Aswath Krishnan

This is you.  You are the front part of the brain. When you ask yourself "Who am I?", that's the part of the brain that's speaking. When you are feeling lucid, clear-headed, "conscious" or "present", it is this part at work. What you perceive as life, every moment of your reality, is basically the neurons firing in the pre-frontal cortex. Your self-image, memories, personality, emotions, ambitions, and desires are all formed, stored, and derived from the neural circuitry here.  With regular practice, you will have some degree of control over how these neurons fire and shape the circuitry; a concept scientists refer to as neuroplasticity, and self-help coaches refer to as manifestation, positive thinking, or focusing on your locus of control. That's a big deal because if you can shape your perception, you can shape your life and reality. You can as easily be shaped by many other forces around you, but if you are strong, you can be a gatekeeper a...

Safe writing is clear, easy to read, and conveys the message. Typically, it follows a simple structure like introduction, body, and conclusion, or situation, problem, and solution.  Ninja writing does what safe writing does, but is also more engaging and memorable. It reaches both the heart and the brain. It is fun, playful, surprising, and interesting. While Safe writing is explicit, Ninja writing is a bit more abstract and lets the reader connect the dots.  Safe writing is closer to prose and science; Ninja writing is more poetry and art. Safe writing is more appropriate in serious situations where clarity and efficiency are paramount, like in a medical report or a supervisor's instructions. In most other situations, Ninja writing works better.   Someone wisely said, "If you try Ninja moves when you are not a Ninja, you may chop off your own head." That is a good example of Ninja writing. I remember that after many years and it brings a smile each time. The safe ve...

Why the hell is there a Queen in a democracy? Clearly, a lot of people wonder about that too, even more so than the pain in the back of their body parts. I try to avoid opining on topics I barely know about. But the Oprah, Harry, and Meghan interview is juicy drama and there are a couple of interesting societal and psychological concepts here.  The monarchy has some history to it (duh). I know a bit that I just read on Wikipedia. The very short and probably inaccurate history goes like this. Before the republic, there was a monarchy. The power of monarchy slowly faded, but some king made a deal to keep the titles, palace, and stipend around. A better deal than what the French kings got. It made the entire transition more peaceful and less awkward.  I think the British Monarchy today is like the steak in the movie Matrix.  It is elaborate make-believe and a long-running, high production, global reality show. Who doesn't like to be awed by a royal wedding or fawn over a new...

I'm no branding expert or fanboy. Growing up, I preferred the cheaper no-name alternatives and thought the brand loyalists were suckers for paying a premium. As I have grown older, busier, and slightly wealthier, I have gotten to enjoy and appreciate a few brands for their craft, reliability, and familiarity. Apple, Trader Joe's, Starbucks, Costco, Uniqlo, Amazon are my top ones. I'm also a fan of a few "personal brands" like Elon Musk and Naval Ravikant, for what they represent and do.   As a product professional and an individual creator, I see the immense value and art in building brands.  Here's a very high-level breakdown of brand building.  3 Levels of Brand  Level 1.  Name recognition : People know who you are and roughly what you do. You can earn name recognition if you are around for long enough, have a large enough customer base, and have a memorable name.   Level 2.  Quality & Trust : People love and trust your products, a...

Jeff Bezos' shared this wisdom on focusing on inputs in his 2009 shareholder letter: "Senior leaders that are new to Amazon are often surprised by how little time we spend discussing actual financial results or debating projected financial outputs. To be clear, we take these financial outputs seriously, but we believe that focusing our energy on the controllable inputs to our business is the most effective way to maximize financial outputs over time. " This advice applies to both business and personal life.  Most people are obsessed with rewards and outcomes. They obsess over a higher salary or promotions, an amazing social life, good health, etc. But that's an ineffective approach.  Outcomes & rewards can give you goalposts of what matters to you and can be used as an occasional progress tracker, but they don't help you actually get there.  Outcomes are lagging indicators and consequences of actions. Focusing on outcomes typically makes people unhappy or anxi...

When I started building products, I only cared about "cool ideas". In college, I built a movie player app,  GPSFilm , that'd play scenes of the movie based on where you are (shot as flashback so sequence didn't matter). Later, I built an app, Friend Central, to quiz you on friends through attributes like college, likes, location, etc. I built browser extensions to show your lifetime left and another, Nuggets , to record and remember things you learn based on spaced repetition.  Creating is an incredibly fun and engaging activity. I would spend days and nights working on products, engrossed in a flow state, and excitedly show it off to friends and family. Having end-to-end control, from idea to shipping, gave me a broad scope and satisfaction. It exposed me to way more product development experience and learning than university or in my day job as a software engineer.  However, when I "launched" these products, usually announcing on my FB profile or on online...

As you grow more senior in your career or become an entrepreneur, you transition from functional leadership to business leadership, where you need to deeply understand and execute on the broad business. Reading S-1s is a great way to develop that understanding. Companies reveal significant details of their inner workings, strategies, and financials through their S-1s filings.  Here I'm using Coursera's S-1 to understand their business, and also general business and accounting concepts. Coursera has both consumer and enterprise customers, so their S-1 gives exposure to both those business models.  Coursera's Business Coursera is a two-sided education marketplace. They enable universities to provide and monetize courses and credentials to learners and organizations digitally. For learners, Coursera serves the edtech job to be done of upskilling/promotions, reskilling or earning credentials to get a job, and satiating curiosity and desire to learn. For organizations, they se...

I feel like I have been playing a very long game of tag. I had successfully avoided being tagged for nearly a year. But just when the game is about to end and the winners declared, I got tagged. Ah bummer! I'm talking about the COVID pandemic. I got it in Feb 2021, the 11th(?) month since the official start of the pandemic in the USA.  I'm young and was in good shape when I got it. I'm alive and over the hump now. But the in-between two weeks of COVID was no joke.  "Stay home and protect your grandma", they said. But ironically, we got it from our grandma. To be fair, we weren't airtight otherwise - there were a few other ways and occasions when we could have gotten it. Grandma just happened to be the one. I remember the Sunday morning. We woke up to some loud and frantic conversations from downstairs. I went down to investigate and get my cup of coffee. Grandma, who had stayed at one of our aunts' place, was running a fever. Aunt was also running a fever....

Edtech is an interesting and inspiring space, but very difficult to crack. I say that being familiar with and passionate about the space. I started my career as a teacher, at a new school for entrepreneurs, where our goal was to unbundle a 4 year CS + Business degree into a very practical 1-year entrepreneurship course. Then, a few years down the line, I created a learning app to help people remember what they learn, which led to me joining Quizlet, one of the most popular education apps used by 50M+ students every month and a $1B company, at an early stage.   Founders who want to start an education business are often good students who went to good universities, are really passionate about learning, and want to make education more interesting, exciting, and less broken. That is a wonderful ideal and attitude but often doesn't lead to successful business outcomes. Because for the majority of people, education is much more utilitarian. Education is a means to an end. It is a ne...

Pixar’s Inside Out presents a simple, fun, and somewhat useful model of our brain and personality.  I created this diagram that brings together the various concepts and their relations as described in the movie:

Do you feel pulled in many directions? Do you find it hard to pick between different choices? Do you feel like you want to be at many places and doing many things at once? Do you have a nagging feeling that you are missing out? Of course, why wouldn't you?! The world is like a gigantic Disneyland. There are so many rides, games to play, places to see, things to experience and do,  and people to meet. Unlike our parents or generations before, we are uniquely aware of and regularly bombarded with all these different options through the internet and social media.  Our life spans feel pretty short, relative to all that can be seen and done. It feels as if we have only 15 mins to spend in Disneyland.  So how do we deal with the FOMO and figure out which rides to take? 1) It is OK! You can't do all of it, not even close. No one can. That's by design.  Most other species experience a fraction of what an average human does. Even kings in the past probably experienced a fract...

One of the most favorable outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic is the forced experimentation and adoption of remote work. This might be the most significant change in how we work in several decades.  Our lives are summations of what we experience every moment. When you take on some work, whether as an employee or even as an entrepreneur, you sacrifice some freedom around how you live in exchange for compensation.  More specifically, you sacrifice freedoms of what, how, with who, when, and where. 1. Freedom of curiosity (what/how) : to do what you want to and how you want to.  2. Freedom of company (who) : who you work with and spend time with.  3. Freedom of tim e (when) : to do things when you feel like it.  4. Freedom of location (where) : to live and be where you want.  This sacrifice of freedoms is why a lot of people dislike work and look forward to retirement. At its worst, when you lose all these freedoms and don't get compensated, it is slavery. On the...

Our thoughts and words can have a significant impact on ourselves and others. We should use them with intention and caution.  This is because human minds are fickle and easily programmable. Every thought you have in your head can change how you think, act, live, and feel. Everything we say can program each other and societies at large. We can easily fool ourselves and others into bad emotions, actions, and discord.   People and organizations with powerful voices or large audiences can do even more damage We often indulge in peddling nonsense, untruths or half-truths, desires, hyperbole, careless speculation, gossip, mean-spirited or negative talk. This happens in our own heads, in casual conversations with others, at work, on the internet, and in media.     We mostly do this unconsciously, because that's how our minds seem to work by default and that's what we have learned from everyone around us. Sometimes we do it intentionally for fun, to earn social currency...

Jeff Bezos announced that he will be stepping down as CEO of Amazon. What an incredible run he's had as an entrepreneur! From quitting a lucrative job as a trader to starting an online company during the early days of the internet to the world's largest company that spans multiple business lines and geographies. Love him or hate him, there's no denying that he's one of the most accomplished and capable business leaders of our generation.  I have enjoyed and learned a lot from JeffB's shareholder letters and interviews. Here are some of my main lessons:  1) Culture I joke, only half in jest, that all of Amazon's leadership team and tenured employees are Jeff Bezos clones. Jeff Bezos's biggest achievement is not any product that Amazon has built. It is the living, breathing, and evolving high-functioning and entrepreneurial culture that continues to be effective over many decades and even as the company has scaled to over 1 million employees and multiple busin...

I can’t stop There’s always Something more Until I finish This bottomless scroll A tweet, a meme A staged pic Of vanilla ice cream Fake news And strong views Highlight reels Of people I barely know Been an hour What did I do? Saw random stuff Got more FOMO Piled up chores And unrealized goals Helped Zuckerberg Buy a nice boat Can’t sleep My eyes are tired Brain’s wired Oh god I need saving From this Dopamine craving Aswath

Seeing a flower Makes me wonder Why such beauty Has to naturally end From bud to bloom To an inevitable gloom Perhaps it is To make us Appreciate it more Perhaps it is To give life To some things new Perhaps the end Is just an illusion There never is one As our lives just continue as many different ones Aswath

The path to health, loving relations, and reasonable wealth aren't much of a secret. It's theoretically simple. The hard part is doing what it takes consistently and over a long time. Change is hard. Our habits are a result of years of conscious or unconscious training, environment, and brain chemistry. It is hard to change old habits or develop new ones overnight.  Over the years, I have learned, reflected, and experimented with many tricks to establish new habits. Here are the top tricks that have worked well for me.   1. Big Why and Small Hows To do anything hard, you need to have a deep desire. Only pick a few goals where you can respond to "Will this make my life amazing?" and "Will I really regret not doing this?" with a resounding yes. Don't set arbitrary goals - you are likely to fail or, worse, spend your limited time working towards something that you don't really want.  My personal goal is to be as peaceful and joyful as possible and sprea...

In most discussions, debates, and decisions, the most important point is way more important than the second one.  The power law of communication is simply saying the most important thing. Say it powerfully and clearly. Completely cut or deprioritize everything else until the most important thing is understood and resolved. 

It's January - the season of resolutions. Unfortunately, it's also the season when resolutions die! A study showed that most people give up on their New Years' resolutions and goals by  January 19th.  Why is that? The most common problem is bad resolutions, not people or their will powers. There are 3 types of bad resolutions.  1. Blind resolutions : Most people blindly pick resolutions like "I want to drink more water" without knowing why it matters to them.  For any resolution to be relevant, you should be able to answer both "Would your life become significantly better?" and "Would your deeply regret not doing this?" with a resounding yes.  To know that, you need to start with a clear philosophy and picture of how you want to live and what your life is about. Then you work backward from that to create a prioritized plan. This is a solo exploration and a time-consuming process, but a foundational one. A lot of people skip this step.  2. Dream...

COVID started in 2020, but a deadlier pandemic has been spreading over the last 12 years or more. We see manifestations of it in recent uprisings, terrorism, politics, elections, and in the internet and real-life conversations. Its symptoms are dissatisfaction, tribalism, hate, violence, and a lack of cooperation and progress. It is the virus of disinformation and division. The virus spreads through human vulnerability to engage, believe, and share shocking lies that appeal to their theories, sense of righteousness, or sow doubt in the morals and actions of "the others" to blame for their real or imagined miseries.  The virus slowly then suddenly destroys the antibodies of rationality and empathy, replacing them with escalating levels of tribalism, hate, and anger. The infected then fervently spread it to others around them and on the internet, like zombies. 

1. Attitude and values  Are they rational, authentic, and honest? Are they curious and enthusiastic? Are they optimistic and cheerful? Do they take pride in their work, being good at their craft, and having an impact? Do they have a growth mindset?  Are they low-ego, respectful, win-win, and collaborative? If a person has a misaligned attitude or values, it's better to say no, even if they have high capability and interest.  2. Capability Do they have the raw smarts and foundations to learn and grow? Do they have the required functional skills at the right level of the job? Do they complement the team's skills and bring something new? Can they communicate and collaborate well? Do they have a similar previous experience with good work and insights? (less important if the above are strong) 3. Interest Deep interest is a multiplier for both attitude and capability.  Are they interested in the mission and domain? Are they interested in the customers? Are they interested ...

I try to be a minimalist. Everything we own comes at a cost - the upfront price we pay for it (and the number of work hours that translates to), the clutter it adds to our space and mind, the complexity it adds to our life and the waste and impacts it has on the world. So I try only to buy few high-quality things that will "spark joy" and be regularly useful. That's not always fool-proof, so I also try to return, donate or trash stuff that I don't use.  So I'm not a big fan of the season of gifting. It's very wasteful. People spend hard-earned money to give you stuff you likely don't need and you have to reciprocate by giving them things they don't need. It's also hard work and stressful - you have to think/shop/wrap and also hope the receiver likes it. Then you have to find use for your stuff or stow it away somehow.  But I'm not a total grinch either. I recognize that there is joy, however short-lived, in exchanging gifts. The tradition isn...

With the pandemic and growing political nastiness, 2020 really needed Ted Lasso and Soul. I definitely did.  Ted Lasso gave us a role model of a kind, uplifting, ever-positive, ego-less person who lights up the lives of people around him (more on Ted Lasso in this post ).  Soul helps us tackle the deep universal question about the meaning of life and finding joys in every day life.  Soul deconstructs and models spirituality, similar to what Inside Out does with emotions and memories. Strangely enough, despite tackling a seemingly more complex topic, Soul seems simpler, with fewer concepts, than Inside Out. Maybe that's a lesson in itself about how life is simple, but our emotions aren't.  If you haven't watched it yet, stop here and watch it! The rest of the post is full of spoilers. 

I visited One Medical in Seattle recently for my annual physical. The clinic had tall ceilings, gentle lighting and colors, and modern decor that blended well together. It was a calming and welcoming space.  The receptionist checked me in with a warm smile and a gentle voice. In a few minutes, the doctor met me in the reception and led me to her office. She showed similar warmth and genuine care. She asked me how I have been feeling, walked me through the process, gave me heads up and asked for permission before each procedure, then explained the results along with reassuring and firm advice on how to take care of myself.  There was no medicine or treatment, but the visit had boosted my mood and wellness. I left feeling good and positive. Let me contrast this with a couple of recent experiences. Last week, I clicked on a link to Forbes or Fortune article. As soon as I scrolled down past the first paragraph, there was a pop up asking me to enter my email, then without warning, ...

Whether you are working on a project, document, presentation, or a plan, I'd recommend this 20-80 approach (not to be confused with the 80-20 or Pareto approach of picking the most valuable parts of the project to do) First get to the 20% Skeleton Start with the goals of the projects, the audience, and what will make this tick for the audience. Lay out the plan for the plan - milestones and dates to get to the finish line.  Then you identify the main structure, sections and themes.  You get to this by gathering context, research and knowledge from different sources, doing a lot of deep solo thinking on the problem and solution, brainstorming and testing ideas in 1:1 or small group discussions with smart and knowledgeable people, and working backwards from the end goals and deliverable.  Add high level notes and ideas for content for each section.  Write all of the above down clearly in a doc or deck. Make sure that it flows logically and is understandable to others....

If I had to recommend only one self-help book to anyone, it'd have to be 7 Habits.  I first read the book when I was in high school. I had a used hard cover version and I remember reading it somewhat seriously, probably to find some advice for more academic success. Some of the concepts helped, but not too much as I didn't have enough experience or hard failings to appreciate the wisdom. I have since re-read it a couple of times and each time, I have appreciated it more and been able to reflect on the habits using my successes and failings.  As one of my friends put it, 7 Habits is a book to be studied, not just read . You realize the true value of the book when you actually reflect, do the exercises after every chapter, practice the habits and revisit the book every once in a while. This may take many months or even years, but hey - you only need to practice one great self-help book rather than read a hundred and follow nothing.  Here's the summary of the book from my la...

I have been interested in and closely following the "Financially Independent, Retire Early" (FIRE) movement thanks to the influences of some friends and the passionate  r/fire community.  The FIRE approach recommends reducing spending and saving up aggressively so that you can retire in your ~40s with the investment returns from the money you saved. I fundamentally agree with the premise of getting out of the rat race and not sacrificing your precious life years to work that you don't enjoy. Freedom to not have to work in a job you don't like or in a tough situation sounds quite amazing.  But I think the FIRE framing is problematic in a few ways: The entire concept of retirement is defined around what not to do (work), rather than defining what you'd rather do with your life. Most people don't have a good answer to "What would you do if you never have to work again?" or "What kind of job would you actually enjoy doing?" Even those who do, ...

A super power for both life and career is to be able to both zoom out to think of the full and big picture, and to zoom in to define and execute on concrete details.  During annual plannings at my previous companies, teams defined and shared high level strategy and key goals/results (OKRs) for the year. At my current company, we go a step further and define specific projects, timelines and staffing gantt chart. It takes more effort and feels "non-agile" to plan that far ahead, but after the initial skepticism, I find this exercise immensely useful as it forces me and my team to think of details and come up with a practical plan.  In my personal life, I am guilty of spending way more time overthinking, contemplating 10,000 ft philosophies and frameworks on life and career. But what actually creates tangible positive change are light thinking, followed by simple, concrete plans and decisive execution. For e.g.: If you want to improve your health, spending a day researching on e...

Every time I browse Twitter or Reddit, it feels like the most popular sport of the day is mudslinging. People are mean, angry and ruthlessly judge, ridicule and deflate others. Social mobs are ready to get cancel hashtags trending for anything or anyone who doesn't meet their finicky standard of perfection that they can neither articulate or pass themselves. These attitudes have also inevitably crept from online to in-person interactions as well.  We have become less tolerant of differences, innocent mistakes or unfortunate circumstances of colleagues or friends, we shit talk about other people more, and we take more glee at other people's fall. Kindness and acceptance have become rare.  When we draw more lines between us and "others" and when we judge and hate, we box and limit our own experience of friendship, love and happiness. Hate, anger, judgement and tribalism take as much or more away from us as they do to the person they are directed at. These attitudes are ...

I'm somewhat soft at work and avoid ruffling feathers, so this tweet struck a chord. Heard this today from a coach, and resonated: stop chasing being liked by everyone, start chasing being respected by everyone. — Akshay Kothari (@akothari) November 20, 2020 Don't misunderstand me. Being liked feels good and being nice builds healthy and enjoyable relationships. But I find that when I'm mainly driven by wanting to please or not offend people, I end up making suboptimal or unprincipled decisions that make me unhappy and unsuccessful in the long run.  You can't control what others think of you. People have various reasons to like or dislike you. Many of these reasons are selfish, irrational, short-term and finicky. Putting your self-worth, purpose and actions at the whims and fancies of this black box is a recipe for unhappiness and insecurity. The reasons to like or dislike are also often at odds with other people's and even your welfare, principles and goals. So ai...