Aswath Krishnan

I believe that time is all we have and how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. Well...until someone recently introduced me to the concept of "energized time".  Let's say you want to create more time for a project. So you reduce family dinner time and sleep time by 30 mins. It works well for a couple of days. But after that initial gain, you start feeling less productive or energized during your project time. I think we all intuitively understand and agree with this.  So it isn't just time that matters. How we feel during that time matters too.  So now I believe that "energized time" is all we have.  Understanding Energized Time Life is a series of activities - things you think and do, and also how, where, and with who.  Your  energy  levels - physical, mental, and emotional -  vary because of the activities. Higher energy levels mean you feel present, lucid, sharp, at ease, happy, and ready to run a mile. There are recharging activities ...

I have changed my jobs several times and I have struggled with the decision every time. Am I doing the right thing? Should I stay or try something else? Am I growing quickly enough? There’s a lot of career advice out there, but they can be incompatible, overwhelming, and unhelpful. So I have simplified it for myself here. As with every life question, the answer starts with the big why. Understand life and decide what you want to do and experience. And then follow it. The best life hack is clarity and intent.    My scorecard and purpose in life  are to experience peace and joy for myself and for others.  Career or profession is “what we do for others”. Career is not a separate or siloed-off section of life - it is embedded and entangled in it, ideally harmoniously.  A career or profession that is harmonious with my life purpose (1) increases peace and joy for others, (2) while doing something that’s joyful and interesting for myself, and also enabling (or at leas...

For the first time ever, I learned the same principle in THREE different contexts on the same day! And it was surprisingly relevant for the mood I have been in over the last couple of weeks. So I'm going to memorialize it here.   In the morning , a friend shared a scene and a quote from the movie Bridge of Spies, where the character is oddly calm when he's on the verge of being sentenced to the death penalty.   “You don’t seem alarmed.” “Would it help?” “Don’t you ever worry?” “Would it help?” “You’re not worried.” Would it help?” At noon , during lunch, my workplace hosted a fireside chat with Lori Gottlieb, author of  "Maybe you should talk to someone ." That was thrilling as I'd read and enjoyed the book just a few months back. She said the person we talk most to in our life is not our spouse, kids, nor parents...it is ourselves! We do a lot of self-talk in our heads, which significantly influences how we feel, act, and think. And unfortunately, we...

It's sometimes easier to think of what will make you fail at something than what will make you succeed. That's why I like the technique of "inversion" - instead of trying to be successful, just avoid the things that cause failure and you will succeed. I also like the practice of doing "pre-mortems" before starting on any project or team - imagine you failed, think of all the reasons why, and then prioritize and mitigate them.  Here are some common failure modes that you can try to avoid when you are pursuing anything - personal, career, business, relationships, etc. 1. No burning curiosity, desire, intent, or conviction . Most hard-to-achieve things take a long time and a ton of effort. So if aren't really emotionally, rationally, and intellectually drawn to a pursuit or excited about the process, just pursue something else you actually are drawn to. Seriously, why pursue things you don't want or need?! 2. Lack of deep understanding (and failure to k...

An ongoing exploration of my goals and purpose. Inspired by the Naval, Buddha, and Seinfeld. Background "How was the first person born? Who will bury the last dead person?" I was six years old, and out of the blue, I had posed child versions of existential questions to my amused and proud mother. I don't remember any answers, and if there was one, it probably went over my little head. I grew up in a middle-class family in Chennai, a bustling metropolis in India. My ambitions were driven by my culture's obsession and a necessity for meritocracy. In my world, academic achievement, prestigious jobs, and wealth were universally celebrated and recognized as marks of success. The lack of those was pitifully shunned or quickly shamed as failures. With strong support, encouragement, and occasional chiding from family, teachers, peers, and scorecards, I pursued that purpose with vigor. The pursuit was an emotional roller coaster. Celebratory milestones and fun activities punct...

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.