CDOQ

How do we know what leather tastes like? Does the mind confuse smell with taste? Or, can we taste things through the nose? Or, does consistent exposure to something gives us a sense of taste for that thing? 

I live inside my head more than I live in the world. 

Investing legend Charlie Munger on investing, the buyback debate and much more from CNBC .

Joy is the absence of thought. 

I tend to read 10-12 books a year.  Last year, I completed reading eleven books and at the end of the year I realized that I do not remember much of what I had read. Following is an attempt to remember at least one thing from each book I read i.e. a random sentence or paragraph I underlined while reading the book:  1. The success equation - Michael J. Mauboussin  A common mistake is to use a process for making a decision that is appropriate for activities that are nearly all skill and then apply to activity that is mostly luck. 2. Design is storytelling - Ellen Lupton  Emotion is temporal. Waves of feeling drags us out of the present and into the past and future. Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that trying to live in the present moment is a losing struggle. People, he said, are ceaselessly drawn to "the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us." Mindfulness is a state of focused attention that requires people to resi...

We choose between two commitments: a commitment to our senses or a commitment to our duty. 

I am a version of you and you are a version of me. 

Although I have an MBA, my learnings about investing come from Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, Vice-Chairman and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. I have attended Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meetings about dozen times and the four basic rules of investing that I have learned are:  Do you understand the business you are buying (think of buying stock of a business like buying the entire business)?  Can you predict the earnings of the business for the next five to ten years?  Does the business have a competitive advantage (i.e. does the business have something that a competitor would find hard to copy)?  Is the stock fairly priced?  Amazon headquarters in Seattle, WA. Photo Credit: Wikipedia These four rules are easy to understand and hard to implement. A few years ago, when Amazon stock was trading below $300 and its  P/E  (Price to Earnings ratio), which is one way to determine if the stock is fairly priced, was above 2,000. ...

Last month, I attended a workshop in Ojai, CA on Krishnamurti's teachings. He is my favorite philosopher and I find his ideas on thinking fascinating. Krishnamurti gave talks under an oak tree in Ojai from 1926 to 1986. Ojai is a beautiful place and the workshop was held at Krishnamurti's former residence which is a public library now.  Following are my random notes from the workshop: Krishnamurti teaching under the oak tree in Ojai 1. Knowledge makes you less attentive. See and listen without knowledge.  2. What is attention if it has nothing to do with thought?  3. Desire is the essence of will. 4. Attention = hearing + seeing + learning  5. Attention is not concentration because the idea behind concentration is to build resistance to all other thought except the one you want to concentrate on.  6. Awareness without choice (i.e. no comparison) is required for attention. In that attention there is no "me".  7...

If what is happening in the world does not make sense to you then you are looking at the world how it should be and not how it is. 

History in the large is the conflict of minorities; the majority applauds the victor and supplies the human material of social experiment.  -Will & Ariel Durant [from the book: The Lessons of History]

The men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.  -Will & Ariel Durant [from the book: The lessons of History]

A good decision does not have prejudice, opinion, or belief.  - Krishnamurti 

Are you buying a painting or a story behind the painting? 

Thinking Weekend: Ethics In Tech Technology has caused rapid changes in society, politics, and business. Recently, there has been a backlash against tech companies because of their role in elections,  #metoo movement, and the displacement of non-tech employees. Just like any other corporation, tech companies are working to maximize shareholder returns. Do they have other responsibilities? Should tech companies be treated differently, and if so, why? Inherent in the ad-based revenue model adopted by many tech companies is the requirement to collect and sell personal data, which is becoming increasingly intrusive and sophisticated. Is there anything morally wrong with this? Are consumers of these services responsible for understanding the terms and protecting themselves? As technology continues to disrupt and challenge traditional markets, does government have a role or responsibility to society to minimize and manage the potential negative or ...

Can you have attention without purpose?

Your true nature is nothing but an idea created by your mind, over the years, under the heavy influence of social conditioning. 

How does evolution explain the never satisfied human senses, and our ability to do self-harm with sensory indulgence? 

As a group gets bigger, personal identity of the group members shifts towards a smaller subgroup. For example, people, which are members of a very large group, human beings, are willing to kill each other for their smaller subgroup, nation. Similarly, identity shifts towards smaller subgroups within religions, organizations, cities, etc as these groups get bigger. 

Can art contribute more than commentary to society? 

Social construct is based on natural deconstruct. 

We escape reality with fiction and that changes what we expect from reality. 

It is much easier to sell a dream than to sell the reality. 

Do we have an innate need to trust? 

A rapidly growing hierarchical organization hides fundamental operational problems. 

Politics within a hirerchical organization is directly proportional to its age. 

Competition within a hierarchical organization is directly proportional to its size.

A compelling story does not tell you the entire truth. 

What are the principles for which a politician is willing to give up power? 

A con man understands human nature better than a behavioral economist. 

What is the relationship between identity and privacy? Do people living in individualistic societies value privacy more? If identity extends to material possessions then does an attack on the possession feel like attack on self? Why is that the feeling after a minor car accident is very different than the feeling after a minor car break-in?  And, how is privacy related to safety? 

Can a society function without illusions? 

Digitization  =>    Faster Product Development  +  Faster Customer Feedback  +  Faster Market Expansion  +  Cheaper Distribution  +  Cheaper Marketing  +  Cheaper Operations  +  Better Pricing  +  Better Customer Support  +  Better Decisions  =>    Groundwork For Supervised Automation (if you are labeling the data correctly:)) 

It is easier to imagine things that don't exist than to reimagine what exists. 

The good leader perceives others as individuals with motives, feelings, and goals of their own, whereas the poor leader is more likely to perceive others in relation to his own motives and goals.  - Herbert Mayer (sociologist) 

The pursuit of happiness is causing a lot of misery. 

Would you like to stop thinking about a problem that seems impossible to solve? Create a new and bigger problem. 

Media personalization eliminates random discovery and limits the expansion of the mind. 

The idea of management comes from the military because that was the first time in human history a diverse group of people who did not know each other were organized to work together towards a common goal. That structure gave us a few principles:   Hierarchy  Command and control  Incentives for achieving the goals  Division of responsibility based on function  Centralized decision making Not much has changed over the last few thousand years. Today, the business world follows many of the same principles. At the highest level, business management is about capital allocation, mainly within an organization, to maximize shareholder returns. To do that, a manager must be good at understanding risk, making decisions, making trade-offs, communication, and putting the right people in the jobs. Middle management is more nuanced. Theoretically, management is an easy concept to grasp. However, the execution of the concept is complex. Having worked in orga...

Western civilization is continuously looking for order. Inherently, life is chaotic. There are no simple answers to anything. That causes stress for people. Traditionally, Indian civilization accepts chaos as a part of life. Hence, the idea of living in the present. The west is slowly adopting that idea and questioning the quest of material possessions. Have you noticed people talking about happiness, mindfulness, and yoga? 

There is an inherent conflict between structure and freedom. To achieve any significant goal or to be a member of any group, organization or society, one has to give up few freedoms because any collection of humans to function as one entity requires structure and rules. The irony is that with no structure, human freedoms would be very limited. Imagine if everyone could do whatever they wanted all the time. There was no rule of law, there were no social norms, there was no moral code. What freedoms can you exercise in that environment? Freedom, in essence, is relative. We are limited by conflicting human interests, nature, knowledge, will, and capabilities. 

How would the contemporary society be like with no concept of time? Would we still seek order in life without time?

Wine is the study of subtlety in soft things. Whiskey is the study of subtlety in hard things. 

What is my intrinsic value?