Manoj's Review on Books

  Am reminded of my master’s degree in finance that I had pursed back in 2009-10, one of the key problems that we had always tried to solve was the quantifiable impact of a bunch of variables on the price of a stock. Irrespective of the number of variables that were infused into an equation, there was always an element ‘X’ which was basically an unknown variable that also contributes to the price movement. Judea Pearl uses the term confounder instead of ‘X’ but the fundamental point remains the same. In a cause-effect equation, we have not come to a position wherein the exact cause of effect can be fully explained or pointed to a definite cause. However, with a large sample in place we can state with a certain degree of confidence that can pinpoint the reasons of occurrences. I was surprised to note that even smoking – cancer kind of cause-effect equations has taken three to four decades of debate before arriving at a concrete conclusion. The reason drives down to the fact that...

For over 10 years ever since finishing graduation back in 2006, I did not have a stable job nor a decent opportunity to prove myself. A lot of aspiring talent won’t be able to handle one bad manager. However, I had to go through three of them and importantly sustain the phase beyond their cusp. For a lot of people getting the right opportunity was a challenge. In my case getting an opportunity itself was a challenge, the initial few years after graduation fizzled out without any noteworthy job roles. Since my career was not even getting a kickstart, I had opted to do my masters in finance in not so recognized institution in Mumbai. Phase 1 Post completion of my masters, I was already in my mid 20’s, I was offered the role of Business Analyst and worked under a boss who was from IIM Bangalore. Clearly, he was not impressed with me but I was more than willing to put in the required level of hard work and scale up. In just about 7 or 8 months in the job, he had ripped me apart in em...

When I ask how many companies over a period of 10 years hit a consistent revenue growth of 10% and ROCE of 15% amongst 5000 listed Indian companies. What will be your answer? I was awestruck to know the right answer to be only 7, here is the list: *Asian Paints *Berger Paints *Marico Industries *Page Industries *Axis Bank *HDFC Bank *Astral Poly Clearly, simple attributes are not easy to sustain over a really long period of time and this is a striking example. Saurabh tries to identify the pillars behind the success of all these 7 companies with wide spread parameters like consistency of management / board, importance of high quality talent, reliance on IT as an enabler for faster growth along with efficiency, capital allocation, discipline to stick with their core business line, advertisements, relationship with dealers / suppliers, deepening competitive moats and innovation.   Of all the case studies, Asian Paints was highly impressive. It’s a firm that bega...

  In the course of our evolution from being microbes, to amoebae, chimpanzee and finally Homo Sapiens, is it really our last station?  Yuval tries to trace the evolution of mankind and projects what’s the likely course of direction that humans would eventually take. He also tries to distinguish humans from animals from a varied standpoints to figure out what really made the difference. In terms of pure individual ability most of the dangerous animals or snakes would beat us down to death in no time. However, in terms of our collective ability, the animals just don’t stand a chance. Let’s first assess the similarities of human and animals from a couple of perspectives which is the objective and subjective reality that are inherent in both. Let me throw some light on the above-mentioned factors, objective reality is the same for all species like gravity, wind, fire, water and similar entities. But animals also experience subjective realities like anger, pain, lust and love. ...

My journey of converting wet waste to manure started way back in April 2018 and since then I have simply converted all the wet waste generated out of my kitchen into manure. I stay in an apartment in Bangalore and I have had absolutely no problem. Moreover, it’s important that all of us shift to an ecofriendly way of life. From my side I can do a lot more but this is a small step in that direction. The method to convert kitchen waste to manure is given below step by step.  Step 1: Take a bucket like the one shown below and drill maximum number of holes. The ones in the bottom of the compost bucket is crucial since that’s what drains the black liquid that comes out as a breakdown process Step 2: Place the compost bucket in an elevated position like how its shown in the picture. It makes draining a lot easier in comparison to placing it directly on the ground. Step 3: Get a dry leaves and cover the inside bottom of the bucket. A small layer of dry leaves will be suffi...

Recently, I had come across an article by Amrita Tewari and just felt the urge to write down my thoughts on possibly the most perplexing question. "How to hire the ideal candidate ?" Here is what I follow in the pre-hiring process: Step 1: Having a very clear idea on who is your ideal candidate. Getting this step right itself should take a lot of brainstorming sessions and some failure cases. Step 2: Giving a very clear description to the HR. It takes a couple of detailed calls to make the HR be on same page. Plus, it’s very important that the hiring manager gives a feedback on each of the candidate who was interviewed. A smart HR will incorporate these feedbacks and pull up better candidates in the succeeding batches.  Before rolling out the offer letter, it’s essential to answer all these questions i)               Does he / she have the capability ? ii)      ...

Lets check on some of the key points to make your Linkedin profile look professional 1. Have a Professional Head Shot. 2. Have a Compelling Headline. This is not a space to mention your job title. 3. Have your firms name and logo visible. 4. Ensure that you have provided your firm’s email id and not personal mail id. Giving your mobile number is optional 5. Use an appropriate cover image, ideally this should reflect on your line of business. 6. About column is like your 30 seconds pitch, ensure that all your key LCD is covered in this column. 7. Featured column gives you the space to post some nice videos of your firm, highlight previous post’s in Linkedin, article related to your business or some web content. This column can be the most engaging component of your profile. 8. Experience Column gives you the space to provide the following (i) Title of your role in the organization (ii) Duration or time period of your association with the organizatio...