David Heinemeier Hansson at Startup School 08

The Dynamics of Change and Fear

Power of "Free"

Got link to this article on Wired from Ajit's blog. One of best article I have ever read!!!

Between digital economics and the wholesale embrace of King's Gillette's experiment in price shifting, we are entering an era when free will be seen as the norm, not an anomaly. How big a deal is that? Well, consider this analogy: In 1954, at the dawn of nuclear power, Lewis Strauss, head of the Atomic Energy Commission, promised that we were entering an age when electricity would be "too cheap to meter." Needless to say, that didn't happen, mostly because the risks of nuclear energy hugely increased its costs. But what if he'd been right? What if electricity had in fact become virtually free?The answer is that everything electricity touched — which is to say just about everything — would have been transformed. Rather than balance electricity against other energy sources, we'd use electricity for as many things as we could — we'd waste it, in fact, because it would be too cheap to worry about.

All buildings would be electrically heated, never mind the thermal conversion rate. We'd all be driving electric cars (free electricity would be incentive enough to develop the efficient battery technology to store it). Massive desalination plants would turn seawater into all the freshwater anyone could want, irrigating vast inland swaths and turning deserts into fertile acres, many of them making biofuels as a cheaper store of energy than batteries. Relative to free electrons, fossil fuels would be seen as ludicrously expensive and dirty, and so carbon emissions would plummet. The phrase "global warming" would have never entered the language.

Today it's digital technologies, not electricity, that have become too cheap to meter. It took decades to shake off the assumption that computing was supposed to be rationed for the few, and we're only now starting to liberate bandwidth and storage from the same poverty of imagination. But a generation raised on the free Web is coming of age, and they will find entirely new ways to embrace waste, transforming the world in the process. Because free is what you want — and free, increasingly, is what you're going to get.

Japanese cellphones to turn into 'robot' buddies

This is really interesting... Soft-bank's latest mobile line looks like small humanoid with attached arms and legs and screen showing various face gestures. Arms and legs do not move but cellphone have enough intelligence to detect some of your habits, like calling frequently a person, and interact with user with some AI algorithms.

Arms and legs won't move but can be set in particular position. These kind of mobile phones look like enhanced version of current dolls to me, with knowledge of some of your personal information and some AI algorithms. So, this "Pretty Doll" is kind of dangerous as if someone gets hold of "her", he can pretty much get some aspects of your personal habits!.. so be careful!!

Great Book: Games Indians Play

We hear many times that there is something different about being "Indian", many management gurus talk about how people(non-Indians) can deal effectively with their Indian counterparts. Few days back, some people were discussing on a forum that how Indian workers differ from non-Indians, the point was, Indians can not say “No”, in general Indian’s get offended very quickly.. And so on...

V Raghunathan in this book tries to explain some of these “unique” characteristic of being Indian in context of behavioral economics and game theory. Very cleverly he explains that how Indians are “privately smart and publicly dumb” people, how defaulting has been deep rooted in our thinking and behavior. V Raghunathan makes a point that, every Indian is in some kind of “prisoner’s dilemma” and how every Indian thinks that “defaulting is best way” for himself to get benefited more, which in fact is not true and even though gains might be true at individual level, we, as a society fail to succeed in long term. V Raghunathan also argues that Indians are second to none in intellectual capabilities in fact Indians undergo more extensive intellectual exercise in every situation but only to “default” with others and hence resulting in “more publicly dumb” behavior.

V Raghunathan also talks about why we lack in self regulating and punish the defaulters, our extensive intellectual exercises in “iterative prisoner’s dilemma” context, he talks about different strategies such as “tit-for-tat”, “never-again” to deal with situation and right strategy to adopt for “publicly smart” behavior which in reality results as more beneficial for society.

While many of above terms seem to more theoretical than practical, all of us see many real life examples of problems that V Raghunathan is talking about around us.

There are many examples to talk about where what V Raghunathan says is applicable. I would say this is most Practical book I have ever read and I feel what V Raghunathan says holds 100% true. More interesting stuff to think about is, how to get most out of such “systematic chaotic” situation and flourish your businesses and bring out more “publicly smart” behavior? What strategies one should adopt to build successful business around “systematic chaotic” situation?

Al Pacino's Inspirational Speech

".... In any fight, it's the guy who is willing to die, who is going to win that inch... and I know if I am gonna have any life anymore is because I am still willing to fight and die for that inch.. because thats what living is ... "

Penguin India Partners with Mobifusion to Make Books Available on Mobile Platform

I think this is one of important event for Indian mobile consumer. Books delivered to mobile are already a big hit in Japan and was $82 million business a year ago, India promises a great prospect! Content will play a big role here. Traditional books in e-format will not be preferred stuff to read on small mobile screen( and that's where I doubt how much Penguin will be successful here), rather a small sized content relevant to Indian context will make a big difference. Good development to keep watch on!