I saw this very nice interview between Elon Musk (Tesla) and Sal Khan (Khan Academy)

The first thing that struck me about Elon Musk is his conviction.

He wanted to be at the forefront of humanity’s technological progress, so he identified areas where the biggest progress would take place. This part is not hard.

And then he just went all out. That conviction, in my opinion made all the difference. Fear of failure usually holds us back - but I feel that, given the force of his conviction, even if things hadn’t worked out so well, he wouldn’t have fallen too far.

I changed my new design to the first of blogger’s (new?) templates. Definitely feels simpler and easier on the head. I am trying to be more aesthetically conscious these days you see..

I also dropped my “pseudo” (I used to be a pseudo geek, now I am a geek. Yay!).  Because Yoda told me to.

I like the ostrich though, so that stays. It’s kinda goofy and reminds me not to take myself too seriously.

Since the internet exploded, much of our combined knowledge is available to the average person with internet access. But it is not just about availability though. Information is fed to us [emails, facebook, blogs, news articles] at an unprecedented rate with most of it random, subjective and noisy.

The sheer volume of incoming information means that we hardly have the time to make our own evaluations. So we outsource it. Consolidating information and making it consumable is becoming a big business these days and the loudest (not the best) information gets most attention. Is this healthy?

I read this article recently - http://jamesclear.com/goals-systems

In my view, processes and goals have a much closer relationship. Effective processes

1. Convert big fuzzy goals (become better at writing / write a book) into smaller, easily digestive chunks (write 2 articles / week). The smaller goal needs to keep refilling itself to provide enough momentum to read the goal.
2. Form habits by tapping into the unconscious mind. After a few weeks of writing articles, it will start coming naturally to you without having to think too much.

Goals provide fuel for processes, processes are the vehicles to achieve goals.

A friend shared this article with me today - http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130926030101-29380071-adult-supervision

Here are my thoughts:

Peter Thiel’s structure is not for everyone, but doesnt mean it is wrong. It is meant for a people who have the urge to do something and university can sometimes stifle them. And the first company that a person starts is rarely bound to be successful. However, it is a fantastic learning experience and that is an important consideration.  

EC2 typically has slightly older version of software (Amazon AMI, i use that most often. Other linux distributions are likely to be similar but the repos folder is likely to be different). I like to be cutting edge, (but not so much bleeding edge).

Here is how you can use external repos to install the latest distributions. Most of the LAMP stack stuff is available in this repo.

-- 

cd /etc/yum.repos.d

After the initial novelty of jogging wore off, I started looking for ways to keep the elephant inside my head interested in the 20 minute repetitive process that my rider wanted done.

One of my learnings was that I needed an immediate sense of progress. First I tried counting steps, and then counting squares and even cubes in sync with my steps. Then I realized the most important part of a jog was actually the breathing, and not the running. So I started counting breaths. Paying attention to my breathing ensured better control and I was able to run longer and faster. But ofcourse I got bored. 20 minutes was too long a time to be counting breaths. 

“You need to be 10 times as good as the person you are delegating to - unless you are bringing an expert on board.”

I got this advice recently from an entrepreneur, and I tend to agree in principle. For me it’s not about being better, but about practice. Delegation allows you to scale and practice help you create the process which provides the foundation on which you scale. So I would rephrase it as “Do it 10 times yourself before you delegate.”

The lean startup model has a huge emphasis on solving pain points. It is a customer centric model, where you go talk to the customer first, identify the biggest pain points and then offer a solution for that. While this is very helpful in de-risking your business in most cases, some businesses by default dont solve a pain point and yet see huge success.. take any gaming company for example. 

“How will you measure your life” is a wonderful book. 

Clayton Christensen (also the author of Innovator’s Dilemma and Innovator’s Solution) plays strong emphasis on context. Any solution / theory is of value only if the context is defined. If the context changes, the theory is not relevant and needs to be reformulated. 

Among other things in the book, there is a section on  building your career. And when you are looking for a role (or looking for someone to fill a role), the context is your experience. Your chances of success depends not on whether you have accomplished what the new role seeks to accomplish, but whether you have been in a situation similar to what the new role demands.