end of an era, beginning of another

I have read more about Bill Gates in the last couple of days than ever before. There have been several articles walking through his early days chugging off hrs in lakeside with Paul Allen, his days in Harvard staying away from classes, the early deals with IBM and the numerous battles to create the software industry as we know it today.

It does not matter whether people acknowledge his efforts or still maintain that he is a business monopolist or a strategic visionary or whatever – his baby ‘Microsoft’ is the world’s largest software company, revenues running in the big Bs (billions, I mean, not amitabh bachchan). That is a vision realized.

wow, it must have been a terrific 30+ years, the amount of passion required to perform at the highest level and fighting one battle after another, must have been energy sapping. And, starting off the second career , full time in the foundation, to fight diseases and building a world where every life is equal is truly truly remarkable and speaks loads of Bill Gates, the individual.

I truly wish 15 years from now, people forget Bill Gates – the technologist, the shrewd business, the founder and ex CSA of Microsoft. I truly hope that the only Bill Gates they know is the one who removed life threatening diseases such as malaria and made the world a much better place for a lot more under priveleged people, they only remember Bill Gates, the humanitarian.

I was priveleged to witness your final send off speech and could feel the emotions that SteveB expressed. You have shown that realizing a vision / dream is possible and fruitful as long as it is backed by a tremendous amount of passion, hiring the right people, with an unrelenting pursuit of the competitors, showcasing value for customers.

Good luck.

rediff article – “tips to become a good successful entrepreneur”

good read for the entrepreneur wannabes 

Tips to become a successful entrepreneur

http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2007/nov/07ranjit.htm

Getting started

Tip #1: Don’t worry about not being courageous enough for the uncertainty of the business world, as being an entrepreneur has nothing to do with courage. People who observe entrepreneurs leaving a secure job and taking the plunge into the unknown sometimes marvel at their courage (or foolhardiness).

Most successful entrepreneurs that I’ve met, however, don’t see themselves as particularly brave. In fact, they do a lot of homework and make contingency plans that take into account the possibility of failure.

I’ve met a number of entrepreneurs who have left McKinsey & Co., my first employer after business school, because they recognised that becoming a director at McKinsey is not guaranteed for even some of the hardest working, smartest people that you come across in the business world.

Becoming a director at any large organisation has much to do with factors that are not in your control, including personal relationships and the economic cycle that the company happens to be in when promotion decisions are made. While organisations try to be fair, they operate in a world that isn’t, and if you recognise that staying put is not necessarily safe you are more likely to get over the fear of venturing out.

Tip #2: Look for a big idea, and be rational.

There’s no point taking a big risk if you have a small idea, and from an economic perspective, it’s logical to concentrate on expected value, which means the potential value creation times the probability of actually achieving it. So if your job is 100% secure, and the chances of entrepreneurial success are only 10%, then compare your future salary against the expected future value of your venture (the ‘payoff’) times 10%.

If the expected value (payoff times 10%) is more than your salary, then logically you should give it a try. However, most people are irrationally risk averse, so if the expected value is not vastly higher than their salary, they would opt for the more certain outcome.

On the other hand, people who are destined to become entrepreneurs are more likely to be sceptical about the security of their job, so they wouldn’t assign a 100% probability to the so-called safe option.

Tip #3: Start small.

In Tip #2, I said it’s important to think big, but for most entrepreneurs it’s also important to start small. A good example is SchoolTrainer, which was started by a Delhi-based Hindi and Math tutor. He has a big idea, but has started out small (just himself).

He currently has less than 100 teachers on his panel, but expects to scale up to a thousand over the next few years. Starting small enables you to experiment, work out the bugs in your systems, and prove your idea. The discipline of a tight budget also forces small companies to do what customers ask them to do. Companies that start operations with a lot of resources often scale up too quickly, waste money and enjoy the luxury of not having to listen to customers.

Tip #4: When faced with the fear of giving up a secure job, concentrate on the equally frightening possibility of someday looking back with regret.

In other words, if you think the risk of entrepreneurship is high, consider the risk of losing a fortune by letting an opportunity slip out of your hands. Of course, explaining this to conservative family members (usually a parent or spouse) may be difficult. For some people, even a 10% chance of failure is too high to contemplate, no matter how big the potential payoff is.

A 90% chance of failure is out of the question. Conservative family members will only be convinced if you have an airtight back up plan, which leads to Tip #5.

Tip #5: Have a backup plan.

One entrepreneur I know asked his employer, a very prestigious professional services firm, for a leave of absence. This gave him time to verify that his idea had merit. He knew that if he failed (which he assumed was likely), he could always return to the relative safety of a conventional career. His friends and acquaintances thought he was gutsy, but he knew he had a safety net.

In the end, he was able to prove his idea during his leave of absence and was able confidently to convert his leave of absence into a separation. He was shrewd, not brave.

quiet strength – tony dungy

just started reading ‘QUIET STRENGTH’ and it seems to be setting the pace really well. Very curious to understand the management style of tony, aka ‘Gandhi of NFL’ getting it done without “losing it”, the first african american coach to win the super bowl, the person who overcame adversity, loss of his son, and instills principles, priorities in his players to play at the highest level. in the intiial phases, the book seems to take a bit too much about this religious faith, too many articles from the bible and might be a turn off to some. hopefully it gets better down the line. will let you know.

i always enjoy reading some of the books about coaches, mostly NFL. it conveys a lot of smart management techniques which are applicable to folks who want to pursue management, entrepreneurial careers. getting players who make million dollar pay checks, troubled personas, different backgrounds and getting this together and play for the TEAM vision is indeed unique. there have been different approaches to coaching and will continue to be . you see the chucky personality (john gruden) – young aggresive and getting it done. you see the tuna personality (bill parcells) – old school, but making the players earn respect, conveying a cold feel towards players but contrary towards his guys. then there is tony dungy who gets it done in a very simple style, dont get me wrong, very passionate about winning but not necessarily showing this eternally via emotions.

 more to follow… stay posted

when grown men cry….

I had an emotional ride in this trip to India – my grandmother has been bed-ridden for the last 2 years now, unable to talk clearly and not being able to comprehend people’ presence around her. It is difficult for me to see someone like her, who used to be a fireball of energy, someone who always had a quick retort for any comment, lie around aimlessly – all my friends from college will second this statement.

The last time, I saw her healthy was 2 years back during my engagement – she was so happy. Just 2 years later, the situation is a complete turnaround. It started with a hip injury that was the beginning of the end. Ironically, she always spoke about going away quickly all her life. And harshly death makes her wait.

I went to the hospital several times in this visit and each time would talk to her. Seeing her lying down lifeless yet alive brought tears to my eyes but I held back. It is one thing to suddenly lose someone like my grand dad a few years and totally another to see a gradually degradation. I don’t know which is easy to get over.

When I went to see her for the last time, a couple of hrs before my flight – I broke down. I realized that this might well be the last time I am going to see her with life. I left helpless – each time I heard her mumble in pain, all I could do was ask and got no response.. Several years back, she would have been the person to cuddle me when I was in pain. And here I was, watching helplessly.  There are things that are beyond our control – things that no money can buy, things that no position of power can influence.

I feel privileged and honored to have been under her wings for a large portion of my childhood. An amazing woman, who has studied only until her 6th grade, but who taught herself to read english and converse briefly in Hindi. She has immense will power and that is why she is still with us. She was not perfect, but again who is. We have had our share of disagreements, fights but in the end both of us knew the bonding we shared.

All  I ask now is that she have a peaceful ending.

time is the most precious commodity

This post was triggered by an incident during my trip to the US, a philosophical trigger, if you will. The itinerary for the trip was Seattle -> Amsterdam -> Hyderabad. We flew for about 4 hrs and were just over just over the Hudson bay when a lady had a medical emergency. She was 37 and was complaining of chest pain. She was accompanied by her 5 month baby, scheduled to meet her husband in Amsterdam. The flight had to make an emergency landing, so the pilot turned back and landed in Churchhill, Canada. Believe me, I was a little sleepy and looking through the window, it was like landing on a different planet. It was simply a place with rocks resembling craters filled up with ice in some places. Apparently, people visit this place to fish and the inhabitants are very sparse. The lady was taken out by a medical crew who were planning on taking her to a hospital 100 miles away. Hopefully she and the baby are safe. We had some airport protocol to follow which took 2 hrs to complete – apparently, as per security protocol, you cannot take some one’s bags when they are not in the plan (maybe there is an exception when airlines “lose” bags and send them in the next flight), an aircraft cannot land when it is “heavy” – people were mentioning the reasons why we had to travel half way over Hudson, and then apparently we need a new travel plan [ sort of like an air traffic regulator]

It set me thinking as to how life can suddenly turn around in a few hrs. Could become a question of life and death. It reminded me of Steve Jobs’ talk in Stanford when he mentioned of his cancer treatment. Indeed time is the most precious commodity. As most of us rattle through our daily lives, most times we forget this fact. It takes a minor incident to bring us back to reality that we are indeed time bound in our stay on earth. As Steve mentions, the thought of death felts all our feelings – be it greed, fear, shame, ambitions, etc. The things that are truly important to us, stands as top priority.

For some realistic take-aways, the action items is to write up our long term plans and start working towards them. Each of us may want different things out of life, want folks to remember us in different ways. So the POA is to chalk out the long term goal and work towards it. Making the plan as a set of tasks and making each task time bound is very useful in tracking. This is obviously more complicated that I state – as the dependant variables change over time, the long term plan which is a function of this, changes. But the good part is that when it is written down, we can see that and make the required corrections.

Let me throw out my plans out there – I always wanted to contribute and make an impact in peoples lives by getting the “deserved but poor” folks educated. That is something which is core to me. Even though this task seems something that can be done in parallel with other aspects of my life, I think the best impact will happen when I do this full time. In order to do this full time, I need to get to a reasonably financial state that will allow this flexibility.

Another aspect that drives me personally is entrepreneurship, which represents a freedom in executing things that you truly believe. An attempt at unleashing your unbridled passion in a specific field, whatever it may be. days filled with insecurities and challenges that you resolve and getting things done. An attempt that may lead to financial independence or a few years spent to gain wisdom.

One of the other important things for me is getting back to desh and spending time with my parents – the least I can do for their role in my upbringing.

Tieing all these together, as I have been chalking out timelines for these tasks over the years, new variables have been added and some things tweaked. Some of them are negotiable while others are purely externally controlled (GC types). But I have been constantly trying to lower priorities where ever required to make the timeline happen. There is still uncertainity with what I will do and how – but aint it the fun? If we cant, no one can.

If you are curious about the timelines, you will know it when you need to . Anyways, how does it help you knowing my plans – you are your own judge.

But if you have similar goals where we can align, send me a private note. If I dont know you (yet), post a comment with your contacts.

Cheers

why do people succeed?

Is it because they have the right connections? Did they study from the best institutions? Is it simply because they are significantly rich and have enough cash to take them through ? Is sheer hard work the magic mantra? Or is it just luck? does it require supreme confidence? is it just being in the right place at the right time?

I think people succeed because they want to – they want to accomplish something really bad. their lives are incomplete if they dont make “it” happen. they cannot sleep if “it” is just not done. That is passion, folks. All the factors above are required in some form or the other to make “it’ happen but in isolation are useless.

It is just amazing how a great team sets out to change the world, completely believing in the vision and more importantly in one another and with unrelentless persistence make “it” happen. Time and again, this happens.

Time to seek out that one thing that keeps you awake at night, without accomplishing it life seems incomplete and get to execute it.  Go seek and fulfill that single thing that you define as success. if you cant, no one can.

good read – Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days

I am reading this book Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days and have just read a few of the chapters and find it really interesting. Some great learnings from the folks who have made it big. very inspirational and helps one believe that it can be done

Most of the interviews follow this line:

* Getting started.
* Interactions with VCs.
* Some of the more intense moments.
* Turning Points.
* Things that were surprising.
* Felt like quiting at any time ?
* Advice for people looking to start a startup.
(taken from a customer review on Amazon)

if you get a chance, read it.