CDOQ

A few weeks ago, I finished reading Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson . The book provides a fascinating look into Musk’s life and how he has been able to make industry-changing contributions in business and technology. It also raises an uncomfortable question: can you get rockets to orbit and accelerate the transition to electric vehicles without accepting some of the chaos that comes with Musk? Isaacson captures this tension well in the final paragraph: "Could you get the rockets to orbit or the transition to electric vehicles without accepting all aspects of him, hinged and unhinged? Sometimes great innovators are risk-seeking man-children who resist potty training. They can be reckless, cringeworthy, sometimes even toxic. They can also be crazy. Crazy enough to think they can change the world."  One of the most useful parts of the book is Musk’s “algorithm” for building deep-tech hardware products:  "1.  Question every requirement.  Each should come with name of the pe...

With eight billion people in the world, why are truly original ideas so rare?

Before calendars, did birthdays exist?

In the canvas of the universe, Earth is a dot, and we are a dot within it. And still, our problems feel immense to us.

Most product managers don’t fail because they lack ideas; they fail because they don’t make the right trade-offs. Over the course of my career, I’ve led product organizations building everything from 0→1 products to businesses generating over $600M in revenue spanning hardware, software, AI, and crypto. What I’ve found is that while the domains evolve, the craft of product management remains fundamentally the same. In the fast-paced world of product development, the job of a product manager is not to optimize for a single objective but to balance competing forces. I’ve found that good product managers consistently operate across four objectives:      A. User Experience      B. Profit (Unit Economics)       C. Competitive Advantage      D. Technology Advancement Read more about the four objectives here . The most common mistake product managers make is optimizing for one objective at the expense of the others. These objecti...

The fundamental flaw in the idea that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) can be more intelligent than humans is the assumption that language itself represents intelligence.

My agent often answers better than I do—not because it’s more intelligent, but because it never forgets and can hold more context at once.

If humans are genetically programmed to reproduce, how do some people consciously choose not to have children?

Why do we realize the finite nature of life only when we’re closer to the end, and not in our youth?

Why do children repeat the same question, even when the answer never changes?

Human life begins like E = mc²—setting aside c, our energy grows with our mass. Eventually, the equation seems to flip: energy wanes while mass lingers.

Technology evolves more through human belief than through natural laws.

Some things don’t mix well, no matter how good they are individually—like Mexican huevos rancheros and French sourdough bread.

Music doesn’t recognize generational boundaries.

A leader’s empathy for employees should not exceed the team’s empathy for customers.

Your cost structure is not your customer’s problem. 

Business school teaches you the theory of business — the frameworks, the financial models, the case studies. But real understanding comes from seeing how ideas collide with the messy, unpredictable world of people, markets, and technology. Over the years, I’ve found a handful of books that open your mind beyond the classroom. They explore the mental models, systems thinking, and creative problem-solving that shape great companies and great decision-makers. Here are eleven that I think business students will find useful:  Charlie Munger 1. Poor Charlie's Almanac   - Timeless lessons on decision-making and mental models from Charlie Munger. 2. Making things work   - Insight into the systems-thinking approach that underlies modern technology and organizations. 3. The Snowball  - A deep dive into Warren Buffett’s philosophy and long-term business perspective. 4. Fooled by randomness  - A brilliant exploration of luck, probability, and human bias...

Normal is what a lot of other people like you do. 

People who love what they do age more slowly.

Climbing a hill from a standstill is a grind. With momentum, it’s a glide. But from a standstill, changing direction is easier than when you’re already in motion. 

Imagine teaching a lion to speak perfect English. Every word pronounced flawlessly, grammar impeccable. Yet, a conversation with it would still be impossible. Its frames of reference are so alien to ours that true understanding cannot occur—just as Ludwig Wittgenstein noted in Philosophical Investigations : ‘If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.’ Now imagine a counterpart trained on the vast body of human knowledge: GenAI. Here, conversation is not only possible but also delightful, because its frame of reference aligns with ours. GenAI can reason, explain, and answer across countless domains. On the surface, it seems like a mind without limits. Conversations But there’s a catch. Unlike a lion, GenAI can confidently deliver falsehoods. Without deep understanding of the topic in discussion, you may never notice. Knowledge alone isn’t enough. Context, experience, and critical thinking remain irreplaceable—even when conversing with a machine that seems to know everything.

The world works because not everyone wants the same thing at the same time. 

If you’re not consistently making things better, they don’t stay the same—they get worse. 

Driving down Hwy 101 in Silicon Valley yesterday, I spotted this billboard (See image). It reminded me that while the Bay Area overflows with technical brilliance, tech companies often stumble when it comes to marketing and communication. The ad boldly declares: “DEPLOY BRAVELY.” Deploy Bravely? In software, deployment is the last place you want bravery. A good deployment should be boring—built on testing, quality assurance, monitoring, and the ability to roll back instantly if things go sideways. Sonos once deployed bravely and left some of its speakers effectively unusable.  The bravery resulted in the company’s market cap declining by half. I have no idea what Prisma Airs is—and the ad doesn’t make me interested in finding out more. Can you tell what it’s about?

I met a software engineer yesterday at a conference — let’s call him Ted (not his real name). He has worked at well-known Silicon Valley companies like Square, Google, and Yelp. Ted told me that culture varies widely across companies. I asked, “But how does that affect your job? You’re a software engineer — you just have to code to the requirements.” He smiled and said, “Culture defines how good the requirements are, how good my code is, and how happy the customer will be with the application.” Then Ted shared a practical test for culture: measure how much time you spend convincing others. If most of your energy goes into persuasion instead of building, the culture is working against you. In a healthy culture, things just flow — and you spend your day building, not convincing. In other words, in good cultures, it takes less energy to get things done.

Don't be so productive that you lose the joy of work. 

In investment banking, exploiting regulatory loopholes is often called innovation. 

Both Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have an extraordinary gift for simplifying the complicated. They taught me that the most powerful ideas are often the clearest. I have since carried that lesson into my own work. At Moki, a company that provides software for remotely managing hardware in retail environments, we faced a common challenge: overcoming CIOs' fear of losing control. Instead of delving into the technical depth and cybersecurity of our product, we focused on a single, compelling promise: " Total Control of their devices." This simple framing cut through the complexity and directly addressed their primary concern. It worked.   An often-cited (but unverified) framework, attributed to Einstein, outlines five levels of intellect: 1. Smart: Possesses vast knowledge (e.g., a McKinsey consultant; whatever you think of them, they do know a lot). 2. Intelligent: Applies existing knowledge effectively (e.g., Michael Dell, who adapted the direct-to-consumer model for...

In just two years, ChatGPT knows me better than Google and Meta do after two decades.

This morning I finished reading Apple in China , a fascinating book about the interdependence between Apple and Chinese manufacturing. The book makes clear that the company might never have reached a $3T market cap without the contributions of Foxconn and support from the Chinese government. In turn, China might not have developed into a sophisticated manufacturing powerhouse without Apple’s training, investment, and partnership. Having worked with OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and ODMs (Original Design Manufacturers) in China, I found the book cast light on aspects of manufacturing I hadn’t fully appreciated. Apple Pyramid (Image credit: ChatGPT) Iconic products like the iPhone come to life at Apple through the push and pull of four teams. At the top, the Industrial Design (ID) team defines the look and feel. Next, the Product Design (PD) team ensures the product works as intended. The Manufacturing Design (MD) team then decides which components and assembly partners will br...

Companies are experimenting with AI because they don’t want to be left behind. But little thought has gone into which AI, or which implementation, will actually strengthen their competitive position. You can use AI—but if your competitor is using better AI, you may still be left behind.

The blind once led the blind. Now, the hallucinated lead the clear-eyed. 

Fears that GenAI (Generative AI like ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) will make us dumber are greatly exaggerated. Did calculators make us dumber? Did computers? Sure, every new tool shifts what we practice, but history suggests we adapt, and often end up smarter in different ways. Brain damage? (image credit: Gemini) A commonly cited worry is that ChatGPT takes away independent thinking. Who has that anyway 😀? It’s true that you can lose elements of critical thinking if you hand over all the mental work to GenAI. Just as using a calculator without understanding math fundamentals can be a problem, using GenAI without grasping the basics of writing or coding could lead to skill loss. But for most adults, that’s not what’s happening. Those who outsource all their writing or coding to ChatGPT usually didn’t enjoy those tasks in the first place. Generally, repetition doesn’t magically make us love a task we dislike, nor does it guarantee we get much better at it. I’ve been cleaning for decades,...

Bhangra and Charleston are pretty similar.  Different origins and similar rhythm (Image credit: ChatGPT) 

We have lost the fragrance in roses. Scent did not scale.  Quantity over quality (image credit: Google Gemini)

Business, at its core, is the continuous act of solving a multitude of problems to turn a dollar of investment into more than a dollar of return. I see three types of problems in business: Light Switch problems, Thermostat problems, and Hammer & Stone problems. Let’s look at a hypothetical tech company—let’s call it Y (we’ll avoid using X, for obvious reasons 😄)—where hundreds of people tackle different problems every day. What's your problem? (Image credit: Google Gemini) 1. Light Switch Problems These are problems where the progress is known, visible, and quick—like flipping a switch and watching the light come on. Imagine one of Y’s customers complains about being overcharged. A customer support rep verifies the issue and refunds the customer. Problem solved. But it doesn’t stop there: the rep files a bug report. A product manager reads it, identifies the issue, and creates a ticket for engineering. An engineer fixes the bug and releases the patch. Problem solved again. Som...

All failed startups resemble each other, but each successful startup is successful in its own way. Venture Capitalists preach otherwise. 

Under U.S. law, a corporation is considered a legal person, but it has no inherent moral obligations. So why do we expect the artificial intelligence (AI) products created by corporations to behave morally?

A major societal shift in the past few decades is that most primary research in artificial intelligence (AI) is now happening within corporations, rather than in academia or through government-funded programs. Details here.  

Yesterday, I finished reading Barry Diller's autobiography - Who Knew Despite all the internal struggles and paramount success, Barry managed to carry his humility, integrity, and curiosity with him throughout his life. It is remarkable.  

Life is a theatre — we all see the same screen, but each of us is watching a different movie.

Whenever you think that some situation or some person is ruining your life, it is actually everyone and everything except you, ruining your life. Feeling like a victim is a perfectly accountability-free way to go through life. If you just take this attitude that however bad it is in any way, it is always someone else's fault and you just complain to everyone as best as you can - the so called silver prescription. It never works.  Inspired by Charlie Munger's iron pill . 

“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” – Munger and Buffett at the 2015 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting Recently, I attended a talk by James Clear, author of Atomic Habits . Below is a summary of his framework for making and breaking habits—along with some of my reflections and questions. Chains of habit (image credit: Gemini) How Habits Are Formed According to Clear, habits form through the repeated execution of four steps: 1. Cue – A trigger or reminder (e.g., you see a cookie). 2. Craving – The cue leads to a desire (e.g., you want the cookie). 3. Response – The craving drives an action (e.g., you eat the cookie). 4. Reward – The action provides a reward (e.g., you feel good). Note: I like the simplicity of this framework, but it's not airtight. For instance, you can experience a craving without an external cue—sometimes I just feel like a cookie without seeing one. Also, some habits form through training rather ...

Lack of principles can make one succeed in a society bound by principles. 

Earlier this week, at a roundtable hosted by Chargebee , a group of GenAI (AI) founders compared notes on a shared learning: building and selling AI products to businesses is not just harder than selling SaaS — it is "fundamentally different'. Many entered the market expecting to ride the SaaS (Software as a Service) playbook to success. They are now discovering it’s written in a different language. Here are five reasons why: 1. The Vanishing Customer Profile In SaaS, identifying the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is often straightforward: a clear job to be done, a known budget holder, and measurable ROI. In GenAI, that clarity dissolves. Everyone wants to “experiment with AI.” Few want to commit. Interest is high, intent is elusive, and trial usage often masks the absence of a real buyer. 2. The False Promise of PLG Product-Led Growth — the darling of modern SaaS — is stumbling in the AI world. While PLG drives traffic and trials, it fails to convert at scale. AI products often...

The Complexity of B2B Decision-Making B2B marketing isn’t about impulse-driven purchases—it’s about navigating a maze of stakeholders, each with different priorities. A CRM software purchase, for instance, must satisfy the CFO’s cost concerns, the CRO’s sales enablement needs, the CIO’s security requirements, and the CEO’s strategic vision. These competing perspectives make sales cycles longer and more complex, demanding that marketers craft tailored, high-impact messaging. Evolving Buyer Personas: From Static to Dynamic For years, B2B marketers have relied on buyer personas—fictional representations of ideal customers based on roles, challenges, and goals. Personas like "Strategic Sarah" (VP of Operations focused on efficiency) or "Risk-Averse Richard" (Head of Procurement prioritizing compliance) help humanize audiences. However, traditional personas are often too rigid. Today, AI-powered insights allow for real-time persona refinement, using behavioral data, sent...