Short Read: Can You Have too Much Money?
Can money buy happiness? As with most philosophical questions, a simple yes or a no both miss the nuance. In this podcast, Barry Ritholtz chats with Brian Partnoy, both gents help people build wealth to fulfil their financial goals or as Partnoy’s firm says they are an outsourced Chief Behavioral Officer who help people achieve […]
Short Read: Scientists find Humans Age Dramatically in two Bursts – at 44, then 60
With progress in medical science helping fight a number of life-threatening diseases, life expectancy is rising across the world driving the need to improve the quality of lives in old age. This in turn has spawned off a whole new field of research in anti-ageing. One such study has come out with startling findings that […]
Short Read: Nashik Dhol: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Dhol Players in Ganesh Festivities
As the annual Ganpati Puja celebrations wind-up in Maharashtra, the Indian Express has produced a timely piece about the multi-ethnic nature of such celebrations. Zeeshan Shaikh writes, “The deep resonant beats of the dhol and the sharp rhythmic sounds of the tasha are quintessential to Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in Maharashtra. Ganesh Utsav, commonly known as […]
Long Read: The Kindle: Reinventing the Book
Many of us who love reading still romanticize reading off a paperback. But the greediest of us would agree that an e-reader wins hands down in terms of utility – we don’t have to be happy carrying books with us wherever we go, we can take the library with us. And the ubiquitous e-reader has […]
Long read: Private Coaching rise is now a Prestige issue for Indian Families. That’s a Vicious turn
Dr Palash Baruah is Associate Fellow at National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi and DL Wankhar is a retired officer of the Government of India. In this piece for The Print, they use publicly available data to highlight the rapid surge – across rural and urban areas – in spending on private […]
Long read: The Midwives who stopped murdering Girls and started saving them
On 21st October our next book “Behold the Leviathan: The Unusual Rise of Modern India” will be published by Penguin Random House. One of the central tenets of the book is the explosive acceleration in the levels of educational attainment, employment and entrepreneurial success of Indian women. Whilst we look forward to discussing with you how we are […]
Short read: IISc scientists report computing breakthrough
It is widely accepted that the US is unsurprisingly leading the way in Artificial Intelligence with China a distant second and the rest of the world nowhere in sight. At the same time, Indian technology has been perceived to at best digitise offline businesses through fintech, edtech, healthtech, etc as opposed to delivering any genuinely […]
Short read: The information wars are about to get worse, Yuval Noah Harari argues
The internet and in particular social media has democratised content generation leading to an explosion of misinformation and fake news. In a year when half the world is voting to elect their leaders, this attains a lot of significance. In a new book – Nexus by noted Israeli historian, Yuval Noah Harari (author of […]
Short read: Over Rs 2 Lakh Crore Unclaimed: India’s Growing Asset Transmission Challenges
As Indian households financialise their wealth, one side-effect seems to be the pile-up in unclaimed assets (after the owner of the asset has passed away). As per Moneylife, India now has Rs 2 trillion ($25 bn) of such assets [that’s almost 0.7% of India’s GDP] and this number is growing at 15-20% per annum: “Generally, […]
Long read: Chip War’s Chris Miller on Putin, China, and The Future
In November 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT 3 which took the world by storm resulting in a race to build computing infrastructure (Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta are spending tens of billions) in turn making Nvidia, almost a monopoly in GPU chips, one of the world’s most valuable companies. Just a month before that was the […]
Long read: Ancient Indian medical system had an image crisis. A new name fixed it
Patrick Olivelle, Professor Emeritus of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, has been for several decades a renowned guru on ancient India’s religious and social customs. In this intriguing article, Mr Olivelle explains how medical professionals had to reinvent themselves in ancient India. The challenge for medical professionals was that until about […]
Long read: Review of Sir John Kay’s “The Corporation in the 21st Century: Why (Almost) Everything We Are Told About Business Is Wrong”
Sir John Kay has been our business strategy guru for the entirety of our professional careers. Whilst he’s known to the wider world as an economist, John has also been a very successful investor across public & private markets and across financial & physical assets. For over three decades, he managed the endowment of St […]
For more content on our strategy, visit the archives GO TO ARCHIVES