10 months ago, I left Bangalore for Mumbai. Today, I've moved back.
Some notes on why:
Why I left
Last year, I was working as a researcher in the crypto industry (at Decentralised). I spent most of my day reading and (begrudgingly) writing. We had fewer than one hour of team calls per week. I worked mostly from home and occasionally from a cafe. My work was solitary and simply didn't require meeting other people. And as an introvert who loves his own company, I didn't go out of my way to be among others either.
I'm a tech bro who has consumed copious amounts of Naval and other Silicon Valley philosophy. I'd heard a million times in a million forms that where you live matters, that you become the average of the people you spend time with, and that location and relationships compound. I knew it all in theory. But because of my circumstances (role and natural aversion to meeting people), I never truly experienced the benefits of any of this.
My family and partner were based in Mumbai and had been pushing me to move back for a while. I'd become location-agnostic, so I gave in and moved. It made sense at the time.
Why I'm back
Once I moved to Mumbai, several things happened. First, beyond writing, I started building products at Decentralised. When these products gained solid traction, I decided to leave my job and build on my own full time. After quitting, I spent two months in San Francisco.
Being in SF and trying to build things is when all those lessons about cities, compounding, and the people you spend time with finally clicked. There were builders everywhere, and an infectious energy that permeated the air and rubbed off on me. I worked harder, longer, and smarter than I ever had. It was easy to "lock in."
There were also the conversations. Because everyone you meet shares your interests (AI/tech/startups), you share a vocabulary. You could bump into a random person at a cafe and start dissecting OpenAI's o3 release without skipping a beat. There are very few places in the world where that happens.
After two wonderful months in SF, I returned to Mumbai with a clear mandate for myself: figure out a sustainable way to permanently move to SF. I thought the builder energy I'd absorbed would sustain me for a few months.
As you may sense, that didn't happen. Instead, I woke up most mornings demotivated and depressed. Some of it stemmed from my abstract product visions not materializing (creation is not birth; it is murder), leading to a lack of direction. But the bigger reason was intellectual isolation. I love Mumbai—it's an intense and creative city—but it lacks a high density of tech talent. There are great people and startups, but they're dispersed across a city of 20 million. The chances of a serendipitous tech encounter are slim. Curating a circle of like-minded people would require intention and bandwidth that's simply not in my nature.
Initially, even contemplating a move back to Bangalore was psychologically difficult. It's not easy or fun uprooting your life, lifestyle, and relationships constantly—especially when I'd just made the reverse move less than a year ago. When I first faced this reality, I lied to myself, searching for reasons to convince myself I could achieve what I wanted in Mumbai. In hindsight, I was avoiding pain: the pain of admitting I might have made the wrong move, of relocating again, and of the tough conversations ahead with loved ones.
But once the seed was planted, I woke up every morning feeling like I was in the wrong place. Eventually, the situation became untenable. I had to face reality. Moving back was the only option. After a frantic few days of house hunting, arranging logistics, and painful conversations and goodbyes, I'm back.
And twelve hours in, it feels right.
I'm excited to be among the most talented and passionate builders in the country. I'm currently interested in memory for AI, personal AI apps and wearables, and LLM personality. If you're working on any of this—or anything interesting at all—I'd love to meet you.