Startups, VC, life: notes on things that blow my mind
One of my all time favourite movies is The Founder. The movie describes the story of Ray Kroc, founder of the multinational food-chain, McDonald's. A brilliant scene that has stuck with me is one where the McDonald's brothers narrate how they managed to reduce the time to make and serve burgers from 30 minutes to … Continue reading Notes on Aravind Eye Care
I have tons of friends (actually just 4, but doesn't have the same effect does it?) who think that the way to solve the education problem of India is to spend more on it. They are well intentioned, but that's all they are because that statement is simply not true. Let me step back for … Continue reading Spending more on education is not the answer
Read the full post on The Print. Written jointly with Yash Mehta. The development agenda today is largely about drawing an arbitrary line for poverty and focusing on a narrow goal of pulling individuals just above this line. Multilateral development organisations like the UN and the World Bank play an important role in setting the … Continue reading On poverty lines and economic growth
Read the full post on Pragati Sanju is a biopic on Bollywood superstar Sanjay Dutt’s dramatic and controversial life. Some viewers have been impressed with Ranbir Kapoor’s acting and the touching depiction of the circumstances under which Dutt committed the mistakes that he did–including but not limited to the illegal possession of three AK-56 rifles … Continue reading Sanju: Bad Decisions Make For Bad Stories
I've been meaning to write about this for some time. YouTube recommended me two interesting videos on tech. 1. Why has Xiaomi announced that it will forever limits its net profit on all hardware to 5%? Sounds puzzling right? Here's a nice explainer video on why it may be a good strategic move. 2. Why … Continue reading Economics of Tech: Xiaomi and Microsoft
The Florida Project is a great movie. Seven-year-old Brooklynn Prince punches way above her weight in this powerful and emotional film on poverty in America. It was only after I came across a video explaining the subtleties of the movie, did I realize that as an amateur movie watcher, I had missed many aspects of … Continue reading The subtle genius of The Florida Project
The World Bank has a new Chief Economist- Pinelopi Goldberg. As twitterverse was posting congratulatory messages, a VoxDev article of hers (with Nina Pavcnik) popped up. Interesting snippets from the concluding remarks below: It's hard to conclude the reason behind China's economic success... First, the massive trade liberalisations were in many instances accompanied by domestic … Continue reading Trade is good but…
I recently watched Intelligence Squared's debate on the proposition "Let anyone take a job anywhere". It was a fun watch but more interesting was the voting pattern of the audience. Everyone was asked to vote for which side they were on: For or Against. This was done once at the start of the debate and … Continue reading Public opinions on ‘Let anyone take a job anywhere’
Yesterday, a co-worker shared a Guardian long read on minimum wages. I responded with some comments on Twitter. I am reproducing it here. If indeed a monopsony among buyers of labour is the root cause of low wages, then the minimum wage does absolutely nothing to solve that. In fact, by raising the cost of … Continue reading Tweeting about Minimum Wages
Read the full post on Pragati The World Bank recently released their biennial Women, Business and the Law report. The report starts with an interesting anecdote. Now consider the case of Svetlana Medvedeva, who studied navigation in college and graduated as a navigation officer in the Russian Federation. She applied to work as a ship’s … Continue reading Sexism, Sexism Everywhere
Woah moments 