How to Make a Choice Without Choosing?

We have so many choices these days, and so little time to make a choice. From the choice of the right breakfast cereal to the choice of the right health insurance, we are trapped in an endless spiral of everyday choices. Last night, I watched a TEDGlobal talk by Sheena…

The Transparent Toaster Corollary

Here’s a meme that resounds quite often in the startup world: > Execution is more important than ideas. Good ideas are only so good in the mind of the beholder, unless proven to be useful or effective through execution. Ideas matter. The execution of those ideas [https://www.nilkanth.…

Parenting Isn't About Being Happier

Michael Levine once said, “Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.” While some may own but hate a piano, a pianist only has true gratification and unconditional love for it. A recent article in the New York Magazine, titled “All Joy…

How To Build Something People Want?

The real question is not “how to build” something. There are enough technology experts around us who can build stuff. Capital, technology, processes and standards are only secondary to good product design [http://www.apple.com]. The real question then, is “what to build”, or “what to build” better. It’…

6 Ideas Off My Chest

For the past few months I’ve been sitting on some ideas (for Web applications) that I’ve scribbled here & there. I’m working on a few (not listed here) in my spare time, but realistically I won’t be able to work on all of them. So I…

Skewed By Consensus

The other day I was browsing through the list of world’s most popular goals on 43 Things [http://www.43things.com/zeitgeist/popular_goals], when I came across something one might call a “true lie”. Apparently, 25271 people want to “Fall in love” [http://www.43things.com/things/view/…

Why Writing Software Is Like Engineering

How would you classify writing software? Is it science (as in computer science), a form of art (as in code is poetry or prose) or an engineering discipline? Terence Parr, a professor of computer science at the University of San Francisco, recently wrote about why writing software is not like…

The Lean Wizard of Oz

Recently I read about the yet unbuilt 2011 Ford Fiesta that attracted more than a thousand online pre-orders [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/12/09/fords-unbuilt-car-snags-1000-pre-orders-online/] within the first 6 days of the launch of its reservation program. It made me wonder not only about the marketing hype associated…