In 2009, during my consulting days, a team member who was a former US Army officer, once casually told me that she would be running a marathon the coming weekend. Even though I had done long-distance runs, I used to think of a marathon as something extreme. Yet, here...

I have never envied anyone more than this guy I met one evening in 2008, near New York City. He was the brother-in-law of a friend, who introduced us. This guy was the textbook definition of brilliance: Undergrad from Wharton, business analyst at McKinsey, followed by...

Years ago, I was talking to a contemporary from an IIT, who was well-settled, working in a good, stable tech company, with a good salary. He didn’t mind the job even if he wasn’t madly in love with it. During our chat, he started talking about a passion that he...

A private equity fund I know, once invested in a startup led by a rockstar CEO -- or so we were told. The startup raised seed capital of $100 million on day 1 -- no kidding. Flush with money, they had a private jet parked at London’s Heathrow airport. Meanwhile, their...

When I was recruiting during my MBA at Wharton, people said that if an interviewer asks whether you have other job offers, always say ‘yes.’ The logic is that if other companies have offered you jobs, then it shows that you are a strong candidate. But I was very...

Twice in my life, I have worked 6 months or more, without a single day's break. Here is what happened. The first time, I was serving as the Trivandrum City Police Commissioner, facing a near-daily political circus, agitation, and rioting. Usually, my ‘Sunday break’...

A few years ago, at the Gold’s gym in Bandra, Mumbai, a few of us were waiting for the lift -- and yes, I do see the irony of using an elevator to go to a gym 🙂 As time passed, one guy got restless and kept pressing the ‘up’ button again and again. And since the lift...

Last year, when I was talking to a youngster after one of our bootcamp sessions, he asked me, “I have taken up a government job, which I really hate but my family is asking me to stick to it for job security. What should I do?” I don’t give career advice but,...

In Jan 2006, while most of my MBA classmates had secured their summer internships, I was waiting, empty-handed. Many firms didn’t even interview me -- who wants to hire an ex-cop, with no prior business experience? In the midst of a festive mood in the US, with the...

In the past, I have often gotten this question: “Why don’t you use your civil service connections to get business from government?” As an entrepreneur, this is the thing I would hate doing the most. So much so that whenever I have had discussions with investors in the...

During my days as a private equity investor, I saw people making two kinds of mistakes: Type 1 mistake: You make a bad investment, but when you realize it, you accept it and move on. You secretly curse yourself and try not to repeat it. Type 2 mistake: You invest in a...

When I walked into a shopping mall, they gave me 10 plastic tokens. And they said, “Each token buys one item -- anything you want, whether a 10 rupee pen, a 1,000 rupee T-shirt, or a 1 lac rupee laptop. It is your choice.” What would you say if I bought 10 pens?...

A few months after I moved out of the US, just near my erstwhile apartment building, a plane landed in the Hudson River, near New York City. The US Airways flight had a complete engine failure due to a bird-hit and had no power left. Yet, Captain Sullenberger, a...

In 1995, during my final year B.Tech placement season, everybody was obsessed with salaries -- companies like Cadence, offering Rs 10,000 per month or a bit more, were rockstars, while anyone offering even Rs 1,000 less became an ‘undesirable.’ Yet, looking back,...

Quitting the Indian Police Service allowed me to restart my journey, like a fresh intern trying to make sense of the world. I totally loved the first 5-6 years in the Civil Services -- every day was a new learning. But gradually, it became more of the same, again and...