Aswath Krishnan

Most religious leaders want us to believe that the forces of the universe (god) are all-powerful and all-loving. But I’m skeptical. I’m aware of the joys in the universe, but I’m also not blind to the unavoidable suffering that most beings have to endure - like the deer that falls prey to the lion, the mother who loses a child, or the frailties that come with aging. It’s hard for me to perform the mental gymnastics of theodicies to conclude that the omnipotent, benevolent creator didn’t have creative alternatives to this suffering for whatever their end goal might be. Maybe that’s a limitation of my intellect, but I don’t see any other proponents of the theory articulating a sound defense either.  I understand that the belief in a benevolent force can lead to psychological benefits, like optimism. But naive optimism only lasts so long as your brain is blissfully ignorant of the naivety. Such optimism is fragile and risks collapsing under the weight of reality.  ...

We are in the middle of a bathroom remodeling project. There are so many possibilities, it's an expensive project with long-term implications, and I had never done something like this before, so I was having a tough time figuring out the layout. Though warranted, I realized I was struggling more than necessary because of 3 reasons:  1. Not having clarity on goals and priorities. We wanted a better bathroom, but we hadn't really articulated and ranked our main priorities. When we decided that our main goals were a larger shower, access from the bedroom, and a larger vanity, it was so much easier to come up with options and rank them against the clear criteria. This simple and nifty trick has helped me with every major decision like picking jobs or buying a home.   2. Not having clarity on constraints.  When I understood that we couldn't place the vanity in a spot because of a window, or place a shower in another spot because of the low ceiling, it eliminated more opt...

I had a realization that whenever I'm attacked by the flu or any sickness, my mood's also caught in the crossfire! My usual sunny outlook clouds over faster than you can say "pass the tissues." As I start to claw my way back to health, my spirits lift too. But try as I might, I'm not able to "happy thought" my way out of feeling crummy when sick.  "Mind over matter" is exaggerated. Sure, our thoughts have power, but they're not always the captain of this ship. For most of us who aren't Buddha, our well-being is this intricate tapestry woven from our physical health, the love we get from those around us, where we are in life – literally and figuratively – and whether we feel safe and sound in our world. Ever caught an episode of "Queer Eye"? It's like a masterclass in holistic healing. That fab five don't just revamp wardrobes; they renovate lives with their all-hands-on-deck approach – tackling everything from throw pi...

It was a beautiful tropical day and I was at the beach, happy to be away from the bustle of regular life. But as luck may have it, the spot we landed was right next to two ladies reading NY Times political articles to each other like they were poems of love. They smugly basked in the Times’ self-righteousness, eschewing the ignoramus followers of De Santis and Trump. “How can they not get the separation of church and state”, one of them commented incredulously. “Right right right”, the other affirmed, with little consideration that it was as much a belief as the Bible. They continued “right right right” ing each other as they preached familiar talking points with as little nuance and balance as an election pamphlet, each exchange lifting them higher on their horses and further from any middle ground. Radicalization isn’t a distant phenomenon in mass gatherings in the Middle East or middle America. There are little bubbles of polarizing echo chambers all around us.

I attended an inspiring talk by Robin Wall Kinmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, last year. In the talk and in her book, she poignantly describes the contrast between the colonizers and her indigenous peoples’ view of the world. The settlers regarded nature as a resource, whereas they regarded the earth as a generous mother who bestows them with life and gifts. The Westerners regarded humans as occupying the top position of a pyramid, whereas they regarded all species as inter-dependent kin in a circle of life and humans being the little brothers who are new to the scene and have a lot to learn from wise elder species. The Westerners endlessly sought more and played god, while the natives learned to live harmoniously and gently, with divine reverence. This difference in mindset and the language used to describe the world and our place in it both causes and affects their relationships and behaviors. We live in a world of colonizers and are offsprings of colonizers because colonizers ...

A cousin shared his 5 year rule with me recently - if you want to be successful at something hard and probabilistic, commit and do it for 5 years. Success = Execution x Opportunity It takes a few years to learn, make mistakes, understand the game, know the players, become known, and build trust in any new domain. The longer you play the game, the more skillful and “luckier” you become. Overnight success is a myth. You have to risk it and work it to get the biscuit. Such commitment isn’t easy, especially during the early years when nothing seems to work out. You need to pick a game that you enjoy, have high conviction in, and leverages your aptitude, resources, and talents. You need to drop many other games that are also enticing. You need staying power (money, time, emotional fortitude, support) to sustain the 5 years.

Solve  valuable and underserved problems or desires  exceedingly well and sustainably  while accumulating advantages . Let's break it down! (1) Valuable  = It's very important and top of mind for enough people.  I have heard someone describe these well as "hair-on-fire" problems. These are problems that people are actively google searching for or complaining to others about. Some examples of valuable problems from companies I have worked at: losing weight (Noom), getting to/from the airport (Lyft), passing a school test or interviews (Quizlet), satisfying energy efficiency requirements (Opower), buying anything conveniently and quickly (Amazon), and tools to make a living (Microsoft).   (2)  Underserved   = there is no good alternative. Customers dislike available options. My belief is that there are tons of problems that are underserved. But if you only look at a very high level, you will think there aren't many. You find more underserv...

In spiritual practice, enlightenment refers to the experience of seeing the light by unlocking a deep, revealing insight about your reality.  Enlightenment also actually lightens your life and how you interact with the world by eliminating unnecessary burdens of cravings and aversions that you carry and by increasing your equanimity, ease, and love. 

Wayfair announced their 3rd or 4th big round of recent layoffs last week. The CEO's email explained how they are trying to "right size" the organization in the face of a tough economic situation. Simply put, their online furniture retail business isn't panning out to be as large of an opportunity as they were hoping it to be and they are now painfully rolling back. They aren’t alone - there have been over 300,000 layoffs in tech since last year. Many startups have dropped to a fraction of their previous values or shut down completely.  2015 to 2021 was a hype cycle of irrational exuberance in tech. We had seen huge successes from the previous wave of internet and mobile startups, like Facebook. Every startup and founder imagined they could also 10 or 100x their business. VCs and their LPs were willing to invest millions at extraordinary valuations, blinded by FOMO and free money. There’s smart risk and there’s stupid greed. Startups could sell $10 bills for $9, and s...

Tinkering is simply working on projects we enjoy or are curious about. It could be a home improvement project, a newsletter, hosting events, a piece of art, or a software tool. You do what you want, the way you want. You may take pride in showing it, but you aren't doing it for others. And you certainly are not expecting to earn from it. It's mostly for your own pleasure; for the joy and energy of doing and creating. Entrepreneurship is aimed at creating a sustainable business. You have to deliver solutions that customers want, in the way they want. You need to do a lot of external exploration, test, and pivot often to find the right idea. Even then, you can't just create; you need to do a bunch of extraneous work like marketing, customer calls, research, hiring, pricing, budgeting, fundraising, invoicing, taxes, etc. There's also a lot of uncertainty, pressure to succeed, ups and downs. Entrepreneurship can have fun aspects, but it will also have a lot of not-so-fun ...

I try to pay more attention when ideas keep coming back. They highlight something important and usually add more depth.   Day before yesterday, I was running in a sub-zero weather after an intense weight training session, and a familiar idea “ Embrace doing hard things ” resurfaced.  I’m new to athleticism and this isn’t normal. The exercise was tough! Breathing in the freezing air was hard. I was losing feeling in my fingers and toes. And my legs were still screaming from the deadlifts.  But I felt alive, strong, and joyful! More so than I did sitting on my couch inside my house and scrolling on my phone an hour before.  The traditional wisdom is to pursue comfort and safety to enjoy a good life. And that’s what we have done. Now, at least in rich societies, we have incredibly predictable and cushy lives. But mental health has surprisingly declined, not improved, in this transition.  Without regular exposure to controllable stress, we aren’t building our physic...

Culture, simplistically, is a derivation of what we believe and how we think and act, which in turn are derivations of the information we are exposed to. In the past, information was limited by geography to a large extent. Local newspapers, leaders, and intellectuals. With the Internet, it is not. You can have different information exposures and consequently, different cultures, between neighbors. You can find polarization within a street, rather than just between states, countries, or continents.  This has interesting implications for governance, which is still geography-based. Governance, which is simplistically what strategy and policies should we collectively follow, largely derives from culture. If culture is no longer geographic, how can we govern geographically? While this is short-term problematic, I think it is long-term positive as it unlocks a degree of freedom for people - to align themselves with whichever belief and culture they prefer. We still exist in the physical ...

I don’t know if many billionaires will read this blog, but this is still an important principle for the rest of us too.  Almost every game in life - sports, business, career, academia, family and friendship, hobbies - is played in levels. For example, in car racing, you have to compete in your school clubs, then inter-school, then regional, then F4, F3, F2, and then finally F1.  Seems reasonable, but most of us want to jump to the final level right away. We regularly see inspiring and glamours videos of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Sam Altman, so we also want to aim high and start a space or AI company. We don’t want to work on a silly job or start a small business; we just want to change the world doing something way more important and shinier! But what we don’t see as often is that these folks only got where they are because they worked through many lower levels of less glamorous jobs and business for decades. Elon Musk built and sold 3 businesses before he could start SpaceX. ...

I'm realizing that a large percentage of my bad days start with bad sleep.  I wake up tired. I try to get more sleep, so wake up late and skip my morning ritual of puttering around slowly and planning the day. I'm more irritable, more anxious, and less lucid. I eat more junk food. I skip exercise. I'm on my phone more. I have more restless energy and thoughts. I stay up late and can't sleep. The cycle repeats.  If you are caught in this cycle, your main priority should be to get out of it by getting a good night's rest. Drop everything else that you can and dedicate most of the evening to just that. Put away your phone, exercise go for a walk, have a light dinner, and dim the lights. Have night-time tea, magnesium, or melatonin. Go to bed earlier than usual. If you can't sleep, meditate or listen to relaxing music.   

I have written about how peace and joy are in our control. Peace comes from acceptance of reality, and joy comes from appreciation and celebration of reality. So both are technically in our mind's control, I concluded, annoyingly.  But it isn't that simple. We are human and emotional, and life throws things at us, so it is very natural and inevitable that our peace and joy get upset. If we stay upset over multiple days, we spiral into what I call a "funk", where our upset mind makes itself even more upset. Getting into funk sucks. It means losing several days or even weeks of peace and joy and is hard to get out of because your mind is compromised.  Why do we get into a funk Here are some of the main reasons why I get into a funk:  1) Overthink things out of our control Something in the past (what-ifs and only-ifs), or something that someone else did, or some bad luck or random event upsets us. We then obsess about it and our minds tend to become negative.  We exper...

I grew up in the 1990s in a bustling city in India. The country was mostly poor, but everyone, through a few rich friends, media, or travel, knew there was a better life - one where you don't have to worry about the basics and can even indulge in luxuries. Every person aspired and craved for that better life - if not for them, at least for their kids.  For middle-class kids like me, a hopeful but difficult path emerged. If you study hard, get better test scores than everyone else, and get admission to top colleges, you either get a good career, or even better, you get to pursue a life abroad. This is the path to not only wealth, but also to being celebrated and liked by your friends, relatives, teachers, and community. Some of us took this seriously. The achiever virus was etched into our brains - keep working hard and keep progressing - to more prestigious institutions and more lucrative opportunities. We did it, over and over again. And the more we did it, the more the virus mult...

"The modern devil is cheap dopamine" - Naval Ravikant Throughout history, each generation has been ensnared by a distinct addiction. Alcohol, tobacco, and processed foods trace a familiar arc: celebrated innovations morph into pervasive vices. Initially hailed for their pleasurable effects, these substances soon trigger a race to enhance their potency and availability. This cycle of desire and overindulgence, fueled by profit-driven peddlers and consumers alike, inevitably collides with the limitations of human biology, leading to widespread harm before an eventual and slow course correction. The Dance of Pleasure and Pain

I enjoyed all three of them this week :) Cooking is remarkably more efficient when done in bulk. Cooking for 6 people or for a week isn’t that much harder than cooking for 2 or for a single meal. This is because the bulk of cooking involves “fixed cost” activities - researching the recipe, buying ingredients, combining them, and cleaning up - that don’t vary much with quantity.  Cooking and eating are essential, universal, and time-consuming. So I’m a fan of companies and inventions that leverage this efficiency of “cooking in bulk” but also preserve the affordability, freshness, and satisfaction of homemade food. Typically they achieve this by doing 80% of the cooking and leaving the last 20% to the consumer. Packaged foods and food delivered from restaurants are too close to 100% and have the downsides of being too expensive, unhealthy, or stale.  Tea bags are perfect. 

Every few weeks, I stumble upon yet another think piece warning against starting B2C software businesses. The argument often boils down to this: B2C is a financial black hole—a worse gamble than a lottery ticket. Even Y Combinator, the quintessential startup breeding ground, seems to have shifted its focus toward B2B, a trend that many see as a reflection of market realities. But let’s pause here. Doesn’t this advice feel... odd? Take a look around your home. Most of what you own—your clothes, gadgets, kitchenware, and maybe even that Peloton collecting dust—are B2C products. Your credit card bill? It’s dominated by B2C expenses: groceries, subscriptions, travel, and entertainment. If consumers are spending so much, why is B2C suddenly considered an entrepreneurial minefield? Let’s unpack this. The Real Scope of B2C Success First, the anti-B2C sentiment overwhelmingly targets software startups , not physical products or services. And even within software, it tends to exclude "hybr...

The CEO of Coinbase shared this advice to pre-PM fit startup founders and it really resonated:  https://twitter.com/StartupArchive_/status/1738905209093468459 Low certainty pursuits and decisions, like your life purpose or philosophy, career or startup idea to pursue, who’d be an ideal life partner, where would you like to live, etc. are often the most impactful and the most challenging aspects of our lives.  They are unique in the sense you don’t have enough information to make a rational choice. The options and their outcomes are unknowns. So we can get stuck in analysis-paralysis trying to figure them out intellectually. But that doesn’t solve the core problem - the lack of information and certainty. The way to get more information is to act - go explore, ask around, and try things out. Keep an open mind, your cycles fast and, learn from them.  The best way to see through the fog is to take a few steps forward into the unknown. 

  I applied for a grant this year and the granters shared that 90% of the applications were submitted just 2 days before the deadline!  This isn't uncommon. The majority of people are deadline-driven. We do a chore whenever it's urgent and absolutely necessary (unless it's a recurring habit or routine). This is why creating urgency and setting a deadline is key for your own personal endeavors and when you expect others to do something. But our brains aren't that easy to trick. They know when a deadline is fake. So you need to make it as real and consequential as possible.  This is why retailers have limited-time offers and sales - to force a buying decision or miss out on a great offer. This is why it's important to set a target response date whether you are fundraising or hiring someone. This is why you are more likely to succeed if you sign up for half marathons or business targets.  Deadlines convert something that's only important to something urgent and imp...

A recent survey showed that more than half of Americans hate their jobs. Probably another 30% feel pretty neutral about them. r/antiwork is one of the largest communities in Reddit and growing. So many people are looking to retire early (or FIRE). The common complaints against work are the lack of a decent pay and benefits, potential for growth, work-life balance, meaning, respect, etc. Many people also justifiably think they can’t have a good life like their parents did despite working a job. There’s a pent up negativity against evil and heartless corporates and middle managers that treat workers as expendable resources.  Maybe work was always seen as a necessary evil, but it seems like the relationship has become more negative in the last few decades. It feels like the capitalistic machinery has taken a wrong turn. Perhaps attitudes have also changed to want more leisure and comfort for less work, thanks to the unrealistic lifestyles popularized on the internet and the Cambrian e...

Dobby, the lovable elf in Harry Potter, is often filled with so much self-loathing that it’s hard to watch. You want to hug him and reassure him that he’s okay and he’s loved. It’s even harder because Dobby isn’t just a fictional character in a made-up magical world. Dobby is very real - we all have one within us.  Our inner Dobby is often our meanest boss, negligent carer, and harshest critic. Inner Dobby is often upset or unhappy with us. Inner Dobby never thinks we are good enough. Inner Dobby never thinks we deserve a break.  I want to hug mine and everyone else’s inner Dobby, and reassure them with this short poem - 

The popular wisdom is to learn from failures.  And I agree, you should. We are going to make a number of mistakes, especially if we pursue unpaved paths and risky ventures. Without bold risks and mistakes, we as humanity will not stand where we are. So being open to risk, mistakes and learning from them is crucial. Mistakes are also humbling - they force us to take a pause and reflect, whereas success can breed ego and complacency. But I’d posit there’s more learning in successes. Take a founder who has attempted 4 failed businesses vs a founder who has 1 successful business. Who do you think has more valuable knowledge? I’d argue that the second founder knows at least one way to succeed and can replicate that. But the first founder can avoid a few ways to fail they have learned and has probably built up resilience to failures, but they are still left with hundreds of other ways to fail. They still don’t know a single path to success. There’s a tongue in cheek wisdom - “Most happy ...

If you think the Buddha is a religious leader and Buddhism is a religion, you are somewhat mistaken.  Buddha was the first prolific DIY psychologist. He spent years observing his own mind, experimenting, and coming up with astute observations and techniques to alleviate suffering and increase joy.  According to the Buddha, the root of all unhappiness is just one thing - "tanha". You can think of it as the quick grabby feeling that arises when we just can't accept a situation and when there’s disharmony between reality and our (mostly subconscious) selves. It manifests in many forms - fear, craving, anger, desire, worry, etc.  I think of tanha as “mental clenching" arising from “knots” or sore spots. Similar to muscular knots or kinks in a hose, they prevent the natural flow of movement and life. Almost every person in the world is knotting and clenching thousands of times every day in different ways. Reducing the knotting may be the most powerful lever to improve our...

A few years ago, two different friends of mine started startups with nearly the same idea - a coaching/mentorship marketplace for professionals. They had similar backgrounds and teams. Their products also were functionally identical. One friend has shuttered the business, and the other seems to be growing strong. How did that happen? The friend who's still in the game was heavily focused on building a social following and community. She did multiple LinkedIn posts a week, attended events, met people 1:1, and hosted events. Eventually, she developed a community of over 50,000 professionals. She knew the community was the heart of the business and started with a community-first approach. She was also good at it and enjoyed doing it. The other friend was simply focused on building the software product. He was also more introverted and didn't enjoy posting publicly or organizing communities.  A lot of tech founders make the critical mistake of assuming that building a startup means...

I have used this product called Mudwtr for a few months.  Mudwtr is a powdered mix of supplements like Lion’s mane, Reishi, Turmeric, etc. Most people have probably not heard of these or are convinced about their benefits. But Mudwtr didn’t position their product as a wellness supplement or nootropic. That’d appeal to an enthusiastic but very small market of body and mind hackers.  Instead, they did something brilliant. They mixed masala chai (tea) with it and positioned it as a coffee alternative. They started talking about how this is better than a coffee, instead of trying to sell people on wellness benefits of taking dried mushroom supplements.  It’s much more familiar and easier to understand. It’s an easier purchase decision to try a different coffee vs taking a mushroom supplement. It fits into their current lifestyle. 75% of the world drinks coffee - so suddenly their target market is 100x! Nearly the same product, but with much more effective positioning.  L...

This paragraph from Ayn Rand's "Philosophy - who needs it?" speech and especially the remark on the nature of the subconscious resonated with me. "A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation — or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind's wings should have grown." The subconscious mind is quick, intuitive, and emotional. The conscious mind is deliberate, logical, rational, and unemotiona...

This is a trick question. Most of you would say no; definitely not even the smartest chimp. Then I’d say - aha! relative to the scope and complexity of the universe, humans aren’t that much smarter than chimps. So humans can’t decipher the universe either!  It's a humbling and eventually comforting thought. We pride ourselves on being the most intelligent species on Earth, yet when it comes to the scale of the universe's mysteries, are we that much more enlightened than our chimp cousins?

I have long been interested in the mind. Why wouldn’t everyone be?! Everything we perceive as life is through the mind. So much so that you can even hypothesize that the entire universe is conjured within the mind, rather than the other way around.  The mind remains a mystery to us. But luckily, we don’t need to fully understand how something works to be able to operate it sufficiently well. Anyone who drives a car, browses the internet, uses a microwave, or relies on gravity to stay put would agree. We have discovered several techniques to alter this black box of mind to be more pleasant and effective.  This is my semi-organized brain dump of some of those across 3 broad realms - 

I still remember the phone call 14 years later, so it clearly meant a lot to me. In my final year of college in Singapore, I was selected to interview with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) . BCG Singapore was known to be extremely selective - interviewing only a handful of people every year and hiring maybe 1 or 2. So the pressure was on and I spent every ounce of my energy in the next 1-2 weeks preparing for the interview. I also bought and borrowed some nice clothes and got a haircut to look presentable. The interview day arrived. I was nervous but as prepared as I could be. I did okay, but I knew I hadn't really nailed it. A couple of days later, I got a phone call. It was one of the partners who had interviewed me. He shared the bad news quickly - I didn't receive the job offer. He also explained that he was the dissenting partner, so he was calling to explain his decision. He talked through the case study (it was about a small airport trying to grow profitable), highlighted t...

It's been a few weeks since I published my first book - The 5-Step Job Search . I feel happy about the milestone and how the book has been received. But I have to admit that I also feel conflicted about writing a book on the topic of job searching. I was confident it was needed and would be helpful - that isn't the problem. I feel conflicted because it's a band-aid to succeed in an inherently broken system that I have come to despise, despite being reasonably good at it. I'd much rather prefer if we can fix the system. I'd much rather prefer if we made the system perfectly meritocratic so that everyone can just focus on being good at their jobs and be magically placed in the right job for them, rather than spending even an ounce of energy in learning to be good at this bizarre skill of job searching.

"Be healthy" is a misleading and unhelpful slogan and goal.  Most young or middle-aged people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s enjoy "good enough" health. So being healthy isn't a very inspiring or urgent call to action. It's a low bar that they have already hit.   The health issues start in their 50s and beyond.  Fitness, as measured by strength, speed, flexibility, or endurance, is a much better goal because most people would agree they aren't fit enough and fitness is actually a leading indicator of long-term health.

In poker, there’s a concept called selective aggression to maximize your winnings - be conservative when you have an okay hand but get aggressive whenever you have a good one.  A few years back, I got a good hand in my career. I was doing really well in the job and had also developed a good rhythm and reputation. I was also getting paid over 3X what I had ever made before, with a path to more raises and promotions.  But instead of doubling down, I decided to roll the die again and take up another opportunity that seemed interesting. Turns out I didn’t roll sixes this time.  The lesson is that life is always going to be a game of chance. When you hit a winner, double down. Explore and extract.  This is true for business as well. It’s extremely hard to find a Product-Marlet fit, but when you do, go all-in and extract as much as possible, rather than exploring another P-M fit. This is also true in investing, relationships, hobbies, or habits. 

I published my first book last week, and I’m very happy about the milestone and how it’s been received so far.  The process has made me more familiar with the Amazon Kindle bookstore. I’m suddenly aware there are tons of books published and many of them seem quite promising. But despite that most never really take off in a big way.  This has made me realize that the secret to success isn’t doing just one hard thing. Writing a book is hard! It takes a ton of motivation, resilience, domain knowledge, writing skills, and creativity. But clearly, just doing that one hard thing isn’t enough.  But if you combine that one hard thing with another hard thing, you dramatically increase your chances. If you do a tour promoting your book, run a marketing campaign, or if you have already earned a reputation in your domain, your book suddenly rises above all others.  The reason is simple - there are 7 billion people in the world and we have a pretty efficient market. For any singl...

I have been splitting my time between a part-time PM role and starting my own company. In both, I realized breakthroughs and progress happen because of one main underlying character trait.  Obsession.  Obsession about the domain.  Obsession about the customer and problem.  Obsession about the goals and strategy.  Obsession about the current product and business.  Obsession about execution details.  Obsession about delivery. Obsession about feedback and results. Obsession about learning and improving.  Obsession with the craft of PM and product development. When you are obsessed, there's a constant thread in your brain that's always obsessing about all these factors. You are also constantly researching, learning, tinkering, discussing, ideating, and iterating.  Obsession, when combined with curiosity, knowledge, intellect, and collaboration , leads to clarity, evolution of ideas, elegant simplifications, breakthroughs, and getting all the deta...

We can all agree that it would kinda suck to exist alone in the universe. Adversity with friends is better than success or comfort alone.  Hear it from Shaq: “I live in a 30 thousand square foot house by myself. You don’t think I know I messed up?” I appreciate whatever transpired to get us to this moment in reality because it brought us together, with each other, capable of problem-solving, empathy, kindness, togetherness, play, and love.  We can make lives better for each other - less suffering, more enjoyable, and more meaningful. In fact, that may be the only way to do it.  The ego is often the root of most unhappiness. When we focus on just the I, just ourselves, we suffer. The I is a small, transient, fickle, greedy, and fearful illusion.  When we focus beyond us - our loved ones, our society, all of humanity, all of everything - we feel limitless and we thrive. Be it your personal life or your career/business, expand your focus beyond yourself. 

This Zinda Banda track from the new Bollywood blockbuster, "Jawan," has taken over my playlist recently. It's not just Anirudh's peppy music or Shah Rukh Khan's swag.  What truly speaks to me is the lyrical essence of the song, which has crystallized a powerful epiphany I've had in recent months. A realization that serves as a clarion call whenever I find myself teetering on the edge of self-doubt or an important decision in my startup or life journey. *** Banda Ho To Zinda Ho! If you're alive, truly live! Banda Zinda Ho To Zinda Nazar Haana Zaroori Hai! To be alive, it’s necessary to have a lively vision.  A few months ago, I took the plunge into entrepreneurship, leaving behind the relative stability of a 9-to-5 job. It was a leap of faith into a realm filled with uncertainties and risks. Entrepreneurs, you'll get me when I say the looming specter of failure has often kept me awake at night, pondering whether it's time to pack it up and return to...

This talk by Bill Gurley, a popular venture capitalist, is a master class in both the subject of regulatory capture and presentation. It's so well-crafted and powerful - the story-telling, the flow, the energy and intonation, the slides, the creative title and close, the eye-opening lived experiences and insider insights, the authenticity, and the truth to power and corruption.  It drives home that America is the land of capitalists. If you are a large business, there's probably no better place in the world. Conversely, if you are in America, consider starting a business or owning equity to thrive. Capitalists are the kings here.  Compare it to Europe, where capital gains taxes are high, and employees and consumers have strong protections and social services. Or to India, where politicians, cricketers, and movie stars are the kings. Or to China, where the CCP is the only monarch.  Most companies need to do some objective good for their customers to rise and survive, so th...

I woke up excited today because I had shared my new app on Reddit, and I was eager to check if it had taken off.  I have been waking up excited on many days over the last few months for similar reasons. I'd have taken a long shot the previous day - launched a new product, shared a blog or social media post, sent an email to an influential person, applied for an exciting job, etc. Long shots (or moon shots) have small odds of turning into something really big, exciting, and life-changing.  Extraordinary successes are almost always a result of taking long shots and asymmetric bets. Sam Altman in his blog on  How to be Successful , writes "I always choose a next project that, if successful, will make the rest of my career look like a footnote."   Most people, most of the time, are on a very linear path, with no possibility of a big win or exponential take-off. They don't buy any lottery tickets and they don't win any big prizes.  When you keep buying lottery t...

In a recent team meeting, someone announced we wouldn't be able to meet a project deadline and we'll have to move it to later. Not wanting to be pushy or unreasonable, I accepted and updated the date. But another colleague interjected and held the bar. He pointed out that we had slipped a few times already and rallied the team to figure out options to meet the date.  Oftentimes, we avoid hard things  and uncomfortable conversations, and try to be "naively nice". This leads to a slippery slope that snowballs into low accountability, performance, quality, outcomes, morale, and pent-up frustration. I say naively nice because ultimately this turns out to be not very nice to the team, stakeholders, managers, business, and customers.  The nicer way is to set clear and reasonable expectations, hold and raise the bar, provide direct and timely feedback, identify and fix the problems, and work together compassionately and collaboratively to make it happen.  Notes:  1. Am...

There is now plenty of great advice, thought leadership, frameworks, newsletters, podcasts, and courses for being a good product manager (this blog included).  Maybe even too much.  My simple advice that supersedes everything else is this: First, make $100 on the internet on your own.  My first job out of college was as a consultant for startups in an incubator in Ghana. While I could give helpful technical advice on how to build their products, I felt like an imposter when advising on the business or approach. I was a new grad who had never started a business on my own, so who the heck was I to share my business advice?! 

  I was watching this interview with Rich Barton, one of the few people in the world who has created multiple successful businesses across industries - Expedia, Zillow, and Glassdoor.* He recalls the story of how Zestimate (home price estimate) was created.  One of the investors, Bill Gurly, asked him a powerful question before they launched Zillow - what would you do if you had no ad budget?  Good questions can be life and business changing. And in this case, it turned out to be.  Rich and his team ended up creating Zestimate and market reports, which generated a lot of interest and organic traffic. Constraints breed creativity. Sometimes, imagination can solve problems better than money can.  Coincidentally, I watched another video on the same week where Linkedin's CBO shared how the other end of the spectrum - thinking without any constraints - leads to more creative solutions as well.  I'd square both these points into this one piece of advice: If you a...

Growing up in the middle class in India, the first 20 years of my life were somewhat consumed in the pursuit of academic, career, and financial success to secure a comfortable life. But now that I'm comfortable and have checked off those boxes, the same scarcity and survival mindset is unhelpful.  This quote really drove it home for me.  “Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations.” – Tim O’Reilly Gasoline and money are really important when you are low. But they are hardly important if you have enough. The same can be said about other pursuits like fame. Get what you need, so you can finally enjoy the life you want.

The world always has a lot more skeptics than innovators. *** Skeptics question any change. While blindly accepting the status quo and all its flaws.  They are limited by their own fears, lack of vision, beliefs, and capabilities. They choose the easy path of nay-saying and changing nothing.  Innovators question the status quo.  They see a better way. They are eager to invent and try new things. They are bold, creative, capable, and action-oriented. They are choosing the hard path of solving problems and creating change. *** Every innovator is met with skeptics who try to douse their spirit. If you are trying to be an innovator, surround yourself with other innovators who energize you and help you figure out a way.  Notes:  1. Yes, there are thoughtful skeptics and clueless or evil innovators. 

A friend of mine was baffled that he wasn't getting promoted. He was getting his work done and coming up with good ideas. But people who were less capable seemed to be progressing faster.  "It's just stupid politics and unfairness", he grumbled. When the world doesn't seem to operate according to our expectations, guess where the problem is? Yeah, you got it...the expectations. When your model of the situation, and therefore your expectations, doesn't capture some key variables or dimensions, the course of events will baffle and frustrate you. In my friend's case, his model of the world derived from school where studying hard and doing well on your tests gets you good grades. But in the corporate world, it isn't that one-dimensional or clear-cut. Collaboration, enthusiasm, likability, influence, working on the right things, producing and demonstrating results, etc. matter in both promotions and impact. When things don't go as expected, instead of b...

 The secret to innovation... ...is to tackle a very specific problem. Obsessively, deeply, and excellently.  Given the vastness of human knowledge already, there probably isn't much low-hanging fruit of discovery in most areas (the circle isn't uniform as depicted, so it may be lower in some areas than others). So innovation needs depth.  Specific innovations and deep understandings of specific problems can possibly evolve into broad truths or innovations. But you are less likely to go deep and innovate if you are starting off broad.  Notes 1. There's a valid counterargument that broad knowledge across domains can help spark innovation through a general understanding of the world and by translating ideas from one domain to another. I have a center in the middle to represent a broad understanding. It's possible that 2 or 3 areas of focus might be better than 1, but I doubt 10 areas of focus (is that even focus?) is better than 1.  2. This was inspired by listenin...

I just finished the 23-mile, 5000-foot Enchantments hike in a single day.  Not going to lie - it kicked my ass, especially the relentless climb up Aasgard Pass .  But boy oh boy, it was beautiful to walk by pristine Alpine lakes. Even more significant and long-lasting was the exhilaration of being able to do something so difficult after being non-athletic and flatfooted most of my life. And that made me think... 🕊 The ability to do and enjoy hard things sets you free.   When I was deciding whether to do the hike, one of my friends jokingly said, "Worst case is you will be miserable!" The default human nature is to pursue the path of least resistance and immediate gratification to the local maxima. When you pursue comfort and stability, life has a way of slapping you back into harsh reality. Because stability is an illusion. Life is entropic and always changing.  On the other hand, if you aren't deterred by hard things - things that are high risk and hard to figure ...