Aravind Srinivas
Co-founder and CEO of Perplexity, the AI answer engine company that has expanded into autonomous agents, research and knowledge-work tools.
“If you overbuild compute, then you don't have any margins other than reselling it. That's why it's very important to be providing a real application to the end user. Everybody can be building infra, but then you have only infra and no demand for that.”
Newcomer Pod · Startups & Venture · November 2026
Context
Newcomer asked whether Perplexity might resell spare compute. Srinivas says plenty of companies are trying to sell him compute, and that building infrastructure without an application on top leaves you with no margin, a pointed take in a week of neocloud debt worries.
Transcript
So the thing is like... Is
one of those people anthropic?
No, no, no, no. They're doing well. But compute is, like, you have to be in a position to warrant compute. And if you overbuild compute, then you don't have any margins other than reselling it. And that's why it's very important to be providing a real application to the end user. There's some quote, Twitter thing I saw was: everybody can be building infra. Because then you have only infra. And no demand for that.
I mean, Elon's done okay with that. It's been a decent business for SpaceX.
Yeah, but Elon's great. He's singular. But I'm saying everybody can discuss an infra company. So I think you need really world-class applications, and those applications need to be in a position to monetize. And in AI, at least in agenic space, that's where the real revenue growth is coming from.…
Right. Well, look, Aravind Srinivas think we all understand Perplexi a little bit better now. Always more to talk about. I
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