Jitendra Madhav Ramchandani

December 28, 2013

How to live before you die - Steve Jobs' Speech in Stanford



Transcript

Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.

December 26, 2013

Our Dangerous Obsession with External Recognition

Came across a lovely post by Daniel Gulati on HBR which discusses the problem of 'Visibility vs Vision'. This applies to all aspects of our lives - the work, home and society.

Here is the full article.

Rebecca, a tech entrepreneur, would love you to equate her company’s expansive press coverage with real value creation. “Yesterday, we got written up in TechCrunch and LA Magazine, and we all had dinner at Nobu to celebrate!” She will, however, conveniently forget to mention that her startup has yet to settle on a viable business model and has zero paying customers.

John, a middle manager at a Fortune 500, attended no less than 21 industry conferences this year in an effort to increase his overall visibility. “It’s all about optics,” he says, “and you need to be everywhere.” While John was schmoozing on the company’s dime, his team members were starved of the leadership and hands-on coaching they desperately needed.