Poor corporate governance

At the private equity fund where I last worked, in about half the investments where we lost money, the culprit was fraud by the promoters (i.e., company owners). In some cases, the promoters blatantly stole more than a hundred crores, but shockingly, not one guy went...

Commitment of Leadership

For all practical purposes, my first job out of college was to head the Trivandrum City Police as its Commissioner. Prior to that, I had only undergone the IPS training and done a piddly 7 months in a field assignment. But compared to me, my ACPs were battle-hardened...

Overcome envy

Envy is an amazing thing. I never envy the British Queen, who has inherited this massive fortune and privilege without having worked for it for even a day. Yet, if our classmates get ahead and do really well in life, we feel a tinge of envy. And the fact remains that...

Freedom

When I left my last job to do a startup, a new reality hit me – no more Car Club pickups, business class flights, expensive hotels, or unlimited travel budget. On the next flight, when I walked into the economy section, it felt a bit weird. But pretty soon, I got used...

Conviction

In early 2009, I attended a townhall at McKinsey. This was just a few months after Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy, and the US was still in the midst of a horrible recession. The partners running the meeting assured us that all was well – in fact, McKinsey did not lay off...