The Ryan Dsouza Podcast

Ryan Dsouza
  • 4.0 (1)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Slow takes only. Long-form conversations with the people shaping how we live, work and think — mostly about India's economy, technology, and the people building both. No hot takes, no clipped-up outrage. Just an hour or more with someone who actually knows the subject. Recent episodes: can India really be the next China, how H-1B and Y2K accidentally built Indian tech, the case for leaving India (and for staying), sovereign AI and the frontier model race, and what software engineering becomes after AI. 270+ episodes. Hosted by Ryan Dsouza. Watch on YouTube: @decentmakeover

  1. 22h ago

    The Case Against Nuclear Power | M. V. Ramana

    Nuclear power is having a moment — Big Tech is signing reactor deals, India has promised thousands of megawatts, and small modular reactors are pitched as the future of clean energy. Physicist M. V. Ramana has spent his career examining those promises, and in this conversation he makes the case that almost none of them survive contact with the numbers. M. V. Ramana is Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the University of British Columbia, and the author of "Nuclear Is Not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change." We talk about Homi Bhabha's original 8,000 MW promise and how India's nuclear programme actually unfolded, why "peaceful nuclear explosions" weren't, what Chernobyl and Fukushima did to public trust, why solar and wind keep beating nuclear on cost, and whether the AI data center boom — and the reactor deals it is driving — is real demand or a bubble waiting to burst. Chapters: 0:00:00 Cold open 0:00:52 Homi Bhabha and the 8,000 MW promise 0:06:21 "Peaceful" nuclear explosions 0:10:15 Why people oppose nuclear power 0:15:51 Accidents, waste and safety 0:23:07 The economics: nuclear vs solar and wind 0:36:00 The AI data center boom 0:44:12 Big Tech's nuclear deals — PR or real? 0:56:32 Small modular reactors 0:59:21 When the AI bubble bursts 1:00:49 What it means for India + closing

  2. 4d ago

    India's Growth Isn't Failing, the Escalator Was Pulled Up | Arjun Ramani, The Economist

    Arjun Ramani of The Economist on why India's development path looks nothing like China's. We cover premature deindustrialization, why 7% growth is a success rather than a shortfall, the quarter of the world's iPhones now assembled in India, why India adopted America's Google instead of building its own, and whether 2047 is a realistic target. Plus what a day inside The Economist actually looks like, and why LLMs are a baseline for writing rather than a replacement.

  3. 5d ago

    Why Software Engineering Will Never Be the Same | Indranil Tiwary, CTO at Incentiv

    Indranil Tiwary, CTO at Incentiv, on what AI actually changes about building software. We get into which parts of the engineering job compress and which parts get harder, why the abstraction keeps moving up and what that does to the people working below it, and the problem nobody has solved yet: the work that used to train junior developers is the work getting automated first. Also — what a CTO looks for when hiring now, and whether "learn to code" still holds as advice. Slow takes only.

    Why Software Engineering Will Never Be the Same | Indranil Tiwary, CTO at Incentiv

  4. Jun 29

    The AI Arms Race Begins | Raghav Toshniwal on Sovereign AI, China, India & Frontier Models

    Timestamps00:00 Claude Fable gets blocked03:26 Does the ban actually help Anthropic?08:49 AI becomes a national security issue09:28 Why countries want sovereign AI13:30 NVIDIA, Taiwan, and the AI supply chain17:04 Who should fund AI infrastructure?18:28 Are AI models actually profitable?21:27 What went wrong with GPT-4.5?24:20 Can India build its own frontier model?28:27 RL environments and the new data bottleneck30:02 Is this good or bad news for India?32:41 What this means for frontier AI labs33:36 Recursive self-improvement begins35:23 Do AI products have switching costs?40:46 Are we already in AI takeoff?42:32 Why hasn’t AI caused runaway growth yet?44:42 Where do AI use cases stop?50:16 What does AI safety actually mean?52:51 Why would AI become dangerous?56:08 What safety teams are working on59:32 Does RLHF solve alignment?1:00:26 Reward hacking and Goodhart’s law1:03:40 Why safety research needs compute1:07:38 What should normal AI users do?1:08:03 Gradual disempowerment1:11:27 Are we already seeing warning signs?1:13:48 Are LLMs the path to AGI?1:15:23 Timelines for automated AI researchers1:18:20 Can independent researchers contribute?1:22:45 ClosingIn this episode, I sit down with Raghav Toshniwal to unpack why AI is no longer just a product race, but increasingly a geopolitical one.We discuss the Claude Fable controversy, why countries are thinking about sovereign AI, what the US-China AI race means for India, and how compute, chips, NVIDIA, Taiwan, and frontier labs all fit into the bigger picture.We also get into recursive self-improvement, whether we are already in an AI takeoff, and why AI safety researchers worry about alignment, reward hacking, and gradual disempowerment.Topics covered: The AI arms race between the US and China Sovereign AI and why countries want their own models India’s position in the frontier model race NVIDIA, Taiwan, TSMC and the compute bottleneck OpenAI, Anthropic and recursive self-improvement AI safety, alignment and existential risk Whether automated AI researchers change everythingMore on RaghavPodcast Socials :Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/decentmakeoverTwitter : https://twitter.com/decentmakeovrLinkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-dsouza-74542b295/PODCAST INFO:Podcast website: https://anchor.fm/ryandsouzaApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3NQhg6SSpotify: https://spoti.fi/3qJ3tWJAmazon Music: https://amzn.to/3P66j2BGoogle Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3am7rQcGaana: https://bit.ly/3ANS4v1RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/609210d4/podcast/rss

  5. Jun 19

    Ravi Handa: Should You Leave India? (FIRE, Moving Abroad & the 1% Trap)

    In this episode, I sit down with Ravi Handa — ex teacher turned edtech founder (his business was acquired by Unacademy), who FIRE'd at 40 and now lives in Jaipur — to make the case for why most ambitious young Indians should seriously consider leaving the country.We cover two big things. First, the move-abroad argument: why he thinks you should take a decade-plus view rather than a 2–5 year one, why India's growth story can be intact while still being a worse bet for you as an individual, and the quality-of-life basics India doesn't deliver even for the 1% — clean water, clean air, unadulterated food, and education beyond the top 5% of institutions. We get into "scarcity mindset" and "crab mentality," why taxes feel like a raw deal for the top 2%, who this advice actually applies to (and why it's easier the higher up the ladder you are), and why 35 is roughly the deadline.Then we pivot to FIRE — the five lucky breaks that let him retire at 40, why you shouldn't anchor on retiring at 35 or 40, how cost of living in India is "not a monolith" (Jaipur vs Bangalore), and why he's building again despite preaching financial independence.More on Ravi ,Handa Uncle : https://www.handauncle.com/Twitter : https://x.com/ravihanda?lang=enLinkedin : https://in.linkedin.com/in/ravihandaInstagram : https://www.instagram.com/ravihanda/?hl=enFacebook : https://www.facebook.com/ravihanda/YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/user/ravihandaPodcast Socials :Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/decentmakeoverTwitter : https://twitter.com/decentmakeovrLinkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-dsouza-74542b295/PODCAST INFO:Podcast website: https://anchor.fm/ryandsouzaApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3NQhg6SSpotify: https://spoti.fi/3qJ3tWJAmazon Music: https://amzn.to/3P66j2BGoogle Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3am7rQcGaana: https://bit.ly/3ANS4v1RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/609210d4/podcast/rss

  6. May 30

    The Real AI Goldmine Isn't Foundation Models | Bhavik Vasa (GetVantage)

    At Mumbai Tech Week 2026, the conversation around “AI in Action” is shifting from hype to real-world execution.In this deep-dive conversation, GetVantage Founder Bhavik Vasa joins Ryan to discuss why India’s biggest AI opportunity isn’t in building trillion-parameter LLMs — but in Applied AI powered by proprietary enterprise data, digital infrastructure, and embedded finance.From MSME lending and OCEN to cashflow-based financing, underwriting automation, due diligence, and workflow intelligence — this episode explores how India can become a global powerhouse in AI-led economic productivity.Key topics covered:•⁠ ⁠Why AI FOMO around public LLMs is fading•⁠ ⁠The rise of Small Language Models (SLMs)•⁠ ⁠Proprietary data as the real competitive moat•⁠ ⁠India Stack, UPI, GST & the MSME credit gap•⁠ ⁠How GetVantage uses Applied AI for underwriting•⁠ ⁠GrowthSahay, OCEN & embedded finance infrastructure•⁠ ⁠Revenue-based financing vs founder dilution•⁠ ⁠AI-powered due diligence & tender automation•⁠ ⁠The future of invisible finance and automated enterprise workflowsIf you're attending Mumbai Tech Week, building in AI, fintech, SaaS, embedded finance, digital lending, or enterprise infrastructure — this conversation is for you.Keywords:Mumbai Tech Week, MTW 2026, AI in Action, Applied AI, Proprietary Data, Small Language Models, SLMs, India AI ecosystem, Embedded Finance, OCEN, Revenue Based Financing, MSME Credit Gap, Digital Lending India, India

  7. May 12

    Effective Altruism & Animal Advocacy in India - Aditya Karanam

    In this episode, I sit down with Aditya Karanam — part of the Effective Altruism community in India and an animal advocate working with Electric Sheep and Animal Ethics — to figure out what it actually means to "do good" well.We cover two big things. First, the basics of Effective Altruism: what it is, where it came from, and the three things the community uses to decide which problems to work on first (scale, neglectedness, and tractability). Why so much of the EA crowd seems to come from tech, what counts as an "EA intervention," and what the community in India actually looks like today.Then we pivot to animal advocacy — why Aditya has chosen this cause over every other one, what factory farming in India actually looks like (we're the second-largest beef producer in the world, by the way), and whether tech like lab-grown meat is the answer or just part of it.I push back through a lot of it — I'm a meat eater myself — so this is less a lecture and more me trying to figure it out in real time.EPISODE LINKS:Electric Sheep : https://www.electricsheep.is/Aditya's Linkedin : https://in.linkedin.com/in/aditya-s-karanam-84859b10280,000 Hours : 80000hours.orgGiving What We Can — givingwhatwecan.orgPodcast Socials :Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/decentmakeoverTwitter : https://twitter.com/decentmakeovrLinkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-dsouza-74542b295/PODCAST INFO:Podcast website: https://anchor.fm/ryandsouzaApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3NQhg6SSpotify: https://spoti.fi/3qJ3tWJAmazon Music: https://amzn.to/3P66j2BGoogle Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3am7rQcGaana: https://bit.ly/3ANS4v1RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/609210d4/podcast/rss

  8. Apr 21

    Subhash Choudhary | Impact of AI in development

    Subhash Choudhary | Impact of AI in development

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About

Slow takes only. Long-form conversations with the people shaping how we live, work and think — mostly about India's economy, technology, and the people building both. No hot takes, no clipped-up outrage. Just an hour or more with someone who actually knows the subject. Recent episodes: can India really be the next China, how H-1B and Y2K accidentally built Indian tech, the case for leaving India (and for staying), sovereign AI and the frontier model race, and what software engineering becomes after AI. 270+ episodes. Hosted by Ryan Dsouza. Watch on YouTube: @decentmakeover

Information

  • Creator
    Ryan Dsouza
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    273
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Ryan Dsouza
  • Show Website
    The Ryan Dsouza Podcast