Good graph

My friend gunz was telling me which was probably obvious - Infys market cap has not grown in the last 7 years while its revenues and profits have grown multi-fold - could this be the case of a lot of other companies today - wise to invest today? Take a look at the graph - http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1197898171000&chddm=875058&q=NASDAQ:INFY

Business model of politics

My friend Ajay has an interesting series of articles on the state of Karnataka Politics. As I read them I wonder that probably the core of the problem is because the business model is such - spend a lot of money to get to power and once you get to power you loot the public to get the money back. US solves this problem by ensuring candidates directly raise money through donations or contributions. Other way to solve this problem is by giving promises like free power - but every political party can do it and the one which doesnt is a loser - classic prisoners dilemma problem. Another option India is considering is to let the central government allocate funds to parties to fight elections - dont know how far this will go but does seem to be an interesting idea!

Joost: From the founders of Skype

While ebay wrote off a substantial amount of its skype investment, the founders took it to create their next venture called Joost which is basically anytime, anywhere TV off the net. If you have a good broadband connection you can basically watch most of Americas TV Channel's online - more importantly for free. I tried it but its asking too much for an indian broadband connection but I could actually see some stuff.

They will probably sell this to ebay as well;) given the loss ebay has made on skype - it should have a right of first refusal on any future project of these guys. Given that ebay took such a huge loss on skype, the promoters will also lose a lot of negotiation power in the future ventures - a good example of why one shouldnt be greedy:)

Amazons Kindle

Check out amazon's kindle its an electronic book reading product through which one can also access books wirelessly. It charges the user inclusive of bandwidth charges for download - one could subscribe to free blogs and get them for a fee - which goes towards download for sprint mobile(i think). This has kind of put off a lot of people since amazon is trying to make money off free blogs. Why would someone buy a kindle (its sold out btw on Amazons site) when one has a laptop to access blogs and stuff - will e-books be such a craze and will kindle make reading off it as easy as reading any normal book - if not this version lets hope the future versions do. Some innovation in book reading at last!

The eco of bangalore?

I have subscribed to Mint now for their new one year offer at 299 and find the paper pretty interesting and fresh however I read a recent article of theirs - which was called the economics of bangalore - probably to keep their new bangalore readers thrilled. I was kind of confused after reading the article - Coase's theory explains why firms at all exist in the first place - because markets are inefficient due to high transaction costs but it can also explain China's boom and not just Bangalore's. I still find Bangalores success a mystery - its probably the weather - probably the only place computers could run without AC through out the year;)But a lot of Bangalore's success is due to Infy and its founders (I still have issues that they (Cos like Infy) dont pay a very high tax but thats a different issue) and probably even companies like Wipro. Bangalore somewhat is also an example of how a brand just keeps rolling on and on. But its taken a beating of late - due to the politics of bangalore and wht not but primarily because its over grown itself - but i was in chennai recently and the traffic in most of chennai is getting as bad or worst than bangalore. Bangalore roads are better in some places. What do u think needs to be done to bring bangalore back on its track and more importantly how does one de-risk banglore from a single Industry focus of IT.

MS buys a stake in facebook

A 1.6% stake for 240 mn:) thats a 15 bn valuation! I give up!

Credit Crunch

Here is a damn good article on the credit crunch scenario. While most other stuff make a hue and cry scenario of the situation, this article looks at the good points of the situation. The way i look at it is this - excess credit in the market at a macro level is somewhat like excess money at a company level. We all know at the company level this leads to agency costs and bad capital allocation decisions. With excess liquidity, the same thing happens at a macro level. This is what the article is trying to point out. At the india level I still think the underlying story is strong. I think the RBI has done well albeit a bit late on some of the issues - but as they say - better late than never

Facebook?

whats all the new hype about facebook about. One stuff is about how you can add your own applications around the social networking site something they technically call open sourcing application development. what it basically means is that you can add stuff like say a free gift application to the site where people can use that to give free gifts to their friends online. Now Facebook turned down a billion dollar acquisition offer from yahoo last year. There are rumors of it going to be acquired by MS at 6 billion. The company denies all of that however and says it will go public! It recently acquired Para Key founded by the same guys who built FireFox.

Take a bow!

Dilbert sundays are the best - probably bcos it just has more of the strip - Check this one out!

Dilbert on Management consulting

Here is what consultants almost did to Bajaj Auto

"take the case of Bajaj Auto. Abraham Joseph, head of R&D at Bajaj Auto, says that McKinsey advised against the Pulsar project – though McKinsey has publicly denied that this was ever the case.
“McKinsey’s recommendations were extremely conservative. They said we should stop the Pulsar project mid-way. They were against us making any new products,” says Joseph.
Rajiv Bajaj, president, Bajaj Auto, however, took a strong stand against the McKinsey recommendations, going so far as to threaten to walk out of the company if they were implemented. His father and chairman Rahul Bajaj eventually gave in.
“Nothing happened with the report. It just went into a drawer and was forgotten,” says Rajiv Bajaj. Today, the Pulsar is a money spinner for Bajaj Auto."

Time to remove APM

I think this is the right time for the Indian government to remove the administered price mechanism in petrol/diesel prices. I cant understand why the government should give subsidies to people who have huge cars or even bikes for that matter. With no elections near by and inflation at a 14 month low at 4.03% and expected to go down further, the government can easily pass on the mantle of setting petrol prices to the private sector and by the time the 2009 elections come, no body will think of the govt as the price setter for fuels and it can easily withdraw itself from the blame of high fuel prices in a market economy

Grand Buffet(t) Lunch

Thanks to my friend, Anand's Suggestion I got this great title. With an Indian - Mohnish Pabrai - winning the buffet's annual buffett - here is a galaxy of videos of my investment guru for those who cant afford the lunch yet:) I hope someday I will be able to afford that and warren will still be alive and kicking then. Enjoy

The MBA Talk




Charlie Rose Interview - 2007



Right after he donated the money



With hilary on the campaign Trail





At the 2007 Annual General Meeting



CNBC Interivew - Part 1

A different iphone review

Time iPhone review

E-mail and web-browsing are unbelievably great. Ditto the crisp music and video playback. Everybody I called with the iPhone remarked on the crispness and clarity of the audio. For the iPhone, Apple has brought to market a revolutionarily smart, sensitive touchscreen and created an entirely new user interface to match it, all in one go, so seamlessly that my 3-year-old daughter — and I apologize for going to this place, but the fact is striking nonetheless — had no trouble unlocking the iPhone and dialing with it (even though she believed that she was playing a musical instrument).

Voice mail — you pick and choose visually what messages you want to hear — and Google Maps are ridiculously useful. The user interface is crammed with smart little touches — every moment of user interaction has been quietly stage-managed and orchestrated, with such overwhelming attention to detail that when the history of digital interface design is written, whoever managed this project at Apple will be hailed as a Michelangelo, and the iPhone his or her Sistine Chapel (Steve Jobs can be Pope in this scenario). If you're not a reviewer, chances are you won't even bother to look at the manual. Translucent, jewel-like, artfully phrased dialogue boxes come and go on cue. Window borders bounce and flex just slightly to cue the user where and how you're supposed to drop and drag and scroll them. When you switch the phone to "airplane mode" (no electronic transmissions, for use on planes) a tasteful little orange airplane slides into the menu bar, then zooms away when you switch out again. (This was so pleasurable that I repeatedly entered airplane mode while using the iPhone, even though I wasn't actually on an airplane.) As soon as my phone realized it belonged to someone with a nonsense-name like Lev, it started correcting typos like "Leb" and "Lec" to match.

Walkday

I tried not taking out my bike yday and decide to walk to various places instead. The bangalore weather was so awesome over the weekend that it made a lot of sense to walk around. So I decided to walk towards my friends Udu's house and convinced him to walk with me till the breakfast place and returned walking as well. Then in the evening whilst going to my friends I decided to walk again albeit only 1/3 of the distance. While returning I walked about 2/3. Walking alone is much better than walking with someone else because you can maintain your own pace and walking with an Ipod really helps I guess!

I will try repeating it over most weekends! lets see how it goes!

iPhone vs Sivaji

Many claim that the iPhone is one of the most hyped product launches ever in history! I beg to differ - the iPhone is tech alright but I think in recent times, Sivaji was the most hyped product/service launch ever - that too with minimal advertising. While the iPhone hype seems to have died down (there are no more queues outside Apple/AT&T stores), the sivaji hype is still alive and kicking!

The fate of cases

Have you ever wondered the fate of high profile, media covered cases in India -
1. There was a case of one guy from pune who was supposed to have made tons of black money in horse racing.

2. There is this famous BMW Case where some lawyers were accused of trying to bribe et al.

3. Marlon samuels and the famous match fixing case.



And many such cases which hog the limelight for a few days and then u lose track of it. This is what media hype can do I think or is someone paying the media to stop coverage of these cases after sometime.

iPhone

The iPhone launches today. Priced at 499(4 GB)/599(8 GB) and a service plan ranging from 59.99 dollars to 99.99 dollars it will be launched by AT&T in the US. Some papers claim that the grey market guys can unlock the phone in India. While it appears expensive, its cheaper than most smart phones. the N Series costs over 25k (600$)in most cases. Guy Kawasaki says AT&T is a bad service provider which most people seem to agree with! But why tie ur self down with one service provider. That way India rocks! I am hoping next year we will get a better and cheaper version in India when I want to change my phone after the 2 year cycle! Check out what it can do for you here -

buffett on dow jones

Another brilliant video - A more recent one where he talks abt the dow jones. Its hilarious as well - here is a snippet

Charlie Rose: Do you for a moment - think about bidding for the Dow Jones?

Warren Buffett: Charlie, If you see a girl walk down the road, dont you think about her for a moment?

CR: I think about her for more than a moment!

WB: I knew you were going to say that!

What a game!

Just finished seeing an awesome tennis match! 13-11 in the fifth set of a first round game! Both henman and moya played really well. Brilliant stuff. Safin won as well. On track to meet fedex in the third round.

Wimbledon, Cricket, et al

Federer is aiming for a 5th consecutive wimbledon ala the Championship. He looked amazing yday in his win over an unseeded but could meet Marat Safin (he lost to safin in the 2005 aussie open semi-final) in the third round. I hope he wins but he comes in after a bad end to the french open and has had lot more losses this year than any so far.

Indian cricketers are down with flu - diagonised with cold/cough/throat ache. Same here! Hoping they perform well against SA and England. Winning would be too much now, so lets hope dravid and co do well atleast from an individual perspective.

Google goes solar

Google will meet 30% of its peak electricity demand from solar power

Its time the infys and wipros of the world also start doing stuff to save the earth and save their cost also.

Warren Buffett MBA Talk

One of my favorite videos of all time! I think this guy just rocks. Tap dancing to work he calls it:)

Nice video

Bill and Melinda Gates along with Warren Buffett chat about Warrens donation to the Bill&Melinda Foundation. Some what like the sivaji foundation:)

Sivaji!! The Boss!

You can find raving reviews of the Boss in a variety of places (check out randomriff.blogspot.com/sandeepkannan.blogspot.com) so I am not going to repeat that here. From my perspective the movie was good and a great experience to go through as well. Vivek also rocked which was nice to see. The last time he did so well was is in Anniyan another of Shankars movies.

But Sivaji made out a very good economic point as well especially from the tax point of view. A lot of my friends are tax consultants and I personally liked tax a lot in my CA articleship days but later decided that I dont want to make a career out of it and I kinda know how the system works. From an economic perspective, lets say the true rate of tax any person should pay is x% and for some reason they are paying tax rates above that - tax consultants work hard with their clients and arguing with the govt to ensure that corporates end up paying as close to x%. But on the other hand they are lots of people who pay well below the true rate of tax and while the government tries to ensure that these people come and pay true rate of tax - its very difficult for the govt to ensure they pay because they cannot get intermediairies like tax consultants to help them ensure everyone pays a true rate of tax. Sivaji proposes one more solution for this kind of problem:) The key is to incentivise people to report tax frauds et al and somehow ensure that everyone pays a fair/true amount of tax. This will also ensure the true rate of tax is lower for people like us as well.

Federer lost again!

Just realised that the last time I posted a proper blog was about Federer losing to Nadal in the French Open. Now it repeats again this year! Sigh:( the wait goes on for another year! Lets hope he wins Wimbledon again! But he still is classy!

Bachelor of Social Service

Bill Gates Graduation speech

A few days ago - one of my friends posted a graduation speech of Standford by Steve Jobs . I read this speech of Bill Gates in Harvard a few days back. Was pretty inspiring. He has a little joke about why he was not invited for the orientation and only for graduation. But overall good one and I like his focus on the future and how to save millions of peoples lives.

I think the point he makes is pretty good. I think most of us have been lucky - been at the right place at the right time but after a while dont worry about the underprivileged. Yup, we think of them on and off. And then probably wonder what can we do about it - its a larger problem and start transferring the blame to people around us. Probably technology can change some of that and let us channel our efforts in some small way to the under privileged.

Happy New Year 007!

Here is wishing everyone a happy new year. Have a great year ahead. I hope I can be blogging more regularly this year. Enjoy!