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The Unpredictable Ripple of New Technology
In a book I was reading, Cal Newport shared this interesting story: When IBM first set up an email system for their employees, they had to figure out the server capacity sufficient to handle the email volume. So they looked at all the communication...
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Shifting Priorities
Earlier, the headlines grabbing our eyeballs would be, “ABC topped the IITJEE” or “XYZ topped the IAS exam.” Nowadays, the more popular headline is,...
Magic inside you
Three years ago, I met this ex-software engineer who returned from the US to take up a nondescript admin job at a private college in Karnataka. He...
Realities of life
Years ago, I hired a journalist (a sub-editor) from India’s top-notch English newspaper to write blog articles for a startup I was then running....
Lost in Jargon
During my stint with a private equity fund, I once got into a hot debate with a colleague about a loss-making company we owned. He was suggesting...
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Micromanaging
Once a good friend of mine at McKinsey was assigned a young analyst for his team. For some reason, my friend was quite unhappy with the analyst’s performance. One day, while I was sitting in his room, I overheard him giving feedback to the analyst....
Trigonometry and Honesty
Today I am going to give you two examinations, one in Trigonometry and another on Honesty. I hope you will pass them both, but if you must fail one, let it be Trigonometry, for there are many good people in this world today who cannot pass an...
Busybee
During my stint in the IPS, I had to often attend send-off functions for retiring police officers. And the curious thing was that people always found good things to say about the retiree -- even when he was totally rotten. There was one officer who...
Secrets of peak performance
I learned the secret of peak performance from a small-time violin teacher in Kochi city. We hired this teacher for my daughter, whose violin practice was going nowhere -- she went to many violin teachers but quit after a few practice sessions when...