Life is full of opportunities

At McKinsey, when I was once in a really tight spot, a young woman at one of the Firm’s specialist groups came to my rescue. Under an impossible deadline, I had to geo-map hundreds of branches of a bank (our client). But this lady got it done. So while thanking...

Can losing a job be an opportunity?

Can losing a job be an opportunity? I don’t want to sugarcoat or give a feel-good answer. But let me share a few experiences. When I was running my last startup, the first Covid lockdown forced us to shut shop. Within a week, we had no business, no revenue,...

Beyond Exam Charades

During the compulsory military training in Taiwan, recruits are seemingly trained with a singular objective – to pass the exams. When practicing the bayonet drill, you practice a chant for each movement, which is what they will test for in the exam. But unfortunately,...

Simplest hack to grow in life

When I was leaving my last job to do a startup, my family asked me to reconsider because ‘doing business is not in our genes.’ Do genes predispose us toward some professions? At first blush, this hypothesis seems fairly tenable. In the US, I saw that a lot of motels...

Do the right thing

To put it politely – the startup world is messed up. Big time. And we need to fix it. In my last startup, when we were fundraising, we met a particularly aggressive (‘sharky’) investor. During our discussions, they constantly told us to follow the model of an investee...