by Suparna Gharpure
I am reading John Carreyrou’s book about Theranos — as everyone knows by now, Theranos spent ~12 years trying to build a series of biotech products — they claimed to revolutionize lab testing, but as it turns out, all that was a load of horseshit. In the process, Theranos raised $1.4B, employed many hundreds of people, and made the …
Continue reading "We should stop glorifying the reality distortion field"
This post originally appeared on the Ctrl Alt Pitch blog. ----- This first entry in the Pit(ch)falls! series delves into a fascinating story from ~500 BC. Set in Sparta, one of the earliest recorded instances of a visual aid / “pitch deck” being used to make a proposal. This story involves Aristagoras, leader of a …
Continue reading "WHAT A 2500 YEAR OLD MEETING CAN TEACH US ABOUT PITCHING"
Bit-Coin Banega Crorepati So I've been trying to wrap my head around bitcoin & blockchain for a bit now. While tech insiders discovered and bought bitcoin a long time ago (relatively), the rest of the world is just catching up, as the wildly volatile cryptocurrency has made mainstream news. Bitcoin: $10,000 invested in July 2010 …
Here's a (possibly) new thought : voicing criticism about someone's work is not a birthright. Next time someone comes up to you at the watercooler and starts criticising colleague X, ask "what should X have done differently?", and watch them do a double take. It is so so easy to voice criticism. It is so …
Continue reading "Haters gonna hate (unless you do something about it)"
Star recently won global distribution rights of IPL matches for the next 5 seasons across digital and traditional channels, for a world record Rs. 16346 Cr. Its bid for the "whole hog" package surpassed the total of the largest bids for individual packages, which came to Rs. 15819 Cr: ~Rs. 3000 Cr digital-only bid by …
Continue reading "Star is set to be the real winner of the IPL"
This post is a long time coming. 5 years, to be exact. Techfest is an annual science and technology festival organized by students at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay. I had the good fortune to be one of the organizers for the 2011-12 edition. This was my (and probably most organizers’) first experience …
I was recently applying for a Director Identity Number (DIN) in India and wanted to share a few tips to help sidestep parts of the form that puzzled me / forced a bit of Googling. First off, the process is fairly streamlined, thanks to the folks at MCA for their efforts. So no major changes …
Continue reading "DIN form – tips and design tweaks to improve usability"
TLDR: Next time someone tells you about their personal goals, take them more seriously than they’re taking themselves. -- All of us have set personal goals at some point. I’ll start going to the gym, I’ll pick up painting as a hobby, I’ll learn to skateboard. And many of us are not that great at …
When was the last time anyone in your professional work setting said “I made a mistake by doing XYZ. I think I should have done ABC instead”? In a lot of companies (and the subset, teams), admitting a mistake is one the biggest mistakes you can make. Much better to blame external factors - “the …
Are you a Starter or a Finisher? I'm a Starter Finishers: Finishers, well, finish. They take projects to their logical conclusion. A limited number of projects are picked up & executed. Starters: Starters are great at starting new things. But they suck at finishing. Many projects are started enthusiastically but abandoned quickly. So: Are you …
The Rookery 