Marcellus Insights

The girl who took women’s cricket to the next level

Harmanpreet Kaur’s 51-ball century against New Zealand in the ongoing Women’s T20 world cup, follows her spectacular 171 not out in last year’s World Cup semi-finals against Australia where she single handedly steered her team to victory. This piece in Cricinfo’s The Cricket Monthly, profiles her life and career and highlights the impact she has […]

USAID, Monsanto and the real reason behind Delhi’s horrific smoke season

For those of us who grew up in Delhi and cannot understand why smoke from Punjabi farmers burning rice stubble has become such a major source of pollution for the capital city, this story gives one interesting answer and one controversial answer. The interesting answer is this: “Until a few years ago, when farmers in […]

Amma goes to school

Neuroscience has shown that the neurons in our brain gradually start dying from middle age and therefore our brain starts slowing down unless we keep it active by pushing it to learn new things. This heartwarming story from the Indian Express shows that ordinary Indians don’t need neuroscience to tell them such things. They figured […]

Coffee Can Investing: Saurabh Mukherjea

The role of Outsiders in investing

Published on: 11 Nov, 2018 The success of non-establishment figures in reshaping the investment landscape in America over the past 40 years gives India a useful template. The outsiders have already made their mark in the VC and PE space in India. Now such thinkers seem likely to make their mark in the public market […]

As Moore’s law fades, computing seeks a new dimension

Moore’s law, named after Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel, implied computing power would double every two years. This did hold true for 40years contributing immensely to availability of computing power to enterprises and individuals alike and the consequent gains in productivity. However, this law hasn’t kept pace in the recent past fazed by physical […]

How a Welsh schoolgirl disrupted the publishing world

In 2011, Beth Reeks a 15-year old Welsh schoolgirl decided to write a teenage romantic novel. So after finishing her homework, she would stay up all night writing her novel. Then she chose a “route to market” which was unique. Rather than hiring a literary agent to find a publisher, she posted three chapters of […]

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 […]

The Indian Stockmarket is Unique. Here is the Data.

Published on: 7 Nov, 2018 No other large stockmarket is as overwhelmingly macro driven as India’s. Arguably, this is because of the high cost of factors of production and the influence of the Indian state in every aspect of business life. To make money in India, investors need to understand the macro as much as […]

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 […]