The First Commandment: Take Risks
Summary: Take entrepreneurial risks. Train yourself to take EV (expected value) positive bets early in life and then spend your life making as many EV positive bets as you can. Make small bets initially but once you realize that the odds are in your favour, load up and go as big as you can afford […]
Short read: Pope Francis and the soul of economics: Rethinking global priorities
Plenty of tributes have poured in over the past three weeks celebrating the papacy of Pope Francis who passed away on 21st April. The tributes have focused on his progressive thinking about inclusivity, notably LGBTQ among others. This piece in the Business Standard focuses on his critique of the modern economy for having created inequality, […]
Short read: Avoid Unforced Errors and Stay Humble: Warren Buffett’s Leadership Lessons
Last weekend, we heard the inevitable – Warren Buffett announced his decision to step down as the chief of Berkshire Hathway later this year. Buffett’s contribution to the world of investing and business goes beyond the immense amount of wealth creation for Berkshire shareholders over several decades. As this piece in the WSJ shows, several […]
Short read: Bringing up Vaibhav Suryavanshi – from net practice behind Samastipur home to IPL arclights
A month ago, a team from Marcellus visited the interiors of Bihar and was astonished to find not only a road network superior to that of Maharashtra (supposedly, one of India’s more developed states) but also high-quality sports facilities. Then a week ago we saw the 14-year Bihari prodigy astonish the world with a 35-ball […]
Long read: The U-bend of life
This 15 yr old article got featured in The Economist’s Sunday edition of its daily newsletter a couple of weeks ago in the most read list, having been originally featured in the 2010 Christmas specials. And why not, the takeaways would surely bring Christmas cheer, particularly if you are over the hill. The article based […]
Long read: The great Indian GDP controversy needn’t have arisen
First the bad news. India is a country where the last census took place in 2011 when a quarter of the current population wasn’t even born. And India remains a country where corporate earnings are growing at single digits quarter-after-quarter even though the official statistics show that nominal GDP is growing at double digits. Now […]
Long read: Manufacturing and war: Lessons from WW II
It is fashionable these days to say that “we want to go to war”. After all, that’s what real men like Vladimir Putin do. The punchline of this well researched blog by Yogesh Upadhyaya is that “If you go to war without a strong manufacturing base then God help you”. Why? Because in a prolonged […]
Short read: The Drone Didis are taking flight
The biggest power of technology is when its use and benefits are democratised to include every section of society. India has been at the forefront of this with its world-renowned digital public infrastructure, most notably its digital payments infrastructure. Here is Bill Gates after his recent visit to India, waxing eloquent about another technology – […]
Short read: LLMs as Index Funds
The debate on the use of GenAI for writing (drafting memos, essays or even emails) seems to be going in favour of the ayes, given not just the productivity gains but how it empowers those unable to write. So, this short read is about what it means to the future of the art of writing […]
Short read: Dire wolves and woolly mammoths: Why scientists are worried about de-extinction
Did you know that science has now made it possible to bring back species which have become extinct. The technical name for this is “de-extinction”. Rachel Nuwer of the BBC writes: “The creation of three “dire wolf” pups has raised hopes that it may be possible to resurrect extinct animals. But some scientists have grave concerns. […]
Long read: The Anti-Social Century
Derek Thompson is at his literary best with this timely piece that touches a raw nerve. Whilst the essay is about how Americans are lonelier than ever, the ubiquity of the cause – smartphones and social media, make it applicable to any society in the world. Furthermore, the advent of AI is only likely to […]
Long read: Delhi’s EV boom runs on illegal charging stations
India is capable of absorbing new technology superfast, then making it low cost and illegal (with little or no intervention from the government). The EV boom in Delhi is a great example of this as this entertaining & informative article from Suprakash Majumdar reveals. We would strongly recommend that you read the original article not […]
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