My career moves have been very non traditional since I love working with startups. My Mom usually gets upset trying to understand what the new company does and when I say its a startup her only point is usually will your salary come on time?

I am going on board a startup once again next week and I am really excited. This is the 4th startup I will be working for. Hopefully there will be a time soon where I can kick off my own startup. But this job is coming very close to it.

Times they are changing!

Its a relationship you see so much in workplaces today. Some folks call it the Boss - Subordinate relationship, some folks say Mentor - Mentee. Whatever it is and in whichever form, I think in these days as much as the Friday’s have to look out for their Crusoes, the Crusoes also have to take care of their Fridays. Else it ain’t working for either.

Thankfully I’ve had a Man Friday since the past 8 years and its been wonderful having him around. Gishore started working under me as a network engineer and he has bloomed into a role where he heads the entire data center infrastructure at a large Internet company. We’ve had some great times together and I attribute a lot of my success to him since he took on pretty much any task I handed him and did a great job of it.

Our professional relationship is taking a break since I am moving to a new job where I don’t think I can absorb him (I would have really loved to) and I think I am really going to miss him. He is as good as a younger brother now.

This is one professional relationship I treasure the most and I am glad its with my Man Friday.

Thanks for everything Gishore!

But what I realized was that I felt really good after cooking dinner. I tend to get a bit tired once I get back home and my usual routine is to play with Mansi for a bit, lay the table for dinner and sit down for dinner. But that routine slows me down a bit and I kick myself for not feeling energetic.

Looks like cooking dinner works like a catharsis for me. I am hoping to do this at least twice or thrice every week. And I really hope the dinners are edible. Last nights macaroni turned out quite well

The road next to our office has been dug up & how. Its as if there was a rumour about some gold discovery underground. It pains me to know how many times the roads around us get dug up, covered only to be dug up again. There is no planning at all.

When will this end?

I was talking the other day with a colleague about Internet advertising and he complained about the fact that some of the traffic it brings in, is undesirable. Is there a way to avoid it? Actually its very akin to window shoppers or casual shoppers who walk into a store but never buy anything. Would you stop them? At times more people in a store attracts even more people. Eventually only a few would buy. But as long as you have the correct merchandising, some interesting offers etc., the conversion rates would be comfortable. Its very similar online as well. The rules pretty much stay the same.

Explaining things in plain English always helps the other person to understand the concept very well. This way I think the ability to retain that information is also quite high. A VC has started a nice series called MBA Mondays which explains concepts in lucid English. Check this article to know a bit about Compound Interest

Another gem I came across was sent by email by my friend MJ was a video explanation of how differential gears work. Check the video here. I had a tough time understanding this concept in college but the video tutorial makes it sound so easy.

As the adage goes, just KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)

Parenting: Bringing up Mansi has been the highlight of the year gone by. Snehal and me can’t imagine living a single day (for Snehal its probably a hour) without Mansi. Kids can be so selfless and stubborn at the same time. While each day we learn a bit more about parenting, we realize that there is so little we know about it. And that keeps us going and makes the journey very memorable

Startups: I am onto my 3rd startup, the second time around in the Internet space. Life in a startup is always very unpredictable but usually there is always a method in the madness. We’ve been doing pretty well at Quikr and hopefully the next year will be even better. Its a crucial year for us. Having spent nearly 90% of my career in startups, I continue to be amazed by the vibrancy of small companies. There is so little I know and so much to learn.

Technology: The tech industry keeps redefining the rules every 15 days (probably even faster) and it takes a herculean effort to keep pace. But thanks to the Internet its become a bit easier. Some blogs like Techcrunch have become the mecca of information. Email for example has undergone a huge transformation. I remember setting up the mail server at my 2nd job. It took us 5 months to get a domain and get things started with an archaic text only interface. The 2nd time around, 5 years later, we went with setting up MS exchange and burnt a huge hole in our IT Budget. The third time around, 2 years later, we partnered with Netcore to get things kicked off. We were up and running in 3-4 days. The fourth time around, 7 years later, we signed up for Google Apps. We were ready to go in 6 hours flat.

Reading: I can never get to an empty Google reader screen. I have 148 subscriptions and very little time to go through them. The more I add subscriptions, the less I am able to read. But I have my A List which I swear by and not a working day passes by before I have read the A list

Music: When I took a look at the Last.FM Best of 2009 List, I realized that the music industry has moved far ahead from where I left it at. Inspite of my 35 gig collection on my iPod, there is so much music still be experienced

Travel: The more we travel, the more we want to travel. There is so much of the world to see. This year we took a mini break to Kamshet, near Lonavala and did nothing. Nothing! No sight seeing, no reading nothing. We just played with our daughter, drank and ate good food. It was bliss.

Food/Drink: The more cuisines we experience, the more experiments we make with food. 2009 has been the year we, as a couple, discovered the joy of salads. The more single malts and beers I taste, I realize that there are so many single malts and beers left to taste.

On that note, 2009 has been a great year, here’s to hoping that 2010 brings with it more joy

Cheers!

Once I started earning, which was also the first time I bought my first CD, Eagles - Hell Freezes Over, is when I started buying some alternate music like INXS (they were not so popular until Hutchence killed himself).

My idea of exploring music was to pick movie soundtracks or borrow music from friends and then pick a CD of an artist which I liked. I discovered gems like Sarah Mclachlan, Alisson Krauss this way. The financial muscle gave me the liberty to experiment with artists (since buying albums was a big risk - what if all songs didn’t turn out to be good?). And thus began my experimentation while also stocking up on all the rock classics like U2, Floyd, Led Zep and such like.

15 years hence and my urge to experiment has dwindled. Call it old fashioned or anything but somehow I just like the old music barring some pursuits in Jazz (mostly instrumental). Guys like Dave Brubeck make an evening very memorable, more so if you are nursing a nice single malt. I have tried a few interesting artists like Andrea Bocelli, Micheal Buble but the list is very small. Its funny. These days I have much more spare money to buy music but I guess I’ve lost the ability to borrow/buy music which I can explore and then build on.

Hopefully I’ll be able to find some interesting music in 2010. Any suggestions?

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded

Considering that the doctors had given her outside of a 15% chance of battling the cardiac arrest, it is nothing less than a miracle that she’s made it back at an amazing pace. Her cardiologist is pleasantly surprised and is actually considering offering my Mom the brand ambassador role for his clinic (just kidding)

It is not easy to battle the pain, accept the fact that you have no memory of 14 days of your life, muster up the courage and strength to get back on your feet and prepare yourself for a second life. Not only has Mom done all of this, the fact that makes us immensely proud of her is that she’s done it with a smile. While she attributes the smile to constantly having her grandchildren around, we know that she’s made of something else.

She has inspired many, in every role that she has played in life. Daughter, wife, sister-in-law, teacher, mother, mother-in-law, social activist, philanthropist & grandmother. She has given it her best and handled each role with the same amount of dedication & love. All of this manifested in the entire world calling to check on her progress from the day she was hospitalized and many of family & friends offering prayers for her recovery.

By the grace of God, she is doing pretty well now and after a fairly hectic daily schedule before she was hospitalized, we are glad that Mom is finally agreeing to slow down, relax and start enjoying life. Her brain however continues to function at an abnormally fast pace, much to our amusement.

Here’s wishing many more Happy Birthdays for Mom

Posted by Wordmobi