The Ryan Dsouza Podcast

Ryan Dsouza
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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. 3d ago

    "The government is lying to you" — Prof Santosh Mehrotra on India's jobs crisis

    India is sold as the fastest-growing large economy. Prof Santosh Mehrotra's answer is that it is a fast-growing economy but not the fastest, that the claimed 6.2% average growth rate is itself overstated, and that whatever the number is, it is not producing jobs. Prof Mehrotra is a co-author of "India Out of Work: Rethinking India's Growth Story", and in this conversation he argues the book's case from the labour-force data: that the count of young Indians not in education, employment or training has more than doubled in a decade to over 100 million; that youth unemployment went from 6% in 2012 to 18% in 2018; and that the absolute number of workers in Indian agriculture rose by 80 million in four years — which he calls the opposite of development, because the point is to pull workers out of agriculture, not send them back. We talk about what a demographic dividend actually is and what it means to miss one. He points out that China's own leaders now say China's dividend is over — that Europe grew old after it grew rich, while China grew old without growing rich — and asks what that implies for an India whose median age is 29 today and where 90% of workers have no pension. We get into why manufacturing never happened here the way it did in East Asia, and his account of demonetisation, a hurriedly designed GST, the four-hour COVID lockdown, and a production-linked incentive scheme he says put 12 of its 14 sectors into capital-intensive industries that create few jobs. He also says what he thinks this government has got right, and closes on why he does not accept the premise that it is popular. Chapters 0:00 "The government is lying to you" 0:46 Is India really the fastest-growing large economy? 5:47 Why a government would inflate the growth number 9:08 Why the north and the south hear the same story differently 12:21 What happens to 100 million young people out of work 16:12 The protests, and why he predicted them seven years ago 21:27 Why the education minister did not resign 26:20 The demographic dividend, and what it costs to miss it 32:21 Ageing before getting rich: Europe, Japan, and no pension 39:07 Is there a way out? "We have done it before" 40:48 Why the services sector cannot carry it 43:16 Demonetisation, and a badly designed GST 49:32 Lockdown: 35 million returned; farm employment rose 80 million in four years 52:09 PLI: 12 of the 14 sectors create few jobs 53:00 China at 31%, India at 3% 55:10 What this government got right 56:12 Is the BJP actually popular? 59:19 What the SIR is Recorded remotely. The figures and characterisations in this episode are Prof Mehrotra's own.

  2. Aug 25

    India Doesn't Need Another Frontier Model | Bhavik Vasa

    Everyone is watching the frontier-model race. Bhavik Vasa thinks India's actual opportunity is somewhere far less glamorous: small, domain-specific models sitting on top of proprietary Indian data, quietly turning a ten-day underwriting process into a ten-minute one. Bhavik Vasa is a senior leader at GetVantage, an India-based embedded-finance company lending to small businesses — in the episode he speaks for its credit, data-science and engineering teams. He argues that standard LLMs trained on the open internet are becoming a commodity, that the unit economics of running them have not played out yet, and that the real economic value is shifting to applied AI at the enterprise level. We talk about why India shouldn't try to build another trillion-parameter model, what UPI, GST and the India Stack actually unlocked for credit, why a digital footprint is not the same thing as a credit decision, why the MSME lending explosion has taken so long to arrive, how GeM Sahay turns an approved government invoice into instant credit for the small businesses selling to the government on GeM — ten lakh of them, by his count, and why he thinks financing is about to become as invisible as payments already are. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 0:46 Has the AI revolution reached B2B? 2:32 We've seen this hype cycle before 3:53 The value shifts to applied AI 6:32 Why India should build SLMs, not another frontier model 9:03 Instant underwriting on proprietary Indian data 10:33 What LLMs changed that machine learning couldn't 12:45 UPI, GST and the India Stack 13:54 A digital footprint is not a credit decision 17:51 If the rails are ready, where is the lending explosion? 21:53 Does regulation slow this down? 25:20 Squaring SLMs with OpenAI and Anthropic's growth 26:38 "You're only looking at revenue, not the cost of operations" 29:02 Is enterprise data actually ready? 30:48 GeM Sahay: instant credit for ten lakh MSMEs 34:30 The future of financing is invisible 35:40 The AI tools Bhavik actually uses 38:18 Embedding credit inside Tally and QuickBooks 40:24 Closing thoughts

  3. Aug 22

    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

  4. Aug 19

    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.

  5. Aug 18

    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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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

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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
    275
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Ryan Dsouza
  • Show Website
    The Ryan Dsouza Podcast