A letter to Google..

Dear Google,


Hope you are innovating well.


A few days ago, I checked your new launch Google Plus. It looks so much like facebook. The profile pic is at the same location, friend suggestions show up at the same location, wall looks similar, '+1' is just another name for 'like', comments work the same way, and most other things are similar. Okay, they say hangout is cool and may be a couple more features.


The reason I thought to write this is because all along I have respected you for how you have changed our lives and I am baffled if you don't understand some basics here. First of all, its okay if you lose the opportunity in one of the many areas. You don't have to win everywhere. Second, they teach in business school that when you can't win the game, change the game. Especially in games with strong network effects! With all your technology horsepower, what we expected from you is not a cheap imitation but a completely innovative alternative to the facebook style. How long do you think it will take facebook to imitate 'hangout' if it clicks with people!


Look at twitter. Is this kind of game changer too innovative for all your thinktank? And I expect 'no' for an answer here from you. That ability to innovate is certainly not a problem with you, it's something else you need to fix. May be direction but don't ask me, I am an outsider.


Some people tell me you gathered x million users the fastest. I wouldn't be surprised. You are so respected that people want to try when you come up with something new, anything new! But this kind of imitation puts you at the risk of losing this respect specially as a few more exciting facebook and twitter like alternatives come up. By the way, the right metric to measure popularity wouldn't be the number of users for you (for the reason I stated above), it would probably be the number of users who log on specifically to Google plus at least once a day for a period of x days, given the nature of social networking - an average user logs on to facebook multiple times a day.


Long story short, may be you should relate the cliche With great power, comes great responsibility to what you are doing here.


Best wishes

Heard somewhere..

ये मत सोचो कि कितने लम्हे हैं ज़िन्दगी में...

ये सोचो कि कितनी ज़िन्दगी है हर लम्हे में!


Don't count the moments in life...
Count the lives in every moment!

Inspiring quote

Some is not a number, soon is not a date..

..be specific.

Being consultant..

There are three types of days in a consultant's life:

1. When client is working and the Firm is working - Consultant works
2. When client is not working but the Firm is working - Consultant works
3. When the Firm is not working but client is working - Consultant works

Comp(ensatory) offs?!! What are they?

But life is lousy for a consultant, I tell ya! Why? Here is how a friend put it:

1. You work very odd hours.
2. You spend a majority of your time in a hotel room.
3. Your client pays for your hotel room plus your hourly rate.
4. You are paid a lot of money to keep your client happy.
5. Creating fantasies for your clients is rewarded.
6. People ask you what you do and you can't explain it.
7. It's difficult to have a family.

I agreed till I 'stepped back' and realized that he had just made me look like a prostitute!

But then sample my own experience when my girlfriend went to tell her mom about me:

1. Her mom didn't recognize my B school's name (IIM is known to every infant in India but ISB is not)
2. She had never heard my Firm's name (my firm doesn't brand/advertise itself)
3. She didn't understand even my profession (my girlfriend was also not very sure how to explain. Poor girl just believed me when I told her that I also do something respectable)
4. She was convinced that I do something shady when she heard that despite being from an unknown college, working with an 'obscure' firm, in an unheard profession, I earn well.

Only three letters do justice to my feelings...

...WTF!

Shifting loyalties..

I love writing blog but lately it went down on my priority list. A couple of days ago I saw a note on my blackberry that I had written on a flight in Jan this year. So I thought to revive my blog with this. Here it goes -

Enough! I have decided. Now on, I am going to take jet airways only. Their airhostesses are so much prettier than Kingfisher's! And the jet airhostesses said hi also to me, all of them.

I feel bad for having lost 37 opportunities to spend time with them over the last 6 months. Those kingfisher airhostesses would say hi to everybody ahead of me but when I come, they would start looking at the passenger behind me as if I wasn't there!

That apart, I admire NG's eye for beauty more than VM's who claims that he personally recruits his crew. But NG doesn't make any such claims anyway. It must be some obscure aspiring senior manager who is enjoying making offers (job offers I mean) to all those beauties who would otherwise not even notice him in the bar.

So, tomorrow's flight to Hyderabad is a jet now. And the day after's to Mumbai too. This reminds me, my imminent hyderabad trip is giving headaches to my girlfriend these days. I am going to ISB to take mock interviews of people shortlisted by the firm but she thinks I will get laid by some chick there who really wants an offer (job offer I mean). Though I secretly suspect she is convinced that my looks are not going to do wonders for me but still she is somewhat insecure because of the cult status of my firm which I have made her believe creates a bright halo around my head that blinds all ISB students. I have tried explaining to her that these are only mock interviews (as if the ladies would seek appointments to sleep with me if I were taking real interviews) and even showed her my packed mock interview schedule but she still believes girls would find a way to nab me. She doesn't know that kingfisher's airhostesses don't even acknowledge my presence. But as this rationale is based on my looks, which, I suspect, she discounts anyway, it wouldn't convince her. So I wouldn't mention it to her.

Why inflict humiliation on the self!

I have an MBA…

…‘Maa, Babuji ka Aashirwaad’

Alright alright, I call them mummy and papa, but seriously, this one goes to them.

Had it not been for you guys, I would not have got an A in half my courses at ISB with all that attendance criterion. Almost every term classes started at 8 in the morning and with all those assignments, parties, studies, and chats running till almost 4 am every night, had you guys not woken me up every morning, I would have missed many of even my 10 am classes, leave aside the 8 am ones.

I suspect that sometimes you yourself had to wake up half an hour early to wake me up at whatever time I wanted and no matter how much I asked you about your plans, you wouldn’t say anything until you knew what time I wanted woken up. I did try to ask you for as late as possible but I know sometimes I still disrupted your schedule. No amount of gratitude is enough for you, but still, a big thanks to you…

…you guys rock :)

So bored I am..

Whatever creativity I had seems to have died. These days when I am royally bored, at times I think I should write something but then find myself devoid of any new ideas to write on.

My joining is still about 2 months away. I think I should read the book on Macroeconomics that I liked a lot during Term 2 last year but didn’t get time for at that time. Yeah, may be I’ll start that from tomorrow. And some good course pack articles too that I couldn’t finish for paucity of time last year.

Meanwhile I have also joined a gym at home. It’s a new one and perhaps one of the best in town, not comparable to the famous chains though but still. I plan to refine my cuts even more and eliminate the existing weak points in my body in these 2 months. Then with my job, if I can even do it twice or thrice a week, that should be sufficient to maintain my physique.

People tell me to enjoy the free time I have because once I join job, I would hardly be free. That’s alright but I have become workaholic now. Who wants free time!

Some close ones have also asked me how I’ll manage with so much work and no personal time. Well, first of all, I am not sure if I really wouldn’t have any personal time. I doubt if so many people are sustaining themselves for so many years in that career without any personal time. But then if they really are, I anyways don’t have a life! So shouldn’t be a problem for me either! What say?

Here are a couple of pictures of mine from the graduation day on 3rd April 2010…

This was one of the most beautiful days of my life so far, full of a sense of achievement and a sense of a meaningful self with the realization that in just one year this place has completely changed my life forever.