Blog
Words. Wisdom. Winners.
What’s worse than no data?
I am going to take a contrarian view here and say – worse than no data is multiple sources of the same data.
Therein you have killed all objectivity that the data was meant to bring. It’s now subjective. And worse still you don’t know what it favors. Suddenly everyone is showing their version of the data point, to prove their assumptions. To get data to speak your language. And to confess.
If you torture it enough, even data will succumb
Lower your emotional guard
I grew up containing my emotions. It wasn’t for you to share or express what you felt towards them. It was expected that the opposite person would understand your emotions.
By age I have become wiser. It’s perhaps the most important gift I have given myself. I have lowered my emotional guard.
The next time you feel anything towards anyone. Do yourself a favor and let them know. Don’t think of what they will think of you.
I love you
I miss you
I couldn’t have done it without you
I don’t know this
You are so awesome
You amaze me
You make me jealous
You inspire me
You make me feel weak
Thank you
Find your kryptonite. Only then you will be superman!
Why hide? And hide what?
The Industrial Age it seems was built on information asymmetry. People were powerful not because of what they did but because of what they knew.
And I hate that world.
- Closed door strategy meetings
- Getting your colleagues to sign endless non compete documents
- Being secretive about your financials
- Being secretive about salaries
- NDAs floating all over
All of these are beautiful examples of a misplaced sense of self importance. That we know better.
But we don’t.
Nor does anyone else, just because they have access.
I know that if one puts in even the slightest effort, the groupon india financials will be easily available. And it doesn’t bother me one bit. Because those are just numbers. They don’t tell a story. They don’t speak of the effort. Of what it took! Just the same way me knowing Amazon financials will not make me Amazon!
Imagine a world, where you get up one fine day and all the information is available to you.
- Who earns what, And why
- What’s the cost structure of that company
- What’s the next campaign of your competition
- When is the government announcing tax cuts
- Have aliens visited us
Everyone knows everything.
Suddenly, the only way for me to become better than you, is to work harder and smarter than you. I know nothing more than you.
That’s a world I would die to live in!
Rone se kuch nahi hota
Koshish karne se hota hai
Nothing happens if you cry
It only happens if you try
This is what I keep telling vidur all the time
This is the only thing I want to tell him all his life
Lower costs or higher income?
A daily wage worker’s two sons have made it to IIT. He doesn’t have 1lakh to spare for their admission.
An unemployed guy’s mother is dying. And he doesn’t have enough for her medicines.
A middle class topper from a small town can’t speak in English.
A beggar stares at the window pane, as the kid in the car licks the ice cream off the cone.
What will they trade their life for?
Lower costs and subsidies
Or higher income?
Socialism isn’t about equality. It whole premise is inequality. It’s a misplaced sense of self righteousness.
As an entrepreneur you will always have two ways of building an organization.
Lower the costs
Make it easy for the have nots
Incentivize people based on where they come from
Put in elaborate performance development plans for the weak ones
Only train when you are losing
Or
Raise the income
Even the haves will find it hard
Incentivize people based on what they do
Put in elaborate performance enhancement plans for everyone
Train when you are at the peak
The salary of your top performer should be higher than you
And publicly known
More so to the worst performer
Call in sick
There are 2 occasions when people call in sick
When they really are
And when they are not, but wish they were
Look around you
All the successful people
The ones whom you want to be
As rich, as famous, as inspirational, as enigmatic
And then ask them – how many times did you call in sick?
Tendulkar took care of himself all these years
So does Nadal
And SRK
And all the successful people around you
They don’t call in sick
Definitely not when they are not
They don’t ever have to
Never work for something where you have to run away from it every now and then.
You will be fine
13 years ago, in the fall of 2002, I captured a shot through my nikon. It was that of wooden fences. About a km from spartan village, where I was staying as a graduate student of MSU.
I was far away from home, lonely, staying with a housemate that hardly spoke.
I didn’t have any money and the stipend was meant to be saved as much as I could. Even if it meant being stingy.
I wasn’t enjoying my studies. I was acing the exams but not enjoying.
And I didn’t know what would happen of me. All I knew was I had to go back to India. To what, I wasn’t sure
Ruchi and I went to the exact same spot this weekend.
The fence is still there
Nothing seemed to have changed
I wish I could tell my self from 13 years back
You will be fine!
Just because
Whenever I go to the U.S. I am always amazed by the number of “thank you”, “what’s up”, “you find everything ok” and “sorry” that hit me on an hourly basis.
They don’t mean it half of the time. Just as “depends” and “maybe” doesn’t mean anything from Indians.
Classic case of not owning the outcome!
Just because you do something a lot doesn’t mean you are good at it.
Just because you said something doesn’t mean someone heard it.
Just because someone heard it doesn’t mean they felt it.
Just because someone didn’t respond doesn’t mean they didn’t hear anything.
I’ll come back to you on this later
This single statement has killed more companies than
“I dont know the exact answer, but here is a 50% guess”
ever will!
Tomorrow can never be won, if what you have to do isnt decided today.
What fails you as an entrepreneur?
Irrespective of the stage you are at, if more than 90% of your colleagues come to work excited/happy at what lies ahead of them in the day, every single day, then you have succeeded in building the right institution.
Else you have simply started a company
And have failed
You have failed
You have failed
Some startups are so poor, they only have funding.
Subscribe to warikoo wanderings