Monday, February 16, 2026

Quick notes: Tariff exemption | Price of Intelligence...

  • India’s pollution is becoming an economic roadblock: The government’s inaction runs counter to its goals. The latest budget cut funding for pollution control. It is all getting embarrassing. In December a cricket match between India and South Africa was called off because smog made it impossible to see the ball. In January one the world’s top badminton players pulled out of the India Open in Delhi citing the bad air (and getting a $5,000 fine). Those who did play sent an official complaint to International Olympic Committee.


  • Tariff exemption for apparel made with US cotton: US–Bangladesh deal jolts India’s textile calculus


  • The Price of Intelligence is Collapsing One developer with Claude Code can now do what took a team a month. The cost of Claude Pro or ChatGPT is $20 dollars a month, while a Max subscription is $200 dollars. The median US knowledge worker costs ~350-500 dollars a day fully loaded. An agent that handles even a fraction of their workflow a day at ~6-7 dollars is a 10-30x RoI not including improvement in intelligence.

    Microsoft’s Conundrum The cost collapse is destroying the seat-based software model. There has been no bigger share shift than Microsoft’s seat-based Office 365. Most of the cash today still comes from Office. The core way of how a human interacts with a computer is about to change, and Microsoft sits at the center of the old paradigm.

    Why does a company need to standardize Salesforce if an agent is just going to query data on leads on your behalf? Salesforce is a form and workflow wrapper, and the form and workflow can likely be scaffolded by AI into a database and then queried as needed.

    AI fears wipe out $50 billion from Indian IT stocks. . . Software ate the world. AI is eating software.


  • Dr Vishal Sikka: At a time when there was no ChatGPT, Gemini, or self-driving cars, Vishal Sikka gave a presentation on AI before NITI Aayog at the PM’s request, where officials of 20 Union Ministries were gathered. . . India's risk-averse capitalism has no place people like him


  • Engineering Talent Pipeline: Elon Musk’s impact on a new generation of engineers.



  • Starlink, a regime-change weapon? U.S. Smuggled Thousands of Starlink Terminals Into Iran After Protest Crackdown

  • Existential threat: The European Union should consider either an unprecedented 30% across-the-board tariff on Chinese goods or a 30% depreciation of the euro against the renminbi to counter a flood of cheap imports, according to a French government strategy report.

  • The long game: As Trump trashes the dollar, China smells opportunity

  • Hindus could be next: Without a Border ‘Invasion,’ Texas G.O.P. Turns to an Old Enemy, Islam. . . . . Muslims know how to play this game. Hindus..?


  • Not everything imported is healthy: Why is eating oatmeal damaging if you eat it every morning?


  • Sounds of Isha: Akka Kelavva (ಅಕ್ಕ ಕೇಳವ್ವ)



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Saturday, February 7, 2026

Quick notes: SaaS-Pocalypse | Claude CoWork...

  • The SaaS -Pocalypse Has Begun: For most of the past two decades, enterprise software benefited from a remarkably stable economic story. Software was expensive to build. Switching costs were high. Data lived in proprietary systems.

    Once a platform became the system of record, it stayed there. Recurring revenue was treated as a proxy for predictability. Contracts were assumed to be sticky. Cash flows were assumed to be resilient.

    AI is now testing every part of that logic at once.

    AI doesn't kill the software directly. It kills the headcount that uses the software. Which kills the per-seat revenue model. Which kills the business.

  • Anthropic's new AI tools disrupts data analytics and software companies: AI developer Anthropic launched plug-ins for its Claude Cowork agent that would automate tasks across legal, sales, marketing and ‌data analysis. That move has sparked worries of an impending AI-fueled disruption of the data and professional services industry, which were once seen as major beneficiaries of the AI era.


  • India's staffing-intensive IT sector shaken: "As Indian enterprises ​integrate Claude for critical coding ​workflows, dependency on large vendor teams may decline, squeezing billable hours and margins. Anthropic’s advanced AI systems also threaten entry‑level talent pool at Indian IT firms by ⁠replacing routine development and testing tasks".



  • 'Start Considering Alternative Livelihoods': Sridhar Vembu's advice to coders

  • Anything but Deep Tech: Indian corporate investment is characterised by low R&D intensity and concentration in real estate-linked, regulated, or quasi-monopolistic sectors with a relative lack of willingness and appetite to invest towards long-term risk absorption and become globally competitive.


  • Indian corporate investment had "flatlined since 2012": "The question that the government isn't asking is: how come for 13 straight years, corporate India has not invested?"


  • A 'Greater Balochistan'? There is growing trepidation in Pakistan establishment circles that there could be a new great game underway in the region to create a Greater Balochistan comprising Sistan-Baluchistan and Balochistan. This is not just a mineral-rich area, but geographically, a very pivotal area.

    A Greater Balochistan will alter the geopolitics of the region, straddling not only the entire Gulf region but also providing a base to access Central Asia and keep a watch over troublesome areas in Iran, Afghanistan and a rump Pakistan. In fact, the geographical relevance that Pakistan keeps talking about comes from its control over Balochistan.

    The Pakistanis are losing sleep at the thought of powerful regional and global players waking up to the importance of Balochistan. Operation Herof 2 and the larger Baloch uprising are, therefore, no longer being seen as a local separatist movement but as part of a larger global conspiracy to cut not just Iran but also Pakistan to size. 


  • Pakistan Faces Crunch As Demand For China-Developed JF-17 Jets Surges: In the past month, Iraq, Bangladesh and Indonesia have expressed interest in acquiring the JF-17 Thunder, according to Pakistan's Armed Forces. Saudi Arabia and Libya are also exploring the aircraft.


  • The United States did not merely abandon the Kurds: It handed them over to terror, to knives, to silence. Allies were turned into expendable bodies. Promises were buried alongside the dead.


  • Why Indian cities are hostile to pedestrians: Annual pedestrian deaths on Indian roads exceed fatalities reported in several active conflict zones globally, underscoring that Indian streets function as a daily warzone for walkers... “Attempts to redesign roads without prioritising pedestrians are a fundamental part of the problem. Footpaths are a default globally, not here.”



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