Rajesh Jain

Molham Aref: “Imagine a world where applications seamlessly adapt to your data, driven by intelligent capabilities. Where your applications can take action on your behalf, notify you to make important decisions, and dynamically make recommendations in response to sudden changes. Once organizations understand the potential impact of AI, they start to embrace technologies like knowledge graphs and data clouds. And with the modern AI stack complete, they can start building applications that let them automate workloads. With intelligent applications making the easy decisions, humans are freed up to work on the things that are more interesting and complex. Intelligent applications take the drudgery and tedium out of business operations, so that experts can focus more of their time and energy on decisions and tasks that will have a bigger impact, are harder to make, or require more human ingenuity than can be codified in software.”

Joanne Lipman: “Next! The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work is a deeply reported guide to navigating change in the way that we live, work, and lead. I wrote it literally for this moment in time, when so many of us have been buffeted by the last few years of tumult. We’ve been searching for this “new normal,” and so many of us really are looking for more meaning in our lives and careers. The original inspiration was exactly three years ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, when I had my own aha moment. I woke up in the middle of the night, saying, “What am I doing? What am I going to do?” And I realized that everybody around me and the whole world—we were all in exactly the same position at the same time. We needed a road map to figure out how to get through these periods of tumult and transition. I set out to write Next! to provide that guidebook.”

WaPo has some travel advice from Tom Stuker who has flown 23 million miles: “1. Lie to the first flight attendant you meet inside the door when you board. “She’s the head attendant. I always say, ‘I remember you! You gave us such great service last time. I wanted to thank you again.’ Even if I’ve never met her. I guarantee she’ll bring you all kinds of free stuff.” 2. If you couldn’t book the seat you wanted, keep your phone open on the seat map app as you board. If a blocked seat that you wanted opens up, just take it. “They won’t care,” he says. “They never sold it.” 3. Never check a bag. Never, ever, never. And under-pack. “Every town has laundromats. And stores. 4. Don’t be a jerk and use your cell without headphones. That way, people won’t hate you. “Whenever somebody takes a long business call on speaker, I always say, ‘Hey, next time you’re going to have all of us to your business meeting, bring doughnuts.’””

Economist on Jamie Dimon: “What he has crafted over nearly 18 years at the helm of JPMorgan Chase is the banking equivalent of the Palace of Versailles or the Taj Mahal. It is America’s most successful bank—and, with a market capitalisation of $435bn, by far the most valuable in the world. Under Mr Dimon’s stewardship its shareholders have earned a handsome annual return of 10.6%—double that of most other big lenders. Its investment bank ranks in the top three in almost all businesses it cares to compete in. Its commercial bank is the biggest in America. Because it is so large—and because banks in America with more than 10% of all deposits are barred from acquiring more (unless they rescue a failing bank, as JPMorgan did with First Republic in April)—it can grow only slowly.”

Shane Parrish: “The best response is often, “You might be right.” The next time someone disagrees with you or criticizes you, just shrug your shoulders and say, ‘you might be right,’ and watch the energy change. If you care about the outcome, focus on what’s right, not who is right. Keep the goal in mind.”

Allen Taylor on the 4 pillars to Web3 content monetisation: Rewards, NFTs, DAOs, Social Tokens. On Rewards: “On platforms like Hive, Minds, and some others, content creators earn through rewards. Rewards are either earned by upvotes, tips, or some combination of rewards and tips. While there are problems associated with this create2earn model, it is popular and simple to implement.”

Scott Galloway: “The most important factor in determining a person’s future is when and where they are born. Each of us, born into any other situation, would experience a different outcome. Just as the market trumps individual performance, so does circumstance. I likely would not be an entrepreneur or an academic had I been born in South Sudan. If I’d been born in 1920s Germany, I’d likely have been a Nazi who perished on a Russian field. This isn’t just true across continents and centuries — it’s also evident at a micro level. Being born one year earlier or later can make a big difference.”

WSJ: “Electrons are the most elementary of elementary particles. In fundamental physics they appear as structureless points where definite amounts of mass, electric charge, and angular momentum (or “spin”) reside. From that meager description, the stringent rules of quantum mechanics and relativity produce the splendid building block that dominates chemistry and—of course—electronics. Not long ago, the outrageous idea that electrons, when injected into the right sort of material, would break into other objects seemed as far-fetched to most right-thinking physicists as the idea that the Earth moves seemed to sober natural philosophers in the time of Copernicus. Yet the Earth moves—and electrons do break apart. That shocking possibility emerged in the 1980s, in studies of an exotic state of matter known as the fractional quantum Hall effect. This effect occurs when extremely pure, thin layers of the right semiconductors, embedded within the right insulators, are subjected to extremely high magnetic fields at extremely low temperatures.”

HBR: “Generative AI tools can solve an important challenge faced in idea contests: combining or merging a large number of ideas to produce much stronger ones. Our research and our experience working with companies, academic institutions, governments, and militaries on hundreds of innovation efforts—some with and some without the use of generative AI—have demonstrated that this technology can help organizations overcome these challenges. It can augment the creativity of employees and customers and help them generate and identify novel ideas—and improve the quality of raw ideas.”

Joanna Grover: “Functional Imagery Training…was born from research on addiction, specifically what’s called the “elaborated intrusion theory,” which focuses on the role of intrusive thoughts in addictive behaviors. This theory suggests that cravings and intrusive thoughts about substance use or unhealthy behaviors can disrupt self-control and increase the likelihood of relapse. FIT works by helping individuals develop alternative mental images to counteract the intrusive thoughts, and build themselves a more positive narrative. The approach was unlike my previous training in cognitive behavioral change, which, as the name implies, focuses on cognitions—that is, thoughts and self-talk. For example, on a cold, rainy morning when you’d rather hit the snooze button, it means using self-talk (“This is the healthier choice, You’ll feel much better if you get up and run, etc.”) to convince yourself to get out of bed and lace up your sneakers. FIT rests on the same foundation but takes it a step further by simultaneously using multisensory imagery. That is, you focus not only on thoughts but on sensations as well. It goes something like this: When your alarm goes off and you see the weather outside, imagine the patter of the rain, the cool breeze on your face, the sound of your footsteps hitting the pavement, your muscles working as you run, the taste of sweat on your lips, and how good it feels to have finished a morning run. Finally, imagine your warm shower afterward. That feeling of immersive accomplishment and reward makes it harder to hit snooze.”

WSJ: “Half a dozen conglomerates now control or have major stakes in 25% of India’s port capacity, 45% of cement production, a third of steel making, nearly 60% of all telecom subscriptions, and more than 45% of coal imports. An analysis by the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, a research firm, shows that a quarter of all new investment proposals by private companies since 2014 have come from the companies. “This is the period where it’s not the mad rush of entrepreneurs going out to build new capacities, to become great entrepreneurs—this is the era of great concentration,” said Mahesh Vyas, CMIE’s managing director.”

Anurag Wadehra: “A tech product has to be more than a bundle of technology features. In fact, the “whole product,” called the offering, includes all elements needed to generate value from the product for both the user and the buyer. Typically, this includes pricing, terms of use, services to implement the tech for the user or buyer, and capabilities that embed the product in a network of co-existing and adjacent products…In short, an offering makes the tech product fit the commercial purpose. ”

Purnima Rao: “This idea of a free library exists in sharp contrast to India’s long history of gatekeeping knowledge, where communities have been excluded from reading and learning because they are the wrong caste or gender. At the same time, the myth that excluded groups have no interest, aptitude or need for reading is so widely perpetuated that India currently has no public library system which proactively invites them. With the majority of Indians left out of reading for generations, it’s no surprise that we find ourselves a billion strong population that cannot discern real from fake information, articulate their oppression within the framework of other oppressions or find freedom in the world of ideas. The need of the hour is a national library policy to ensure free, accessible and excellent libraries for all.”

Economist: “Indian agriculture is flourishing. Working conditions may be grim, but record harvest follows record harvest—and famine is a thing of the past. Farming exports in the fiscal year ending in March were up by 9% on the previous 12 months, hitting $26bn and representing 7% of India’s outbound trade. During the global food scare that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, India became a pivotal exporter of rice and wheat (it is the world’s second biggest producer of both), as well as other grains. In one of many such examples, it recently agreed to send 20m tonnes of wheat to the Taliban in Afghanistan, adding to 40m tonnes last year. India would be more important still to global agriculture were it not for the periodic export restraints and tax surcharges that the government imposes…Indian agriculture has begun a subtle evolution—in terms of policies, technology and finance—that is helping bypass the many official constraints.”

WSJ: “[Ashutosh] Padhi said he asked 40 CEOs at a McKinsey dinner this month whether they had invested significantly in digital and analytics over the last 10 years. All of the CEOs—representing public and private institutions with revenues ranging from $5 million to more than $200 billion, spanning sectors such as consumer, industrial and professional services—raised their hands. Next, Padhi asked them to keep their hands up if they were satisfied with outcomes realized from that investment. All but one hand went down. Despite the disappointing results, CEOs understand that there is no choice but to invest in digital technology, a driver of corporate productivity growth which in turn affects real wage growth across the entire economy…A company’s capacity to integrate and improve upon technology starts at the top.”

NYTimes: “Old magazines are cheap time machines, archaeologies of collective desire. Find a print issue, specialist or popular, preferably more than 20 years old (though 10 may do the trick), and read it from cover to cover. You will execute no deep dive, vanish down no rabbit hole; your reading is instead a lateral slice through a culture, class or milieu.”

Satya Nadella: ” I was in India in January and saw an amazing demo. The government has a program called Digital Public Goods, and one is a text-to-speech system. In the demo, a rural farmer was using the system to ask about a subsidy program he saw on the news. It told him about the program and the forms he could fill out to apply. Normally, it would tell him where to get the forms. But one developer in India had trained GPT on all the Indian government documents, so the system filled it out for him automatically, in a different language. Something created a few months earlier on the West Coast, United States, had made its way to a developer in India, who then wrote a mod that allows a rural Indian farmer to get the benefits of that technology on a WhatsApp bot on a mobile phone. My dream is that every one of Earth’s 8 billion people can have an AI tutor, an AI doctor, a programmer, maybe a consultant!”

Lord Moulton (in 1918 or 1919): “In order to explain my title I must ask you to follow me in examining the three great domains of human action. First comes the domain of positive law, where our actions are prescribed by laws which must be obeyed. Next comes the domain of free choice, which includes all those actions as to which we claim and enjoy complete freedom. But between these two there is a third large and important domain in which there rules neither positive law nor absolute freedom. In that domain there is no law which inexorably determines our course of action, and yet we feel that we are not free to choose as we would. The degree of this sense of a lack of complete freedom in this domain varies in every case. It grades from a consciousness of a duty nearly as strong as positive law to a feeling that the matter is all but a question of personal choice. Some might wish to parcel out this domain into separate countries, calling one, for instance, the domain of duty, another the domain of public spirit, another the domain of good form; but I prefer to look at it as all one domain, for it has one and the same characteristic throughout–it is the domain of Obedience to the Unenforceable. The obedience is the obedience of a man to that which he cannot be forced to obey. He is the enforcer of the law upon himself. [via Econtalk]

Economist: “If inflation continues to fester, the effects will quickly be felt in financial markets. Sustained price rises do not affect all asset classes equally, so a relative repricing will be required. But those one-off profits and losses will not be the only consequence. In the real economy, inflation corrodes trust by continually and arbitrarily redistributing wealth. In the financial one this corrosive dynamic is less obvious, but just as real.”

Kirzner: “The crux of the matter is that every opportunity for entrepreneurial profit arises from the existence of two market prices for essentially the same product or the same bundle of inputs. This price divergence, which offers the opportunity for profit is, therefore, at the same time, evidence of an earlier failure of coordination among members or sectors of the economy. The drive to capture profit is, then, a drive to locate pockets of inefficiency. The successful capture of prime entrepreneurial profits occurs only through action which tends to eliminate the price spread and the inefficiency which was its cause. The ceaseless agitation of the market is thus not propelled by an undirected force, but by an extraordinarily sensitive detector of gaps in coordination. This agitation consists, therefore, in a continuing tendency to coordinate economic activity in the face of ceaseless changes in consumer preferences, resource availabilities, and technological knowledge.” [via CafeHayek]

Devansh: “There are 3 key factors that make businesses/systems built around the network effects so powerful. Increased utility: As more participants join a network, the network’s features, services, and opportunities expand. This growth leads to a higher level of utility for all participants, making the network more valuable to each user. Positive feedback loop: The Network Effect creates a self-reinforcing cycle. As more people join, the value of the network increases, attracting even more participants. This feedback loop accelerates the growth and impact of the network. Competitive advantage: Networks that successfully leverage the Network Effect often establish a strong competitive advantage. The larger and more engaged their user base becomes, the harder it is for competitors to replicate or surpass their value proposition.”

Blake Morgan: “The digital experience of the future is seamless, easy, and personalized. We’re on our way to a world where customers can quickly get the help and assistance they need, from any device, without jumping through hoops. Today’s digital experiences tend to be more disjointed, especially as customers move across channels. But soon, brands will use digital solutions to create immersive experiences to connect with customers. That will be evident in every aspect of the customer experience, from showcasing products through video to answering questions with chatbots and offering self-service help with AR instructions. Digital will be seamlessly woven into every experience so customers don’t have to repeat themselves or get irrelevant recommendations.”