Give your people the attention they deserve

Long ago, I was attending a conference on drug addiction, where they honored an Australian guy who had dedicated his life to helping people caught up in drug addiction. When he was asked to address the audience, he started out by listing all the awards, honors, and...

Perversion of incentives

A year ago, a startup announced a revenue of Rs 10 crore. And profit? Actually, it lost more than 150 crores! If you are wondering, “In which universe does this all make sense?”, welcome to the magical world of VC funding, my friend! Today, this funding game is...

Building mental models

All learning boils down primarily to one thing — building mental models. During my electrical engineering undergraduate program, we were (involuntarily) subjected to a lot of dense math. At the beginning of the semester, had I seen all those complicated...

Don’t hide from rejection

There are no books on Amazon with a perfect 5-star rating. There are no products that everyone likes. There is no piece of art or music that is universally loved — in fact, Beethoven’s symphonies were widely panned in the day. You can’t please...