hiring

I have been following the commentary on hiring over Twitter. Most of it is a rant. As in how impossible is hiring and building, retaining a team.

I am not part of that brigade. I have been on a startup journey for over four years and running a tight ship. We have had attrition, people left us and, we hired new members. It has not been as difficult as others. Our friend circle helped, trusting freshers helped, seeing them grow has been a great pleasure.

Everyone cribs about hiring crunch, and very few hire freshers or allow college dropouts.

What has changed since 2007 is that our ecosystem has gotten flooded with cash, team members have become a resource, managers a Trello board monitor. There is cutthroat competition; everyone is instead of building together fighting a battle.

A founder is busy building Unicorn, hiring his college peers to run the team, creating a miserable culture, and expecting team members to work as a slave. How long will incentive on money keep anyone motivated?

Isn’t an organization about building together? Is success not about growing together and bearing fruits from the success of it? Is a successful team not about knowing the circle of competence among the peers, liking or dislikings?

In the end, we all live to be loved, trusted, and respected. No money can replace this.

doing

There is so much fluff, showmanship, and thought leadership around entrepreneurship. For me, it has been for one reason: finding people like working, spending time with, money is the by-product. Are we growing every day individually along with team and organization?

Our life is limited. Every breath of ours, we are getting closer to death. How much does materialistic possession or societal bumper sticker should matter?

What will you do with all the money; when you have no time to see your wife giving birth to a newborn kid. What kind of successful CEO are you when you don’t have time for your ailing father? How successful is your company when you have to slash salary for the least paid team members?

Those pyramids are heaven for the scavengers and looters in Egypt. What did those Pharaohs get in the end?

permanent

I keep thinking about things that I expected to continue with me in life, our relationship with peers being one of them. We, humans, are a slave to our habits. As as we grow old, our habits and tastes change.

What happens to our brain when we grow old, our eyes, our bones? Do they not get worn off? Once we move away from our home country, hometown: all we accumulate are its memories.

We have to realize early on that everything changes; love fades; money starts becoming meaningless; hoarding becomes useless. After all, none of this matters.

The idols of our freedom fighters are for pigeons to shit on it. Once or twice a year, if municipalities have a budget, it will get cleaned with garland and sweets distribution.

Own

How does it feels when someone walks away from life or when you lose someone? Is it not like havoc?

Do we get mad at the situation or the people who leave us? Is it because of our ego and not accepting reality?

In short, it is our own misery, and we should responsibly move on.

holi

I am home this year for Holi. I think I am home after a long time. Holi has a special love and hate relationship with me. Hate because it would come during exam and love because we have so much to eat. And no one asking to attend the study.

Holi has been memorable during childhood when I would get to be with my grandparents. The eating session would be as early as 6 am with aloo paratha and other sweets. We would have had over 20-course meals as the day finishes.
Post breakfast entire village would be on its toe. People sedated on bhag, ganja, and alcohol would be roaming, dancing, laughing. Everyone singing phagua songs, some beating dhol, some jhaal, or others varied instruments. One day in their life, the pains would have disappeared, their fights among fellow villagers would have taken a back seat. Most of us would have been in our torn dresses as after playing Holi, that will get thrown.

We had some miscreants who would paint everyone in grease or other chemicals that would take days to clear, unlike natural colors. We would look like a rainbow or absolute dark gutter with only teeth and eyes visible.

In the afternoon, our platoon of kids would be in the nahar or boarding pump cleansing ourselves. It would take at least a week for color to disappear. By late afternoon, early evening, it would be time for Gulaal. We would bow to elders, put them abeer, get blessings and eat maalpua, dal puri, and mutton.

Thankfully, I see the tradition has been kept alive with a new generation. I am an observer now, watching them run breakfree, fight and paint their peers. It bought back all my memories.

Holi hai and Rang Barse songs are on loudspeakers all around. This time holi is different, more people, more joy and, feel like a festivity.

purpose

Why are we alive?
What is the meaning of all our actions?
What matters to our soul?

In short, what is the purpose of all our actions? What differentiates humans from other living organisms in our consciousness. But in the world we are living in, we are on autopilot, slaves to technology. With the rise of industrialization, we have turned into a hoarder. We are increasing our material wealth at the same time die finding the purpose of our life.

Hidden Brain is one of the few podcasts I listen to regularly. The recent one talks about the same topic. I enjoyed listening to it. The sooner we figure out the purpose of our existence, the less miserable our existence becomes. It will free us from external slavery and take us on the journey of acquiring self-knowledge. Finding the answer: ‘Who am I’ makes life worth living.

rationality

I wonder if Vulcan existed, would live in it have been better? At least we would not have to circlejerk in fraudulent methods, appease others or take shit for getting work done(govt officials).
It seems like everyone is living in a parallel world; one is their projection: how they have to act/portray in the society, another who they are within, what they want. It is like living in duality with a mask on it.

It becomes difficult to judge if the other person is saying is the truth or just fluff. Humans have more vice innate among us than virtues.

One thing which we lack is hyper rationality like Spock, Star Trek, Vulcan. I am hopeful our coming generation will live in singularity and, life would become better.

glory

Indian men’s team won a bronze medal at the Olympics. For a change, the cricket fans are showering love and support. It is for a few days. Our memory is short-lived. Once in 4 years, we realize there is something other than Cricket in our country.

These participants, champions should make the best of it for the coming few weeks. After that, they will die in isolation and darkness. Because nobody cares, glory is short-lived.

Apart from the Orissa government, no one cared about the Indian Hockey team. The same goes for our women boxers, throwers, and other participants.

story

Isn’t our life a story in progress?
Is it not filled with happiness, misery, joy, or uncertainty?
Every single breath of ours is a screenplay?
Our anger, cry, or longing: are these not some kind of screenplay?

If we take a break, think deeply. We realize it is a construct of our thoughts, past experiences, or upbringings.

We are the writers of our script, our life. We have a limited reel( time) to make the best out of it.

Because it every passing second, we are missing out on the best of our craft.

How is your story coming along? Is it a hit or a flop, or a struggle?

community

I got introduced to open source, free software in 2005-6. I made many friends, fought with a few. We had Linux-User-Group, Delhi. We would hang out at Raj Mathur’s house(RIP Raj). We would talk, discuss and in the end, go for a kebab. Other regulars would include Gora, Karunakar, Vivek, Triveni, and Gaurav.

It was a different feeling that time; when we said community, it felt like being part of it, the togetherness. We would visit and take workshops at various colleges around NCR, Rajasthan, and UP. It was different. I am still in touch with a few. We organized open source events, met over beers. I am still in touch with over a dozen of those folks.

Now when I see community, I feel it comes with strings attached. Either about a product or hiring or money or social media glitz. Instead of helping, creating community, making life better for the kids, it’s about sharing photos, writing blog posts, and getting followers. I feel the community is commercialized. So I try to stay from any of these communities.