The over-rated start up generation!! (Part 2)

Dear All
So here I am tonight trying to finish what I started last month! The part 2 of the blog which some of my friends told they are eagerly waiting for just to keep me happy and enthusiastic enough to not stop blogging!
Yes, so now comes the third generation or the start up generation or as my blog's title says 'over-rated' start up generation.
First of all as I mentioned in the part 1, I believe that the 2nd generation was the one which created the manufacturing base in this country and the distribution channels. They were the real start up kings!
Ours is more of a bubble generation, no doubt with a lot of substance but the advent of high communication has blown things out of proportions. We are living in a world of valuations rather than asset base. Today, like of a flipkart is valued 4 -5 times that of a Tata Steel! Are these valuations justified?
Recently I observed that in last month or so a The Economic Times has questioned these valuations thrice on its front page. I have been discussing the same over past 6 months with various people.
So our generation, instead of creating wealth, is creating valuation. Instead of creating manufacturing, organising the services through internet. Instead of creating assets, creating brands. Instead of creating a long term robust business, creating a bubble!
Well, the above paragraph sounds like I am a big pessimist about these internet businesses, but I am not! These businesses are here to stay, only issue is the valuations these are garnering. If the valuations are justified by fundamentals like revenue, profits, asset base, free cash flow, well and good but the same is far from happening in many cases.
There is a lot of money in the world wanting to be invested and somewhere some good sales man is selling a 15 year story today and that desperate money waiting to get invested is getting invested. I hope that it sustains those 15 years and finally the investment is justified.
Anyway currently every purchase I make online comes with money from the investor sitting somewhere in Japan or the US or China or India!
Fortunately currently only rich are investing their money in such businesses who can afford taking a beating.
I hope our generation creates wealth like the earlier one and all the big names remain intact after 15 years, in green with their fundamentals supporting their valuations.
I hope that this is not another .com bubble waiting to get burst...

Signing off

Siddharth!

The over-rated start up generation!! (Part 1)

Dear All,

I have been having discussions with a lot of people these days about the number of starts-ups this current generation is taking up. It's indeed delighting to see so many young brains taking risks, creating business models, getting investments, growing well. In fact some where in my heart I am also a wannabe start up guy but I think I have crossed the age to be young enough to attract eyeballs and guys of my age are already multi millionaires! (I am 27 by the way)
But as they say those who can't do, preach (and write blogs in deep slumbers of nights). That's one of the reasons this one is coming.
So we are 68 years independent. My grandfather was one who was born before independence, then came the generation of my dad who was born after independence but into a very under developed, controlled India and then I am born in a generation that has seen the transformation of India from an old school economy to a rising super power, a communication less society to and over communicated society.
So I think I will not be wrong to say that we are broadly into 3rd generation India. Yes the next generation is in process but the they are too young to make a difference except to their nappies.
Yes, so my grandfather was the one who struggled his way to an independent India and struggled hard to keep up a family, do some business (yes a start up in the time when nothing existed by the name of organised business) and some how the country started settling down.
Then came my dad's generation which I think are the people who are the real entrepreneurial generation. These are the men who developed the huge manufacturing base in this huge country. These are the men who started factories, plants, units, infrastructure companies, designed business, went to consumers, opened showrooms, opened shops and practically without much (rather any) backing. At that time opening a kirana or a cloth shop in the market was also a start up which these people did without any investors or any business consultants, on their very own.
These were the people who grew business in this country, mobilised agriculture. Created a huge manufacturing base and laid foundation to the service industry.
How big start ups they created which took the value of our economy to this scale.
They created products, they explored mines and minerals, they produced cloth, stone, oil, engineering equipments, agriculture equipments, FMCG items, chemicals, fibres etc etc...to support every thing they created infrastructure, transportation, service industry.
So I believe that first of all these great men who brought us till this stage deserve a huge round of appreciation and in real sense deserve to be called the start up kings who, with very limited resources and funding are into every nook and corner of this country. They created wealth!
Now the third generation has come and is doing fantastically well. But we are just a little over rated I feel..
How and why do I feel so will require me to continue this long blog with (another) part two!!
Wait for a few days until I post the second part...

I hope I will make some sense with this one too like the previous 2 part reservation blog.

Happy reading.

Signing off

Siddharth

PS: your thoughts and comments are most welcome! 

Reservation - The biggest threat to emerging superpower (part 2)

Dear All,
So here I am to finish writing the second part on reservation!
After writing the first one and then having views shared with others on this topic, I think more or less people believe that reservation is a bigger peril than anything else.
So yes, the last one I finished with the thought that we were slaves and will remain slaves, that's how our minds are engineered.
We lack patriotism like Japanese or passion to be and remain number one like the Americans. We are more of a selfish breed and thus we cannot let the power to from our hands once it comes. Therefore our politicians have no guts to decide and prepare a framework to end this menace of reservation.
Like all the parties come together on matter of MPs pay hikes and unanimously vote for it in the parliament, these people do not have guts to unanimously end reservation.
So the question comes why do we, those who are against reservation get into the system and clean it? Because there is no national party who has this kind of an ideology.
The basic ideology of any national party is how to remain in power and for that reservation plays an important role. If this continues we will have a proper caste based bifurcation of everything.
Let's have a quota based on caste for everything then. Marriages, private jobs, agriculture, land, ownership of companies, President's post, trade, pilots, restaurants, pictures etc etc whatever we can think of. Is this the method we are going to proceed in this country?
No! We have to have a drive to drive out reservation from this country. I, for that matter, cannot see the next generations struggling for their deserving rights. We cannot have the people who run this country with this ideology. It's high time we start thinking for the country rather than 'party first' and we first.
Remember the dialogue from Shahrukh Khan's movie Chak de India where he says "play for your country first, then if you have energy left play for your team mates, then still if you have life, play for yourself".
Some would say that these thins sound good in films only but only this is how we can make the difference.
Have a thought and write about it, tell others and if possible act on it.
I keep trying.
Hope some day we will make a difference and help eliminate this curse of reservation which our forefathers have forced upon us and we are helplessly and hopelessly following it.

Signing off,

With high hopes,

Siddharth 

Reservation - The biggest threat to emerging superpower! (Part 1)

Hi all,

Thanks for appreciating the last blog!!
I am thrilled that I am able to think and get into my writing zone so quickly which I have been missing from a long time!!
Some minds do not have a single line of thoughts. Like the other day I was technologically tired and today my mind seems to be entangled in entirely different thought!
Yes, as evident from the title of the blog, I am writing on reservation in India, on which humongous number of people have umpteen number of opinions, and so do I!
If you have been reading my blogs or have read my thoughts on social media, you would know that rather than statistics, I believe in writing based on experiences and gut feel more. I write my heart out rather than critical statistical analysis. So tonight also I would not put out numbers to what I am writing but I hope I will make sense.
India, our dear India is a well known emerging super power. The world acknowledges, the world speaks about us. But a promising kid also has his/her own share of challenges.
To me, one of the biggest challenge that India faces today is caste based Reservation. Not only the problem, but the consequential effects are scary and give me goosebumps.
Some years ago, I gave CAT exam and scored 96 percentile and obviously did not get call from any of the IIMs. The same year a reserved category candidate scored 74 percentile and got calls from 3-4 of them! That was when the word reservation, which I had known since childhood, actually hit me. It still pains!
Yes as a country we decided that we need yo uplift the backward but for how many years and at what cost?? With each passing day the cost of every single reserved seat is increasing not only for the individuals but for the country. We have been paying a huge cost for reservation through brain drain. One of the major reasons for brain drain has been the caste based reservation system. I do not know what will be the results if we compare the brain drain opportunity cost against what good we have achieved from reservation! And not only brain drain, we have wasted huge opportunities by not giving the post to the deserving.
Huge percentage of people who lead the country are product of reservation. A place like udaipur has to be led by a reserved caste because this is a reserved seat! So how will the development come?
Those who do not qualify the merit do not deserve to be in pilot's seat just because of their caste.
Further, the bigger fear is that the country is getting divided once again and our habit of being slaves does not go!
We have been servants. That's what our history has been. First to the kings, then to the Englishman and then to democracy, all because of our selfish interests.
Had we ever in the history of this 'great' nation, had national interest, the history and the future would have been different.
The caste based reservation must end now. It will have major consequences if not eliminated at the earliest.............

Signing off!!

Siddharth


PS: next part to this blog will follow.

Technological Fatigue

Hello All!!
Well I have been trying to write about it since long but was not getting enough words to express!! Tonight I think there is possible flow again from my nodes in the brain (or heart) to write on this subject!
Interestingly, the topic I am writing on is what I am currently using to reach to all of you, technology!!
Mine has been a generation that has seen this transformation from writing letters to writing blogs, playing in sun to playing play station, roaming with friends to adding them, getting slapped from parents to not adding them on Facebook, calling from landlines to viber calls, seeing movie in a VCR to having it in a per drive and a lot many things have transformed rapidly!!
If I talk about the next generation which has changed very fast does not even realise how this transformation has happened. They all grow up having smart phones to tablets, Facebook accounts to what's app and all the technology at their disposal right from the day they are born!
But lately I have started realising that I have started feeling fatigued by so much of technology around. Technology, no doubt has made many things easy but everything in limits is good. Every thing we want in our tablets and phones now. This has added a lot more responsibility and has added tremendous amount of work pressure and social pressure for that matter.
You must check your Facebook account atleast 4-5 times a day and if you do not have a friends request or likes/comments of your status you start getting restless.
Your are under enormous pressure to keep updating your pictures for others to see rather than you yourself enjoying the place. 'I got married', 'I am going xxx place for honeymoon', 'now having kids', 'late for work today', 'you are the best dad in the world', 'constipated today'!!!! Well, this is how our lives have gone public and getting response on these kinds of daily activities has become a dreaded phenomenon!
This is a very narrow part of the over all story, we are so much into technology that a guy like me is getting tired using it. Emails, social network, smses, what's app, viber, numerous online marketplaces, app for everything, smart phones, tablets, laptops, desk tops, fablets, pen drives etc etc...
We have started detaching ourselves from the actual society and are on the verge of becoming technological slaves. The creativity of human mind is only thinking of how to make another app!
We are getting dumber day by day and so dependant on technology that if we do not have our cell phone for one day, we feel claustrophobic, we feel deprived, we feel dead!!
We are starting to forget that relations are not made on social media but by being social and meeting people, not seeing their pics.
We need to remember that technology is a tool to make our lives easy and not our life itself!
So what I want to put up is that soon a time will come that all of us will be so fatigued by this whole technological ecosystem that we will go back to being natural, go back to older ways to doing things because I do not think that the human mind has the capacity to be a slave and keep absorbing all pieces of technological crap coming its way.
Our natural ability to think is dying. When I meet people and talk to the younger ones, they have just gone crazy and dumb to the extent one cannot imagine!!
This technological shift that has happened in last 2 decades will make a tectonic shift once again due the human mind fatigue syndrome and we will, for getting peace will head to normal human ways of getting things done.
The 'real social networking' will come into place once again and the Facebook fatigue syndrome will come into play very soon, that's when we will see the decline of such websites and apps and other pieces of technology.
As I mentioned here before, that technology will exist only till it supports our lives to get easy, all the excess technology that has become our life, will slowly(or may be very fast) diminish as human beings have to realize that they are human beings and not virtual beings!!

I hope I made some sense and if you do not agree with the views, would like to hear from you at length.
Thanks for your time by logging in another piece of technology!!
Signing off

Siddharth

Can't put title to your soul!!

Dear All
Long time no see again!!!
Well it's been a quarter I have written anything worthwhile reading except some scribbling on my Facebook account!!
Have been dying to write but still struggling to get words!!
Off late I think I am facing a mid-life writing crisis where neither thoughts flow nor the words come out!
I wrote in one of my blog that the brain stops thinking but now I am feeling that you need heart more than brain to write some good stuff.
So, the other day I was talking to my wife and my mother that what excites me in life?
I don't enjoy partying much, no drinking, no smoking, not a night life person either! So this just made me think what the hell in my life do I enjoy?
And then I started writing once again! Yes, so this is the thing I enjoy doing to my core. But since I am not a commercial writer (yet) I can't force my brain/heart/fingers to write whenever!!
(Still not getting what I am up to in this blog)
So basically what I get to understand is that there are certain things you think you would enjoy because most people around you see, enjoy that, but you don't!!
For a person like me, I would enjoy evening tea at a close friend's house, late night chat with my in laws at their place, talking about my dreams to my mom, seeing my wife doing her routine work innocently and talking to her, working hard with freedom at my office, trying being dad to my sister(s), sleeping, thinking with peace, being trusted, taking responsibility, having fun with my family, hearing from my grandparents their life stories, reading about global leaders, listening to great orators,  talking to a lot of people about a lot of things and writing of course!!
So this doesn't include a single thing that a 27 yr old lad would have in his to do list except I think sleeping!!
Well, I am still to figure out the objective of this blog but yes something has itched me to write this tonight.
I hope I start getting a little fluid with my writing skills once again.
Thank you for bearing with my writing one more time or if you are reading for the first time then best of luck!!

Signing off!!

Siddharth

Empowerment

Long time no see!

Dear All

How fast the times passes, I have tried hard but failed to keep pace with time! It runs, briskly!!

The routine makes us so mechanical that the brain after some time, starts clogging and then whole area of the creative thinking and writing goes in to a deep slumber. There are thoughts but the feeling to express dies. One has opinions on many things but the will to express depletes and then one day you think that how lucid your thoughts were and they are now dead.

Well this does not happen only with men who work hard day in and night out to support their families, who very quietly replace their dreams without even expressing them, with family priorities, with work pressures, with expectations of family members, society, office etc.etc., who, without complaining compromise on a whole lot of things that they ever wanted to do in their lives, but also happens with many a girls who also compromise with their dreams, ambitions, goals to first satisfy their family and then after marriage new family. The thing I want to put into perspective is that both the genders are equally responsible for the existence of mankind on this earth.
Then comes the PR exercise of WOMAN EMPOWERMENT! The social media gives it a whole new momentum. Every tom dick and harry starts a campaign supporting woman empowerment and starts blaming men for being "chauvinist". Giving umpteen examples of how the society has been carved out by men from years back in time to suit their needs, writing about how men have defamed the other gender and have made them weak single-handedly, how men are responsible for miserable state of women in many societies, religions and geographies, how men have objectified women, how men have ridiculed women over history and how men have not provided equal opportunities to women to grow.

So the so called weaker section blames men for them being weaker which I think is extremely untrue.

While writing this blog, I went through wikipedia to understand what empowerment means. Wiki says "Empowerment refers to increasing the economic, political, social, educational, gender, or spiritual strength of an entity or entities" further to explain the process it says "Empowerment is the process of obtaining basic opportunities for marginalized people, either directly by those people, or through the help of non-marginalized others who share their own access to these opportunities. It also includes actively thwarting attempts to deny those opportunities".
Now, first of all 50% of the world population cannot blame the other 50% for remaining un-empowered. Next the above line says that empowerment is process of obtaining basic opportunities, which I dont think the Constitution of India denies or for that matter any law derived out of the constitution denies. The most important thing that the above line says is that "either directly by those people, or through the help of non-marginalized others who share their own access to these opportunities" and if we still say that women - a gender as a whole or in this country are not empowered because of the men then I strongly register my protest to this argument. Because I dont think that not even a single woman in this country has not had access to any opportunity.

By this blog I just want to explain to all that men are not to be blamed for every thing bad happens to women and same way women are not to be blamed if some thing bad happens to a man. The world 'Male Chauvinism" is a myth in this modern world. Rather its the weakness of woman who have accepted this way of being in the society. Without the consent of 50% of the population the other 50% cannot dominate.
And it is not the case either. In this country and the whole world it is the powerful that dominates. If a man is powerful he dominates and if a woman is, she dominates. The world has seen the Indira Gandhis and Angela Merkels, the Mother Teresas and Malala Yousafzais, the Arundhati Bhattacharyas and Indira Nooyis, the Marilyn Monroes and Lady Gagas and the Kalpana Chawlas and Valentina Tereshkovas, the Sonia Gandhis and Sheikh Hasinas of the world.

These are the women who have dominated the world for decades under which the men did not cry for male empowerment!
I know the revert to it would be that these have been exceptions but the ground reality is different. Females are really in bad shape in Indian villages and small cities.

We say that the society is responsible for that. But does not the society include women also?

Boss, every body in the world is troubled and one cannot say under a general flag that the whole section of society is un-empowered. Men also live under a lot of stresses and problems. They are also trafficked, they are also murdered, they are also beaten, they are also killed, they also go through difficulties, they also feel weak, they also face huge difficulties living life but they dont blame females for their miseries.
The point to conclude that I want to make that we live in a society where there are males and females who make and run the society. Then there are weak and strong, both the adjectives are available in both the genders. So firstly all the weaks need to be empowered not only women. Secondly this blame game should stop that the society is male chauvinist. I know of many dominating males who have full support of their mothers/wives because of which they dominate and I also know of many females who dominate because of the support of their father/husband.
80% of the rape cases reported are fake in India, majority of crimes reported in India are against men and not women, cases of domestic violence against men are not reported only, petty violence against men are also not reported!

It is high time we understand that together it is important for us to support the weak in the society whoever it is. Both men and women are vulnerable and both men and women are strong. The strengths and weaknesses cannot be divided on basis of gender and thus gender equality (for both men and women) should be debated rather than women empowerment.

Its too long a topic to write, but I hope I have been able to spark a thought in your mind that the humanity needs to be empowered!

Signing Off

Siddharth