Short read: Unsung History: The Merchants Who Controlled the Chola Empire
The nexus between business and government isn’t a modern phenomenon. This fascinating piece about Indian history gives us a glimpse of one of India’s dominant kingdoms, almost a millennium and a half ago, when trade flourished and contributed to the success of the rulers. It refers to the Chola empire and its famous merchants, collectively […]
Short read: I’ve Spent My Life Measuring Risk. AI Rings Every One of My Alarm Bells
Paul Tudor Jones is amongst the most accomplished hedge fund managers in the world. And by definition, a ‘hedge’ fund manager is meant to know a thing or two about managing or hedging risk. And here he is ringing alarm bells about AI and the risks it poses to humanity. He starts by talking about […]
Short read: When Dubai almost became a part of India
The cocktail party circuit talk in the Maximum City is about how one of these days a slice of POK will become a part of the Union of India. Those Indians who get excited at the thought of territorial acquisition would be shocked to hear that once upon a time, the whole of the Middle […]
Long read: More young people are getting cancer. It changes everything
Progress in medical science has indeed helped improve life expectancy by enabling early detection of disease as well as cure. However, lifestyle changes have also increased incidence of the deadly disease of cancer, which is also manifesting early in people’s lives: “Breast cancer mainly affects middle-aged and older women – the median age of someone diagnosed […]
Long read: The plunder and loot by private healthcare in India
Harsh Mander is a notable writer and social activist. In this piece he focuses on a dilemma that governments across the world are facing: “Paul Farmer in ‘Pathologies of Power’ speaks evocatively of the crossroads at which humankind today finds itself. Healthcare, he observes, can be considered either a “commodity to be sold” or “a basic […]
Long read: The scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market
In 2018, Snigdha Poonam authored one of the best non-fiction books written in India in recent times. Her “Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing the World” is a collection of vivid reports from the smaller Hindi-speaking cities of North India where young men & women grapple with lack of employment opportunities and yet nurture intense ambition and […]
The Eighth Commandment: Relax & Refresh (Don’t reflect)
Summary: Give yourself time to relax, recover, and refresh. And when you are relaxing do NOT let your mind brood over past mistakes and try not to dwell on the challenges tomorrow will bring. [To find out what the Ten Commandments of Indian Entrepreneurship are, please click here: https://marcellus.in/blogs/the-ten-commandments-of-entrepreneurship-in-india/] “Six days you shall labor and do […]
Short read: Who are the world’s best investors?
This article might be an eye opener for those who chase IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) in the stock market. Whilst you can excuse those who hope to pocket listing gains and flip (that is if you are not left holding the parcel when the music stops), this piece shows it makes little sense for long […]
Short read: Queer Indians Forge Alternative Careers Amid Workplace Discrimination
Although it has been seven years since the Supreme Court of India decriminalized homosexuality through its landmark judgement in “Navtej Singh Johar vs the Union of India” case, queer friends & relatives continue to report high levels of harassment in their workplace. The numbers cited on this subject in this IndiaSpend piece make for eyewatering […]
Short read: BlackRock Has Built An AI Analyst, ‘Asimov,’ To Scan Filings
India’s tech workforce is already seeing the adverse impact of AI. Next up could be India’s financial analysts and fund managers. This Bloomberg article highlights how Blackrock has created a bot which does what conventional equity analysts do: “BlackRock Inc. is planning for artificial intelligence to have a much bigger role in investing. The world’s […]
Long read: Young People Face a Hiring Crisis. AI Is Making It Worse
Here is yet another manifestation of disintermediating main stream media. Derek Thompson, co-author of the recently published impactful book “Abundance” and one of the finest writers to have written for The Atlantic over the past 17yrs, just quit the magazine publisher to start his own Substack. And in his first post , he explains why he did […]
Long read: ‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star
No other industry has been arguably disintermediated more by technology than media. Youtube, Instagram, TikTok and the likes have broken entry barriers for content creators and now have their own versions of the media behemoths of yore. The biggest of them all goes by the pseudonym “Mr Beast”. Most of us with teenage or even […]
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