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I recently got a chance to speak at Illinois Institute of Technology's Graduation day.  Sharing thoughts at an event like a graduation ceremony is usually the reflection of one's own lifelong learnings and experiences. But this post is not about my speech. This is about the speech of my friend and mentor Tathagat Varma (TV), which I found quite inspirational. The detailed speech can be found here , but sharing quick summary and a sketch note as below. His top three advise for graduating class were: 1. Be a Learner    It is important to be a lifelong learner. If we sit on the laurels of the past, we are eventually destined to become irrelevant.    The real "learning" will only happen when you start putting all that to practice and realize that there are things that you don't quite know, or you begin to question what was taught in the classroom. 2. Be a Maker    If you want to continue being relevant in your careers, make sure you discard the charms of...

I was recently invited at the Illinois Institute of Technology, India's 19th graduation ceremony as a dignitary and had to address the graduating masters students. [Update on 26th-Mar, the video of speech available on YouTube] Sharing the part of the speech that i could reproduce as below: I always see myself as a sportsperson disguised as a corporate professional. I have never been a natural advise-giver but in the spirit of trying, i will share some things today. Stay in the present, enjoy the moment: In Jan 2018, I ran Mumbai marathon. A full marathon is a distance of 42.195 Km. Depending upon your speed, it may take up to 3, 4, 5 or 6 hours. Marathons are also considered as metaphors for life because a runner has to typically deal with so many ups and downs while on track. I was running in my zone and completed till about 30 km when I bumped into a runner who looked very exhausted, his shoulders dropping and barely able to move. I decided to break my momentum, slow-down and tal...

Consider some of the recent challenges faced by Facebook- 1.     In 2017, Facebook admitted that the suspected Russians were paying to boost posts in the US to influence 2016 presidential elections. Facebook has millions of advertisers and buying ads just needed a FB page and a credit card and some trivial details. 2.       Facebook recently admitted that nearly 10% of its 2.1 billion user base are the fake accounts, arguably a leading source of fake news. 3.       In the event of you forgetting FB password or accounts being locked, Facebook needed to ask users to email the copy of the photo ID and do the verifications offline. In all probability, to deal with these challenges, Facebook recently acquired identity origination platform company- Confirm.io. So what does Confirm.io do?  Based on thecurrently available information, Confirm.io- offers to existing customers an API that lets companies verify the authenticity of governm...

Sometime back I read about why Mark Zuckerberg wears the same t-shirt to work every day and the reason he gave has stayed with me. He does so to avoid something called as decision fatigue. All of us have limited will-power during the day. An engrossing event like decision-making sucks up the will-power. And a routine event like deciding what to wear, often consumes the diminishing will-power. Not only Mark Z, but the likes of Barrack Obama, Satya Nadella and many successful personalities have such tactics in place to cut-the-decision making crap and focus their limited energies on the right areas. As the fastcompany article revealed , Jeff Bezos is a big believer of streamlining the decision making. He has even instituted a 4 step process: Decisions that are reversible, can use a light-weight process. Don’t wait for 100% information before making decisions. 70% is just-about right. Waiting for 90% information to be available usually slows down decision-making. Stakeholder alignment is ...

India recently won the ICC U-19 Cricket World cup. Like with the various moves India U-19’s legendary coach Rahul Dravid makes (being his huge fan), I followed his post-tournament interviews with much admiration. One of the things that struck with me was this quote of his- "It was interesting because the 2012 final featured India and Australia; the result of the final will tell you that India beat Australia. Six years down the line, while only one of those boys played a couple of one-day games for India, four-five Australians have gone on to play for Australia. So, more of their guys have gone on to play first-class cricket. The debatable point is actually who won that final, if you look back six years later. So I think those are interesting chats and conversations to be had." Most people choose only failure as a credible source of learning. Here,Dravid brings a very refreshing perspective on performance. Not only is he insisting to learn from success (by choosing to look 6 y...

In the last 4 weeks, I endured and completed: 1. Ultra Marathon : Bengaluru (50 Km) [7th-Jan] 2. Mumbai Full Marathon (42.195 km) [21st-Jan] 3. Oxfam Trailwalker : Bengaluru (100 km) [2nd-Feb] With many marathons over the years, i have deciphered that- "Runs end, Running doesn't". Each run teaches you something about life. Here, I am sharing this reflection from my recent runs. Following are usually the phases one goes through while going through the marathon- 0 km: I know I can do it. 21 km: It's getting painful. Did I make the right choice choosing to do it? 30 km: Why the hell did I start? 38 km: I am close to giving up. 40 km: I think I can push a little 42.195 km: Never experienced a high like this. Does this cycle sounds familiar with anything insurmountable you have attempted? The cycle begins by taking a high risk, bringing in high energy, dealing with (often) self-created doubts, questioning the very reason to start, almost giving up, and while on the v...

Redux builds technology that uses vibrations to turn surfaces of phones or tablets into speakers or provide haptic feedback. Haptic as an adjective means "related to the sense of touch." Simply put, this technology- could potentially turn phone surface to speakers could eliminate the need of having any buttons on the phone. The technology uses signal processing algorithms to direct tactile sensations at specific touch points throughout a device's display. Actuators then deliver different effects to different fingers simultaneously, with the result being a "feeling of pressing a mechanical button or moving a slider control underneath your fingertips on the screen with button click effects coming directly from the display." What this could mean for future is-   Future phones could be even more compact. No need for micro-speakers and releasing valuable internal space for extending battery or other components. Google gets the lead when in future instead of wifi soun...