Wednesday 19 August 2015

Change has arrived with a bang, literally!!

The banging on the heavy metal door, forceful enough to make horrific sounds similar to the one of forcible entry by dacoits in the daylight or the dreary sound emerging out of General Dyers' army's sudden invasion on the meak crowd assembled on the fateful day of 13April 1919, awakens u from your deep thoughts. Then u realise, it is Kurla and u are travelling in the age old, comfort deprived, ever crowded like the hordes of cattle falling on each other, local train of Mumbai. This has been my second home for the past two months. First one, of ourse is my office with never ending working hours and ever piling new assignments. And the third home, do i need to tell u? Anyways it is a place where i sleep in the night and do my morning chores and in the process also get to see and sometimes meet them who can at best be addressed as my flat mates and at worst my wife and two children. The life which i have chosen to live is entirely different from what actually I wanted to lead. Coming back to local trains, these have been official transporter of strugglers belonging to various fields. Losers is not the right word as only 50% of them only loses everytime a train arrives i.e. Those who fail to garner a seat for themselves,probably getting a seat here is more difficult than getting a ticket from BJP in Gujarat. The other half who fail to get a seat are faced with a decision dilemma as it happens in any of the life's other crucial situations. He thinks whether he shud wait forthe next train and take his chances with whatever energy is left within or  board the train and get the unavoidable but painful message ( u read it right.its not pain relieving) from copassengers. 

This is the brief snapshot of my new life. Soon i will be back with more tidbits. Keep on reading and smiling; the purpose for which this precious life has been endowed upon us.

Friday 10 April 2015

Farewell Speech

10 Years from now when I will look back at this day; I will definitely have
blissful feeling. The learning which I am taking away from here will stay
with me forever both at professional level as well as personal level. The
process driven life, which at time felt mundane extended opportunities to be
more organized, thoughtful and microscopic in approach.  My stay at
Singapore has changed my thoughts and has shaped my personality in more ways
than one.

My three and half years stay at SBIS comprised of various roles from
Treasury back Office, Strategy, Planning, Branch Management to Credit
Analysis. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all those who extended
their unconditional support in discharging my responsibilities in the most
effective manner, particularly during my role as AVP (F & I) when I had to
coordinate with various departments and retail branches. 

For the first two years, during my role as AVP (F & I),I was fortunate to
work closely with senior management of the Bank which gave me the
opportunity to learn the fine prints of management and general oversight. I
would always be thankful to Anil Kishora Sir from whom I cud learn
managerial oversight in general and strategy formulation, detailing,
situation handling in particular, though i still cud not imbibe his calmness
and unruffled attitude which he always wore on his sleeve, even during worst
of situations. Mr A . Aravind who was my direct supervisor gave me ample
space to work freely. He was a kind of shock absorber for us who was always
ready to bear the brunt of mistakes committed by us, so this in turn gave us
more reasons to experiment and commit mistakes and learn in the process.

My role at AVP (F & I) was focussed more at macro level i.e. related to
policy formulation/review/monitoring whereas my role as AVP (Credit) was
more inclined towards micro level decision making requiring  detailed
analysis of a particular company and its financial requirement. It took some
time for me to complete the transition. I would like to extend my thanks to
Geetha Madam  who helped me to complete the transition. What I learnt from
Jaicy Madam is one of the most important ingredient of leadership i.e.
assertiveness. She also extended extra freedom in terms of my analytical
experiments. I am thankful to you for your this kind gesture. Rajasekhar Sir
& Sekaran's Sir valuable inputs in proposals has helped me in some way or
the other to be a better analyst. I would like to extend my thanks to Poonam
Madam and Bhanumathy Madam ,as members of Branch Credit committee they
helped me to get the proposals approved in the minimum possible time. I
would also like to extend my thanks to Alok Sir and Vijayalkashmi madam who
as members of CRA validation committee helped us to get our proposal fast
tracked and meet the mandated timelines particularly during times of review
and renewals.

I would also like to extend my thanks to Country Head  Sir and CEO sir for
all the support extended by them in the last few months, ultimately the
proposal had to be signed by them only. Thanks to Team HR who gave me the
opportunity to attend extremely valuable credit analysis training program
conducted by Moody's.

I am really going to miss post lunch walk and discussion which we have been
indulging in for the last three years. I have made some truly wonderful
friends among whom we cud share anything and everything. Guys I will miss u
all!! Last but not the least, SBIS cricket committe gave me the reason to be
in touch with one of my favoiurite sports despite being far from the country
where this sport is treated as religion.


And in the end, for all of us, stay hungry, stay foolish!!! Learn, learn,
learn!!

Friday 3 April 2015

Change is on the way

Now the day is not too far when we have to wake up from the dream which we have been living for the last three and half years. Its the time to step into reality, the reality of criss cross roads, dirty places, drainage on the road, cattle wandering all around, naked and malnourished children with the hope and hunger in their eyes.

At the personal level, reality is the uncertainty; uncertainty as to children’s response to the new environment, the change in their thought process, their education, their overall assimilation into the new set up. Uncertainty as to my profession viz role, place, organisational culture & behaviour(within the same organisation, culture is entirely different from one vertical to the other, from one branch to the other, though strange but its true). Uncertainty as to my other half’s freedom; freedom as to how she dresses, freedom as to her routine joggs (which sometimes start as late as 11 in the night or midnight also), freedom as to no one inquiring into her personal life, freedom as to roam around with her friends without being worried about the timing or place, freedom as to the way she wants to speak, freedom as to what she wants to learn, freedom as to buying groceries of her choice as and when she wants, freedom as to swim in the open pool without falling prey to prying and lacherous eyes.

Then there is the sea of opportunities to learn from real life experiences. Opportunity to rise beyond the challenges mentioned above. Opportunity to learn as to how to lead life when you are not left with any material thing and to learn as to how to lead life when you have these things in plenty(though nothing more to learn in this area post our stay in the dream world). To experience two situations; The monk with Ferrari & the monk who sold his Ferrari. Opportunity to survive and change the way things are done and perceived in whatsoever way we can. Opportunity to make the difference.

So we have fastened our belt and are ready for the most adventurous roller coaster ride we can ever experience. Hope we enjoy your support!!

Saturday 28 March 2015

Steve Jobs at Standford's Graduation Convocation


I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Monday 9 March 2015

Announcements at Apple spring forward event held on March 9,2015



Apple TV

Apple TV's price reduced from USD 99 to USD 69.Apple has sold 25 million Apple TV devices till date.

HBO to bring a channel "HBO Now" to Apple TV at a subscription fee of USD 14.99 per month.

Iphone

Apple sold 700 millions iPhone till date.

900 apps support Health app in Iphone

Research kit announced which aims at medical research based on the data collected from Heath app of IPhone. 

Using research kit,Symptoms of the diseases can be tested by the iPhone user himself.

Sharing of health data is purely at the discretion of the user.

Research Kit will be open source.

Mac

Mac has outgrown the PC industry continuously for last 10 years.

12 inch Retina Macbook announced. Screen resolution; 2304p*1440p

Thinnest display ever on any mac.

It weighs less than 2 pound ie less than 1 kg.

Maximum thickness at any point is 13.1 mm which is 24% thinner than existing macbook air. It has full metal enclosure.No plastic, a first for any macbook.

Keyboard has been revamped.It follows Butterfly mechanism which makes typing more accurate. Each key has its own LED which provides more illumination in darkness.

Force touch trackpad introduced with Taptic engine which has earlier been introduced in Apple watch.force touch performa various functions depending on the program being run.

This is also the first fanless macbook.

Logic board is 67% smaller than the earlier logic board.

It just consumes 5 watt of electricity.

Battery is has been designed as tiered structure which has 35% more capacity and which means all day battery life.

It has usual wifi ac, bluetooth 4.0 and only one connector which is called USB-C. This can act as VGA, USB, display and  power port. 

It will ship in Silver, space grey and gold colors.

RAM:8GB, SSD:256 GB, 1.2 ghz dual core I5 processor

Price: USD 1299, will start shipping April 10 onwards

One more thing, Apple logo is revamped too. Its no more plasticky.

Existing line of MacBooks updated with some minor configuration changes.

Apple Watch

Apple watch is most advanced watch ever made.

Glances: to see things which we use most frequently like weather, music etc.

Messages and calls can be received on the watch.

Emails too can be handled on the watch.

Digital touch allows communication between two apple watches including transmission of heart beat related data to the other watch.
 
Tracks and record motion, exercise and other activity data.
 
Based on historical data and through algorithm, it suggests customized work out timing, targets etc.

Apple watch supports apple pay, photos, maps etc.Siri acts as an input source. 

Notification is synced to IPhone.

Watch is connected to IPhone through bluetooth or wifi

Apple watch with passbook can be used to go through security checks at airports seamlessly and smoothly.

Apple watch can act as room key for checking into hotel room.

The watch will have all day battery life. With normal usage, it will have usage of 18 hours on a single charge.

It comes in three variants; watch sports, watch collection, watch edition

Watch sports is made up of anodized aluminum whereas watch collection is made up of special stainless steel.

Prices;                   38 mm        42 mm
Watch sports:      USD 349.      USD 399
Watch collection: USD 549-1049 USD 599-USD 1099
Watch edition:      USD 10,000 & above.

Pre orders beginning on 10th April 2015.

The watch will be available on 24th April 2015 in few countries. Hongkong and China are only two Asian countries who will get it on 24th April.










Friday 6 March 2015

Hippocracy Continues!!



Porn is illegal in Singapore whereas it is legal in India. To facilitate the implementation, Singapore has checks in place where at the ISP level, most of the porn Sites have been blocked using some keywords. However there are still some sites which bypass this scrutiny but intent is always there to block viewing of such sites. The purpose behind this law is to restrict viewing of obscene and porn materials by anyone and everyone including children. However Singapore does allow screening of mature contents in theaters with a specific rating which allows viewing by audience above a certain age threshold e.g. movies containing sexual scenes are for consumption of people who are above 23 years old.

On the other hand, India has freely allowed streaming/viewing/uploading of porn content for consumption of anyone and everyone including children. However, it does not allow screening of "Fifty shades of Grey" in theaters as this is against Indian culture. So, watching porn by children is not against Indian culture but watching mature contents by the restricted audience is against Indian culture. As usual, when we take this kind of stand we look like bunch of Hippocrates, on whom any rational human being would like to laugh at and would pity at our mentality. 

Monday 2 March 2015

A tale of two tech giants


Virtually entire smartphone world has been divided between two players for the last few years. Either a person is a fanboy or the maverick who wants to break the shackles and fly out of fenced garden created by the one of the best design engineers. Yes, I am talking about Apple and Samsung.

It was January 2007 when the landscape of mobile phones changed forever of course for better!! Who can forget the iconic statement from Mr Jobs"its not one product, its three products in one" and thus first iPhone took birth. Since then it has gone through seven iterations and current range of iPhones are eighth version of breakthrough device and the most successful till date.

On the other hand, Samsung was a player in the smartphone space even before iPhone was announced, though an unrecognized one, the smartphone space was then largely dominated by Blackberry and Nokia. However, with the introduction of Iphone, things changed for forever, not only for Apple but for Samsung too! Samsung was the first of the few players who recognized the potential of these rectangular  shaped communication devices which carried a minimalist design language and were far ahead of the existing products in the market. Google also tapped the opportunity by creating android version of mobile softwares which mostly picked up its features from apple mobile software(now iOS). The major differentiation Google's android had was its openness and its unimaginable customization capabilities. Samsung had the natural strength of hardware and with the support of android, it could emerge as the biggest challenger to Apple's dominance. 

The blatant copying of IOS by Google invited sharp reactions from Apple catapulting to  famous quote from Steve Jobs of going thermonuclear against Google. Google had seriously ripped apart Apple in Software whereas Samsung had done the same  with hardware by manufacturing a replica of the rectangular shaped glass with capacitative touch capabilities. Android in its earlier days was a shoddy, complex and user-unfriendly software. However, with each iteration, it did away with its major flaws and added new features which were distinctive. Soon due to its openness, it became darling of those who were ready to break free, the unconventional and the mavericks.

With the release of fourth generation of IPhone, Apple was declared as undisputed king of design and the flag bearer of exquisite and premium devices like its other iconic products iPod and mac. Apple was collecting more than 80% of entire smartphone industry's profits with less than 15% of total sales of the industry.

Samsung on its part developed its own wherewithal and started devising ways to beat Apple on its own turf. It adopted a multi pronged strategy which included products at multiple price points to cater to the requirements of left overs( those who wanted to own an apple phone but could not) , launch of galaxy range of devices( those who had the capability to own iPhones but did not want to be confined within beautiful walled garden created by the Apple). Ironically Steve Jobs  used to say Apple is for those who wants to break free and those who do not want to live by rules but in reality this philosophy was served to the consumers by its biggest competitor in the making. If Apple gave the people a device which could be used as an alternative to computers or which could perform most of the functions, a computer could , it was Samsung's big screen phones which made people realize the actual potential of these devices. With the launch of note range of devices in 2011, it hit that sweet spot where experience met utility. The same smartphone became more immersive, consuming and addictive. 

Often success makes a person or company arrogant. Whether this was true for apple or not, only history will tell but one thing was clear that apple's persistent ignorance of large screen sized smartphone requirement by consumers was weighing heavily on the IPhone's sales. In 2012, it realized that something needs to be done with screen sizes and with introduction of IPhone 5, it introduced 4 inches screen size devices. The phone was a massive hit. However this half hearted realization by Apple was not able to stop Samsung's march and apple's tick tock policy for its yearly update cycle did not help it either. Finally in 2014, with their current versions of iPhones, they realized the potential of big screen sizes phones which blew away the competition by a huge margin.

Yesterday on 1st March 2015, Samsung unveiled galaxy S6 range of devices which featured a complete metal and glass chassis unlike their earlier plastic versions along with couple of changes( discontinuing micro SD card and removable battery options) which unconventionals wont like. Life has come a full circle for Samsung, from a company of mavericks to the Company of rule followers which again reminds us of Jobs who once said " Consumers do not know what actually they want until and unless you put it into their hands".Probably Samsung has understood its meaning now!!