The Story
The Short Version
I've spent 25+ years in technology — leading enterprise engineering delivery at Cognizant for Xerox Healthcare, then founding IOanyT in 2016. That work taught me where technology actually breaks: not the code, but the trust, context, and accountability around it. I wrote The AI Agent Economy arguing that when intelligence becomes cheap, trust becomes the scarce asset. At IOanyT we help businesses decide where AI can be trusted to decide, and prove it on their own cases.
The Arc: Engineer → CTO → Founder → Conglomerate Builder
Chapter 1: The Enterprise Years
Led enterprise engineering delivery at Cognizant for Xerox Healthcare. Learned the lesson that would shape everything that came after: technology fails not because of bad code, but because of fragmented context, undocumented decisions, and no one owning the outcome. The gap between what technology promises and what businesses actually experience — that became my obsession.
Chapter 2: IOanyT
Founded IOanyT in 2016 and grew it to 50+ engineers, building SaaS platforms, financial systems, AI products and cloud migrations for clients across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and India. Built TheHeartbeat.ai from concept to AWS Marketplace — where it operates today. Launched VigilCloud for managed infrastructure. Built ReadTheStructure. Today I run a portfolio of ventures, with AI agents across them.
Chapter 3: The Thesis
AI models are commoditizing intelligence. But AI agents — systems that act in the world — need things intelligence alone cannot provide. I call this the dependency layer. The full framework is on the thesis page.
Chapter 4: The Portfolio
Multiple ventures, one thesis. Each venture tests a piece of the dependency layer argument — from services and infrastructure to platforms and AI agent businesses. Self-funded. No venture capital. The work validates the thinking.
Chapter 5: The One-Person Conglomerate
AI agents are the new workforce. The portfolio itself is the proof — multiple ventures, self-funded, no venture capital. I wrote about what this actually looks like in practice on the blog.
Chapter 6: The Dharma Layer
The thesis cuts both ways. If value moves to the dependency layer when intelligence becomes free, then for India's 63 million MSMEs — the kiranas, exporters, regional CA firms, family manufacturers — the dependency layer is access, language, and trust. That's not a commercial problem; it's a civic one. So my wife Neha and I founded the Svadrishti Foundation, a Section 8 non-profit democratizing AI literacy for Indian MSMEs in their own languages. Same thesis, different surface. The ventures fund what the foundation gives away.
Credentials
What I Believe
- 1 Practitioner Truth: Real problems, real solutions, no theory. Credibility comes from building, not presenting. Advice should be checkable, and proven by a system that works.
- 2 The Dependency Layer: When intelligence is free, value lives in what intelligence cannot generate — trust, identity, physical attestation, governance.
- 3 India's AI Advantage: India built trust infrastructure at civilization scale — Aadhaar, UPI, India Stack. The agent economy's trust layer is India's to build. Read why →
- 4 Agent Scale: AI agents are the new workforce. A small team with the right agents, the right systems, and the right thesis can build what used to take far larger teams.
- 5 Dharma of Technology: The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 3, Verse 35: "Better is one's own dharma, though imperfectly performed, than the dharma of another well performed." Follow YOUR path, not Silicon Valley's playbook.
Working With Me
IOanyT Innovations is a consultancy whose advice is proven by delivery. We help operations and risk leaders decide where AI can make decisions safely, then prove it by building deterministic, auditable systems the client owns. Since 2016: 50+ engineers, AWS Advanced Partner, ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 27001 certified. IOanyT Innovations is a member of Nasscom.
Visit ioanyt.com →Where I Teach
I teach at IOanyT Academy, a free course library with no sign-up. The first course, Deterministic AI Fundamentals, is ten short lessons on why AI answers vary, where that becomes business risk, and how to build AI systems people can rely on.
Start the free course →Personal
Based in Noida, India.
There's a verse in the Bhagavad Gita — Chapter 3, Verse 35 — that changed how I build. It says: better is one's own dharma, though imperfectly performed, than the dharma of another well performed. The Sanskrit word is svadharma — your own path.
In the AI world, everyone copies the same playbook — raise VC, move to the Bay Area, build a model company, chase AGI. That's someone else's dharma. Mine is different: build from India, stay self-funded, prove that a focused team with the right systems can create something that matters. Not because it's easier — it isn't — but because the path you're meant to walk is the only one that compounds into something real.
Every venture in this portfolio is an act of svadharma. Some will fail. The path won't.