Author: Vivek Srinivasan

  • Murphy’s Law…

    states – Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Murphy did not come up with this. It was attributed to him. Either way, this is a pessimist’s way of looking at life. If fear dominates you, you think about the things that will go wrong and what you keep thinking about, often comes to…

  • Change

    Status Quo is a very powerful thing. Have you ever heard anyone tell you that they are enjoying the hunt for a new job? They might realise that a change is necessary and important; nevertheless they would not enjoy the process. There is a certain inertia in the way things are. Change implies overcoming that…

  • At 20

    The unrelenting nature of change and the rate of exposure that youngsters get today means that they are growing up much faster than we did back in the 90’s. When I look at it, I feel a little sad because ignorance is bliss and the children born today are being robbed of their ignorance much…

  • Jugaad – Not the best way…

    In India we have the habit of choosing short-cuts to doing things which we like to call ‘Jugaad’. Unfortunately, the word has been misconstrued to mean resourceful and has been promoted as the right way to doing thing. Jugaad is an inefficient way of doing something and in the long run detrimental to the organization.…

  • Demonetisation is a lost opportunity for digital payment providers

    The move made by Modi to Demonetise 86% of the notes in circulation might be a move that was triggered with various interests in mind. The one thing that it has undoubtedly made many Indians do it use digital payments. I was speaking the other day to one of the managers at National Payments Corporation…

  • Demonetisation – Why has no rich man committed suicide?

    Before we get into the details of Demonetisation and the how and what of it, I think some basic understanding of economics is very important. Economics is a vast subject based on the study of the relationship between man and money. Humans behave in a rather irrational manner and economics tries to put structure to…

  • Speed, Trust and Belief

    The other day I was driving out of town. It took me about 45 minutes to do 15 Kms inside of Bangalore at 4 AM. There was no traffic on the road. Once I got out of the city though, I was able to drive a lot faster and covered the next 200 Kms in…

  • Zoomo – The beauty of PR

    Have you ever heard how the PR folks are excellent spin doctors, this is precisely the story of Zoomo. The PR guys made martyrs out of a suicidal group. In India, they wanted to create a platform for used car sales. Selling used cars is probably a staple business in most countries. You have to…

  • Transportation is being disrupted

    Shots fired – Transportation is about to be disrupted and millions are about to loose their jobs. I have maintained for a long time that the next big wave from the perspective of making money is going to be transportation. Or as I more broadly like to call it #MovingAtoms (things and people; on earth…

  • Speed is exaggerated

    There is an excessive amount of focus on speed, when it comes to building startups. One of the advices that is often provided to startups is to get out of the blocks really fast. The #FailFast philosophy has probably pushed more startups towards failure than towards success. If you were building a house, would you…