Simple One

The Simple One has been in the making for a long while. Finally got my hands on a vehicle – and also managed a test ride. Build quality is better than the Ather. A lot of design elements are copied from the 450S – but there are some aesthetics – the front and back panels … Read more

Startup @ 58

Venkatraman Srinivasan did his graduation in Math from Chennai, where he was the university gold medallist. He followed that up with a CA, again getting a gold medal. He then joined his dad’s practice. His dad was into tax consulting – and his area of expertise was in tax appeals. Not only did this require … Read more

Giving

Dhiraj Sinha’s life changed at 50. He wanted to make his 50th birthday memorable. One, he left his corporate career to concentrate on investing and trading. He signed a pledge – Living the Promise – of giving away 50% of what you have – in your own lifetime or in your will. 170 people have … Read more

Reservations

Anant Teltumbude is a civil rights activist – who is married into the Ambedkar family. His wife is the grand-daughter of BR Ambedkar. He stays in Rajgriha, Dadar – which is partly Ambedkar museum – and part residence. Here is some Wikipedia gyan on our friend. Teltumbde was born on 15 July 1951 in Rajur, … Read more

Tribe Travel

It all started with a Hanuman Tekdi walk. My aziz dost, Meher Gadekar, had joined the MS Swaminathan foundation – and has been posted in Jeypore, a taluka town of Koraput district in Odisha. I had missed visiting Meher in Ambikapur, the Chhatisgarh town where he had been working earlier. I decided to make amends … Read more

The Last Fire – Book Review

I have known Zoeb Karampurwala for more than two decades. There are a lot of parallels in our careers – though admittedly, compared to me, Zoeb has been many notches higher in the career trajectory. One thing that I have always wanted to do – but never managed to do so far – is to … Read more

The Seventh Sister – Arunachal

If a Pakistan threat defines J and K, Arunachal is a state that is defined by the China threat. More so, because India lost the only real war that she fought with China, in 1962. The seeds of the dispute lie in the Tawang monastery. During the days when Tibet was ruled from Lhasa, not … Read more

God like AI

Ramesh Raskar was born in Nashik, India and he finished his engineering education in Electronics and Telecommunication from College of Engineering, Pune in 1991. He was an avid photographer in his college days and this interest led him to do a PhD in projector based 3d graphics from UNC, Chapel Hill. Raskar then joined Mitsubishi … Read more

Every defect is a treasure

By inviting evaluations of current services, firms create the opportunity to improve. As the Japanese manufacturers say, a “defect is a treasure.” In other words, by eagerly seeking out your “defects” and studying them carefully to identify why and how that performance failure occurred, you get the opportunity to improve. If you avoid feedback from … Read more

Listening to the Client

My observation of professional firms in general is that they tend to overinvest their non-billable practice development time in categories mentioned first on my list (broadcasting and courting) and, as a rule, under-invest in those activities lower on my list (superpleasing, nurturing, and listening). In large part, I have learned, this is because firms tend … Read more