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Stay humble and Walk alone
Many years ago, I met this person who had degrees from the world’s top-tier universities and an exceptionally stellar career. The only thing this person had not done was a startup. In fact, she had come up with a startup idea but to be doubly sure,...
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Life is not a zero-sum game
Envy is an amazing thing. I never envy the British Queen, who has inherited this massive fortune and privilege without having worked for it for even...
What freedom feels like
When I left my last job to do a startup, a new reality hit me – no more Car Club pickups, business class flights, expensive hotels, or unlimited...
What makes us special is our convictions
In early 2009, I attended a townhall at McKinsey. This was just a few months after Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy, and the US was still in the midst of...
Don’t let other people’s judgement decide your life
In the 2nd year of my MBA at Wharton, I asked a finance professor for advice on landing a job with a private equity fund. When he learned that I had...
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The ethics behind profit
Once, while driving in Trivandrum City, I saw a shop with a big banner: 'Margin-free shop’. Presumably, they don't keep any profit margin. On seeing that, you almost get the feeling that 'profit' is a dirty word. In fact, my daughter even asked,...
RDX or Detonator?
If you set fire to a lump of RDX, it does not explode - it just burns harmlessly. To unleash its killer explosive power, all you have to do is - hook it to a detonator (a thin pencil-like explosive device). Similarly, to achieve our life goals, we...
2 AM Warriors
In IIT hostels, most of us were 2 am warriors. We would be routinely awake till 2 or 3 am, and the canteen would be crowded after midnight. That may sound heroic, but hear out the rest of the story before you decide. Since the night was infinitely...
The Real Mastery is Over our Mind
We want to conquer the world, but what we need real mastery is over our mind. I learnt this lesson when I was in charge of the security arrangments of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam’s visit.