Sunday Posts

Or, I could have said - why I can't read business books. At least, not anymore. This may seem inconsequential, but it is not for me. In fact, it is an existential problem that I face now: I can't read business books! It is very necessary for my career - being well-read is one of the advantages I brought to table as a professional - and indeed, crucial to maintain my professional credential as a Chartered Marketer, which I attained with great effort, once upon a time. And, yet, I can't bring myself to read Business Books. This isn't always there. I did read Business Books, quite extensively, until about three years ago. I did maintain a subscription of HBR, bought Strategy & Business and Sloan Management Review regularly at WH Smith, maintained a small collection of business books all the time with books on marketing and innovation prominently featuring on my shopping list. I even had my favourites: I read all of Clayton Christensen, Henry Chesbrough, Micha...

I started 2016 with a surprise discovery: That Bill Gates reads a book a week! I love reading books, yes, the old fashioned paper books, and spend most of my time and money on books. And, yet, I struggle to read as much as I would like to, as life intervenes. The work, the chores, the celebrations and the worries, moments social and the solitary, all present their different challenges inbetween me and an undivided and unwavering commitment to my books. And, yet, here is the man, who earns about $150 every second - if that's one benchmark how valuable his time must be - and who, as Michael Sandel explained, may find stopping and picking up a $50 bill if he spots one lying on the pavement a waste of his time, claiming that he accords highest priority to reading, and even sets aside time when life gets too busy! I know the usual explanation: We are not Bill Gates. Yes, when you earn $150 a second, you do not drive your own car. You can choose who you socialise with. And, indeed,...

I think about dead people. Not because they are dead - this is not about any maschoistic exercise thinking about deadness - but of their ideas. I seek my intellectual stimulation not just from Wired magazine, looking at all those gadgets of the future, but also trying to understand what Adam Smith or Karl Marx would say about technology, society and progress. But such habit of looking back makes me lonely - I am often without company in the midst of excited conversations about gadgets and possibilities.  But, oddly, this does not make me feel old: It makes me feel alive. Whatever you may think of this self-justification, there is something lovably naive about all this chatter about technology. Lots of people believe that whatever we are experiencing - this progress - is unprecedented. Consider, for example, this magic of hailing a cab through Uber, or getting a handyman through Handy! This is denting the universe - they would claim! While it is certainly denting the universe ...