A computer scientist built a smarter pressure cooker, sold millions on word of mouth, and watched private equity turn a viral kitchen hit into a bankruptcy case study. Here is what the Instant Pot did, what it cost, and what a founder can actually copy.
Dr. Alok Aggarwal is the CEO and Chief Data Scientist of Scry AI, a San Jose-based enterprise AI company he founded in 2014. A Johns Hopkins PhD with deep roots at IBM Research and as co-founder of Evalueserve - where he coined the term 'Knowledge Process Outsourcing' - Aggarwal has spent four decades building AI systems that actually work in regulated industries. His 2023 book 'The Fourth Industrial Revolution & 100 Years of AI (1950-2050)' topped Amazon bestseller charts in multiple categories. Scry AI serves banking, insurance, manufacturing, and government clients with explainable, audit-ready AI deployed on 60+ proprietary models.