Everyone’s interested in money. No one denies it’s importance. But how many really understand it’s significance and replaceability? Or it’s origin?
Paul Graham, in his fantastic set of essays, talks about Creation of Wealth and not money. In it is a short history course on the significance that I’m highlighting here today.
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The definition of Wealth
The advantage of a medium of exchange is that it makes trade work. The disadvantage is that it tends to obscure what trade really means. People think that what a business does is make money. But money is just the intermediate stage– just a shorthand– for whatever people want. What most businesses really do is make wealth. They do something people want.
From Barter to two trade exchange
Money is a side effect of specialization. In a specialized society, most of the things you need, you can’t make for yourself. If you want a potato or a pencil or a place to live, you have to get it from someone else.
How do you get the person who grows the potatoes to give you some? By giving him something he wants in return. But you can’t get very far by trading things directly with the people who need them. If you make violins, and none of the local farmers wants one, how will you eat?
The solution societies find, as they get more specialized, is to make the trade into a two-step process. Instead of trading violins directly for potatoes, you trade violins for, say, silver, which you can then trade again for anything else you need. The intermediate stuff– the medium of exchange– can be anything that’s rare and portable.
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Metals are considered both rare and portable. Hence they became the medium of exchange. We have dollars now as the medium but it’s not a “physical” thing. It’s just another medium. Concentrate on the commodity not on the medium.
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I always thought taking notes were important. I’m a overdrive note taker. I believe it reinforces your thought and drills down the basics when you read it. It also helps that you can often reflect back on the single most important point. Over the years I have gotten better at taking notes and I’m currently compiling a post to give you my best practices. Here Caterina Fake, the co founder of Flickr, gives some wisdom into her productivity and thinking.
On the importance of notes.
I think it’s a sickness in business to always try to do more things in less time. I try to spend more time. People read all this information and think they’ve accomplished something, but what have they really taken in? What can you take in that’s important in 140 characters? I read books and articles, and I take a lot of notes. I put stickies in passages I find interesting, and later I write them into my notes, because that reinforces them in my memory. And I’ll make a point of going back and rereading them. Otherwise it’s like cramming for a test in high school where you don’t retain any of the material.
On prioritizing tasks
I have a to-do list so I don’t forget things. But I don’t prioritize tasks. I just know what needs to be done, and I check tasks off in the order I do them. Sometimes I feel like checking off all the little things. Mail this letter. Respond to this e-mail. Sometimes I want to figure out the entire strategy for 2010. As long as everything gets done, it doesn’t matter in what order.
On innovative meetings.
Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’ two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don’t have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom.
If there is but one passionate evangelist of the Microsoft company, it’s GOT to be Steve Ballmer. Current CEO of perhaps the largest company in technology.
An interesting thing is Steve Ballmer was employee number 24 for Microsoft. And his birthdate? March 24th. Seems like an astrological connection there. In 2009 he took over the reigns as CEO from Bill Gates.
The most visible thing about Steve Ballmer is his spirited energy. He’s not a quiet guy. He’s not a small guy either at 6′ 4″. Thus makes for fascinating stuff. If you haven’t seen his developers talk or the interview with Guy Kawasaki I’d urge you to have a look.
This post however talks about the wisdom he imparts to the students of Stanford, a school which he dropped out of in the 2nd year, on the stages of Business a company goes through. He began with saying that Microsoft is a two trick pony. They have mastered Desktops and Servers. Google, on the other hand, is a one trick pony -Search and Advertising. What most companies do is to get that one trick right and then have development areas around that. Ballmer calls these “cute things” that businesses do.
1st is the Idea and its implementation Get an idea, implement and execute it. Get it to ship-it ready.
2nd is is the scaling of the idea (getting it to critical mass) Taking the business from 0 to 100 (million dollars). That’s the sort of idea you start with.
3rd is milking the idea for all it’s worth (cashing in on the idea). This is where you cash in on the idea which is at the stage Google is at according to Ballmer.
4th is fostering a culture to get new ideas (exploration) Build on other ideas. Which to Microsoft was Server Enterprise after Desktop.
I thought those were great insights. Watch the full talk here.
“I will never win an Oscar and do you know why? First of all, because I’m not Jewish. Secondly, because I make too much money for those old farts in the Academy. Thirdly, and most importantly, because I don’t give a fuck”
- Clint Eastwood
Lessons you say? From one quote? Let me indulge you.
To be successful in certain areas you need to be “part of the group“. The group he calls Jews who praise each other, encourage each other. As Micheal Douglas says in WallStreet, “Buddy if you aren’t in then you are out”.
Most people talking about success or what their perceived version of success and talking the loudest are off the mark. Success lies with 3 people. Fame, Value and Power. If I were to take the music world and spout out three examples I’d probably choose
Fame – Paris Hilton Value – BB King (to the Jazz industry by revolutionising it) Power – JayZ (or U2′s Bono if you’d prefer)
See how they scale? Where would you like to be? Do you dream about doing something but are too afraid to take a step on what those at the fame ladder are saying?
Read the third and most important point in Clint Eastwood’s quote.
A friend jumped on me recently. “Why do you keep writing this self help bullshit that other people are talking about?“.
I didn’t quite get it. Do I stop writing self help bullshit or do I stop writing what other people are talking about?
“Both. You are #@#$@#@ annoying when not original. Plus you post like you take a bath. Once a month“.
The bath thing is purely speculation on her part of course I am a personal hygiene freak these days, but the rest got me thinking.What is it that I can personally tell people reading my blog. I spend a lot of my free (if at all) time reading about business personalities, seeing how websites and businesses run and mostly taking notes like there’s no tomorrow. I have accumulated over 10 notebooks of “notes”. A lot of it began with the shallow self help bullshit that I, now, get nauseated with. Stuff like “Make sure you have the best intention in mind when donating to charity” or one more pile of shit in “Make sure you breathe slow and deep and open your eyes to dream the wonderful tomorrow and the wonderful you”.
It’s similar to the feeling that Edward Norton gets in Fightclub where he “wakes up” to the bullshit around him. Enough of those cancer societies and alcohol anonymous hangouts. It’s time to get real. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier but I was so enveloped in this thing (i want to say nonsense but I will leave it at amateurs guide to spending time on the net) pretty deep myself.
No more.
So what do you get out of this blog? I have a job that makes me work saturdays to so the limited time I have, I have decided to blog three days a week.
Mondays - 3 lessons learned in the real life. 3 points to note. 3 observations. 3 funny things. 3 curious things. All useful tips. It will never be “breathe more deeply” type of stuff. It’ll be something I heard/learned or read that is applicable now. And it will have passed the bullshit-meter test (anything that’s kept to 3 on it. 10 is high bullshit). If I have learned nothing.
Wednesdays- Observing one macro trend or one industry I see much interest in. Since you are a valuable reader out of the 230 people that visit here. I’ll tell you what I see as my interest areas of the future – Mobile computing (everything on mobiles), Social Gaming, Gaming in general (cause you know you have to be L337 some day), Comics/Entertainment/Media and ecommerce websites. These are areas that cover my interest in general. I’ll write something about them and what I observe.
Fridays – Biographies. Book reviews. Fun stuff.
Cause you know there’s a reason it’s called TGIF. I’ll try to keep this interesting. I read a ton of books all the time. And I’ll make sure I’ll add some insight into this.
That’s the schedule. I’ll post somethings in the weekends too when I’m inspired, but this is the bare minimum you’ll expect from me here. I thank you for having sent in emails to ask questions, commenting on posts and giving me tips on what to write. Don’t stop that. I am very grateful for the feedback.
You have to have a culture where there’s no bad idea and people aren’t afraid to bring them up. I want the people who work with me to have very, very strong opinions. And I get really mad if I make the first argument against and they’re immediately like, “Oh yeah, maybe you’re right.” That drives me nuts – Daryl Morey.
The problem with most people, on reading that statement, think you should disagree for the sake of arguing. That never works and that can single handedly seclude you from the management. People don’t appreciate those that don’t confirm to their line of thinking in most companies I have worked with.
Besides the industry, and the work and the designations and roles, the single most important thing in any company is the culture. You can earn millions but hate every day of your work. You can earn close to nothing and still make a lot of returns in happiness and fulfillment.
Here are a list of things you should have/get whenever you are seeking out a company/work place.
1. Do they encourage 20 percent time?
Google does this and now it’s almost a norm. You pick a project you don’t get totally paid for. You put in your after work hours but help the company by implementing this idea. I think this is a fantastic thing to do. NOT at a startup however immediately, because you have way too many other things you need done anyway.
Do you get to work on projects you like or projects you are forced to like? I have been through a couple of companies. There is a difference between liking something and made to like something. I strongly believe anyone competent enough in a field will like it or be forced to like it because of the fame and glory his expertise brings in. But truly great people don’t work for fame. They work for the projects they like. That project, that dear one , you so badly want to do and can do a better job than the guy running it now. Why aren’t you approaching your boss for it?
Do they let you become your own brand? Most companies don’t let you become too famous. That means their PR department goes bust. Or you start to attract bigger wallets. But no one thinks that by becoming a big brand by yourself you bring in fame to the company and thus offer better incentive to both you and the company for staying. Need an example? Matt Cutts from Google. Was a search guru and now is pretty much the company spokesman for most things.
In conclusion. Truly great companies and CEOs appreciate the fact that someone has a better idea. After all, most employees in a successful company should be better than you. Why else would you hire them if not to scale and spread the legacy?
For most of us who have been brought up in India, there are certain hardships we face. Daily rigours of life, not having/seeing a lot of wealth, constantly facing the hardships of weather, lack of electricity and water. Yet we strive.
What a lot of us don’t face are racial abuse, slurs and physical and emotional trauma. I’m not saying it’s non existant, I’m asking how racist can you get with another Indian? But the real question is how many of us have used this to fuel ourselves? How many have taken this and used it as positive determination? I haven’t. I’m pretty sure that’s the average crowd.
So it comes as a great surprise when an Indian, fostered by a family that had $25 dollars as savings wins a lottery ticket and heads to America and 12 years later has a son that bears them millions of dollars.
That family is the Chahals and that son is Gurbaksh Chahal. He was a sardar who was constantly ridiculed for his appearance and is now one of the youngest millionaires (guys a year younger than me) “on the planet” as Oprah puts it. He started 2 companies the first selling for 40 million dollars at the age of 18. The other BlueLithium selling for 300 million dollars. He’s written a book called ”The Dream” which you can order at Flipkart here.
I have ordered the book and I plan to check out more on him as well. But here’s the show that I found very inspiring (Oprah always inspires) in which he’s featured and talks about his stuff. Well played G. Well played.
Incidentally, I got another link (mp3) that was very educational from Andrew Warners website, Mixergy (which is a must follow for entrepreneurs or those dreaming to be). You can follow Gurbaksh’s blog here and say hi to him on twitter. Notice how great men use the first letter of their name and then the family name (like kgopal? gchahal) etc.
Here’s Gchal’s take on his journey.
Twenty-Three years ago when my parents first came to America – they had a strict agenda in mind for me. No surprise here, but they wanted for me to either be a doctor or engineer. They arrived with $25 in their pockets but their hearts were full of dreams. “Education is the key that opens all the locks to all the doors in the world. My four children will become doctors and engineers. Maybe even both!” my father would say. That didn’t necessarily happen – but with God’s blessings– we all became very successful.
When I was 10 – my Dad even made a “janampatri” (astrological life story) of my life. And when he had it read, he wasn’t too happy. The first question he had asked was, what will my son be when he grows up? The reply wasn’t what he hoped for. The person reading it said, “He’s not really an academic so he won’t do well in school. His options will be limited but he can always just start a business” Shortly after that reading, my dad stopped believing in this form of astrology.
As many of you know, I dropped out of high school at 16 to embark on my journey as an entrepreneur. And the rest, as you know is history.
Anyone who has held a comic book of the DC universe has come across Alan Moore. A writer extraordinaire and an artist too, he has worked with titles such as Swamp Thing, Batman, Superman and many many others. His comic works like V for Vendetta, Watchmen and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen have been converted to movies and blockbusters at that.
Alan Moore brings a profound realism to his writing and he is one of the writers responsible for taking the comics we know to a different level – Adult Graphic Novels. A lot of the dark imagery and moods set have often been an industry first initiated by Alan Moore.
But that’s not what this post is about, this post is about his advice to people who are starting out on writing and reading. In this gem of a youtube video he shares his thoughts. Now he’s british so it made it quite hard to understand him but for anyone not able to understand what he says, I have taken the trouble of transcripting the interview for you here. I think it’s a fantastic read. Let me know what you think in the comments section.
Importance of Focus.
The first thing you really want to focus on is why you want to do this. If you want to be famous or you want to be rich, then it ain’t going to work. The only thing you can do is if you want to become a success focus upon the thing that you do purely for its own sake. If you like drawing comics, writing comics, making music or whatever and you are not doing it to become famous or get money and you are focusing on it because you love it and you only want to get better and better and better. Then you probably will do it right.
Focus on the right things. Do not focus on the fame and wealth, that’s what everyone wants. You can become famous and get money purely by going on Big Brother. What does that prove? Those things can be got easily. Focus purely on what it is you like to do. If you got a talent you got a talent even if its not that much.
On Talent and continual improvement.
That’s how we all start out. I couldn’t write when I started out I couldn’t draw either. But I liked writing. I liked writing compositions at that phase in school as a phase in school. And I liked reading. And I liked thinking, ok how good am i as a writer compared to these guys I liked reading. And you think, actually I am rubbish. So you try to make yourself a little better and if you are honest with yourself. Not over critical, theres no point in looking at everything and and saying it’s rubbish and tearing it up. If you can atleast be honest and say ya this has got some bits in it that are good, I could have done better with these bits. This is not good as so and so, who I admire would have done it. Next time this is going to be better. And you try and make each thing you do a little bit smarter, a little bit more sophisticated than the thing you did before. Eventually people will notice.
Importance of Identity. Eventually, you’ll start to move beyond what everybody else is doing. And with out ever having a master plan to it but you’ll find suddenly without having to compromise anything, without having to sell out your vision and it’s important that you do that, because that’s the only thing you have really got that seperates you from everybody else. There are probably loads of people that can sing or do music or write or draw the way that you can. The only thing that makes you unique, is that you are you. You have your experience, you have had your life. You have got sort of your knowledge. So put all of that into what you do, make it individual, make it unique and make it your selling point. You have had this experience, so put it to use and I don’t think you’ll go far wrong.
It’s not easy. There’s a lot more to it than that of course and there’s a lot of boredom, grind and anxiety where there’s this ”Am I good as I think I am?”. “Am I ever going to really make it?”. But don’t worry about that, if you are doing what you love, even if you aren’t making any money out of it, you are still better off than 99 percent of the people in this world who are not doing what they love. They are doing something that gets their day by. Maybe they are entertaining dreams that one day they could be this and one day they could do that but often those deams just die in the cradle. Stay true to yourself. There is nothing you can’t be if you try hard enough.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Quite some time back, the famous Seth Godin (whose blog title reads as Seth on Marketing, Respect and the way ideas spread), had posted a note on how he’s planning to offer a course on an Alternative MBA for 6 months. Over 4000 people applied (I did too but couldn’t clear the time for the customs and getting a Visa for the interview) out of which 27 finalists were picked. He then chose 9 of those people who worked for him for quite some time.
This was like the modern day Gurukul. Gurukul, in ancient India, was a type of school wherein the students stayed with the Guru (teacher) and learned from him. Derived from the words Guru (teacher) and Kulam (place/area/extended family).
So these students went and stayed at his office for 6 months. One of the students, Ishita Gupta, has posted some of the learnings (not for all 6 months but some pithy take aways) in the style that Seth always excels in. Here are my favourites. I think she has to be informed of Permalink URLs on her blog, but here is the original post.
Time is an illusion. Don’t measure it by the amount of hours/effort you put in, measure it by goals you accomplish
Doing things quickly and repetitively helps you get over anxiety about failure.
Making a decision is more important than doing things perfectly.
Doing things quickly and repetitively helps you get over anxiety about failure.
Making a decision is more important than doing things perfectly.
You just might waste your life away in idleness and bullshit if you’re not careful.
Taking initiative matters.
Being who you want to be and who you think you really are is largely a decision.
Learn the language of the people you wish to speak to and communicate with (French or analytics.)
