Mukesh Gupta's Blog, page 38

The Power of Framing

If you were offered $5 today versus $10 in a month, what would you prefer?

This is the exact question that was asked in a psychological experiment, which has been repeated multiple times by different experimenters and it looks like most of the people who participate in the experiment tend to choose option 1, i.e., $5 today over the $10 in a month. This proved to the experimenters the existence of a bias that we tend to value short term rewards more than long term rewards, also called “tempora...

The Laws of Success with Albert-László Barabási

Premise:

I had always suspected that success and performance are not always related, but the research by Albert Barabasi now shows that this looks to be definitely the case. Albert is a network scientist and has been involved in some very interesting research trying to find the formula for success.

In this series of short video playlist, he shares the 5 laws of success that he has discovered through his research:

The Secret of Success:

Success is unbounded!

Success breeds Success

Run away...

Shifting Focus of Innovation – From Efficiency to Effectiveness

The past couple of decades all innovation efforts and application of technology has been in an effort to increase the efficiency of people working in organisations. This could be done by automation and helping people work more productively, still working on what they were already working on.

I believe that the future application of technology and human ingenuity would be to increase the effectiveness of people and machines. This will mean that we are looking at complete rethinking and redesig...

Why Do Startups Fail?

Premise:

There has been enough written about startups and reasons why almost all of them fail. So, why write another post about this? Even though there is no dearth of resources (blogs, videos, books, stories, etc) on reasons why startups fail and how to avoid them, I don’t see any reduction in the failure rates of startups; I don’t see them learning from the mistakes of other failed startups; I don’t see them focus on the right things that can help them avoid failure.

It is crucial that we u...

Best Among What I read This Week – 7th March 2019

Here are some of the posts that i really enjoyed reading this week:

Seth Godin in his inimitable style talks about “Concept Cars” and how they are a tactic by the Automotive industry to make us feel bad about our old model of car and also keep nudging us to continue to accept technology and cars which will not be available in the market for years to come.. Great post! Steve Hunt poses the question – Why Managers Don’t Coach Employees – and How to Fix It and answers it in a logical and concis...

Boredom and Creative Breakthroughs

In this short animation, Dr. Sandi Mann talks about why boredom is an important emotion for us and what role it plays in the creative process. Boredom creates a space where we can daydream and allow our sub-conscious mind to connect unrelated things and these connections lead to new insights and creative ideas.

If we really want to experience creative breakthroughs, avoiding boredom is not an option.

Enjoy the video!

 

I have written earlier about this as well. You can read that post here.

 ...

Conquering Fear

Miobe Fear

Once upon a time, there lived a boy who was extremely shy and fearful of the world around him, that his family and friends called him “Miobe” – the frightened one. All his friends made fun of him and his fearful nature.

Miobe hated it when his friends made fun of him. So, one fine day, he decided that he will have to conquer fear, so that his friends would stop making fund o him. That night when everyone was fast asleep, he packed his bag and set off into the world to understand fe...

Ten Rules for Building a Good Company

Today, I stumbled upon a book – “Tree-Ring Management” by Hiroshi Tsukakoshi. Hiroshi san is the Chairman of a kanten manufacturer far from the bustle of Tokyo , amid the natural beauty of Nagano prefecture in Japan.

In the book, he argues that the primary purpose of a business is to make its employees happy. Their management philosophy also indicates that slow, controlled growth is better than rapid growth and in fact fast growth is the enemy. Their philosophy is so unique that there is an H...

Mary Meeker’s 2018 internet trends report | Code 2018

Loved this video where Mary Meeker shares the internet trends that she shared in May. Though this is a bit dated (delivered in May 2018) but still highly relevant if you are planning to do anything on the internet. 

I would recommend that you watch this and internalise the trends. You might have to watch it more than once, as she goes at an unbelievable pace and covers a lot of ground in 30 mins. 

Mary is an American VC and a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer...

Lessons from The Story of a Wise Man and the Boys who Loved To Drum

I would like to tell you a short story. There was once an old wise man who after retiring from his work decided to buy a house in his old village and moved there to live his life in a peaceful setting. All was well until it wasn’t.

Once the school started, there were a few boys who used to walk past his home on their way to school. They would drum on the metal garbage bins that were near the window of the wise man’s bedroom. He would find this noise to be too disturbing and wanted the boys t...