The Plateau of Plenty: Why VCs Are the Seers of Our Time

The Plateau of Plenty: Why VCs Are the Seers of Our Time

The venture capital game is not about what exists now. It’s about what could exist tomorrow. It plays out in the foggy frontiers where new products, services, companies, and sometimes even entirely new industries are born. This is not the world of proven revenue models or stable income statements. This is the world of potential. Of “what if.” Of “not yet, but soon.”

And most often, this world is shaped by technology—by advances in AI, robotics, biotech, quantum, and more. These are the tools of transformation. But sometimes, innovation comes from reorganization. From remixing what already exists. McDonald’s didn’t invent the hamburger; it restructured the system. It optimized service. It scaled operational efficiency. Innovation isn’t always inventing—it’s often refining, reimagining, and recontextualizing.

Still, when people say “VC,” they usually mean tech. They mean what’s happening on the bleeding edge. The reason places like San Francisco, Bangalore, or Shenzhen matter is not just the talent or the capital—it’s the concentration of context. It’s easier to grasp the future when everyone around you is building it. You stand on the shoulders of giants, and suddenly, tomorrow isn’t so far away.

But here’s the truth: even when you raise venture capital, you’re not winning the game. You’re buying time. Time to figure it out. Time to build. And unless the thing you’re building has the potential to grow exponentially, you’re probably not playing in the right arena. Venture capital is about scale. If you’re not dreaming in exponents, you’re not dreaming big enough.

Right now, we are standing at the edge of an incredible wave. AI, synthetic biology, decentralized infrastructure, spatial computing—it’s all accelerating. The landscape looks chaotic unless you zoom out. That’s when the fractal patterns begin to emerge. Innovation doesn’t flow linearly; it blooms from the edge cases. It looks small—until it changes everything.

But this wild ride won’t last forever.

All exponential growth curves eventually flatten. The plateau is inevitable. But this isn’t a plateau of failure—it’s the plateau of plenty. The Age of Abundance long foretold in ancient scriptures. The promised land. The world where scarcity is a design flaw we’ve finally overcome.

AI, for all its buzz and complexity, is just another tool. A mental bicycle. A cognitive rocket ship. But tools alone don’t determine right or wrong. That happens at the level of the soul. The next generation of innovation won’t just need engineers—it will need navigators. People with discernment. People who’ve undergone spiritual training as rigorous as a pilot’s or an astronaut’s. To wield the power of AI and exponential tech, we will need a new kind of ethics, rooted in wisdom.

In that sense, the best venture capitalists aren’t just funders—they’re seers. They don’t just see returns. They see realities yet to be born. The greatest among them will already sense the plateau of plenty, even as others are still chasing the curve.

And so, the VC game continues—not just as a financial activity, but as a spiritual exercise in vision. A discipline in foresight. A leap of faith that, one day, we will arrive.

1/
The VC game isn’t about the present.
It’s about what could be—the foggy edge where new products, industries, and paradigms are born. 🧵

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 10, 2025

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Poetry Thursdays

"Here’s a wild-but-true factoid: 10 of the 20 largest companies on the new Fortune 500 list derive profit from the 340B program. I guess you can’t throw off tens of billions of profits without titans of industry figuring out how to get their hands on it" (@brianreid)
🧵

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) June 10, 2025

17/ The Pull of the Status Quo

Principle: People are reluctant to change, even when it's beneficial.

People naturally resist change and prefer to maintain the status quo, even when change would be beneficial. This can lead to missed opportunities and stagnation.

— Nico (@NicoSvane) June 9, 2025

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Don’t go to jail if you stutter.

You’ll never finish your sentence.

— PUNS (@ThePunnyWorld) June 10, 2025

He got what he asked for pic.twitter.com/b8yOZNXGjt

— PUNS (@ThePunnyWorld) June 10, 2025

I didn't want to believe my dad was stealing from his job as a road worker.

But when I got home, all the signs were there…

— PUNS (@ThePunnyWorld) June 9, 2025

Questions For Vinod Khosla

What is one widely accepted belief in Silicon Valley that you believe is completely wrong—and why?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 3, 2025

You’ve often said you prefer to fund bold failures over timid successes. What’s a time that strategy surprised even you?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 3, 2025

If you were 25 today with no money but unlimited access to AI tools, what startup would you build—and why?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 3, 2025

Looking back, which of your bets that failed do you still believe was fundamentally right, just too early?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 3, 2025

You’ve spoken about “reinventing society” with technology. What’s a social institution—like education or healthcare—you think should be completely rearchitected from scratch?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 3, 2025

How do you separate genuine transformative innovation from clever incrementalism when founders pitch you?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 3, 2025

With climate tech scaling, where do you see the biggest disconnect between capital allocation and impact potential today?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 3, 2025

If you had to choose between a team with a 10x idea and a team with 10x grit, which would you bet on and why?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 3, 2025

You’ve warned against the dangers of 'conventional wisdom' in venture. What is conventional wisdom in AI that you think will not age well?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 3, 2025

What’s your vision for how venture capital itself needs to evolve in the age of AI, abundance, and planetary challenges?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 3, 2025

🐓🌮 pic.twitter.com/t4ab3uS9en

— Spencer Hakimian (@SpencerHakimian) June 3, 2025

Why Paul Krugman Thinks Trump’s Trade War is “Stupid and Self-Destructive” https://t.co/53p1ViTdsP

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 3, 2025

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗔𝗚𝗜 𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗱. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝘆:

1. True AGI [Artificial General Intelligence] ought to be…

— Gary Marcus (@GaryMarcus) June 2, 2025

US companies have the best closed-source AI models, but the leading open weights LLM is from China, as is the leading open video model, while the leading open image model is from Germany.

The international dynamics of competition in the AI space are not just winner-take-all.

— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) June 2, 2025

wow—blown away by all the love ya’ll
- 220K views
- inbound from real estate agents in Canada, Australia, California & Arizona
- made some new industry friends :)

just beyond proud of my team. heads down for years, shipping nonstop… and it’s finally happening for us. https://t.co/FXi2wIzsns

— Joel Alexander (@theofficialJTA) June 2, 2025

The UK now holds more US Treasuries than China.

Pay attention to what is happening. pic.twitter.com/2SaVc778TI

— Anthony Pompliano 🌪 (@APompliano) June 2, 2025

Why Smart Surface Public Transport Will Beat Full Self-Driving to the Future

1) Advanced Assisted Driving is closer to reach than the falsely labeled Full Self Driving, 10 years in the making; Elizabeth Holmes' blood samples digitized, sound on basic concept, took less time to not deliver. 2) Smart public electric buses might be easier to take to FSD.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 1, 2025

Why Smart Surface Public Transport Will Beat Full Self-Driving to the Future

When tech visionary Vinod Khosla tweets about the promise of Full Self-Driving (FSD) cars, it’s easy to get swept up in the optimism. After all, FSD has been "just around the corner" for over a decade. Yet here we are—still cornered. In response to Khosla’s tweet, I offered a two-part reply that captures the central flaw in this line of thinking:

1. Advanced Assisted Driving is within reach, but true FSD remains elusive—despite a decade of hype.

2. Public smart electric buses are a far more viable, scalable path to a self-driving future.

Let’s break this down.

---

FSD: A Decade of Promises, Still Not Delivered

Tesla’s so-called “Full Self-Driving” has been in testing or "beta" since 2015. Billions of miles and countless edge-case scenarios later, it's still a high-end driver assist system—not autonomy. The fact that Tesla still requires human supervision for a feature called "Full Self-Driving" should be a red flag.

Compare this to the much-maligned case of Elizabeth Holmes. Theranos’ promise of digitized blood samples—while fundamentally sound in concept—took less time to not deliver. In other words, even a failed moonshot came to its natural conclusion faster than FSD’s slow-motion struggle toward autonomy.

---

The Case for Smart Public Electric Buses

If we genuinely want to move society toward a self-driving future, we need to think less about individual cars and more about shared infrastructure. Smart electric buses operating on pre-mapped, geofenced routes—such as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lanes—represent a far easier use case for autonomy.

Here’s why:

• Fewer edge cases: A defined route means fewer unpredictable variables, such as complex intersections, pedestrians darting out, or unusual traffic patterns.

• Infrastructure can assist AI: Buses can communicate with smart traffic lights, GPS beacons, and dedicated lanes—making autonomy easier, safer, and more reliable.

• Higher impact per vehicle: A single autonomous bus can move dozens of people, easing congestion and carbon emissions faster than private FSD vehicles ever could.

• Simpler regulatory path: Cities are more likely to greenlight controlled-use public vehicles than risk FSD cars navigating unpredictable urban environments without drivers.

• Lower economic barrier: You don't need $80,000 and a software update. You need government commitment and a modest tech stack that already exists.

---

A Smarter Future Isn’t Private, It’s Public

If we’re serious about clean, smart, scalable mobility, we must shift focus from the car to the collective. FSD, as sold today, is a technological vanity project masquerading as a transportation solution. But smart surface public transport—electric buses with driver assist and geofencing—could start solving urban mobility this year, not in some perpetually deferred future.

In fact, it’s not that FSD tech can’t work—it’s that applying it first to personal vehicles is a backwards approach. Think of the aviation industry. Autopilot didn’t start with private jets—it began with commercial aircraft on clearly defined flight paths.

---

Final Word

Khosla is right to believe in the potential of self-driving tech. But the bet should be on public infrastructure, not private toys for the rich. The future of FSD is public, electric, surface-based, and already achievable—if only we shift our focus and will.

Let’s stop trying to make every car a spaceship and start making every bus a smart mover.

Why Smart Surface Public Transport Will Beat Full Self-Driving to the Future https://t.co/5kL9sL2IYs

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 1, 2025

Why Smart Surface Public Transport Will Beat Full Self-Driving to the Future 🧵

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 1, 2025

14: Vinod Khosla

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Vinod Khosla

7: Vinod Khosla

Vinod Khosla At Y Combinator

Third Time Watching: Vinod, Larry, Sergey

I am watching this video for the third time now, the second time today. These just so happen to be three of the most fascinating people in tech.



The Google Guys seem to have some First World Problems. The world is nowhere close to an age of abundance. Maybe by 2050 if we get our act together. But now? No way.

Google failed at health, when it first tried. But I hope it is not done. If it can do to health what it is trying to do to transportation, that would be monumental.

Larry saying something about the government being illogical about spectrum. I feel that way strongly about immigration. And quite a few other things.

If being a CEO is about photogenics, Sergei is better media feed than Larry. There's ethics, there's photogenics. But Larry is awesome. In terms of sheer impact, Steve Jobs has nothing on Larry Page.

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Vinod Khosla, Larry Page, Sergey Brin

Source: Khosla

Two Things I Noted

Taj Mahal, Agra, India. Deutsch: Taj Mahal im indischen Agra. Español: Vista del Taj Mahal, Agra, India. Français : Le Taj Mahal, à Âgrâ, en Inde. Русский: Мавзолей Тадж-Махал, Агра, Индия. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Khosla might be legendary to the world, he is beyond legendary to me.

I watched this video with immense interest: Khosla At Disrupt.

I noted many things, but two things I would like to briefly mention.

One, his mention of the 500 million people in India who have never seen a doctor because they can't afford one. He seems to suggest, there's an app for that. I mean, that is revolutionary.

Two, and this is coming from Arrington. When he said even shorter URLs, he was kidding. But I don't think he needs to be kidding. I think shorter URLs are a good option. Even Bitly URLs are long. Instead of bit.ly why not simply b.l - I mean, that part might already be an easy option.

Off to watch Zuck speak.

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Khosla At Disrupt

Source: TechCrunch

Blogger Khosla

Image via WikipediaVinod Khosla: TechCrunch: The “Unhyped” New Areas in Internet and Mobile

a whole new world of platforms, a post-PC era, which I’d more aptly describe as the always/everywhere era, finally, and that means a whole new set of opportunities ..... the cost of experimentation has gone down dramatically ..... raw computing power is taken for granted. ..... What else new has the potential (nothing is certain!) to be truly disruptive or establish a new category in the domain of consumer Internet/mobile/services (which to me are fast becoming interchangeable)? ...... AirBnB and Instagram would be examples of companies whose categories existed prior to their entry, but they are meaningfully different. ...... I call them the “unhyped dozen” (to go with my energy investing activities, which I call the “clean dozen”) ...... (1) Data Reduction or Filters (Siri) (2) Big data or Analytics ... There will be countless new types of data streams .... Much has been written about big data and it and may be getting past the unhyped label! (3) Emotion (Foodspotting, Ness, Instagram) (4) Education 2.0 (Khan Academy) ... “Education models that dramatically reduce the cost and increase the availability of quality learning.” The puzzling question is why education has not already changed. (5) TV 2.0 (6) Social Next (7) Interest-based networks (Twitter) (8) Health 2.0 (9) Internet of Things/Universal ID/NFC/Smart sensors.... The network of things is supposedly growing faster than any other network, social or otherwise. (10) Personal Collaborative Publishing (Pinterest, Tumblr) ... Self-publishing on Amazon is becoming real, removing the gateway of traditional editors and the tax of traditional business models. Where will this lead? Books, especially non-fiction, can become more interactive, crowdsourced (ck12.org), social and collaborative. (11) Utility Apps (Siri) (12) Marketplaces & Disintermediation (Etsy) .... Why does Tom Freidman need The New York Times to get readers ................. We as investors have seen Square take off at an unprecedented rate (so far) for a payments startup, but in terms of relative scale, even Square is dwarfed by Mpesa — it is 20% of Kenya’s GDP already (using a totally different model than Square). Meanwhile in India, their UID system could remake the concept of “cash”....... Tools and services that used to be inaccessible to all but large manufacturers are now available to everyone. Foreign factories that were impenetrable before are now an email away. Design software costing thousands of dollars per seat is freely available (or very cheap). Hackers are mixing all of these elements together and re-imagining entire industries from the ground up. ..... the next industrial revolution ...... “The under 25” who don’t know what they don’t know, mostly have not worked at what traditionalists would call a “real job” and are not afraid to try new things ..... the rate of change is accelerating and the possibilities are endless!

The Clean Dozen
Artificial Intelligence
Teachers Or Algorithms

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Vinod Khosla At MIT
When Vinod Khosla Took A Break From Tweeting
Vinod Khosla's Entry Into New York City
Vinod Khosla: For Profit Poverty Alleviation
Vinod Khosla's Green Tech Sweep
The Microfinance Fishing Net

Vinod Khosla At MIT

When Vinod Khosla Took A Break From Tweeting

I sent out a tweet to Vinod Khosla. Chances are he never saw it. But for a guy who had been tweeting near daily to that point took two weeks off after that. That is not a good sign.

Normal People Easy To Get Along With

Image via Wikipedia

Fred Wilson: Difficult Is Good: He then said, "sometimes we make money with brilliant people who are easy to get along with, most often we make money with brilliant people who are hard to get along with, but we rarely make money with normal people who are easy to get along with."

I am so not a VC. I am on the other side. Fred Wilson's best MBA Monday post - according to me - is one where he got an entrepreneur - Charlie - to relate his story.

This quote from Dan Valentine makes total sense to me. And I understand it 100%.

The best entrepreneurs tackle the biggest problems. Those problems are, by definition, badass. Others have not touched them because they are big and bad. But we operate in paradigms. You already know what a McDonald's burger looks like. That is a paradigm. That gives you peace of mind. You know.

Who Owns The Company?

Image via WikipediaI have been meaning to write this blog post for a while now, months, possibly over a year. Finally I am getting around to it. It has become urgent. I have a pre-launch startup.

For conventional wisdom I am going to refer to this, but later.

Mark Peter Davis: Entrepreneur's Guide To Raising Venture Capital

I do know Mark, but that is not why. And this might or might not be the best guide out there to venture capital. But I expect it to be sufficiently good to provide me with the framework of the venture capital business as it stands today. But I have made a point not to read through his posts. I want to express my thoughts before I get corrupted by conventional wisdom.

So who owns the company? Just like I have a bias for Founder CEOs, I have a bias for startups that will go IPO. And it is those two scenarios that I have in mind. So my thoughts might not resonate with startups with other kinds of exits, which ends up being most startups.

Non Profit Microfinance Vs For Profit Microfinance: The Stupid Debate

Image via WikipediaThere has been a stupid debate going on for a few years now that has taken new life the past few months. There is a school of thought that says microfinance can be non profit and non profit alone.

There has been some serious abuse of microfinance. A lot of MFIs - microfinance institutions - have been messing up the last mile in serious ways. Charging ridiculously high rates is one of them. Some debt collection methods have been shady.

Needed: A Napkin Keyboard

I was just reading this fabulous blog post that I first spotted in Vinod Khosla's Twitter stream.

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250K Or 500K: How Much To Raise?

Image via WikipediaI am in mind to raise 250K from Union Square Ventures. That would be my first choice. I can guarantee you I can get Fred Wilson to give me 15 minutes of his time any day for me to able to pitch him. That much I know. But the deal is up in the air. I am not going to assume it will happen. That part is not in my control. What is in my control is I am going to leave no stone unturned to get him. My part is in my control.

Serenity Prayer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another idea that is being floated by some people on my team is that I raise 500K, but without giving equity. It would be like I get 500K, and in my next round - which could happen in as little as six months - I give that money a 600K valuation. I would be very open to that.

The Stink From The New York Times

Image via CrunchBaseNetflix has a market value of $10 billion. The New York Times has a market value of barely one billion dollars. Articles like this one are the reason why. This feels like a hachet job done by a Vinod Khosla enemy.

The title of the article itself is so out of the whack. The microfinance industry in India is nowhere close to collapsing. Not even close. The article itself talks about how 1% of those who borrowed the money might no longer be able to pay. That is not a collapse. That is an excellent default rate. The default rates at big New York City banks that rich people and companies borrow from are much higher. And I am talking pre Great Recession numbers.
Image via CrunchBase
Just like the default rate remains low, yes, there are borrowers who have committed suicide because they could not pay back. But the article makes it sound like the microfinance industry in India has given rise to a country wide epidemic of suicides. People are committing suicide left and right by the roadside. That would be like taking the news of one Congresswoman in Arizona getting shot and making it sound like now there was a raging civil war in America.