I was reading “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius. He was a stoic Roman emperor in 170 AD who spent a lot of time developing thinking His “Meditations” is a collection of 12 books which were not intended to be published ever. They were notes for self improvement. The central theme of this collection is the importance of analyzing one’s judgment of self and others and developing a cosmic perspective. During the course of reading I chanced upon how Alexander, the great was coached to become one of the greatest human leaders ever. I discovered that he was mentored by Aristotle, who is widely regarded as the creators modern thinking process (logic) or philosopy. Aristotle’s intellectual range was vast, It covered most sciences and many of the arts. This included biology, botany, chemistry, ethics, history, logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, physics, poetics, political etc. What amused me most is :RHETORIC (छद्मवाद : झूठ बोल के ठगना ). Why does rhetoric amuse me ? Its a fraud, its a sorcery, its deception its unethical but is essential. Here is the formal definition : :Communication designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect, but regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content . Why did one of the finest leaders have to learn the art of speaking lies to persuade people ? Because it works. To succeed in leadership role, you need to lie convincingly and lie shamelessly again and again. I, because of my learning and grounding, most often can see through the rhetoric and wondered: Why big leaders lie so shamelessly and why do these lie succeed? I figured out late in life that majority of humans are low intelligence, low discretion and are struggling in their lives. They are working their backs off but their efforts are not bearing fruit. They are losing hope (Think of farmers who get no rain after 4 months of toil in 50 degree heat). To such folks, a demagogue promising 40 days of life enriching rain by doing a Rs 1 lakh यज्ञ (ritual) is a soopurr sexy hope. The demagogue just needs 100 such farmers to make a crore. So these demagogues (thugs) succeed big time in gettting power, money and often both. इस्लाम खतरे में है (ISIS), हिन्दू काटे जाएंगे (VHP), भैंसे छीनी जायेगी (नंदू), संविधान नोच लिया जाएगा ( Congis), 16 लाख account में आएंगे खटा खट , खटा खट , खटा खट. पाकिस्तान हमारे सैनिकों को मार डालेगा( संघी ), Coronil(रामदेव ), पुत्र दायी पातंजलि बीज, राम मंदिर पर फिर से ताला लगेगा(नंदू ) , नाशै रोग हरे सब पीड़ा जपत निरंतर… ( तुलसीदास) , 400 पार , इत्यादि से केवल ठगों को अपरिमित फायदा हुआ है , not to citizens. A discerning mind is capable of seeing through this sorcery and read the frauds. My previous blog post deals with the wicked use of rhetoric in 2014 . Our biggest problem is, we think that formal education or degrees empowers the countrymen to understand rhetorics. It does not. In 21st century India, the degree dhaari illiterates are not only the biggest consumers of rhetorics, they are the biggest spreaders of such ugly rhetorics on WHATSAPP.
How do you think the current and next generation can be taught to understand the scam of rhetorics?
Few years ago, I saw Mark Zuckerberg visit China. He was running on the city streets early morning. The most noticeable think on his body were Nike gears..
Zuckerberg in Nike gear at Beijing
I saw some astronauts on ISS ( International Space station), they were working out. They all were wearing Nike.
Nike in space
When, I was in schools, I saw a blow up of Aamir Khan. He was wearing a yellow cotton shirt, dark grey cargo and a shoe which had a very stylish curve on the sides. At that time, I didnt know that it was “Swoosh” , the greatest sports logo ever created..
Few years later, I joined the Air Force and I had enough money of my own to buy my first pair of black Nike.. They felt like heaven.. I was amazed with the bounce, the grip, the look and its style.. To my misfortune, they were stolen by someone. That the only pair of my shoes which have been stolen till date..
Today, everyone knows Nike is a dream shoe/ sports wear for any athlete and as they say- Every human on earth is an athlete..
What propelled Nike to become such an aspirational brand and icon ?
A lot of things.. but I am going to describe the most unique thing about Mgt team of Nike. It comprised all rebels.. Woodel ( A champion athlete who lost both his legs, he was on wheel chair through out a pre IPO Nike and then bought his own private jet so that airlines are not able to mess up with his wheel chair) Johnson ( a passionate runner who loved books was the one who gave the company its name), Bowerman ( A university and Olympic running coach who invented and innovated most of the Nike shoes).
Bill Bowerman designing early Nike shoe Cortez which laid the sound foundation for growth
These mercenaries used to drive into a resort on Friday evenings and discuss the decisions they should take to propel Nike to greater and greater heights.. This convergence was named by them as ” BUTT FACES” .
The core theme of the group was : Any and everyone can be insulted if their ideas, opinions or ground work on subject was weak . The Buttface was very much like a FightClub and non one’s ego was taken seriously. The first rule of Buttface was- ” You dont take your insults seriously” . Buttfaces, between themselves could without thinking laugh at each other, deride each other, throw punches each other, all without having a political agenda or ego. Only the best ideas or plan of action survived the ButtFaces juggernaut.. The ideas which survived the juggernaut, went on to bulldoze the market and plunder the competitors. Mind that their main competitor was the monster ADIDAS.. Together, the Buttfaces pushed out Adidas to a poor poor second place.. from where it never hoped it could contend Nike
Nike maintains a consistent and unassailable lead over its peers
The success of Nike attracted academicians and a professor at Harvard to study the decision making pattern at ButtFaces). They concluded that it was a robust mgt style
“Normally”, he said, “if one manager at a company can think tactically and strategically, that company has a good future. But boy are you lucky: More than half the Buttfaces think that way! : ”
As, I work with my co founders I see that often my partners or I think strategically or tactically. We do not quickly alternate between the both.. We associate our egos with the success of adoption of our ideas. Probably, thats the reason we have not been able to dominate the space we operate in. Its time for us to become गाँडमुखिये or Buttfaces..
She is beautiful by conventional standards. She begins to like the neighbourhood dude named Nahato.. She proposed to Nahato and wants to marry him,..
Her other neighbour Valdev who is a rogue, fatso and a bully doesnt want to accept it..
Valdev Putra – or Valde
He warns Umraine of desisting romance with Nahato.. Umraine doesnt listen… After a few days of contemplation, Valdev barges into Umra’s home and start brutally raping her… He also declares that any one who tries to stop the rape will be screwed royally..
Neighbours turn into chickens and rats.. This is how her neighbours, now metamorphosed into rodents, respond to Umra’s call of help
Choo-S-A : We will send humanitarian aid, some clothes so that Umra’s private parts are not in clear view of leeches all around.
Valdev has done an outrageous act.. Almighty will one day punish him..
Choo-ngland “ : Valdev has chosen a path to bloodshed.. ( We are not rushing in to help ) but will stop doing business with Valdev.
We will not take money from them.. We urge people not to do further business with Valdev..
Choondia : We want Valdev and Umraine to talk about it and resolve.. Now that “R” has happened , as per our sanskaar Umra should agree to marry Valdev.. We will come and do a great Naagin dance… We cant scream, yell or deride Valdev.
Choondia or Choonda
When he eats chicken, we chew on the bones he throws away.. Damn the rape, we are concerned about some of our parrots and peacocks who took shelter in Umra’s home.
We spoke to Valdev and he has assured that our birds will be given safe passage to fly.. Valdev is a jolly good fellow.. He’s a jolly good fellow..
So, while the rape continues unabated, the neighbours try to find their reactions which cost them the least….
I get highly irritated when business owners bootlick people in power, especially the govts. The current trend is to, incongruously add a dilapidated and irritating word “aatm-nirbhar” to all their advertisements or communications. It reeks of visible sycophancy and naked dishonesty.
This is highly prevalent among the trader and traditional communities in India. Recall that Ratan Tata, totally unsolicited, came openly in support, in writing, of highly catastrophic and idiotic Demonetization within a day of its announcement. //Check the PS 1 at end for his Quid Pro Quo
The case in current context is the full page advertisement done by Vedanta group, founded by Anil Agarwal. They not only did a full page advt but also came up with a sycophantic video
So much is the fear or greed is in minds of these business men about this govt that they have to mandatorily add Modi’s speech keywords in any advertisement campaign if not make a campaign using it. Even in personal communications, they keep parroting Nandu’s cliched words. This is done to extract govt favors in contracts and also to escape harassment from govt agencies like ED/ CBI etc
Before Padma Bhushan Chanda Kochar got disgraced and fell of from glory for her corruption, she painted every digital property of ICICI bank with Modi’s keywords ( Swachh Bharat, Digital Bharat etc). The Indian environment looks very Orwelian and the toady chants very much like ” 2 legs bad, 4 legs good“
This word “Aatm nirbhar” or “Self Reliance” was relevant 1950s. India, then had to import wheat, sugar, milk, paper etc.. We imported clothes, turbines for dams, automobiles, military equipment, steel/cement for homes, tape recorders, TVs. In short, we imported everything. Such were the times that ‘imported’ prefix meant good stuff. Pandit Nehru realized that this will keep India poor eternally. He pioneered self reliance not only in manufacturing but also in education ( IITs/ IIMs / NITs/ AIIMS , NIDs DRDOs, ISRO etc) . Surprisingly, there was no sycophancy of govt on these slogans by businessmen then.
In next 3 decades, various 5 year plans marched India towards self reliance. Green/White revolutions were planned and executed with very high degree of success. By 1970s India attained food grain self sufficiency. In 80s white revolution drove India to top of chart in dairy production. 1990s saw India become net exporter of wheat, steel, rice, tea, software, sugar, textiles, meat.
At the dawn of 21st century India became globally the largest manufacturers of bicycles, motorbikes, sugar, tea, toothpaste tubes( India makes 60 % of world’s total tube production). 21st century also saw India become one of the largest IT services exporter. Software services, BPOs, Medical transcription, Engineering services saw export grow at frenetic pace.
The rising exports grew demand for machines and technology which facilitated exports. Thus machinery, rare minerals, electronics imports rose. Other than a few advanced countries, India maintained a good balance of trade with trading and partnering nations.
This dependency on partners was not only good but also essential. It engaged nations in thriving relationships, just like it is between married couples. There is no aatm-nirbharta in relationship. There are complimentary capabilities and dependencies which provide the glue which binds and keeps the relationship going
Today, we live a highly connected and interdependent world. This dependence brings in highest levels of business efficiency by outsourcing. US is dependent on us for cheaper software services. We are dependent on US for software development tools. We lean on China for cheaper harvester bags for making COVID vaccines, the Chinese love Indian movies. The world is dependent on our Pharma companies and our Pharma companies are dependent on the world for patent rights/ processes, ingredients to produce drugs. We are dependent on Middle East for oil and middle east is dependent on us for nurses, software and spices. UAE is dependent on us for entertainment by Bollywood movies, we are dependent on them to conduct IPL when our domestic conditions are not congenial for sports.
Today our imports are approx U$ 390 Bn and lion’s share of import nirbharta is on China
Similarly our exports are U$292 Billion
Other than USA, we have an negative trade balance with most of our trading partners.
Imagine if everybody carries this obsolete “Aatm Nirbharta” like a fanatic or lunatic. The world will grind to a halt. India will be thrown back 7 decades. Most of India’s industry including IT industry would be dead in trenches. In view of interdependent world, this word “Aatm Nirbhar ” not only sounds grotesque but is also as absurd as perpetual motion machines. No country in this world, not even China is fully self reliant for everything.
In absence of funds of Softbank/Sequoia, there will be no flipkart, no Oyo, No Nyka or No Swiggy , no Zomato. In absence of Google maps there will be no Ola, no Uber. No laptops, no mobile phones, no internet banking, no Whatsapp. In absence of cryogenic engine support from West, no ISRO.
In an aatm nirbhar bharat there will be no amazon, no LinkedIn, no Google, no wordpress
There will be no Air force as No Sukhois, Rafales or Miraazes, Migs. No army, as no night vision goggles, no Kalashnikovs, no bulletproof armors, no big guns or communication equipments.
This demagogue brought back this ridiculous “Aatm nirbhar” slogan but he rides ” Germany nirbhar ” BMW convoys wherever he goes.
His election rallies are done in “Japan Nirbhar” Toyota range rovers, signatures are done on “Italy Nirbhar” Mont Blanc pen. Even his capability to see and read is nirbhar on Italian bvlgari glasses,
He eats imported Rs 50,000/kg mushrooms, uses a phone designed in California but made in China. His party loots corporate India via electoral bonds and uses it to buy Israel nirbhar spyware Pegasus to do jaasoosi (spying) on journos/ politicial rivals. This hypocrite is nirbhar on govt servants to even open his car doors or to carry his umbrella but ironically talks “AatmNirbharta”
He is aatm nirbhar(!!!) in, possibly in only one area(?). That self sufficiency is the cause for his abject mental state. He ran away from his wife many years ago.
PS1 : Rotten Tata received Rs 500 Crore loan from Gujarat BJP govt at interest rate 0.1 % per annum , the first installment of which would get due 21 yrs after the first car rolls out from the plant. Rotten Tata in return paid BJP party fund with Rs 700 crores worth electoral bonds, the highest ever amount paid by any one officially.
This is a series of 3 blogs exposing a major business trap or malpractice and ways to counter it. It’s useful for people who drive businesses. If you are a simple salary earner with no direct exposure to business risks, you may skip this. The learning may be of little use to you.
Gemfish Software, Bangalore: The huddle room in a suburb is full of frenzy. A large team is working on a demo for a large($100 Mn+) project. This will change the company fortunes forever. A team of 22 ( 8 engineers, 3 business analysts, 4 designers, 2 testers, 3 architects and 2 sales guys) scrum daily on it..
The metaphoric scrum
At an average cost of $3000/ month/ staff, in these 2 months, the sprints have cost upward of U$ 130,000 (Approx 1 Crore or 10 million INR). 20 families will be assured of living for 2 yrs, once this is cracked. The Tech lead has gone frustrated. Wiping the sweat, he retorts – ” I have lost count of how many places I have tried to spit- stick to make it work.. This edifice just fails to stand any test”.
The demo was done in the 3rd month. The company lost the bid.. It wrote off Rs 1 Crore and 44 person months of high caliber work.
Piyush Kumar, 32, (Name changed), a senior design professional, appeared for the interview process at a large fintech company. He was asked to redesign the landing page. He spent 1 day analyzing the current site.
He spent another 2 days ideating on what can be done. The conceptual design took 3 days. 2 more days went in to make aesthetically pleasing landing page redesign. It also took 1 full day to create a presentation covering the design thinking process. At his normal charging rate of $400/ day of work, these 9 days of work cost $3600 .. or INR 2.7 Lakhs
What happened during and after his presentation?
The company asked Piyush to submit all design work. All assets were uploaded via ftp. Further, they asked him to walk through the design process and artifacts for over 2 hours. Once the presentation was over, the company never came back to him and stopped responding to his mails
Neeti Singh is a young entrepreneur running a small IT development company, She got a lead about a team in USA wanting to get a high quality, standards compliant, high performance software built. A well wisher told her not to put too much effort in detailing a proposal. He still went ahead, analyzed 50user stories (features).
Her team of 5 worked for 4 days to estimate each unique screen, each major functionality and came up with a clear architectural diagram, tech stack and a fairly accurate estimate.. This endeavor cost her.. U$ 7,500 or INR 5,62,000..
What happened after that ? The team from the USA, saw the proposal , understood all implementation efforts, made notes and then said their budget was 1/6th of what was quoted..
All the 3 stories told above are true with just the names changed.
They have a pattern. This is a condemnable practice denounced and trashed by most mature organizations/ professionals but 95% of people in business fall prey to this trap..
This is also called FREE PITCHING but in my view its more appropriate to call it FREE FULL TOSS. This act has very little chance of helping the person full tossing the ball.. To understand the evil of Free full tossing read the 2nd blog( Unfrocking the evil “
Free full tossing is a term used to describe the work done and showcasing it without payment with an underlying greed or hope of that a large work may follow through as a consequence
Free pitching is generally initiated by a buyer who requests/demands from the supplier a free demonstration of capabilities in understanding, planning and execution on Client’s unique need to win the work. On rare occasions, it may be initiated by a supplier who provides free services/ design/ work in the hopes of later work and payment.
Ulla Sommerefell describes this act in a slightly more interesting way : Free full tossing also means : working endless hours to come up with genius ideas, then developing the concept – at no charge! – and presenting it for your potential client hoping that she will pick you among the other hopeful, red-eyed suppliers.
The Satans preying on a man and sucking his blood – Pic courtesy Artsy
Often the buyers float what is called an RFP (Request for Proposal) which is publicly posted, sent to prospective suppliers, advertised with a cost which is 3x to 5x of normal commercial value. This is intended to entice the participants with greed of super profit.. In case of scenario described for Gemfish software, there are generally 10 to 20 companies applying, each putting in a crore+ worth effort to do the dance in front of Clients.. This puts the value of free work done close to 20 Crores where as the project cost itself may be 10 Crore max..
How does the customer play the wicked games?
Customer asks the supplier to come to their location to demo the proposed solution and also have project discussions all at their own cost.. The gullible customers turn up with 4 to 6 member very senior team flown from across the globe.. The customers hear the suppliers presentation. Tell them they do not like their approach, design, capability or people to break the morale.. The seller team becomes desperate as lot of money has already been sunk.. The buyer tells they will get back to them..
At the end of a week, they lie to the best bidders (The ones with best approach, capability and proposal) that they would like to work with them but other competitors are doing it for 1/4th of what they have quoted.. This in short is : Find the best, discover the cheapest rates and tell the best guy to do the work at the rates cheapest bidder quoted.. At this stage either the supplier writes off the investments on the FREE FULL TOSSING or agrees to do the project at loss to recover some cost and minimize the loss.
The case of Piyush Kumar also went the similar way. The fintech company had earmarked U$ 900K for the landing page design. Of the total budget of U$900K, 12 % or roughly U$108K was for design. The company without any intent of hiring the design professionals set them up for the selection process. During this process of interacting with 10 designers, they got 10 different approaches, ideas and work worth U$ 100K for free . They could then use the design ideas to improve the landing page. Free full tossing is also used as a tool to do corporate espionage.. Please read that blog here.
For learning how to deal with Free full tossing trap read the final posts- Taking the bull by horns.. final blog
Every once in a while comes a stupid theory from a fraud business Guru & the entire corporate world starts parroting it brainlessly. Such word pollution gets beyond tolerance
Some funny examples follow:
1. Fortune lies at the base of pyramid : The richest fortune 500 cos. make no fortune selling to beggars. Apple (Trillion $+ company) sells to < 0.001% of humanity (NO beggar at the BASE). BerkShire Hathway has richest investors as its customers.
Those who try to sell to beggars at the base of pyramid have to produce low priced, low quality products. These businesses attract some of the worst professionals. Ratan Tata tried to sell NANO to the base of pyramid. Last year 1 unit of Nano was sold as against 18,000+ of XUV500
Correct approach : Fortune lies in endeavors which maximize your cash surplus each hour, each minute, each day, each month, each year. Rest all is HOKUM and gas.
2. FAIL FAST : This is one of the stupidest fallacy and has caught fancy of many..You start your endeavors with a mind tied to failing . You can throw all your resources in drain and fail fastest.. Say you have $1,000 in your account . You can I spend it in next 1 hour on facebook ads, get no paying customer. You have failed really fast.
Correct approach : Succeed fastest with existing resources. Think how spending $1,000 can get you at least one $1,500 paying customer in shortest time say 2 days.
What other such gases do you find irritating and fallacious ?
General V P Malik returned from a foreign trip and got to know about Pakistanis occupying Kargil heights. He asked for air cover to army men which Air Force chief denied saying the fortification required full activation of Air Force. With ego hurt, Malik tried to apply brute army force to capture NH1 peaks. The result was 300+ soldiers dead and no result.
I was given a programming assignment to check whether a 5 digit number (N) like 89561 was prime. I wrote a program loop which tried to find remainder when dividing this number by every number 1, 2,.. to the number and not a single instance of zero remainder come, declare it as prime.
Life continues to throw large problems to us. Sometimes we have large powers . This power is political, large army and huge computing power. It’s very very tempting to solve large order problems by throwing a lot of force on it. What you do with that temptation is a reflection of your maturity and your capability to think.
Do these large problems get solved by throwing disproportionate force on them ?
Sometimes yes. 6 million people castrated did ebb the population but very soon the 64 crore people fornicated enough to take India beyond 100 Crore in next 13 years.. VP Malik had some gains but he realized that he was a FOOL and then in front of Vajpayee agreed for full activation of IAF which did precision bombing and cut down the logistics supply to infiltrators from Pakistan and thus paved way for win.. My program did solve the prime number problem but was horrible in terms of thinking. I could avoid eliminate 50% of loops by just doing a first check whether the number was even and then setting the outer limit of number to square root of the number. When I realized my lazy thinking and inefficient program I had written, I cursed myself for having used such poor logic.
Why is controling Brute force very important today ?
We see megalomania at a massive state in the world around us.
You have a faulty business model ? Throw tons of advertising on end users and crush them under its load. Once drowned they will use your product or service.
You lost a state election ? Spend few lakh crores to buy MLAs and make senior leaders to defect.
You have poor ethics of business and leadership ? No problem, buy out media ( Print+ Digital) and they will glorify you.
Judge likely to pronounce you guilty in murder ? Buy the judge and if he doesn’t sell himself, kill him and make it appear like an accident.
You have a few mosquitoes in your house who are not responding to repellents? Shut all windows and doors and burn the god damn house.
and lastly ..
You have a huge Pandemic staring in face ? Lock down 1.3 billion people in their homes and enjoy the spectre of millions of Infantilized adults beating thaalis , ghantaas as millions of daily wage earners die either of disease or of poverty.
Do you have any solid examples of Brute force fallacies you have seen executed by MEGALOMANIACS?
The numbers on the scoreboard against his name turned to become 50. The commentators turned belligerent, thousands rose up on their feet to applaud. One expected celebrations from him but the man was unmoved. He was bereft of emotions of joy. What one could see in him was steely determination. An undiluted resolve
Ben Stokes didnt celebrate his 50. He didnt take off his helmet. He didnt wave to his film star or fashion model wife blowing airkisses to him. He carried on to fight like a Spartan. It was a battle for him where he didnt count or care that he has personally killed 50 enemies.
He delayed his gratification to team victory, he delayed his celebration to the mission accomplishment. This kept his pheromones from getting spent, this saved his adrenaline for the moment that mattered. He stayed focused.
I contrast Ben’s behavior with Indian players, especially Tendulkars, Gavaskars or any one from Bombay. These dudes on 9 out of 10 times would jump like monkeys on personal milestones, even if the team is on brink of shameful defeat.
I often see similar behavior by coders, employees salesmen. When their code compiles or individual targets are met, they bask in irrepressible glory. They are oblivious that their team or product is failing. They do not soldier on till the battle is won
This Herculean effort from Ben Stokes is the biggest memory that will stay with me forever. It will remain etched in minds of my kids who were witness to the greatest Cricket match ever played in the history of sport
Deservingly, Ben is getting nominated for Knighthood.
Thank you Sir Ben Stokes for displaying the epitome of values, a human must possess
Sunday Morning itch 