Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Universal rules
These are some of the universal rules tht are applicable in ones life.... though sounds sarcastic if we observe they r true, atleast after joining job I see some of them live....
1. Lorenz's Law of Mechanical Repair:
> After your hands become coated with grease, your nose> will begin to itch.> >
2. Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
> Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.> >
3. Kovac's Conundrum:
> When you dial a wrong number, you never get an engaged> one.> >
4. Cannon's Karmic Law:
> If you tell the boss you were late for work because> you had a flat tyre, the next morning you will have a> flat tyre.> >
5. O'brien's Variation Law:
> If you change queues, the one you have left will start> to move faster than the one you are in now.> >
6. Bell's Theorem:
> When the body is immersed in water, the telephone> rings.> >
7. Ruby's Principle of Close Encounters:
> The probability of meeting someone you know increases > when you are with someone you don't want to be seen> with.> >
8. Willoughby's Law:
> When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't> work, it will.> >
9. Zadra's Law of Biomechanics:
> The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to > the reach.> >
10. Breda's Rule:
> At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from> the aisle arrive last.> >
11. Owen's Law:
> As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your> boss will ask you to do something which will last > until the coffee is cold.> >
12. Howden's Law:
> You remember you have to mail a letter only when> you're near the mailbox.> And the last and best :> >
13. Murphy's Law:
> What has to go wrong will go wrong>
1. Lorenz's Law of Mechanical Repair:
> After your hands become coated with grease, your nose> will begin to itch.> >
2. Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
> Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.> >
3. Kovac's Conundrum:
> When you dial a wrong number, you never get an engaged> one.> >
4. Cannon's Karmic Law:
> If you tell the boss you were late for work because> you had a flat tyre, the next morning you will have a> flat tyre.> >
5. O'brien's Variation Law:
> If you change queues, the one you have left will start> to move faster than the one you are in now.> >
6. Bell's Theorem:
> When the body is immersed in water, the telephone> rings.> >
7. Ruby's Principle of Close Encounters:
> The probability of meeting someone you know increases > when you are with someone you don't want to be seen> with.> >
8. Willoughby's Law:
> When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't> work, it will.> >
9. Zadra's Law of Biomechanics:
> The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to > the reach.> >
10. Breda's Rule:
> At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from> the aisle arrive last.> >
11. Owen's Law:
> As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your> boss will ask you to do something which will last > until the coffee is cold.> >
12. Howden's Law:
> You remember you have to mail a letter only when> you're near the mailbox.> And the last and best :> >
13. Murphy's Law:
> What has to go wrong will go wrong>
Monday, December 05, 2005
Dr. Gopalakrishnan
This article gives some insight on what u shld consider to shift jobs!!!!
Dr. Gopalakrishnan of TATA Group. Read this article by Dr. Gopalakrishnan - it is really interesting.
The grass isn't always greener on the other side!! Move from one job to another, but only for the right reasons. It's yet another day at office. As I logged on to the marketing and advertising sites for the latest updates, as usual, I found the headlines dominated by 'who's' moving from one company to another after a short stint', and I wondered, why are so many people leaving one job for another? Is it passé now to work with just one company for a sufficiently long period? Whenever I ask this question to people who leave a company, the answers I get are: "Oh, I am getting a 200% hike in salary"; "Well I am jumping three levels in my designation"; "Well they are going to send me abroad in six months".
Then, I look around at all the people who are considered successful today and who have reached the top - be it a media agency, an advertising agency or a company. I find that most of these people are the ones who stuck to the company, ground their heels and worked their way to the top. And, as I look around for people who change their jobs constantly, I find they have stagnated at some level, in obscurity. In this absolute ruthless, dynamic and competitive environment, there are still no - short cuts to success or to making money.
The only thing that continues to pay, as earlier is loyalty and hard work. Yes, it pays! Sometimes, immediately, sometimes after a lot of time. But, it does pay. Does this mean that one should stick to an organization and wait for the golden moment? Of course not. After, a long stint, there always comes a time for moving in most organisations, but it is important to move for the right reasons, rather than the superficial ones, like money, designation or oversees trip. Remember, no company recruits for charity. More often than not, when you are offered an unseemly hike in salary or designation that is disproportionate to what the company offers it current employees, there is always an unseemly bait attached. The result? You will, in the long term have reached the same level or may be lower levels than what you would have in your current company.
A lot of people leave their organisations because they are 'unhappy'. What is this so called unhappiness? I have been working for donkey years and there has never been a day when I am not unhappy about something in my work environment - boss, rude colleagues, fussy clients etc. Unhappiness in a work place, to a large extent, is transient. If you look hard enough, there is always something to be unhappy about. But, more importantly, do I come to work to be "happy" in the truest sense? If I think hard, the answer is "No". Happiness is something you find with family, friends, may be a close circle of colleagues who have become friends.
What you come to work for is to earn, build a reputation, satisfy your ambitions, be appreciated for your work ethics, face challenges and get the job done.
So, the next time you are tempered to move on, ask yourself why are you moving and what are you moving into? Some questions are: * Am I ready and capable of handling the new responsibility? If yes, what could be the possible reasons my current company has not offered me the same responsibility? * Who are the people who currently handle this responsibility in the current and new company? Am I good as the best among them? * As the new job offer has a different profile, why have I not given the current company the option to offer me this profile? * Why is the new company offering the new job? Do they want me for my skills, or is that ulterior motive? An honest answer to these will eventually decide where you go in your career - to the top of the pile in the long term (at the cost of short - term blips) or to become another average employee who gets lost with the time in wilderness?
"DESERVE BEFORE YOU DESIRE" - Dr. Gopalakrishnan,
Dr. Gopalakrishnan of TATA Group. Read this article by Dr. Gopalakrishnan - it is really interesting.
The grass isn't always greener on the other side!! Move from one job to another, but only for the right reasons. It's yet another day at office. As I logged on to the marketing and advertising sites for the latest updates, as usual, I found the headlines dominated by 'who's' moving from one company to another after a short stint', and I wondered, why are so many people leaving one job for another? Is it passé now to work with just one company for a sufficiently long period? Whenever I ask this question to people who leave a company, the answers I get are: "Oh, I am getting a 200% hike in salary"; "Well I am jumping three levels in my designation"; "Well they are going to send me abroad in six months".
Then, I look around at all the people who are considered successful today and who have reached the top - be it a media agency, an advertising agency or a company. I find that most of these people are the ones who stuck to the company, ground their heels and worked their way to the top. And, as I look around for people who change their jobs constantly, I find they have stagnated at some level, in obscurity. In this absolute ruthless, dynamic and competitive environment, there are still no - short cuts to success or to making money.
The only thing that continues to pay, as earlier is loyalty and hard work. Yes, it pays! Sometimes, immediately, sometimes after a lot of time. But, it does pay. Does this mean that one should stick to an organization and wait for the golden moment? Of course not. After, a long stint, there always comes a time for moving in most organisations, but it is important to move for the right reasons, rather than the superficial ones, like money, designation or oversees trip. Remember, no company recruits for charity. More often than not, when you are offered an unseemly hike in salary or designation that is disproportionate to what the company offers it current employees, there is always an unseemly bait attached. The result? You will, in the long term have reached the same level or may be lower levels than what you would have in your current company.
A lot of people leave their organisations because they are 'unhappy'. What is this so called unhappiness? I have been working for donkey years and there has never been a day when I am not unhappy about something in my work environment - boss, rude colleagues, fussy clients etc. Unhappiness in a work place, to a large extent, is transient. If you look hard enough, there is always something to be unhappy about. But, more importantly, do I come to work to be "happy" in the truest sense? If I think hard, the answer is "No". Happiness is something you find with family, friends, may be a close circle of colleagues who have become friends.
What you come to work for is to earn, build a reputation, satisfy your ambitions, be appreciated for your work ethics, face challenges and get the job done.
So, the next time you are tempered to move on, ask yourself why are you moving and what are you moving into? Some questions are: * Am I ready and capable of handling the new responsibility? If yes, what could be the possible reasons my current company has not offered me the same responsibility? * Who are the people who currently handle this responsibility in the current and new company? Am I good as the best among them? * As the new job offer has a different profile, why have I not given the current company the option to offer me this profile? * Why is the new company offering the new job? Do they want me for my skills, or is that ulterior motive? An honest answer to these will eventually decide where you go in your career - to the top of the pile in the long term (at the cost of short - term blips) or to become another average employee who gets lost with the time in wilderness?
"DESERVE BEFORE YOU DESIRE" - Dr. Gopalakrishnan,
Steve Jobs commencement address at Stanford 2005
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, 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.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky Ð I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me Ð I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything Ð all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much
Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky Ð I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me Ð I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything Ð all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much
TCS: Strengths and opportunities
AS the software services industry continues its march towards "scale", TCS with its numerous strengths is well-positioned to capitalise on the offshoring wave. As it has grown in size and scale, TCS has broadbased its software operations from India by setting up software development centres in other low-cost geographies such as China, Brazil and Uruguay. Some of key strengths of TCS gleaned from the offer document and compared with its listed peers Infosys and Wipro are:
Strong vertical presence: TCS derived nearly 60 per cent of its revenues in 2003-04 from BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) and manufacturing. These two sectors — BFSI and manufacturing — together account for 50 per cent of the global IT spend. In telecom also, the company's presence is quite strong. In each of these sectors, TCS is bigger than its largest domestic competitor. In revenue terms, the BFSI practice of TCS is about 35 per cent higher than that of Infosys; in manufacturing, at least 40 per cent higher than Satyam; and, in the telecom vertical, it is comparable to Wipro. Even in newer verticals — life sciences, for instance — it has ramped up quite sharply. Good spread of service offerings: In service offerings, TCS has its presence across the gamut, ranging from bread-and-butter application development and maintenance to testing, engineering services and infrastructure management.
In terms of revenues in 2003-04, the package implementation segment took the lion's share, as it is almost 1.5 times bigger than those of Infosys, Wipro and Satyam. Over the next year or so, it will increasingly compete in large deals with multinational vendors in the area of systems integration, infrastructure management and consulting. Client count and profile: The success of TCS in scaling up its clients is evident from its $20-million and $50-million clients which, at 16 and 4 respectively, number more than its billion-dollar peers. However, Infosys and Wipro have been adding $1-million and $5-million clients faster than TCS over the past year.
TCS has had a string of enduring relationships with clients. Names such as GE, P&O Nedlloyd and SegaIntersettle fall in the 10-20 year bracket, while clients such as AIG, HP, Prudential, Standard Chartered and Target fall in the 5-10-year bracket.
As a consortium bidder, TCS recently bagged a nine-year contract from National Health Service of the UK to provide clinical application implementation and data migration services. Fixed-price projects: The contribution of TCS from fixed price projects at 55 per cent is considerably higher than its peers. The higher contribution from fixed price projects represents both an opportunity and risk.
A higher proportion of fixed price projects show that TCS has good project management expertise and better systems maturity to undertake these projects. In turn, this can also translate into higher gross margins. On the downside, however, any delay in project execution will have to be borne by vendors. Market cap and acquisition currency: Through this listing, TCS is expected straightaway to be propelled to the top of the market capitalisation charts in the IT sector. The listing will also help TCS leverage stock as an acquisition currency to enhance its vertical capabilities or address gaps in industry, technical or service profile.For a large player such as TCS, selective acquisitions through this route may be beneficial, especially given its strong presence in the domestic market. At the same time, TCS will remain exposed to all the cultural, integration and employee retention challenges associated with acquisitions.
Strong vertical presence: TCS derived nearly 60 per cent of its revenues in 2003-04 from BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) and manufacturing. These two sectors — BFSI and manufacturing — together account for 50 per cent of the global IT spend. In telecom also, the company's presence is quite strong. In each of these sectors, TCS is bigger than its largest domestic competitor. In revenue terms, the BFSI practice of TCS is about 35 per cent higher than that of Infosys; in manufacturing, at least 40 per cent higher than Satyam; and, in the telecom vertical, it is comparable to Wipro. Even in newer verticals — life sciences, for instance — it has ramped up quite sharply. Good spread of service offerings: In service offerings, TCS has its presence across the gamut, ranging from bread-and-butter application development and maintenance to testing, engineering services and infrastructure management.
In terms of revenues in 2003-04, the package implementation segment took the lion's share, as it is almost 1.5 times bigger than those of Infosys, Wipro and Satyam. Over the next year or so, it will increasingly compete in large deals with multinational vendors in the area of systems integration, infrastructure management and consulting. Client count and profile: The success of TCS in scaling up its clients is evident from its $20-million and $50-million clients which, at 16 and 4 respectively, number more than its billion-dollar peers. However, Infosys and Wipro have been adding $1-million and $5-million clients faster than TCS over the past year.
TCS has had a string of enduring relationships with clients. Names such as GE, P&O Nedlloyd and SegaIntersettle fall in the 10-20 year bracket, while clients such as AIG, HP, Prudential, Standard Chartered and Target fall in the 5-10-year bracket.
As a consortium bidder, TCS recently bagged a nine-year contract from National Health Service of the UK to provide clinical application implementation and data migration services. Fixed-price projects: The contribution of TCS from fixed price projects at 55 per cent is considerably higher than its peers. The higher contribution from fixed price projects represents both an opportunity and risk.
A higher proportion of fixed price projects show that TCS has good project management expertise and better systems maturity to undertake these projects. In turn, this can also translate into higher gross margins. On the downside, however, any delay in project execution will have to be borne by vendors. Market cap and acquisition currency: Through this listing, TCS is expected straightaway to be propelled to the top of the market capitalisation charts in the IT sector. The listing will also help TCS leverage stock as an acquisition currency to enhance its vertical capabilities or address gaps in industry, technical or service profile.For a large player such as TCS, selective acquisitions through this route may be beneficial, especially given its strong presence in the domestic market. At the same time, TCS will remain exposed to all the cultural, integration and employee retention challenges associated with acquisitions.
