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Thursday, June 05, 2025

Desi AI Needs Fire in the Belly: Why Vision, Not Just Code, Will Decide the Future



Desi AI Needs Fire in the Belly: Why Vision, Not Just Code, Will Decide the Future

The recent article from The Times of India headlined “Desi AI founders risk falling behind overseas peers: Accel” serves as both a wake-up call and a mirror for India’s AI ecosystem. Despite having world-class technical talent and a fast-growing startup culture, Indian AI founders are at risk of squandering their potential—not because of lack of skill, but due to a lack of ambition, global vision, and what some might call “fire in the belly.”

Accel partners Shekhar Kirani and Prayank Swaroop didn’t mince words. They pointed to “insufficient urgency and limited global vision” as the twin culprits dragging down India’s AI dream. This isn't about lack of engineering capability. If anything, Indian developers have long proven their mettle globally. This is about the mindset behind the code.

The Market Rewards Boldness

In Silicon Valley, speed is currency. Engineers are not just building—they’re iterating fast, raising capital aggressively, and dreaming on a global scale. Compare that to the cautious, capital-efficient mindset that seems to dominate the Indian startup scene. While it’s wise to be frugal, it's self-defeating to underplay ambition in a field moving at warp speed.

Global investors are now looking for AI-native companies that can hit $50–100 million in revenue within 12–18 months—not in 5 years. Startups that show even a few million in ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) are expected to skyrocket fast. This shift reflects the new reality: in AI, velocity trumps modesty.

What’s Missing? Vision.

Too many Indian AI founders are building great products with small ambitions. They aim for regional or incremental wins while their global counterparts are solving moonshot problems—redefining productivity, reshaping media, or rebuilding education from scratch.

You don’t win the future by being technically sound alone. You win by setting a bold agenda. Vision isn’t a luxury; it’s the engine. Ideas matter. Big ideas matter more.

India Needs Ambitious Founders, Not Just Capable Ones

There is no shortage of engineering talent in India. There is a shortage of audacity. This is the gap that needs urgent closing. We need AI founders who are willing to think in billions—not just rupees, but lives impacted.

We need founders who dream of building platforms that reach the world, not just products that fit neatly into an existing SaaS mold. We need teams who move fast, break boundaries, and are willing to burn with the kind of urgency that scares even their investors—in a good way.

The Path Forward

If India wants to become a global leader in AI, it must cultivate founders who are not just brilliant but bold. The mindset must shift:

  • From capital efficiency to capital leverage

  • From cautious iteration to fearless innovation

  • From local optimization to global disruption

The infrastructure is here. The talent is here. But unless it is married with ambition, vision, and execution speed, India’s AI moment will pass—not because it couldn’t be seized, but because it wasn’t tried boldly enough.

It’s not just about building the future. It’s about claiming it. And that takes fire in the belly.


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