leader

The life of a leader is a journey full of surprises. Sometimes it is full of joy while others in pain, pressure. The success of a leader depends on the company of his counselors and distinguished members. These are the key stakeholders and sail the journey. Some of them stay by till the very end while others leave.

Leaders life has every element of human emotions: happiness, pain, guilt, rejection. Sometimes others think he/she is a fool with their approach to a challenge.

A leader has to move against all the odds, continue the journey. He/She has to listen to everyone but cruise on his own with a deeper conviction.

One thing which keeps him/her going is their self-belief and other the guiding principle by which he started the journey. As long as these are intact, a leader has nothing to fear.

option

The lady who sells us dry fruits has a unique smile on her face. She looks so positive. The positive conversation, joke gives a feeling she is on top of the world. Our usual conversation when am I getting married or why I was not in her shop for a long time. She looked at my friend and asked if he is in any pain and he accepted being sleep deprived.

I asked her about this secret of her smile, she opened up. That is when I got to know more about her. She has not been paid for a month. Her husband is in a hospital and recovering from an operation. The festival season she gets no leave so someone else has to take care of him during work hours.

She told me that this is the best option she has for life, other than taking the situation head-on and not to sulk in miseries.

This reminded me of Murakami: pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. What options do we have? We know this life is not easy for us all. But living miserably, in guilt and remorse is on us. Or we can fight it head-on with a broad smile and live to our best.

AI Ethics

I was with few friends this evening, we had some great conversation. One train of thought went on to Artificial Intelligence and the betterment of our life.

I am not a pessimist but am also not a blind follower of the premise that AI is a magic bullet for solving all our miseries. I believe many of us will be marginalized, punished if we will opt-out. The algorithms will put us in a different bucket and treat us with an outsider bias. There will be no choice but to board on that herd with other civilians.

Capitalism being a double-edged sword widened the income disparity. I see similarly AI taking away most of our consciousness. I can’t imagine living a life where machines or algorithms are deciding what is good for me or punishing me for my mistakes.

Some people also say that AI will make us free, give us more time to think, pursue our creativity. I don’t buy that argument, we humans will find something else to keep us and our thoughts engaged.

I also feel there is a need for AI ethics, otherwise, many Cambridge Analytica likes scandals will surface and democracy will get in hands of few oligarchs.

Backers of AI swear by the utopia of meritocracy and bidding. When I am also the marketplace and a vendor, why and how will I not tweak the AI in my favor?

I also believe there is a need for universal basic income. Are less skilled humans a waste, of no use or deserve a life? Or we will throw them like street dogs to fight a civil war because most of our minuscule tasks have been taken care of via AI?

Some also think about increasing productivity and production line efficiency. As if hoarding and consumerism have not done enough mess to our planet that we need to produce more?

Then via capitalism, overburdening with a loan and offering mass discounts we will make the life of rest in more stress.

1984, is a dystopian novel by English novelist George Orwell. He talks about the mass surveillance society, are we not getting closer to it? Is AI not playing a bigger role in it?

Do we really liked to be watched continuously by the machine or cameras? How does it not put us in bracket of animals in some ZOO?

story

We write many stories throughout our life. Some we publish while most get buried with us. These stories are often our encounters with situations, people and adversity.

It is on us as an author to decide what to do with these beautiful stories, carry to the grave like a treasurer, or become an author and publish books.

The last category is of those who live by these in a good or bad way. The encounters of the past haunt them for life or cherish.

What is your story?

self help

Self-help books appear to be the hot sell. From Amazon’s listing to bookstores, they are stacked everywhere.

Have we turned dumber or have become less confident than our elders? Why is the business of self-help getting so much air?

I fell that fear of missing out and belonging to society has a lot to do with it.

The irony of 2019 is that any garbage can be packed and sold as a book.

Socrates must be confused. My discourse for mare mortals was about acquiring self-knowledge, not becoming slave self-help books.

good calorie, bad calorie

Read good calorie, bad calorie last week. This book cites the effect of excessive processed carbohydrate intake in our diet. The author has gone way forward with the research papers, experiments attributing all major modern-day diseases to carbohydrate consumption. We have victimized fat to a great length.

I keep hearing from friends about moderation, which seems too difficult to implement in the era of food deserts. Apart from the food being available on the click of a button. The quality control from consuming outside food is highly debatable.

journey

I was with a few friends last evening, both running their startups. It was great listening to them. Added the list along with. 

  • Things will screw up, get ready to be on the joyride.
  • Live, for now, do not keep grudges. People change with time.
  • Enjoy the moment while being on the journey.
  • Find the right co-conspirator, co-founders.
  • Have a self-belief, conviction. 
  • Things take time.
  • Celebrate small wins
  • Product pivots, people stay. Focus on building a relationship and having great people on the journey. 

A lot many of these resembles with Pankaj Mishra’s journey of running Factordaily 

Connect

I have come to that stage of my life where I am least interested in making new connections. I feel like I am completely exhausted with my real-life friend’s list.

I have a small list of friends and I am happy with them around me. I am finding everything else as a distraction.

I am also fed up with the wise men preaching on various subjects from entrepreneurship, life, career or relationship.

What is the point of taking advice, taking counseling in your affairs from someone who has no skin in your GAME?

At times I feel I have entered into an age of getting a quick fix for everything which is not sustainable in the longer run.

Your situation, startup, life is yours and wasting time listening to some random podcast or coffee meet will only create confusion.

One has to own his/her shit, read, learn, re-learn and engage people who have skin in the game, people who are part of the business: customers, investors, and advisors everything else is a distraction.

The Anarchy

I finished reading The Anarchy this week. I enjoyed reading it and gaining more knowledge about Indian history I also felt the author being a Mughal apologist.

Throughout the book, the author mentions the atrocities committed by the British, the Jats, the Marathas, the Rohillas et all.

I got to know about the powerful Marathas and Mysore, Tipu who were the only formidable forces fighting against the East India Company, the reason being their close alliance with the French.

East India Company was an enterprise with a monopoly, it was no less than the modern-day Google, Facebook according to the author.

How amazing India would have been without British Invasion? Much richer with our culture and economy both. Awadh, Bengal and all provinces would have existed with its own culture like Europe? Or we would have fought battles among others?

Incentive

Product development should focus more on the incentives for their stakeholders. Don’t create a feature-rich product but take end-users requirements to its core.

Most products have more than one personas, understanding it and working towards eliminating the pain would be a good start.

People don’t buy a product because it’s sexy, but because they have pain and your product solves it. An added layer of incentive creates a good moat and delights your user.

Getting lost in competitors, feature set parity and forgetting about user’s pain and incentives can kill any product in no time.