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Why Perplexity's founder doesn't think the American dream is over

Business Insider – Tech

1d ago

Why Perplexity's founder doesn't think the American dream is over

Summary

Aravind Srinivas is the CEO of Perplexity. On an episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience," published on July 1, Srinivas said America's startup ecosystem enables people to turn risky business ideas into success stories. Srinivas, who co-founded the AI-powered search engine Perplexity in 2022, was raised in India and moved to the US to study at UC Berkeley. When Rogan asked Srinivas whether he thought this environment existed elsewhere, like in India, Srinivas said, "It's a simplification to say it's not anywhere else," and added, "it's not as encouraged." Srinivas defined the American dream as being "taken seriously" for one's ideas, adding that's "why America's still at the top." His comments come amid a debate about whether the US is truly the best place to build a company. In 2024, Business Insider asked six founders who moved back to India from other countries what led them to build in their own backyards instead of abroad. They cited factors including India's booming entrepreneurial culture and proximity to family. Bengaluru, a city in southern India , has become a particularly buzzy center for startups, earning the nickname "India's Silicon Valley." At the same time, changes to immigration policy have created challenges for founders in the US. In September 2025, the Trump administration introduced a $100k fee — which is currently tied up in litigation — for companies sponsoring certain new H-1B work visa visas, which have long directed talent to the US. Business Insider reported that some founders froze hiring . Dow Jones, "the American dream is very dead," she told Business Insider in an interview published last month.

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Aravind Srinivas is the CEO of Perplexity. Bloomberg/Getty Images Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, lauded the US on a recent episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience." He said the "spirit of questioning" is highly encouraged in America. The US has an incredible risk-seeking culture and is "still at the top," he said. Some say the American dream is fading, but for Aravind Srinivas, the CEO and co-founder of Perplexity, the US is still the land of opportunity. On an episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience," published on July 1, Srinivas said America's startup ecosystem enables people to turn risky business ideas into success stories. "I always thought America's the only country where you can come here and have an idea, and people listen to you and encourage you to go pursue it. The risk-seeking culture is just incredible," he said. "Everywhere else, you kind of are either explicitly or implicitly forced to defer to authority," he added. Srinivas, who co-founded the AI-powered search eng

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250 years of American experiment: What the semi quincentennial means for diaspora

When fifty-six men gathered in Philadelphia in 1776 to sign a single sheet of parchment, they launched what has been called the greatest political journey in human history. The Founding Fathers envisioned a republic built on the radical ideals of liberty, equality, and a government accountable to its people. Nowhere is that ongoing evolution more evident than in the rise of the Indian-American diaspora. From shaping foreign policy in diplomatic corridors to drafting legislation on Capitol Hill, communities that were once outsiders are now actively steering the nation’s next chapter. To understand the enduring promise of the American idea and what this historic milestone means for the communities shaping the country's future, India Today asked three prominent Indian-American leaders—Ambassador Shefali Razdan, Representative Shri Thanedar, and Representative Suhas Subramanyam—about the nation’s founding ideals, its present reality, and its future. As an immigrant, I have lived the promise that in America, your future is defined more by your character, your work and your willingness to serve rather than by where you began. For Indian Americans, it is also a reminder that our stories are now inseparable from the American story, as we are helping to write its next chapter." Congressman Shri Thanedar: "To me, it represents gratitude for the generations who built and defended its ideals, and responsibility for those of us who carry them forward. Areas worth focusing on include ensuring that all Americans can prosper from these changes, continuing to be a leader in innovation, and promoting global peace and stability." Congressman Shri Thanedar: "The next 25 years will likely be defined by intense global competition, especially from rising powers like India and China. America will be challenged economically, technologically, and geopolitically—but it enters this era with deep advantages: world-leading innovation, strong institutions, and an unmatched ability to attract talent and capital. The rise of the Indian-American diaspora reflects a nation that continues to renew itself through talent, hard work, and opportunity — proof that the pursuit of a more perfect Union is an enduring, multi-generational journey shaped by the diversity that defines modern America.

General U.S. News1h ago

The US celebrated the end of a ‘long national nightmare’ as it turned 200. What about now?

A decade in the making, the 1976 bicentennial had a cathartic impact on the wounded national polity Americans: how do you feel about the country’s future after 250 years of independence? I t felt like a proper jamboree – a coming together of diverse peoples who thought they had something to celebrate. But the defining moment of the 1976 bicentennial, the US’s last epic birthday celebration, came two years before. “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over,” Gerald Ford declared in his presidential inauguration speech of 9 August 1974. “Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men.” Ford’s words, spoken in the immediate aftermath of Richard Nixon ’s resignation over Watergate , were intended as balm to a nation already polarised by the trauma of the Vietnam war and the civil rights upheavals of the 1960s. But they also set the tone for a nationwide commemoration of America’s 200th birthday that had been a decade in the making and which, when it arrived, had a badly needed cathartic impact. The 1976 bicentennial is popularly remembered for visual events such as the tall ships parade in the New York harbour that featured 16 traditional vessels and 100 modern boats from around the world sailing down the Hudson River. It drew state visits from the heads of state of the US’s two longest-standing allies, Queen Elizabeth of Britain and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the president of France. Ford himself, in a 4 July speech, memorably characterised the American Declaration of Independence as “not a protest against government, but against the excesses of government”. But the 1976 anniversary is chiefly recalled by historians as an event extolling the robustness and endurance of the US political system, which was widely deemed to have functioned in the face of adversity in a manner that feels distant and remote in the era of Donald Trump . “The 1976 celebration was a more vital and happy one because of a broad belief that two years earlier the system had worked, and we were celebrating a system that had cleansed itself,” said Jonathan Alter, a historian and biographer of Jimmy Carter , who was elected president in 1976 after defeating Ford in that year’s presidential election. “We were in a period of renewal and relief, and today we’re in a period of fear and loathing,” said Alter. “We don’t have any reason to celebrate our founding documents, because we’re living in an authoritarian state that is quite different from the one that the founders created.” The prevailing mood 50 years ago was perhaps best summed up by the title of a book by the New York newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin , How The Good Guys Finally Won, which described the role of Congress and the courts in bringing Nixon to account. Within a week of becoming president in 1969, he ordered a shake-up of the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission – a bipartisan body established by Congress three years earlier to organise celebrations – to facilitate the appointment of his allies and supporters to key positions. “There is a really easy comparison to be made between how Richard Nixon initially wanted to celebrate the bicentennial, and how Trump wants to now, which is that both administrations micromanaged and tried to exercise tremendous control over a kind of top-down patriotic commemoration,” said MJ Rymsza-Pawlowska, a history professor at the American University in Washington. Amid widespread criticism even among Republicans, and with Watergate gradually consuming his presidency, the commission was eventually wound up by Congress while Nixon was still in the White House, and replaced with a new body that promised to support small-scale and decentralised events in local communities across the country.

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Why Perplexity's founder doesn't think the American dream is over

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The US celebrated the end of a ‘long national nightmare’ as it turned 200. What about now?