Thales of Miletus was a Greek mathematician and a pre-Socratic philosopher, generally regarded as the first philosopher on the Greek tradition. And here’s an interesting story about him: he predicted the weather and a good olive harvest for a particular year. He went a step further and reserved all the olive presses in advance at... Continue Reading →
Is the new normal ‘non-normal’?
When all of this is over, we will look back and think about why we ended up at a point where these stark, difficult choices had to be made - and what can we do to avoid these extreme situations in future? Needless to say, decision making under these conditions is hard - but then... Continue Reading →
The Speed premium
If there could be a VUCA* period in highly compressed time, we are in it right now. The world around us is changing in ways that we are yet to fully grasp. Among the many things that will change (some forever), I think we will end up re-defining what growth and innovation mean. The traditional... Continue Reading →
Navigating ‘wicked environments’
I am currently reading ‘Thinking in Bets’ by Annie Duke on of my favorite topics: Decision making under uncertainty (the book itself is so-so – will review that separately). A key point she makes: it is not the outcomes but the quality of your decisions that matter. Therein lies an important pearl of wisdom: we... Continue Reading →
Bill Gates: Swinging for the fences
I am a huge fan of Bill Gates - especially his post Microsoft avatar focused on philanthropy. Melinda and he have posted their Annual Letter. Longish read - but entirely worth it. https://www.gatesnotes.com/2020-Annual-Letter?WT.mc_id=20200210000000_AL2020_BG-EM_&WT.tsrc=BGEM Gates Foundation: Annual Letter 2020 And for me, 3 key takeaways that should hold good in business (and life in general): Go... Continue Reading →