The New Atlanta Billionaires Behind An Unlikely Tech Unicorn
At Marcellus, we are fans of Mailchimp. In fact you are reading this email thanks to the cost-effective and user friendly platform that Mailchimp makes available for SMEs like Marcellus. This story is about how two self-taught techies in Atlanta used their own savings and 18 years of hard work to build a business with […]
The rickety house of Paytm
As the latest scandal to hit Paytm ripples across the media (the CEO’s PA might have tried to extort Rs 20 crores from him or, depending on which story you believe, she might be the victim of other vested interests working in the firm), this story summarises the other scandals to have hit the firm […]
Business education – the waning popularity of the American MBA
Even well established American business schools are seeing a step drop in applications for their MBA courses. Top tier MBAs like Harvard, Fuqua and Haas are seeing falling demand for their MBA courses. Given the red-hot state of the US economy, why is this happening? This article cites three drivers for the waning popularity of […]
A business ethics class from Australian cricket
As Australians introspect on the back of the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa with several reviews, one such review by the Ethics Centre seems to point to the origins of the win-at-any-cost attitude to incentive mechanisms in business. “The review traces some of the roots of the cultural failings to a 2011 investigation into poor performance […]
Keep it simple, silly
Elaborating on the power of simplicity, the authors not only drive home the point that “In an increasingly complex world, simplicity is the key to success. And to mental well-being and a better life on the whole” but also provide a step-wise guide of sorts to achieve simplicity – think different, deliberate practice and deep thought and […]
Government Versus RBI: Dissent At The Podium
In case you have not been keeping up with the bickering between the RBI and the Government, Ira Duggal gives you a primer. “Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel and his team have now come out at least four times to defend their policies through public speeches. While these speeches have helped explain the viewpoint […]
Where Are the Shudras? Why the Shudras are lost in today’s India
Shudras comprise approximately half the population of India…The Mandal Commission concluded in the 1980s that the OBCs, not including the “upper” Shudra castes, represent 52 percent of all Indians…By comparison, the “forward” castes—Hindu castes outside the OBCs, Scheduled Cates and Scheduled Tribes—all together count for no more than 20 percent of the Indian population. So, […]
Ticketmaster stages fightback against touts
The pop star Taylor Swift’s business acumen is once again in full display as she comes up with a novel way to solve an age old economic problem. The problem is as follows: when the tickets for a rock concert are sold, the fans who buy the tickets tend to span a wide spectrum of […]
Do not believe the hype about artificial intelligence
The author – inspite of running an AI service provider for corporates – says that AI is being overhyped and overpromoted. He believes that: “We have much faster computers, thanks to Moore’s law, but the underlying algorithms are mostly identical to those that powered machines 40 years ago. Instead, we have creatively rebranded those algorithms. […]
Two articles which should be read together: (1) How social democracy lost its way: a report from German; and (2) What the Left misses about Nationalism
In India it is a common refrain that the Congress can’t get its act together whilst the BJP displays its political muscle on a daily basis. However, the challenges of traditional left of centre political parties do not seem to be confined to India alone as these articles in the FT and NYT show. In […]
Quant Investor Cliff Asness Hasn’t Smashed His Screen This Year—Yet
Cliff Asness has built AQR Capital Management into a systematic investing giant by capitalizing on two trends: the growing power of computers and the demand for lower fund fees. Today, AQR runs $226 billion in strategies built on so-called factors—behaviors that securities tend to exhibit over time. The problem is the “over time” qualifier – […]
What Sets Successful CEOs Apart
The authors conducted a 10-year study (dubbed the “CEO Genome Project”) to identify what sets successful CEOs apart. They tapped into a database containing more than 17,000 assessments of C-suite executives, including 2,000 CEOs and “sifted through that information, looking for what distinguished candidates who got hired as CEOs from those who didn’t, and those who […]
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