From Palantir Engineer to AI Founder: Gyani's Journey
How a former Bloomberg and Palantir engineer is transforming LLMs usage with AI-powered automation
In today’s edition, we continue our Tech Stories series with an exciting guest: Gyanendra Mishra.
Gyani’s career path is nothing short of remarkable. After working at top-tier tech companies like Bloomberg and Palantir, he has taken the leap into entrepreneurship with his first startup, TabTabTab.
Let’s dive into Gyani’s story and his journey from Big Tech to AI founder!
You seem to have very broad experience as a Software Engineer at a young age. Having worked in places such as Bloomberg and Palantir (where you were a Forward Deployed Engineer), what would you say that were the biggest learnings you took from those companies? How do they differ?
Palantir was an incredibly fun place.
I’m really glad I got the opportunity to work there. From the start, I learned a lot. Palantir throws you into the deep end —you get significant responsibility right away.
Of course, they support you, but they expect you to figure things out quickly.
One of my biggest takeaways was how much a strong team can elevate you. When everyone is working hard and enjoying what they do, it becomes inspiring for the whole group.
Another major lesson was patience. In my first month on-site at Palantir, I caused two major outages, yet everyone remained calm. There was a structured process to handle incidents, and the key feedback I received was: “You go fast, but if you slow down, you can go even faster.” That stuck with me. When I feel like I’m rushing, I remind myself to slow down to maintain long-term speed.
Palantir was also an extremely collaborative environment. I was in Abu Dhabi, but the company culture made everyone approachable. If I found a bug in someone’s code, they would readily accept the pull request—ego wasn’t a factor. People were open to contributions, whether for features or fixes, and everything was highly accessible.
The biggest lesson? The power of a strong team and the importance of learning from like-minded people. Also, the value of breaking problems down into smaller, manageable parts. Early in my career, I had a habit of trying to tackle entire projects at once, but I learned that starting small and iterating leads to better outcomes.
If I just do the smaller version of the problem, I could always expand.
What makes Palantir a different place than other tech companies?
Bloomberg was great —amazing people, but it was slow. For instance, I started working on a project in September, and it only got deployed in March, even though the code was completed in less than a month.
At Palantir, I could access resources quickly. Very few compute things needed tickets. There was a strong bias toward getting things done and ensuring nobody was blocked.
The company also had a unique culture of connection. We had this app where you could enter your name and be randomly matched with someone in the company for a chat. One day, I’d be speaking with someone in Scandinavia, and the next, with someone in California. It was an internal app that matched people every week; it was called “random chat”.
Another distinct aspect of Palantir was the work-hard, play-hard culture. It wasn’t uncommon to work late, go out for drinks until 2 AM, and be back in the office by 8 AM. That’s just how things worked there.
Finally, the hiring process was unique. Every new hire seemed to share a strong bias toward action. It’s a rare quality, and it made collaboration seamless.
Can you share a bit about your journey from being a software engineer to founding your first startup? What inspired you to take the leap?
I’ve wanted to start a company for as long as I can remember. Until I was about 13, I wanted to be an astronaut. Then, I watched Pirates of Silicon Valley — the movie about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates — and that completely changed my perspective.
Since then, I’ve been fascinated by startups. I even made a website back in 2010 after watching The Social Network. It’s pretty cringe-worthy — I didn’t even know to put a space after a full stop back then — but it’s still there.
I always thought I’d start a company in college, but I took a job instead. First Bloomberg, then Palantir. I kept postponing, thinking I needed more experience or savings.
Eventually, I realised there were no more excuses. I had enough savings, the right skills, and confidence that I could always find another job if things didn’t work out. Plus, I love working with LLMs and felt there was an opportunity to build something meaningful.
I've been playing with them for the past two years.
I think there's a lot to be done now.
So, in August, I finally quit my job — without anything lined up. I didn’t even have a co-founder at the time. I just knew I had to take the leap. Right after, I found a great co-founder, which was also a huge factor. I’ve known my co-founder for seven years, and that trust made the decision easier.
I know these are still very early phases, but can you tell us about your startup’s core idea? What problem are you trying to solve? Why is this an important challenge to tackle?
Our landing page is live (https://tabtabtab.ai/), and we’re focused on making LLMs more accessible across computers. Right now, people have to switch to ChatGPT for everything. We’re building something native that integrates LLMs seamlessly into any text field on your computer.
For example, if you’re writing a LinkedIn message, instead of switching tabs to generate a response, our tool allows you to do it directly within LinkedIn.
We built a prototype over Christmas, which works using copy-paste. If I copy a LinkedIn profile and paste it into a spreadsheet, our tool can automatically fill in the name, bio, and experience. It also lets users quickly generate personalised messages based on context.
Ultimately, we want to rethink how people interact with AI on their computers and make the experience as seamless as possible. We could build an operating system but we are starting with something thinner, that we can give to people now, on their preferred OS. We are building the Jarvis for the Tony Stark in you.
What aspects of engineering are you focusing on most, and what have you had to let go of as a technical founder?
After Palantir, I worked at Kurtosis, a startup founded by my former manager and a friend from Palantir. That experience taught me a lot about operating a small company. The CEO has been incredibly supportive — he even tests our product occasionally and gives feedback.
As a founder and CEO, I’ve had to focus on more than just engineering. I’m also handling legal structures, equity incentives, and potential fundraising. Over the past few days, I’ve spoken with multiple lawyers to figure out the best way to set up the company.
On the engineering side, simplicity is key. We’re keeping things as lean as possible so that if the product takes off, we can refine it properly. We’re avoiding over-engineering and unnecessary complexity.
We’re also working long hours—typically six days a week, 12 to 13 hours a day. It’s intense but necessary at this stage.
And I think there's a very big difference between being the first employee and actually starting a company, which I now acknowledge. I did not see it very clearly back then.
In the past few days, I've been on the phone with, like, so many lawyers, trying to figure out what the right way to structure this is like, not paid anyone yet, but I know lawyers that I like, and I'll probably go with them.
So I wouldn't know this if I was an employee at Kurtosis, this would all be taken care of. There's a lot less to worry about.
So on the engineering front, I think being resourceful is pretty important. For example, before we started doing this, we were afraid about not being frontend people.
But I think the tools that are out there make Backend people pretty good at front end as well.
As a technical founder, what qualities do you look for when hiring engineers or co-founders? What makes someone stand out?
I wasn’t specifically looking for a technical co-founder, but my co-founder happened to be one. What I value most is intensity.
We work long hours —Vasin (my co-founder) and I are often in the office until 10 PM. Not everyone would enjoy that, so having someone equally committed is crucial.
Scrappiness is another key trait. We’re building a consumer product, so it has to be high quality, but we can’t afford to be perfectionists. If we waited for everything to be perfect, we’d never ship.
We pivoted in December, and I’m glad we moved quickly enough to learn from our mistakes.
Willingness to learn is also essential. We are always talking to users and learning from them. That kind of curiosity and adaptability is invaluable.
How do you stay updated with the latest trends in software engineering while running a company?
We started in October, and initially, I didn’t buy Cursor, but after two or three recommendations, I gave it a shot. Now, I’m hooked—I burn through my credits in two weeks.
I also keep up through Twitter and podcasts. We recently saw a post about Lovable’s MRR, played around with their tool, and then used Bolt for UI design. Our workflow now involves prompting Lovable, refining the output with Bolt, and implementing the designs using Cursor.
We’ve also tried tools such as 21st.dev, framer.motion, Heygen and Speechify.
Essentially, we stay ahead by experimenting with the latest tools and keeping an eye on industry trends through social media and podcasts.
How can people try your product, TabTabTab?
They can try it now at tabtabtab.ai and see the magic for themselves!
They can also email me with their use case, and then I can give them access.
It was a blast!
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