehicles and mini bank runs, why lenders are the most blindly optimistic people in the entire AI ecosystem, and what happens when IOUs are built on top of IOUs built on top of IOUs. Plus: Claude Code's surprisingly small ARR, Larry Ellison quietly betting on Warner Brothers instead of AI, and the ChatGPT car wash test that says everything about where we are right now. Links: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4873478-blue-owl-capital-retail-panics-smart-money-buys https://notpricedin.substack.com/p/book-smarts Follow Hype Cycles: https://www.youtube.com/@hype_cycles

    1hr 8min

  3. 10 MAR

    A (Very) Brief History of Bitcoin (Also, is it an Asset or a Currency?)

    This week on Hype Cycles (formerly known as What Was That?!, an SEO nightmare), we go into the (use case) fundamentals of Bitcoin. Why does it exist? What problem does it solve for, and does it succeed? Is it a currency, an asset, or a gambling chip? We start where all good crypto origin stories begin: the 2008 financial crisis. We walk through how Bitcoin was born out of distrust in institutions… and then promptly set about trying to rebuild said institutions from scratch. Exchanges become banks. Stablecoins become central banks. “Be your own bank” quietly becomes “you can totally believe me” Somewhere between Silk Road, fractional reserve rediscovered live on Twitter, and NFTs for wedding vows, we watch an entire parallel financial system speedrun 100 years of financial scams in five. Then we go deeper. Asset or currency? Party or broker? You can’t be both. If it’s money, you spend it. If it’s going to the moon, you hoard it. The contradiction sits at the heart of Bitcoin’s entire hype cycle. We also widen the lens to blockchain, NFTs, land records, medical records, blood diamonds. By the end, we arrive at stablecoins, which are basically central banks for the paranoid. Nitesh believes there's a future for Bitcoin. Vineet is skeptical.

    1hr 19min

  4. 12 FEB

    What's Been Going on With Claude - and why it Spooked Indian Tech

    Welcome back to What Was That?! , where Nitesh and Vineet discuss the latest in tech, business, and how it impacts us. This week, we try to figure out whether Claude has quietly detonated the software industry or whether everyone just discovered a shiny new hammer and is now declaring the end of carpentry. The trigger: a string of Claude upgrades - tool calling, desktop control, MCP servers - that can now read your files, move things around your machine, talk to internet services, and even build code in plain English. Indian IT stocks promptly had a small panic attack. Naturally. We break down what actually changed. Generative AI is still a probabilistic word predictor with better context windows, not consciousness. But when you combine language models with file access and service integration, things get interesting, And slightly terrifying, but not in the Terminator sense - context failures, hallucinated commands, malware risks, and the minor issue that most humans have no idea what edge cases even are. We rant about Indian IT firms, decades of labor arbitrage, $100+ billion in dividends and buybacks instead of R&D, and whether AI is finally the long-awaited reckoning. And just when things get existential, we arrive at Moltbook - an AI-only social network where bots talk to bots and occasionally shout about nuclear war in all caps. Elon calls it early singularity. We call it Reddit fanfic. Link to a fantastic explainer video: https://x.com/shanselman/status/2018117809931489418?s=20 Section Breakdown with Timestamps00:00 Intro and the problem with generic podcast names 03:45 What actually happened with Claude this week 04:09 Indian IT stocks drop and market reaction 05:47 What generative AI really is - token prediction explained 07:46 Tool calling and Claude controlling your computer 09:52 MCP servers interacting with internet services 11:07 Combining tools - Why this suddenly feels powerful 12:16 Nitesh explains his use case for Open Claw 15:26 Productivity gains versus real world risk 20:07 Enterprise software - is it actually threatened? 22:50 Context windows - where AI still fails 24:31 Why personal automation could break the internet 29:05 Will software engineering shrink or adapt 33:00 Indian IT systemic risk and labor arbitrage debate 44:21 Enter Moltbook, the AI social network 46:01 Bots talking to bots and singularity headlines 48:26 Why Moltbook is not consciousness 49:10 SaaS investing and what changes next 51:17 Bitcoin as the promised hedge that nobody uses 54:29 Wrap up and teaser for Bitcoin episode

    55 min
  5. What Was That?! - A Deep Dive into the Financial Mess in the AI Industry, plus GST Reforms

    27/08/2025

    What Was That?! - A Deep Dive into the Financial Mess in the AI Industry, plus GST Reforms

    It's What Was That?! Time, and this time we went deeeeeeep into the AI industry's financial mess, and also the recent GST announcements in India. There's enshittification going on - there's a bubble - there's cash flow issues and crazy hiring - and just so much hype. Links:https://www.wheresyoured.at/ai-is-a-money-trap/https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/28/anthropic-unveils-new-rate-limits-to-curb-claude-code-power-users/www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/openai-raise-chatgpt-users.htmlhttps://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/silicon-valley-ai-infrastructure-capex-cffe0431https://government.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/governance/next-gen-gst-reform-india-set-for-tax-simplification-and-growth-boost-by-diwali-2025/123362905Chapters00:00 Intro, and some fun book reccos!08:54 GST 3.0 and Economic Implications21:23 AI Developments and GPT-5 Launch33:55 The Impact of AI Pricing Models on User Behavior36:44 Challenges in AI Model Selection and User Experience39:25 The Sustainability of Layer One AI Services42:17 The Role of Hardware in AI Development46:03 Financial Risks and Cash Flow Issues in the AI Industry48:47 Cultural Implications of AI Companionship01:04:37 Future of AI and Gaming Regulations

    1hr 6min
  6. What Was That?! - Tata Sons's Trials & Tribulations, an Google Play Store Loses in Court

    06/08/2025

    What Was That?! - Tata Sons's Trials & Tribulations, an Google Play Store Loses in Court

    It's What Was That?! time, and our stories are getting longer and deeper, no jokes related to last week's topic, please. We discuss how Google Play Store has lost a key court case about the fees charged by its Play Store services. It's a big one, they're appealing for sure, but this is a key loss with ramifications for their global ops. Nitesh gets into some of Tata Sons' struggles as it tries to manage its vast portfolio across many, many different sectors. Links: https://www.theverge.com/news/716856/epic-v-google-win-in-appeals-courtAnd, more importantly, Kung Fu Hustle:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SN43SPZMNuohttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ixeHttmdsZY

    1hr 1min
  7. What Was That?! - Solar Power Is Taking Over the World, and Cupid Ltd's Condom Success Story

    30/07/2025

    What Was That?! - Solar Power Is Taking Over the World, and Cupid Ltd's Condom Success Story

    It's What Was That?! Time again. We did deep dives into two stories this time - one, how rapidly solar power capacity is increasing, far beyond most people's expectations, and what it means from the lens of geopolitics, economics and the environment - all areas we have no expertise in. It's a fascinating story, based on this article: https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/46-billion-years-on-the-sun-is-having-a-momentNitesh digs deep into the history and recent news about Cupid Ltd - a company that fits the one-man-against-the-odds archetype. Yup, really, it's a great story.

    1hr 10min
  8. What Was That?! Polymarket Rebellion, Tiffany Faces a Backlash, and Intel's Fraught Decision-making

    22/07/2025

    What Was That?! Polymarket Rebellion, Tiffany Faces a Backlash, and Intel's Fraught Decision-making

    It's What Was That time again, in an episode where Nitesh and Vineet talk about betting markets in scandal over what defines a suit, and Tiffany the jewellery company collaborating with Patek Philippe and losing goodwill by irritating the folks who wanted to, y'know, give money and get a watch. By taking their money, giving them jewellery, promising them the option to buy a watch in the future, and then refusing to sell the watch. Both stories leading Vineet to conclude that maybe rich people have too much money. Oh, and we also go deep into Intel making a few really bad decisions, in hindsight, and how companies can grow to be giants and still try to innovate. Nitesh also compared Archies (y'know, the gift card guys) with Lockheed Martin (y'know, totally not the gift card guys). Fun times. Links:https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/us/intel-facing-a-blackberry-moment-as-thousands-laid-off-ceo-says-too-late-to-catch-up-with-ai-as-firm-falls-out-of-global-top-10/articleshow/122390727.cmshttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-07-17/tiffany-s-blue-dial-nautilus-watch-release-frayed-its-patek-relationshiphttps://notpricedin.substack.com/p/archetypes-and-heartacheshttps://notpricedin.substack.com/p/2-heavy-lies-the-crownhttps://www.wired.com/story/volodymyr-zelensky-suit-polymarket-rebellion/

    1hr 3min
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What's been going on in the tech and the business world? What's trending, what's recent, what's getting hyped...and what might be behind it? Nitesh and Vineet go deep into one topic each week, to find out.

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