Vijay Basrur

Wall Street Investment Banking Explained

Wall Street Investment Banking for Donkeys

Young Chuck moved to Texas and bought a donkey from a farmer for $100.
The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
The next day the farmer drove up and said, ‘Sorry Chuck, but I have some bad news, the donkey died.’
Chuck replied, ‘Well, then just give me my money back.’
The farmer said, ‘Can’t do that. I went and spent it already.’
Chuck said, ‘OK, then, just bring me the dead donkey.’
The farmer asked, ‘What ya gonna do with a dead donkey?
Chuck said, ‘I’m going to raffle him off.’
The farmer said ‘You can’t raffle off a dead donkey!’
Chuck said, ‘Sure I can. Watch me. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.’
A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, ‘What happened with that dead donkey?’
Chuck said, ‘I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars apiece and made a profit of $898.00.’
The farmer said, ‘Didn’t anyone complain?’
Chuck said, ‘Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.’
Chuck now works for Morgan Stanley.

Shamelessly borrowed from Fabrice Grinda’s post here

Goan Holiday

1 destination  - Goa

2 flights - Mumbai to Goa & Goa to Mumbai

3 of us - Mansi, Snehal & me

4 nights - at Cavala

5 days - at Cavala

6 beers for 100 bucks - at Infantria, Calangute

7 types of sea food - Mussels, Crab, Squid, Prawn Cocktail, King fish, Mackarel & Tiger Prawns

Make an excellent holiday. Photos are here

Excellent Reading

My respect for Jason Calacanis has jumped multifold after reading his 2 posts. I am a regular follower of his blog (though he has stopped regular blogging. He posts very rarely these days)

I suggest you stop whatever you are doing and read the following 2 blog posts

-  What to do if your startup is about fail: An excellent albeit long post about how to face failure

- Why I employed a felon: In defense of a “so called mistake” which Jason stuck by. I would have probably done the same.

Cut Copy Paste

Its ironic that I came across 2 blog posts on similar rants. I read Suggestion: Talk To The Source by Fred Wilson in the morning & then I came across CNN-IBN, You Owe me an Errata!! by Gaurav Sabnis.

Both of them had the same problem. They were misquoted by journalists on the Internet and both of them were never contacted to verify the details. This seems to be common amongst the new age journalists who are probably firms believers of “Cut Copy Paste”.

I think the Internet creates information overload. And Google makes it easy to pick the needle from the haystack. I’ve heard students mentioning that they can finish homework faster, all thanks to the Internet. Is this what we really need? A shortcut to information without trying to understand it? I don’t think so.

While i understand the temptation of trying to short circuit I think it is even more important that we have the desire to learn & understand about the way things work or why things happen. Just mearly copying content without reading or understanding it is not going to help. The learning streak is very important. Infact I think, if nothing, all these new age schools to do the least, is to inculacate the desire to learn in children.

The learning streak goes a long way to make you a better person as your grow up.

Random Rants on Terrorism

I think by now everyone knows about the attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan. The point is Pakistan continues to sit on its ass and in more random news, some folks are spreading news that India had a hand in the shooting. I mean WTF.

Months after the 26/11 attack on the Taj/Trident, the Indian judicial system is still trying to figure how to book Kasab. This is ofcourse being helped enormously by Pakistan continuing the play the blame game.

If Pakistan continues with this attitude and the judicial systems go the usual way, it will be ages till anyone would be able to track down & eliminate terrorism. Someone has to move quickly and be merciless in this operation.

Of course the US always seems to be on the fence when it comes to Pakistan. Now Obama says that he will wait and watch. And while he is at it he obviously sees no harm in opening the taps of financial aid to Pakistan. Will some one just get the point across to Mr. Change?