Meter

Most of Silicon Valley's capital is flowing into augmenting software engineers. Anil Varanasi thinks they are missing a critical segment. Network engineers are the second largest job category in technology. 30% are retiring by the end of the decade with no replacements coming, even as data centers multiply and demand for network infrastructure accelerates. The infrastructure every model runs on is losing its workforce, and nobody is building for it. Autonomous networks, he believes, are the only way to bridge that gap. Full episode below.

A hundred years ago, you could scarcely see the sky above Manhattan. Telephone and power companies pulled individual lines to individual buildings, every service separately strung to every address in the city. Then people started asking a simple question: why would anyone move into a building that did not already have these things? This question created the utility industry. Anil Varanasi thinks the internet is at exactly that inflection point. We are roughly two decades into widespread internet use, and the same question is beginning to form: Why would any building not come with a network already built in?

Anil Varanasi grew up in Hyderabad, a city with more movie theaters per capita than anywhere else in the world, and always imagined he would become a filmmaker. He built a networking company instead. Here is what he found: Network engineers are the second largest group of technology workers in the world. 30% will retire by end of decade with almost no replacements coming, even as AI and data centers drive demand for networking infrastructure faster than it has ever grown. So he built Meter. A company that treats the internet the way we treat electricity: as a utility. The idea is simple. Give them a floor plan and an address, and a network appears. Our conversation goes well beyond that. We get into why the greatest breakthroughs take longer with every generation and why Anil thinks organized school for the first 15 years of life may be a mistake. We also cover the lessons his father's business taught him that no classroom could and the films he keeps returning to. Full episode linked in the comments. Thank you to the partners who make this possible .TECH Domains: An identity for builders at their core: https://lnkd.in/e82A7nfp Granola: The app that might actually make you love meetings: https://granola.ai/mario Brex: The intelligent finance platform: https://www.brex.com/mario

The networking industry is overdue for a reinvention, and Meter is leading the charge. A single subscription for hardware, software & services. They recently launched nine new hardware platforms, which I got a sneak peek at RSA: Firewalls (F-Series) F1 – 50+ Gbps, ultra-high performance F2 – Standard deployments, same F1 core F3 – Dual-in-one chassis with built-in HA Switches (S-Series) S1 – Powers efficient Wi-Fi 7 deployments S2 – Double port density, virtually silent S3 – Compact core switch, daily operations Access Points (A-Series) A1 – High-density, multi-device environments A2 – Flexible, cost-efficient wireless Gateway (G-Series) G1 – IP67-rated 5G gateway, LTE failover All 9 platforms are designed, built, and tested in-house and un a single firmware and OS. Shoutout to Sunil and the team at Meter for building something truly changing the industry. P.S. head to m͟e͟t͟e͟r͟.͟c͟o͟m͟/͟a͟l͟e͟x͟i͟s͟ to learn more!

Getting reliable cell coverage indoors has been a longstanding challenge. Dead zones, carrier limitations, and expensive RF engineering create a consistent pain point for enterprises with a mobile workforce. In episode 4 of Meter Pulse, we talk to Charlie Cobb about how Meter is taking a different approach to in-building cellular connectivity with a solution that deploys as easily as Wi-Fi. For end users, the lift is minimal. All we need is a floorplan and we’ll handle the rest. For partners, the model is even simpler: bring us the customer, and we’ll turn cellular into a scalable revenue stream. The full episode is now available in the Meter Partner Portal at partners.meter.com.