Nobel prizes most often go to researchers who defy specialization – winners are creative thinkers who synthesize innovations from varied fields and even hobbies
In 2019, David Epstein published his fascinating book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialised World” challenging the belief that specialised expertise as the only route to success. In that book, he contrasts the lives of Tiger Woods who picked up the golf club as a toddler to Roger Federer who played a whole range of sports […]
The US-China chip war is reshaping tech supply chains
With the West’s energy supply chain with Russia broken, much of the world is now preparing for a breakdown of the semiconductor supply chain emanating from Taiwan (something that will be become inevitable if China attacks Taiwan): “…intensified US-China tension over technology — and especially semiconductors — has shifted electronics supply chains in slow but significant […]
Psychiatry wars: the lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial
In the week of World Mental Health Day, we thought we’ll do our bit in terms of raising awareness about the condition which is increasingly prevalent yet not fully understood nor given due importance. This is a piece adapted from a new book Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv. The Guardian describes the book as: “The highly […]
A Brief History of the Past 10,000 Years of Monetary Policy and Why Last Week Was a Big Deal
The past two weeks have seen a spike in the use of the phrase ‘Lehman moment’, thanks to the policies of the new government in the UK. Many of us got to learn about Wall Street’s creation of exotic derivatives such as CDOs and CLOs which turned toxic during the Lehman crisis. The equivalent this […]
Howard Schultz’s fight to stop a Starbucks barista uprising
This long read from the Washington Post is a brilliant case study of just how dramatically the world has changed in the past four years – supply side issues (especially the supply of labour) are now a critical challenge the world over. The even deeper issue is that inflation is lifting the cost of living […]
Tech as an Enabler of Free Cashflow Compounding
Rising Giants have been at the forefront of implementing tech solutions to sustain their competitive advantages, drive efficiencies (around cost, working capital and asset utilisation) and build scalable organisations (transitioning from single to multi-product & multi-geography companies). At the same time, the relatively low-cost but high impact nature (low marginal cost & ability to scale […]
How Zoho became a $1B company without a dime of external investment…
Whilst India is clearly a world leader in IT services, its success in IT products has been patchy. Zoho, an enterprise software company is one of the few success stories in this space. It is special not just because it is a rare success but also the way the company has got here. In a […]
Why MS Dhoni doesn’t carry his phone and what we can learn from him
Our 2020 bestseller “The Victory Project: Six Steps to Peak Potential” espoused simplicity and decluttering as essential behaviours for improving productivity and performance. Supreme Court lawyer and our favourite Indian Express columnist, Menaka Guruswamy (whose father’s friend is a client of Marcellus) has written a piece supporting this point of view. Interestingly, however, this support […]
Durga Puja: What to eat first in a pujo thali, and the four sections of Bengali cuisine
This article uses the context of food to convey the antecedents of the Durga Puja (or ‘pujo’ for those who prefer the Bengali pronounciation) in Bengal: “We first find the mention of Durga pujo in the 1500s, when it was only observed by the zamindars (landlords) households of Malda and Dinajpur. Technically, Durga pujo is a […]
The Blackstone rebellion: how one country took on the world’s biggest commercial landlord
Real estate has seen growing interest as an asset class for investment institutions looking for long dated steady yielding assets, such as pension funds. However, until now much of the interest had been in commercial property such as office spaces and malls. But increasingly, residential real estate has also become a part of many portfolios. […]
America’s Throwaway Spies
A few years ago we read a report of the death of an Indian spy who defected to the CIA only to be abandoned by the American spy agency. Turns out that wasn’t an exception for the CIA when it comes to foreign agents. Reuters have been investigating six cases of Iranian agents recruited and abandoned by […]
The new era of stronger hurricanes: bigger storms, better forecasts
With climactic extremes – extreme heat in Europe, extensive flooding on the sub-continents, unseasonal rain, etc – becoming the norm, technology is being brought into play to predict the unpredictable. As this FT article explains, “According to meteorologists at Nasa, a warming earth is producing major storms with more intense rainfall and larger storm surges.” This long […]
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