Twitter handle

I have been more active on Twitter these days. In case you want to follow me, here is my twitter handle: @vkasdeshpande .

Einstein: His life and Universe

When I heard that a biography of Steve Jobs is going to come out soon, I was more curious than excited. I was curious to know who is author of the book and which are his previous books. Having read about Steve Jobs's perfectionalist nature I was assuming, correctly, that Steve Jobs might have cherrypicked the author to write about his life and work - Walter Isaacson. Walter Isaacson's previous work include biographies on Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Kissinger. I would not be surprised if Steve Jobs believed himself to be the successor of these famous personalities in terms of 'making a dent in the universe'.

Reading a biography is usually a better use of time as compared to reading a fiction - mainly, because you learn a lot about human achievements and sufferings and also a bit of our history. I enjoyed reading Einstein. Before reading the book I didn't know much about Einstein apart from his relativity theory and his 'rockstar' status as a scientist. The books explains how he got that 'rockstar' status - well he made good use of his fame to promote anti-war campaigns during war time, never shied away from press and gave then many sleazy one liners to write in their papers. He was very outgoing person as opposed to the introvert nature that people perceive of scientists. He was a german jew who hated Hitler's guts, and unsurprisingly was given first-class treatment in US when he decided to live here. I wonder if for some bizzare reason Einstein had sided with Hitler then whether he would have been as popular as he is today. Nevertheless he was / is perceived as the most intelligent man ever lived on our planet.

Walter has done an impressive job digging through letters, newspapers, meeting second / third generation relatives of Einstein to get useful information about him. The last 150 pages of the book list all the references that had made this book happen. The thing that strike me the most about Einstein is that his best work in professional life came during his worst time in his personal life. He was succesfully able to shut down all the tragic moments (failed marriage / failed parenting) from his mind while working on his theories. Here are some of the highlights from his life:

- He decided to not join industry because he believed that he is destined to do something much bigger.
- He didn't have a Masters / Doctoral degree. He got a diploma certificate from a polytechnic college.
- He did most of his ground breaking theories while working in a patent office, alone and away from all researchers and academia.
- Being a theoretical physicist most of his work are thought experiments i.e. day dreaming about situations that start with 'What if'.

Rating : 4 / 5

Jaya

Jaya is a book on Mahabharata written by Devdutt Pattanaik. The book covers the main story of Mahabharata along with few anecdotes that are prevalent in certain states / tribes in India. The USP of the book is that it has creative illustrations that will make your read interesting.

I would recommend this book to people who are new to story of Mahabharata. For people who are versed with the mythology might find only 10% - 20% of the material that is exciting and something that they haven't heard before. You can still pick the book up for illustrations though.

Overall I am glad I read it as I learnt something new about Mahabharata (even after having read / watched few versions of the story since childhood).

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

The book, written by Rashmi Bansal, lists 25 alumni from IIM-A that are successful entrepreneurs. The book explains the struggle of these people in starting something from scratch. Rashmi interviewed these 25 people and got them to advice the budding entrepreneurs about the paths they should take and the pitfalls they should avoid.
The book is a pretty average read. I would have preferred if Rashmi had interviewed only 3 out of these 25 stalwarts and wrote their startup-survival stories in long and detail. Instead she chose to write 25 stories which after certain point sound similar. Well to be fair I cannot expect her to write a fictional story with a nerve-breaking twist at the end, but then the book fails in inspiring its readers as none of the stories are well-researched. Most of the material has been provided by the entrepreneurs themselves during their one-on-one interview with her. It seems that all she did was to use her own IIM-A alumni card to get access to these people and interview them in the limited time that they could provide her.
On the better part, these numerous stories tell you that a successful entrepreneur can come from any academic / family / economic background. The common factor of all these people is their strong will - willingness to stick around longer with their creation especially during the bad times.

An anecdote from Steve Jobs

Apple Town Hall in 2000:

An interns asks Steve Jobs: Steve, many years ago you left Apple to start Next. But recently you returned to Apple. Why did you come back to Apple?

Jobs replied: When I was trying to decide whether to come back to Apple or not I struggled. I talked to a lot of people and got a lot of opinions. And then there I was, late one night, struggling with this and I called up a friend of mine at 2am. I said, ‘Should I come back, should I not?’ and the friend replied, ‘Steve, look. I don’t give a fuck about Apple. Just make up your mind,’ and hung up. And it was in that moment that I realized I truly cared about Apple.

My latest material possession

I was very tired with my point-n-shoot camera and ended up buying my first DSLR - Nikon D3100. It was an impulse buy and I am glad I did it. Impulse shopping can be so much fun especially when you don't regret buying couple of weeks later. Nikon D3100 is one of the better entry-level DSLRs in the market currently for the best buck. It is one of the few entry-level cameras that takes 1080p HD Cinematic video. It includes 3x 18-55mm Zoom-NIKKOR VR Image Stabilization lens. 3-inch monitor and really good reviews helped me click that 'Buy Now' button on Amazon. Hopefully, this excitement will continue and will help me improve my photography skills.

Another 2-liner

I wrote this 2-liner in 2002:

"Life is programmed by God
but executed by me!"

We ended up making t-shirts, for our undergrad class, with these lines embedded - 1st line on front and 2nd line on back of the shirt. Sadly my t-shirt met its death couple of years back. This t-shirt project went for couple of months and involved:

1) Coming up with about 10 2-liners
2) Taking class's approval on which one did they like
3) Making a cool art of 'a computer controlled by human hands'
4) Finally, deciding on quality and color of t-shirt and everything that went on it.

The t-shirt raised few eyebrows among the public because 'execution' was interpreted in a whole different way by the non-technical people. Nevertheless I had fun working on these lines.

2 liners

Since Yahoo closed down the Geocities IP last year, I have lost my website and don't feel a need to create one. So you will get to read some of my 2-liners (that I wrote few years back) on this blog:

"Life is internet,
I am a browser"

Happy New Year 2011

The first thing that crosses my mind with the start of a new year is new year's resolution. Not that I made resolutions every year and if made did keep them, but it gives a sense of achievement to make one. This year I am going to make a resolution and blog about it, hoping that disclosing to public will add much-needed pressure to keep my resolution. My resolution is to cut down on my 'TV' time. I watch TV religiously everyday for atleast an hour and sometimes don't even care what I am watching. I am hoping that cutting down on spending time with 'idiot box' will make me smart :-).

With this blog, wishing you a Happy New Year.

The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead is the first novel that I have ever revisited. I read it for the first time about a decade back (around 2000-01) and read it again this month. It is one of those rare books which makes you appreciate the fact that humans can read, write and above all think.

This book was a stepping stone to a whole new philosophy of objectivism and idea of how an ideal person should live. The book's author, Ayn Rand, has done a great job putting forward a timeless piece of concept which still rings bells with readers 65+ years after its release. Her other novel 'Atlas shrugged' explains the philosophy even better and is considered as her biggest accomplishment as a writer and a philosopher. I like 'The Fountainhead' better than 'Atlas Shrugged' though because of its concise storyline and precise explanation of 'objectivism'.

I feel everyone should read this book at least once in a lifetime to understand our current world of 'collectivism' and why society encourages it. I don't mind revisiting this book again in next decade or two :-).

Harishchandrachi Factory

HF is a marathi movie at its best. It is based on the real life events of DadaSaheb Phalke - the first Indian to make a motion picture in India. His first movie was Raja Harishchandra and it was released in 1913. Marathi movies usually use comedy as a medium to tell their stories and this movie is no different. HF makes you smile and appreciate even the saddest events of Phalke's life. Along its way HF also teaches the audience about all the struggles that Phalke went through to make a first motion picture. Few take-home tidbits for me were:

1) When Phalke has a hard time finding a female to play the role of an actress in his movie. His friends try to convince him to hire a male for a female role.

2) When prostitutes consider acting as a demotion to their social status

3) When an actor finds it difficult to find a wife for himself. Phalke advises him and other actors to tell their friends that they work at a "factory", that way people will respect them more.

As you can see, this is a must movie for everyone, and its possible with sub-titles.

Rating: 4 / 5

Mrithunjaya - The Death Conquerer

Its in the human nature to lookout for unsung heroes in any field of life and root for them. Unsung heroes exist everywhere - sports, politics and even in mythology. So what makes us sympathize with them? Its the concept of karma - the belief that a person receives his dues in this same life (good or bad) based on his actions. And when you see a person who doesn't get his dues (especially the good karma) in his lifetime, your mind remembers him. I admire 2 such unsung heroes - Sardar Vallabhai Patel (Indian Politics) and Karna (Indian Mythology).

Mrithunjaya narrates the story of Karna, starting from his low-key birth to his heroic death in the battle of Kurukshetra. The book is pretty impressive and informative for ordering all of Karna's life events. And the best part is that the story is narrated in Karna's first-person view, giving the book an impression of an autobiography. It details his childhood which he spent with his foster parents in Champanagiri, his relation with the beloved brother Shon, his love for his wife Vrushali and of course all the battles that he fought. The book highlights few moral stories of how warriors were willing to give up their lives then to break their promises. Overall the book is a very good read.

Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

Extraordinary Stories

A great place to read about what human spirit can achieve (despite all the hurdles that life throws at you): Extraordinary Indians

Narayan Murthy's inspirational speech

Here is an inspirational speech from Narayan Murthy: Life Lessons

This speech reminds me a lot of Steve Job's speech at Standford. Both are must-read.

Murthys and Infy

A pleasant story about love, freedom, entrepreneurship and human values. A must-read article.

Numbers, figures and all that...

Facts got hold of me quite firmly this week when I decided to google curiously some of my unanswered questions. Here is what it looks like:

1) India with the population of 1.2 billion people has only 47 million total internet users. Read the last line carefully, the number belongs to total internet users and not the active ones. The number of active users would be even lesser. Out of 47 million, 39 mill come from urban areas and the remaining 8 mill come from rural areas.

2) The projected yearly growth for total internet users is about 10%, i.e. one will see growth of about 5 - 6 mill users for few years, which is a pretty disappointing figure.

3) Another interesting yet somewhat discomforting fact is that only 13% of the total internet users prefer to read online content in English. Other popular languages are Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Gujurati.

So if you are a tech entrepreneur in India banking on online ads for the business model then these figures will serve a good reality check for your business.

One night at the call center

Read this book recently. It feels like the author (Chetan Bhagat) is a big fan of Bollywood movies and / or was writing his book for Bollywood audience. Having read his previous work, 5 point someone, I can comfortably say now that he has no training in writing (which is not a bad thing). But writing a book as a Bollywood script cannot be classified as a great work. The book is about 6 characters, talking to each other through-out the book. He hardly explains the premise, ambiance or any other details that might help characterizing the protagonists.

I liked his overall story plot that carries an underlying message. However his writing, the execution of his story, lacks novelty. The book has an usual standard climax in last 30 pages, similar to his previous book, and ends up in 'happily-ever-after' fashion.

He could have definitely told his story without the ingredients: self-praise and US bashing. Self-praise is something that he has consistently shown and spoken about to the media (But that is the problem for him and his PR). US bashing is pretty baseless in the book. I believe author should seriously consider studying the IQ of an average person of any other country. To be fair, people who call 'call centers' are the ones who haven't figured out the solutions to their problems but they have shown the traits of curiosity and willingness to learn by asking somebody else. Well I could go on and on with the examples, but that is not the point, the point is that Chetan could have avoided US bashing.

The characters in the book are convincing but the plot isn't (mainly GOD calling the call center employees). The story plot is short, precise and an enhanced version of a movie script. If that was Chetan's intention then kudos to him as both of his books have been materialized into Bollywood movies. But if he is seriously considering to be a globally accepted writer then he needs to listen to his critics more carefully (who will tell you the same story as this blogger).

Rating: 2.5 / 5.0

Entrepreneurship and YOU

While reading one of the articles on TechCrunch I came across the analogy that Yossi Vardi made in regard to the current entrepreneurship. He quoted Theodore Roosevelt from a 1910 speech 'The Man in the Arena':

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.".

Something worth pondering about....

A speech

Steve Job's Standford Commencement Address

One of the best speeches that I have ever heard and the best part is that the whole speech is factual. It has happened to a person who is known for beating all the odds.

Rediff

Rediff has always impressed me with the type of articles they cover. They are usually a step ahead from the others. When dignified news corporations were covering Mumbai terror attacks and their effects on Indian people and politics, rediff was covering different strategies as a reply, for attacks, to Pakistan. When news were filled with Steve Job's temporary exit from Apple and its reasons, rediff was covering Tim Cook (Steve's back up guy), his resume and his capacity to lead Apple.

And of course they always have articles like these for personal development.

Do I sound like a marketing guy for Rediff, hmmmm...