Meet Balaji S Srinivasan, the Indian-American entrepreneur who was praised by PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently commended the optimism of Indian-American entrepreneur and investor Balaji S Srinivasan. In a tweet, PM Modi expressed his admiration, stating, "I appreciate your optimism, and I must add that the people of India are pioneers and trailblazers in innovation. We invite the world to invest in our nation, and India will not disappoint." This response was prompted by Srinivasan's post on X, urging the investment community to increase their investments in India.

Srinivasan characterized India as an "ancient civilization that's simultaneously like a startup country" in his post. He emphasized the idea that investing in India contributes to its improvement, drawing a parallel with the growth of startups. In a detailed explanation accompanied by a graph comparing India and the United Kingdom's growth since the 1600s, he highlighted the dynamics of India's development.

So who is Balaji S Srinivasan?
Balaji S Srinivasan is a prominent Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur, having served as the Chief Technology Officer of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and as a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. He played a key role in early investments in various technology companies and cryptocurrency protocols. Srinivasan is also a co-founder of several companies, including Earn.com (acquired by Coinbase), Counsyl (acquired by Myriad), Teleport (acquired by Topia), and Coin Center.


Srinivasan has a strong educational background with degrees in Electrical Engineering (BS/MS/PhD) and an MS in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University, Srinivasan. He was a lecturer in the Departments of Statistics and Computer Science at Stanford. Known for his book "The Network State," he explores the concept of constructing a successor to the nation-state, which he refers to as the "network state."

In 2017, Srinivasan was a candidate for leading the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) in the Donald Trump administration. His involvement extends to investments in Koo, a microblogging platform positioned as India's alternative to X (formerly Twitter), in collaboration with Naval Ravikant. With a substantial following of over 9.62 lakh on X, Srinivasan remains active on the platform.