Carl Pei, founder and CEO of smartphone innovator Nothing, and Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of the search startup Perplexity AI, engaged in a lively exchange of banter ahead of Nothing's highly anticipated launch of the Nothing 2a phone.
It all began on Sunday when Pei responded with a cheeky remark to an Indian user's query. This followed a post by Nothing India's X account, featuring brand ambassador Ranveer Singh's eyes. The post teasing the imminent availability of the Nothing 2a on Flipkart and urged people to stay tuned.
An X user called Raman Singh responded to the post, asking why a brand ambassador was needed.
Pei, 34, chimed into the thread with a response targeting the Indian market.
“We want to sell more phones bhai,” he told the X user. “Bhai” means brother in Hindi and Urdu.
Aravind Srinivas joined the conversation, asking when Nothing will partner with Perplexity AI.
“Carl Bhai, kab hamara partnership (Brother Carl, when are we partnering)?” Srinivas quipped.
Pei, known for his quick wit, countered with a clever response, suggesting a name change for Srinivas: "Only if you change your name to Aravind Bhai."
In a light-hearted turn, Srinivas promptly updated his X handle's display name to "Aravind Bhai" and declared, "Partnership official now."
Carl Pei, who launched Nothing in 2021, confirmed on Sunday that Nothing 2a phones will be manufactured in India. He launched the company after parting ways with OnePlus in 2020. He is the co-founder of OnePlus.
The Nothing 2a smartphone is expected to have a 6.7-inch OLED display, dual-camera module, 8GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The phone is expected to run on MediaTek's Dimensity 7200 SoC and will most likely have Android 14.
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