It is robust being a startup founder. For a lot of, simply posting on LinkedIn is a full time gig, and that is earlier than you get into enterprise capitalist events, Slack inquisitions, and hustle-culture burnout.
In as we speak’s more and more polarized world, additionally they must cope with the specter of assassination — no less than of their fertile imaginations.
Meet Deep Prasad, the Canadian engineer and entrepreneur whose “quantum computing” AI startup, GenMat, claims to be creating an AI that may “predict the conduct of atoms mixed collectively,” amongst different pie-in-the-sky wonders.
Most lately, Prasad went viral on X-formerly-Twitter lately after claiming he was shot at twice exterior of his San Francisco lodge.
“They chased me to my lodge and shot the second time after I ran inside and obtained one of many workers to come back out,” the founder wrote, tagging tech bigwig Garry Tan, the CEO of Y Combinator. “We each heard a glock and he noticed the gun whereas I noticed the bullet impacts. I’m nonetheless shaking.”
The alleged capturing got here after a verbal trade with a BMW full of fellows who apparently informed Prasad to “keep throughout the crosswalk” if he would not wish to get hit, in response to the San Francisco Normal, which spoke with the founder. “I stated, ‘shut the fuck up, dumbass,’” Prasad recalled. “These have been my actual phrases.”
A while later, Prasad stated he noticed the identical automobile pull round to the entrance of the lodge, when he heard a “loud bang,” which a lodge employee stated was gunfire.
That is the place issues get fuzzy: safety footage reviewed by the Normal tells one other story, particularly that the “gunfire” he heard really got here from firecrackers.
If there was really gunfire, it could additionally follows that police would have discovered bullet holes within the aspect of the lodge, necessitating an investigation. As a substitute, police supplied ideas and prayers: “this seems like a daunting incident, and I’m sorry this occurred in our metropolis,” an SFPD spokesperson informed the Normal.
Netizens have been fast to show Prasad’s excitable posts right into a meme, blasting him for tagging Tan, as if there was something he may do. “My girlfriend isn’t consuming her greens @garrytan,” one person quipped.
It would not seem like the primary time Prasad’s posts have been of this world.
A now-dormant reddit account sharing his deal with on X-formerly-Twitter has posted prolifically on a UFO subreddit whereas claiming to be Deep Prasad. The account beforehand posted about extraterrestrial metals, UFO particles, and Challenge Serpo, a conspiracy principle claiming that the US navy runs a “human trade” with aliens from the planet Serpo.
One put up hyperlinks to a file owned by “deeptanshu.prasad” containing a catalogue of “samples of supplies stated to have been ejected by/dropped from UAP [unidentified aerial phenomenon], or have been discovered after a UAP sighting.” The 54-page catalogue is credited to Keith Basterfield, an Australian ufologist, and lists analyses of samples taken from occasions just like the 1947 “Roswell Incident” in New Mexico, and the “Puebla UFO crash” of 1977.
Like his crosswalk candor, Prasad’s on-line persona is a bit of sensitive, to place it mildly. The reddit account steadily got here to blows with different customers on r/UFO, normally arguing over educational credentials and numerous ufology personalities. Most arguments descend into hollering about honor and private delight.
“I’ve a giant ego which retains me afloat from being slowed down by naysayers like yourselves,” the account raged in a thread in regards to the state of the UFO neighborhood. “I’ve by no means known as myself the subsequent Einstein, solely others have.”
Different scrums crumble into credentialism.
“Im [sic] ready in your correction of my integration robust man..come on,” the account posted after an extended argument with “mr_knowsitall” about whose physics profession was extra spectacular. “Show to all of r/UFO you dont know jack shit about primary math and physics lolol. I’m ready.”
If Prasad’s e-manners are any indication, it is actually not onerous to consider he rubbed a few pranksters the improper manner — a speculation even he is embracing.
“Realistically there’s no recovering from this,” he posted in a lighthearted followup, once more tagging Garry Tan. “I’m taking the L and the youngsters who adopted me round at 4am in a BMW and threw fireworks efficiently pranked tf out of me it’s excessive key embarrassing however no less than we obtained a great meme out of it.”
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