Nudge
Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein argued in their influential book, “Nudge”, that if we redesign our daily environment in such a way that it makes it easier to do things that we want to do and more difficult to do things that we want, it is more likely that our behavior would change in the […]
The Tyranny of Perfect
Leonard Cohen crooned, rather perfectly:Ring the bells that still can ringForget your perfect offeringThere is a crack, a crack in everythingThat's how the light gets in These are the kinds of lines that set you free. Free from the compulsion of producing something that is perfect. Free from the obligation of creating something that can […]
Establishing A Daily Routine
One of the essential practices in the vein of Slow Compounding is to establish a daily routine. Daily routine is essentially a set of activities that you do every day and have specific time market out or a specific goal chalked out. Most successful creative artists have a rigorous daily routine that they practice for decades. One […]
The perpetual amateur
Kids and Adults - A Contrast From the balcony of my house, I can see the kids' playground. It is fun observing kids play for hours, seemingly achieving nothing, trying the same thing over and over and still having so much fun. It is instructive to contrast that behavior with the group of adults. Just […]
Kumar Mangalam Birla on 2020
Kumar Mangalam Birla, in his 2020 letter on linkedin, reproduced here makes some very interesting points about the impact of the pandemic on the businesses and draws some insightful conclusions. Corporations are Citizens that count Perhaps uniquely, the crisis also brought to fore the regenerative and stabilising power of large corporations. Especially the ones with the ability […]
Asset Allocation and Diversification
There is a lot of research on how much of the typical returns of funds are from Asset Allocation and how much are from performance of individual asset. The general consensus is that "Asset allocation determines the majority of returns". Some researchers put it to the extent of 90% of the returns. Wow! Is that […]
Why is Bill Gates buying farmland?
There were several media reports that Bill Gates, the owner of Microsoft and one of the richest people in the world, was now the biggest owner of Farmland in the world. The question is why he is doing so? His core strength is the world of technology and there are many opportunities in the technology […]
Slow Compounding
In this great Youtube video, Chamath talks about a very important phenomenon for success in any field. He talks about the ability to get extraordinary returns on capital as an ability to work on hard problems in an unique way over a very long time horizon making very small but consistent progress year on year. […]
Wittgenstein's Rule Following Paradox
In Philosophical Investigations and even in the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Wittgenstein talks about the contradictions in the "Rule Following" paradigm of human knowledge, epistemology and linguistics. The idea he is trying to address here is the idea that says that language is essentially a set of rules that try to communicate the […]
Blogging and Me
I was probably India's first blogger, starting my blog in early 1999. There was something about blogging that attracted me immensely. The feeling of letting out your thoughts without editing was enticing. The immediacy and the informality of blogging was akin to the conversations you have with friends. Through blogging, I discovered punk rock, indie […]