30% Of Network Engineers Are Retiring. What Happens Next? (Anil Varanasi, Co-Founder & CEO of Meter)

“I don't think Silicon Valley knows anything about networking anymore.” — Anil Varanasi

Anil Varanasi, co-founder and CEO of Meter, is building a new kind of networking company for the AI era. Alongside his brother Sunil, he has helped raise more than $350 million to challenge incumbents like Cisco with a vertically integrated approach spanning hardware, software, deployment, and ongoing operations, all delivered through a utility-style model. His view is that networking has remained largely unchanged for decades, even as it has become foundational to everything from AI workloads to real-world infrastructure. Meter’s ambition is not just to improve existing networks, but to make them autonomous over time. Before starting the company, Anil and Sunil were deeply involved in filmmaking, a background that still shapes their philosophy of building with cathedral-level craft across every layer of the stack.

Together we explore:

• The “burden of knowledge” and why progress is getting harder across fields

• Why most companies over-index on technology and ignore business model innovation

• The three ways companies create advantage: technology, delivery, and business model

• How Meter’s trade-in model borrows from the automotive industry

• Why networking should function like electricity or water—not hardware

• Lessons from Japanese vending machine logistics for infrastructure deployment

• The hidden coordination problem behind vertically integrated companies

• Why Anil believes “common knowledge” is often wrong

• How COVID forced Meter to abandon geographic constraints and scale nationally

• The case for fully autonomous networks in a world of exploding demand

Thank you to the partners who make this possible

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Explore the episode

Timestamps

(00:00) Introduction to Anil Varanasi and Meter

(03:52) The burden of knowledge and slowing innovation

(08:18) Losing creativity vs gaining expertise

(10:25) What Meter actually does

(13:26) Early life, immigration, and upbringing

(15:47) Parental influence

(20:03) Film, storytelling, and creative influence

(22:55) Why Anil didn’t pursue filmmaking

(25:44) Parallels between company building and filmmaking

(27:00) Early programming and building

(28:05) George Mason and understanding systems

(29:59) The dynamic of working with his brother as a co-founder

(34:03) His first business and lessons learned (or lack thereof)

(35:15) Lessons from successful companies

(38:16) Japanese vending machines and logistics insight

(41:10) Scrapping 18 months of work

(42:40) Conviction and long-term company building

(46:02) COVID shock and near-death moment

(49:59) Building hardware like a cathedral

(52:25) Rethinking the networking business model

(57:06) Build vs buy and transaction costs

(59:39) Networking as infrastructure and utility

(01:01:30) The case for autonomous networks

(01:03:25) Hiring, talent, and what actually matters

(01:06:15) Big unanswered questions (sleep, science)

(01:07:28) Rethinking education

(01:09:02) Infinite games and long-term thinking

Follow Anil Varanasi

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anilcv

X: https://x.com/acv

Website: https://anilv.com

Resources and episode mentions

Books

• The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Stagnation-Low-Hanging-Eventually-eSpecial-ebook/dp/B004H0M8QS

• Finite and Infinite Games: https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/1476731713

People

• Matt Clancy’s blog: https://www.newthingsunderthesun.com

• Warren Buffett: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett

• Charlie Munger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Munger

• Orson Welles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Welles

• Ronald Reagan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan

• Arnold Schwarzenegger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schwarzenegger

• P.C. Sreeram: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0820269

• Satyajit Ray: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyajit_Ray

• Mani Ratnam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_Ratnam

• Elon Musk on X: https://x.com/elonmusk

• Ashlee Vance: https://www.ashleevance.com

• Dwarkesh Patel’s podcast: https://www.dwarkesh.com

Other resources

• Meter: https://www.meter.com

• Age: https://anilv.com/age

• Coefficient Giving: https://coefficientgiving.org

• George Mason University: https://www.gmu.edu

• You Are Not Late: https://medium.com/message/you-are-not-late-b3d76f963142

• The End of Asymmetric Information: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2015/04/06/alex-tabarrok-tyler-cowen/end-asymmetric-information

• Sam Altman on Trust, Persuasion, and the Future of Intelligence - Live at the Progress Conference (Ep. 259): https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/sam-altman-2

• P. C. Sreeram (Babu Export Company): https://babuexportcompany.com/9381/

• The Apu Trilogy: https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/1145-the-apu-trilogy?srsltid=AfmBOor2rfr6GalePfNZXS7QiljZiehumuoJXvu4TyL2szofL16qrAIp

• Nayakan: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093603

• Marty Supreme: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32916440

• Ford: https://www.ford.com

• Toyota: https://www.toyota.com

• Intel: https://www.intel.com

• Adobe: https://www.adobe.com

• Cisco: https://www.cisco.com

• NVIDIA: https://www.nvidia.com

• Things we don’t understand: https://anilv.com/understand#

• Waldorf education: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education

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