Raoul Pal: The Journey Man How Tech is Reinventing Banking
Dec 25, 2025
Lalitesh Katragadda, a former Google engineering leader who helped create Google Maps and founder of Indihood, dives into the fascinating intersection of technology and banking. He discusses how crowdsourcing can drive financial inclusion, comparing it to the map-making process. Lalitesh highlights the role of digital coordination for farmers and the launch of Avanti Finance in India, focusing on configurable loans and community ownership. Their conversation also touches on AI ethics and the revolutionary potential of platforms to empower underserved populations globally.
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How Google Mapped The World With Volunteers
- Lalitesh described building Mapmaker by letting volunteers draw roads on satellite imagery and using trust algorithms to validate edits.
- A small Google Hyderabad team curated contributions and mapped 189 countries rapidly using this crowdsourced model.
Platform Generator As A Force Multiplier
- Lalitesh realized building a few bespoke platforms won't scale to help billions; platforms themselves must be cheaper to create.
- He aimed to crash platform-building cost by ~100x and make platforms self-evolving.
Declarative Blackboards Replace Handwritten Code
- Indiehood combines crowdsourced data, a declarative specification system, and a blackboard agent architecture to generate platforms.
- The system auto-writes tests so platforms gain stability as they are used.