Long read: How Long Do We Wait for New Inventions?
Brian Potter at Construction Physics is one of our favourite science writers around. And this piece shows why. Potter uses Claude AI to research the question in the title of the piece, which means how much longer has it taken for an invention to be actually made from the time when all the preconditions for […]
Long read: The origins of Indians
All of us learnt at school about the Indus Valley civilisation, their mysterious disappearance and the never-ending debate about Indians are people indigenous to the sub-continent or descendants of people from elsewhere. This long read in Aeon recasts this age old debate in a very original way. The author, Kiran Kumbar, is a historian, writer, […]
Long read: The Chinese whiz kids of Silicon Valley
Viola Zhou grew up in China and migrated to USA. Based in New York City, she is now a reporter covering China’s tech scene. For this breathlessly exciting story on how China’s insanely driven STEM kids are the ascendant superstars of Silicon Valley, Viola relocated to Silicon Valley. Specifically, she relocated to the famous house […]
Your 50s are By Far the Most Important Decade for Your Compounding
5 sets of factors make sensible saving & investing in your 50s even more important for Indians than for people in the developed world: 1) rapidly rising life expectancy, 2) surging healthcare & hospitalisation costs, 3) steadily rising cost of paying for children’s overseas education, 4) clear signs that AI will lead to job cuts for mid-senior level employees, and 5) most Indians have most […]
Hyperscalers’ Exponential Revenue Growth Signals Trouble for Jobs
So far AI has for the most part augmented the efforts of human workers rather than replacing them outright. Agentic AI is different – it promises to replace human workers entirely and perform roles independently. Actual use of Agentic AI has so far been limited by its unreliability and by the high cost of compute. […]
The Recent Birth and Ongoing Decline of ‘The Office’
Across the world, technology is steadily reducing the relevance of ‘The Office’ for white collar workers. As demand for office space in big cities reduces and as work shifts in two directions: a) to ‘Work From Home’; and b) to white collar gig work, demand for residential and commercial space in Tier 2 cities will […]
Short read: The Risk-Wealth Paradox: Why More Money Means You Should Take Less Risk
Nick Maggiulli writes this wonderful blog on personal finance using lots of data analytics. But this is a rare one that is less about data and more about the psychology of personal finance. He addresses a counter intuitive point about how as our wealth increases, our appetite for risk reduces. Shouldn’t we be able to […]
Short read: Sir David Attenborough – 100 not out
This is one of those instances where we are fans of the author and the subject. The author is Deepak Jayaraman, a leadership coach and author of the lovely book ‘Play to Potential’(see here for our podcast with him on the book). The subject is the legendary Sir David Attenborough, the English natural historian and an Emmy award winner […]
Short read: Coaching, Fees, And The Rising Cost Of Schooling In India
In our bestselling book, “Breakpoint: The Crisis of the Middle Class & The Future of Work”, we have an entire chapter dedicated to the rapidly rising cost of living in urban middle class life in India. By our estimate, cost of living is doubling every 8-9 years in India. Alongside the rapidly rising cost of […]
Long read: The Mathematical Reason Most People Never “Make It”
In any given field, there are several of us who put in the hard yards. Yet only a handful get the desired outcomes. The rest of us just blame our luck and feel disheartened. Whilst luck does play a role in most outcomes, here’s a more positive way of looking at things. Kaguura Gichuru uses […]
Long read: The life of Puja: How a young woman from rural Bengal became an internet star
Sitting in the United Kingdom, Charles Foster has nailed down a universal truth. In the Bengal countryside, a young village dweller in East Midnapore named Pujarani Pradhan is practicing living on the edge with great success. Her prowess in describing her middle class, rural life in Bengal has made her a social media celebrity whose […]
Long read: Embrace the edge!
This essay from Charles Foster – a writer and a fellow of Exeter College, University of Oxford, a barrister, a part-time judge of the Crown Court, and a veterinary surgeon – is as illuminating as it is life-affirming. The essay helps those of us have spent our lives eschewing mainstream choices – in where we […]
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