Meet the extraordinary intellectual Tho Pa, who awakened Tamils to the richness of their culture
When we travel across India to meet our investee companies and our clients, we can see massive social change caused by 40 years of rising literacy and rising per capita income. Such a combination is an ideal recipe for an explosion in demand for local stories written in the vernacular about the history of that […]
How Much Netflix Can the World Absorb?
Some of us are old enough to remember that once upon a time, we in India used to watch local Indian football matches on TV and on the ground. Then the 1986 football was broadcast live from Mexico. After that, audiences for Indian football matches dwindled rapidly – even if you were a diehard East […]
The Cheaper They Get, The More We Buy
The long-term valuation of a company is determined by the growth and longevity of its free cash flows (FCF). Its share price, on the other hand, is heavily influenced by near term earnings/events. This creates a disconnect between the intrinsic value of the company and its share price. This disconnect has been stark for the […]
The science of why you have great ideas in the shower
Turns out it wasn’t a coincidence that Archimedes was in the bathtub when he figured buoyancy. People do get epiphanies in the shower for a reason. This piece in the National Geographic explains the science behind it. Not just showers, whatever activity lets our mind wander freely in a pleasant state of mind sets the […]
China: the rise of gen Z will have massive consequences for business and politics
The implications of the changing geopolitical situation from a macroeconomic perspective are somewhat well appreciated – deglobalisation or rearranging of supply chains, its inflationary effects and interest rates. However, this article in The Conversation suggests there are implications from a microeconomic perspective as well, such as changing consumer preferences and hence how businesses should think […]
Asset managers, please spare us your polyexcuses
Over the past year, Stuart Kirk, a former head of responsible investment at HSBC Asset Management, has made a name for himself by calling out pretentious shibboleths such as ESG. In this piece he takes as fund managers’ expertise in coming up with excuses to justify their poor performance: “This year, with many down a quarter, […]
AI and the Big Five
Artificial intelligence in general and ChatGPT of OpenAI in particular is likely to go down as one of the big technological breakthroughs of 2022 along with fusion energy. It will take a long while for us to fully appreciate the gamut of applications for artificial intelligence and machine learning as well as the economic implications. […]
How to become wise
In India, we know very little about Korean philosophy inspite of the ubiquity of Korean products (cars, consumer durables, music, cosmetics, etc) in our lives. This insightful essay by Kevin Cawley, senior lecturer in Korean Studies at University College Cork and director of the Irish Institute of Korean Studies, therefore acts almost as a Korean […]
What is a Super App?
Over the past year, a couple of Indian conglomerates launched their ‘super apps’. Going into the launch, the hype was intense. After the launch, the success of these Indian super apps was modest at best. So what are super apps? And why is it that other than in China, they have not really worked in […]
MeritorQ: The Power of Checklists
Most of us have used a checklist at some point. Humans need checklists because most of us have imperfect recall. Checklists provide a cognitive safety net. They prevent us from having to suffer due to our flaws —flaws of memory, attention, and thoroughness. Checklists have been found to be effective in performing complex tasks in varied […]
The Hidden Cost of Cheap TVs
This remarkable chart shows how amongst various goods and services, TVs have become the most affordable over the past two decades – down 97%. The article goes on to explain why. Ofcourse, technological developments and economies of scale akin to the Moore’s law has helped reduce the cost of making a TV but there are hidden costs […]
What Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul can learn from Suryakumar Yadav? Be natural, show courage, and smile often
Just as the rise of computing power in the 1970s made stockmarkets more efficient over the next decade, the application of computing power to cricket over the past decade has made the game far more competitive. Coaches and data analysts now analyse the opposition’s skillsets in microscopic detail and strategise accordingly. In such a world, […]
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