Self-Respect in Entrepreneurship

In the past, I have often gotten this question: “Why don’t you use your civil service connections to get business from government?” As an entrepreneur, this is the thing I would hate doing the most. So much so that whenever I have had discussions with investors in the...

Embracing Accountability

During my days as a private equity investor, I saw people making two kinds of mistakes: Type 1 mistake: You make a bad investment, but when you realize it, you accept it and move on. You secretly curse yourself and try not to repeat it. Type 2 mistake: You invest in a...

Minor tasks vs deep work

When I walked into a shopping mall, they gave me 10 plastic tokens. And they said, “Each token buys one item — anything you want, whether a 10 rupee pen, a 1,000 rupee T-shirt, or a 1 lac rupee laptop. It is your choice.” What would you say if I bought 10 pens?...

We all get the jitters

A few months after I moved out of the US, just near my erstwhile apartment building, a plane landed in the Hudson River, near New York City. The US Airways flight had a complete engine failure due to a bird-hit and had no power left. Yet, Captain Sullenberger, a...

Where You Start Does Not Matter

In 1995, during my final year B.Tech placement season, everybody was obsessed with salaries — companies like Cadence, offering Rs 10,000 per month or a bit more, were rockstars, while anyone offering even Rs 1,000 less became an ‘undesirable.’ Yet, looking back,...