responsibility

As a founder, responsibility is absolute.

You don’t get the luxury of blaming employees, investors, competitors, or the market. If the company fails, it fails on you. Period. Ownership is not a title: it is a weight you carry end to end, whether things are going well or falling apart.

At the same time, a founder must play multiple roles. You are the chief evangelist, the one who believes when no one else does. You are the chief supporter, especially when morale dips. You are often the first customer support person, listening carefully to complaints others may dismiss.

You are the eyes and ears of the organization.
You stand at the front: absorbing feedback, taking hits, and protecting the team from the first line of fire.

In the early days, this comes naturally. The founder is close to everything: customers, product, people, and problems. Decisions are fast. Communication is direct. The organization is flat, focused, and aligned.

But as the company grows, a subtle danger creeps in.

Founders begin to step back. Or worse, they try to outsource ownership by hiring experts for everything: product, growth, culture, operations, strategy. Ten specialists replace one accountable mind.

What once was a flat organization slowly turns into a box architecture.

Teams build silos. Leaders build empires. KPIs start competing with each other. Instead of one army fighting the external world, you now have multiple internal teams fighting among themselves.

Energy shifts inward.

Instead of asking, “How do we win?”
People start asking, “Why is their team getting more credit?”

This is how companies rot: not from the outside, but from within.

Time and again, we’ve seen companies fail not because of competitors, markets, or technology: but because of internal friction, ego, politics, and misaligned incentives. The biggest threat was never the external world. It was internal decay.

A founder’s real job is not just building products or raising capital.

It is preserving clarity, unity, and accountability as the organization scales.

Growth should make a company stronger, not fragmented.
Bigger should mean better alignment, not louder internal noise.

The day a founder stops owning the whole is the day the company starts slipping: quietly, slowly, and then all at once.

basic

We often forget a basic reality.

This civilization wasn’t built by people who followed the flow. It was built by people who felt an internal discomfort: an itch to question what everyone else had already accepted. An itch to go against the tide. An itch to attempt what looked unreasonable, impractical, even foolish at the time.

History keeps reminding us of this, yet we conveniently ignore it.

Every meaningful leap forward happened because someone saw the world differently. Not better resources. Not better timing. A different lens. The default world was already running. Systems were already in place. Rules were already defined. Life was already “working.”

And yet, someone chose to disturb that default.

If no one questioned the existing order, there would be no modernity to talk about. No progress to celebrate. No information to seek. No ambition to admire. The world doesn’t move forward because it is comfortable: it moves forward because someone is uncomfortable with how things are.

By default, the guiding principles of society are already written. If our only goal was to live within them, to operate strictly inside what has already been built, then what exactly are we doing here? We would still be surviving, not evolving. Existing, not creating.

If humanity had only followed what was already defined, we would not be very different from cavemen:just with better tools and better shelters.

The difference between stagnation and progress has always been the same: someone willing to think differently, act differently, and accept the cost of standing alone for a while.

That’s how the world actually changes.

Death

There are moments when a simple thought refuses to leave you alone.

What is the meaning of this life, when in the end, we all have to die?

We run through so many hoops. We chase money, wealth, recognition, validation. We want to be someone, become something, own something, be called something. And yet, none of this changes the one hard truth we quietly avoid: this life can end any second.

What truly matters is not tomorrow, not five years from now, not some future version of ourselves. What matters is this life. This minute. This breath.

In reality, we are dying every second.

So why do we live like headless chickens?

Why are we constantly running — often without knowing what we are running toward, or what we are running from?

Seneca said it clearly: our time on this planet is limited, and the tragedy is not that life is short, but that we waste so much of it. We behave as if time is abundant, as if death is a distant problem meant for someone else. Somewhere along the way, we have forgotten this basic truth.

Or maybe forgetting is the point.

If we remembered death at every moment, civilization might collapse. We would stop planning, building, striving. So perhaps nature wired us to forget. To distract ourselves with ambition, identity, and desire. Money gives us a false sense of safety. Status gives us a false sense of permanence. Achievement gives us a false sense of meaning.

But false comforts come at a cost.

Most of our suffering doesn’t come from lack — it comes from unconscious living. From chasing things without ever stopping to ask why. From tying our self-worth to outcomes. From confusing movement with progress.

Aspiration itself is not the problem. Blind aspiration is.

When ambition is driven by fear — fear of insignificance, fear of being left behind, fear of silence — it never satisfies. No milestone is enough. No win feels complete. The finish line keeps moving.

The uncomfortable question we avoid is simple:
If I stop becoming, who am I?

This is where real living begins.

Not in withdrawal from the world, but in clarity within it.

The virtues that matter are not flashy. They don’t make for good social media captions. They are deeply practical.

Presence — actually inhabiting the moment instead of constantly escaping it.
Enoughness — knowing when more stops adding value to life.
Honesty — especially with oneself, about desires, fears, and avoidance.
Compassion — without needing credit or applause.
Courage — the courage to be ordinary, imperfect, and still fully alive.

Living fully does not mean quitting ambition or responsibility. It means engaging with the world without being owned by it. Working without self-erasure. Building without tying identity to success. Loving without bargaining.

You still do things. You just stop letting those things define you.

A simple practice I return to often is this. At the end of the day, I ask myself three questions:

Where today was I fully alive?
Where was I running from discomfort?
If I died tonight, which moment today was enough?

Most days are imperfect. Many are messy. But even one honest answer brings you back to yourself.

You don’t defeat vices by force. You outgrow them through clarity.

When you truly feel that this breath is not guaranteed, greed loses urgency, ego loses weight, and comparison starts to feel absurd. Not because you became spiritual or disciplined, but because nonsense dissolves in the presence of truth.

Life may not come with a predefined meaning.

But it offers us something far more powerful: the chance to live consciously.

And that, moment by moment, is more than enough.

Building the Blocks That Scale a Startup

When a company grows from a four-member team to twenty or thirty people, something fundamental has to change.

In the early days, momentum carries everything. Everyone does a bit of everything. Roles are blurry. Energy is raw and instinctive. But as the team grows, that same chaos if left unchecked, it starts becoming a liability instead of an advantage.

This is the phase where, as a founder, you have to start building blocks.

By blocks, I don’t mean titles, org charts, or headcount plans.

I mean people.

People who are excited enough to take ownership. People who have the itch to be part of a journey where the consequences are bigger and more meaningful than their individual contributions. People who want to go beyond what is comfortable or clearly defined.

I often think of a startup like an army.

An army isn’t just soldiers fighting on the frontlines. Some hold the fort. Some fight the enemy head-on. Some manage the armory from the back. Some make sure food, rations, and supplies keep flowing while the battle is on. Some ensure communication across the entire system so everyone knows what’s happening, when, and why.

Every role matters. Every role compounds the outcome.

A startup is built the same way.

Whether it’s a war or a company, the core remains unchanged. What actually holds everything together is finding the right people.

People who are excited, not entitled. Responsible, not reckless. Humble, not ego-driven. Empathetic, not transactional. People who genuinely believe in a cause bigger than themselves.

In war, that cause is winning. In a startup, it’s building something meaningful.

After more than seven years of my founder journey building taghash.io, I find myself entering this next phase.

I am still learning. Still building. Still growing.

I am not perfect.

And that’s fine.

This phase isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about creating the foundation that allows the company to grow beyond the founder.

At this stage, the founder’s real job is no longer just shipping features or closing deals. It’s about identifying, attracting, and empowering the people who form these blocks.

Strategy will change. Markets will shift. Products will pivot.

But when the right people hold the core together, the company doesn’t just survive. It compounds.

Straight talk 

One of my core responsibilities as a founder is to speak honestly and directly with the team. Not to sugarcoat things or create artificial comfort, but to keep everyone grounded in reality. In a startup environment, this approach may not always be popular at face value, but it is necessary. My responsibility is to run the organization, protect its long-term health, and ensure that we all have a clear understanding of where we truly stand.

At the end of the day, a company exists to serve its customers and stakeholders. The progress of the company depends on how well it solves real customer problems and whether customers are willing to pay for that value. Everything else,”titles, narratives, recognition, or perks”, comes later and is a consequence, not a cause.

This is why I believe in putting bad news on the table early. Transparency is essential. Real progress, whether in a company or in a country, comes from facing facts early rather than hiding behind optimism. This applies internally with employees and externally with customers. Avoiding reality only delays correction.

It is also important to be clear that no individual is above the organization. There should be no special treatment based on labels such as high performer or exceptional talent. Everyone is here for the same reason: to move the organization forward and deliver more value and satisfaction to our customers.

Strong performance does not give anyone the right to push personal demands or ways of working that compromise the overall well-being of the organization. Even good or high-performing employees cannot be allowed to influence decisions in ways that weaken long-term stability. Performance matters, but alignment, discipline, and fairness matter just as much.

In the end, companies are not built on individual brilliance alone. They are built when customers genuinely value the product enough to pay for it, and when the organization remains honest, aligned, and focused on what truly matters.

belief system

We live in a world where innovation happens every single day. Competitors emerge quietly, problems surface unexpectedly, and uncertainty is constant. In that environment, if you don’t carry an unshakeable belief that things will work out, that you’ll find a way forward, you simply won’t survive.

Even after building this company for 8+ years, every day still feels like day one: for me and my co-founder, Sri Krishna. And the reason is simple: only the paranoid survive. But paranoia alone isn’t enough. To last, you must also be a rational optimist.

It’s fine that the world is changing.
It’s fine that new innovations are coming.
It’s fine that competitors are creeping in.
It’s fine that some renewals don’t happen.

None of that should shake your core belief.

You’re here to build something meaningful.
You’re here to delight customers.
You’re here to create long-term value for yourself and team: through today’s hard work, today’s uncertainty, and today’s relentless effort.

Belief isn’t blind optimism.
It’s disciplined conviction: earned every single day.

The Illusion of Charity and the Neglect of Responsibility

What is the point of offering donations to a temple, a gurdwara, a masjid, or any other religious institution, when you are not taking care of the very people you are responsible for?

Your parents.
Your brother or sister.
Your son.
Your daughter.
Your wife.

If these relationships are broken, neglected, or ignored, then what exactly is being offered at the altar?

Charity, in its truest sense, is not a public transaction. It is a moral obligation that begins close to home. Responsibility is not optional, and it certainly cannot be outsourced to religion.

Yet we often see the opposite.

People proudly announce how much they have donated in a year. Their names are embedded into bricks and stones, carved into walls, displayed for the world to see. As if morality improves by engraving it in granite. As if generosity becomes real only when it is visible.

This is not devotion. This is performance.

There is a quiet contradiction in giving generously to institutions while withholding care from those who depend on you emotionally, physically, and financially. It is easier to write a cheque than to show up consistently. Easier to fund a building than to repair a relationship. Easier to seek social validation than to face personal accountability.

In many cases, public charity becomes a way to cleanse guilt without changing behavior. A form of moral laundering. A way to say, “Look, I am a good person,” while avoiding the hardest work of all—being responsible.

True spirituality does not begin in temples or mosques or gurdwaras. It begins at home.

If your parents feel abandoned, no donation redeems that.
If your spouse feels unseen, no plaque compensates for that.
If your children feel unsafe or unsupported, no ritual corrects that.

Real devotion is rarely visible. It does not demand applause.

It looks like paying hospital bills quietly.
It looks like listening when it is inconvenient.
It looks like choosing duty over comfort, consistency over recognition.

No names carved. No announcements made.

Giving to institutions while failing your own people is often not generosity—it is avoidance. And carving your name into stone does not make you virtuous or immortal. It only makes your insecurity permanent.

If one must give, the order matters:

First, responsibility.
Then, care.
Then, integrity.
Only after that—charity.

Anything else is theatre.

And the universe has never been impressed by performances. It responds only to alignment.

Love, Without an Audience

I see people around me sharing posts on social media with their girlfriend, with their wife trying to project to the world how amazing their life is.

And I keep wondering:
Is that what love or a relationship is really about?

Is love about putting moments on display?
Is it about likes, comments, validation, or proving something to people who are not even part of the relationship?

Or is love something else entirely?

Isn’t love about togetherness?
About belief?
About a system where two people are, by default, blindly in trust with each other?

A close thread, strong yet invisible, where two people can share any part of their life:
the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Isn’t love about being able to sit with another human being without judging their insecurities? About moving together, connected at the level of the soul, not the screen? To see the world as it is : not as it needs to be postured for others.

Real love, at least the way I see it, doesn’t need an audience.
It doesn’t ask for proof.
It doesn’t require constant affirmation from the outside world.

It is quiet.
It is secure.
It is deeply personal.

It’s in the conversations no one hears.
The silences that feel safe.
The understanding that doesn’t need to be explained.

When two people are truly connected, they don’t ask how it looks —
they ask whether it feels right.

Maybe this way of seeing love doesn’t fit well with the times we live in.
A world where everything is documented, shared, compared, and judged.

But maybe love was never meant to be loud.
Maybe the most real relationships are the ones you never really see online.

And maybe that’s okay.

Are We Really in Control of Our Lives?

We humans are strange, almost crazy beings.

We believe we control our lives. We believe everything is in our hands, that we decide our own fate. We take pride in saying that we are self-made: that whatever we are today is because of our own hard work and choices.

But if we think deeply, is that really true?

In reality, so much of who we are is gifted to us. Given to us. Handed over by something above us: call it God, fate, the universe, nature, or even some unknown force. Whatever it is, it exists beyond our control.

Who we become depends on many factors that we never chose.

The family we are born into.
The country we are born in.
The language we grow up speaking.
The teachers who taught us and shaped our interests.
The way those teachers taught: whether they inspired curiosity or fear.
The environment we grew up in.
The people around us.

All these things quietly shape us long before we are capable of making “choices”.

Even our interests are not purely our own. A single teacher can make us love a subject. A single moment can push us toward a career. A certain environment can make ambition feel natural or impossible. These influences come from outside, not from within.

So how can we honestly say we are self-made men or women?

Without even acknowledging that so much of what we have is our mindset, confidence, opportunities, and direction, came to us from above or around us?

We may work hard, yes. We may struggle, yes. But the starting point was never the same for everyone. The tools were not distributed equally. The doors did not open at the same time for all.

There is clearly something else at play. Something sitting on the top, silently shaping circumstances, blessing some paths, delaying others. Whether we understand it or not, whether we believe in it or deny it: it exists.

Recognizing this doesn’t mean denying effort. It means being honest.

It means understanding that effort alone does not create a life. Circumstance does. Timing does. People do. Forces beyond us do.

Maybe wisdom is not in claiming full control, but in accepting this truth with humility.

We are not completely in charge of our lives.
We are not entirely self-made.

We are shaped, guided, influenced and only then do we act.

And perhaps acknowledging this is what makes us more grounded, more grateful, and less arrogant about who we have become.

World

Time and again, we end up seeking validation from others. Why? Is it because we are not confident, or is it because of our fear of failure? There is a difference in each one of us; it often begins with how we see ourselves in the mirror every day.

We are winners, we are rich only when, deep within, we start to believe it. Our life on this planet is finite. Every second, we are getting closer to death. What is the point of all the fluff—just pretending to be someone for the world? The mask we wear every day for others is what makes us sick.

The world is within. Feeling good about oneself and acting in accordance with one’s nature makes life worth living.