mental-models

Mental Models - Importance of buyer and seller dynamics in pricing

One the key question most of us often face is what is the 'right' price of a product. It could be the price you pay for hiring talent in your company (aka salary), price investors pay for buying shares in a company (aka valuation), etc.

data

Data Driven Disruptions

Anand is an electric speaker with deep focus on how technology and data can be used to build new types of products. The core of his talk was this fundamental idea that access to huge amount of data will lead to creation of new business models which will disrupt existing players.

books

My notes from "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K Le Guin

The Dispossesed is a sci-fi novel about an anarchist society formed on the imaginary planet of Anarres. The society has been founded after an anarchist revolution in Urras, which led its government to send the anarchists to an uninhabited Anarres to establish the society of their dreams.

death

Meditations on Death

If all of us eventually die, does it really matter what you do in your life?

decentralization

Is decentralisation always better? (Part 2)

What do people really want? Are they OK with sacrificing some privacy and freedom for better user experience and less effort. This is the key question.

decentralization

Is decentralization always better (Part 1)?

Somehow people believe that decentralization is inherently good. Most of us have a meme of evil corp in our mind - and any thing which gives us hope of taking down these evil corps seems quite appealing. Most of us hate how these evil corps like Google, FB, Uber, etc. make huge profit

china

My notes from Wild Swans - How modern China came into being?

China's history is very complex and interesting. From once a great nation. it fell to abject poverty under Mao, but is slowly getting back its old glory riding on a spectacular growth story. My notes from one of the best books I've read on China

hacker

Underground : A great book on early days of hacking culture

My notes from the book Underground by Suelette Dreyfus & Julian Assange. It's an amazing book if you want to get a glimpse of the early days of the hacking culture. The culture which created folks like Julian Assange, who is a powerful force in the world today.

anarchism

American Kingpin : The story of the creator of Silk Road

Here are some of my notes from the book - American Kingpin by Nick Bilton. It is the story of Ross Ulbricht, the creator Silk Road, arguably the most dangerous website to have existed on the Internet.

Politics

Disinformation and Public debate

Do you really have a strong, well-researched viewpoint on matters of public debate or you have just formed an opinion based on the numerous Whatsapp forwards and Facebook shares you have seen?

hacker

Hacker Culture and Anarchism

Hackers are generally painted in a negative light and most people think that hackers do shady things by stealing money by sneaking into systems. Very few people see them as pioneers who are pushing the boundaries in their field, figuring out gems which push our society forward.

cryptocurrency

CryptoUX and mass adoption

One of the biggest hurdle in crypto reaching to mass audience is the importance of private key management and how the loss of private key can lead you to losing your crypto wealth.

blockchain

How to become a Blockchain developer?

Many people come to me ask about how they should proceed to become a developer in the blockchain space. I thought it would be a good idea to put down my thoughts in a post so that I can easily refer people to this.

blockchain

Consensus Protocols: Tendermint and pBFT

The consensus problem in distributes system is an age old problem. Byzantine General's Problem for achieving consensus in distributed process is a special class of problem in which some processes can take arbitrary actions (lie, deceive, etc.)

blockchain

Can Blockchains solve the issues of trust in Supply Chain? 👇

One particular case which many people tout as a good use case of blockchains are Supply chains. Somehow its intuitive to people that blockchain should help here.

Youth

Dangers of Political apathy

Today, I see a general apathy towards political activity at least in youth, or the limited circles I am part of. "Politics" is considered a dirty thing and nobody wants to get into politics as a choice. We all discuss about why government is not doing everything.

books

My notes from Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

Its a compelling story and a salute to the spirit of entrepreneurship. It never occurred to me that a brand which seems to be omni-present now, had such humble beginnings. It was just a "Crazy Idea" in the minds of a young guy in Oregon, USA.

philosophy

My notes from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov

I first picked up Dostoevsky in summer of 2008. Though I had vaguely read about him somewhere, what really made me purchase the books was the fact that the books were pretty cheap. 120 bucks for a 400-500 pages book. I picked up both Crime and Punishment and The Idiot.

blockchain

STOP! Blockchain can't solve Everything

Blockchain on the face of it is needed to prevent the problem of double spending in a trustless environment. Only when there are multiple parties involved and there is a problem of trust between them, does applying blockchain based solutions help.

greatness

What is 'greatness'?

This question was inspired by my reading of Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. The book talks about the story of an English butler in the 1930s. One of the key questions

money

Who controls the world?

This question came to my mind listening to this interview by Chamath. He mentions that there are maybe 150 or 200 people who actually control the world. They may not be the people

anathem

Anathem : A gem by Neal Stephenson

I recently finished reading Anathem and what a great read it was! Though filled with occasional meanderings by Stephenson, it covered topics which I didn't think fell under the preview of science fiction.

Biology

Game Theory in Nature

I recently came across Robert Sapolsky's lecture on Human Behavioral Biology. Here is the complete series available on Youtube. One of things which struck me was how results derived from Game Theory have

Nietzsche

The thirst for the Dionysian

This post has been waiting in my edit box for quite a long time, so need to get it out! Ok. Most of the current world thought places lot of emphasis on rational

Long term thinking

Long Term Thinking

I have been reading Neal Stephenson's Anathem the last few days. The story is set in an alternate world which has a mathic system where intellectuals (or people of mind) stay in maths