 Our (wife’s and my) Singapore visa was approved. We are going to Singapore during Term break as I had planned earlier. Meeting with four banks is on. This is not going to be for job interviews, but just exploratory. If the banks’ and my objectives have a common ground, then I will work towards getting call from at least one bank in Singapore. Since I am going so far, will use the opportunity for rest and recuperation. Badly need a break to unwind and get ready for the second, but tougher, half of the course.

 Life is full of trade-offs. Nothing has better taught me to respect this than MBA program. There is no perfect world. Hence I cannot have the best of all of that I want. I need to give up some to have some. It is true that what I may want now, I may not after certain time. But, then decisions are context driven. Consulting industry is quite appealing to me, but I find equally interesting aspects in banking industry. I need to choose one and be focused, and for good. After Singapore trip, I will finalize my decision on consulting as a career option.

 I won my bids in three of the five courses I had bid for. The courses that I won, I got them at very low points. Now I will have good number of points to bid aggressively during the remaining terms. I still feel that the system is a fair one. If I desperately wanted to do the courses I lost out on, I should have bid higher points. The value I attached to these courses is the points I had allocated to them. Bidding system closely aligns with individual incentives and interests. Any system that is harmonized with human nature and individual incentives can-/will not go wrong.

 Continuing on the above, my respect for the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ has further gone up. As a group, individuals, when they do not act in unison with ulterior motives or act to subvert the system, rarely go wrong. There is an observation in the book by the name wisdom of the crowds that in the TV program “who wants to be a millionaire”, the best helpline was ‘ask the audience’. Audience could give correct answers significantly more number of times than the expert requested for help through ‘ask the expert’ helpline. The book gives many examples, which reinforce the fact that crowds, even a group of common people, have better judgment than any individual expert does. This book is a must read.

 Our (wife’s and my) Singapore visa was approved. We are going to Singapore during Term break as I had planned earlier. Meeting with four banks is on. This is not going to be for job interviews, but just exploratory. If the banks’ and my objectives have a common ground, then I will work towards getting call from at least one bank in Singapore. Since I am going so far, will use the opportunity for rest and recuperation. Badly need a break to unwind and get ready for the second, but tougher, half of the course.

 Life is full of trade-offs. Nothing has better taught me to respect this than MBA program. There is no perfect world. Hence I cannot have the best of all of that I want. I need to give up some to have some. It is true that what I may want now, I may not after certain time. But, then decisions are context driven. Consulting industry is quite appealing to me, but I find equally interesting aspects in banking industry. I need to choose one and be focused, and for good. After Singapore trip, I will finalize my decision on consulting as a career option.

 I won my bids in three of the five courses I had bid for. The courses that I won, I got them at very low points. Now I will have good number of points to bid aggressively during the remaining terms. I still feel that the system is a fair one. If I desperately wanted to do the courses I lost out on, I should have bid higher points. The value I attached to these courses is the points I had allocated to them. Bidding system closely aligns with individual incentives and interests. Any system that is harmonized with human nature and individual incentives can-/will not go wrong.

 Continuing on the above, my respect for the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ has further gone up. As a group, individuals, when they do not act in unison with ulterior motives or act to subvert the system, rarely go wrong. There is an observation in the book by the name wisdom of the crowds that in the TV program “who wants to be a millionaire”, the best helpline was ‘ask the audience’. Audience could give correct answers significantly more number of times than the expert requested for help through ‘ask the expert’ helpline. The book gives many examples, which reinforce the fact that crowds, even a group of common people, have better judgment than any individual expert does. This book is a must read.

 Our (wife’s and my) Singapore visa was approved. We are going to Singapore during Term break as I had planned earlier. Meeting with four banks is on. This is not going to be for job interviews, but just exploratory. If the banks’ and my objectives have a common ground, then I will work towards getting call from at least one bank in Singapore. Since I am going so far, will use the opportunity for rest and recuperation. Badly need a break to unwind and get ready for the second, but tougher, half of the course.

 Life is full of trade-offs. Nothing has better taught me to respect this than MBA program. There is no perfect world. Hence I cannot have the best of all of that I want. I need to give up some to have some. It is true that what I may want now, I may not after certain time. But, then decisions are context driven. Consulting industry is quite appealing to me, but I find equally interesting aspects in banking industry. I need to choose one and be focused, and for good. After Singapore trip, I will finalize my decision on consulting as a career option.

 I won my bids in three of the five courses I had bid for. The courses that I won, I got them at very low points. Now I will have good number of points to bid aggressively during the remaining terms. I still feel that the system is a fair one. If I desperately wanted to do the courses I lost out on, I should have bid higher points. The value I attached to these courses is the points I had allocated to them. Bidding system closely aligns with individual incentives and interests. Any system that is harmonized with human nature and individual incentives can-/will not go wrong.

 Continuing on the above, my respect for the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ has further gone up. As a group, individuals, when they do not act in unison with ulterior motives or act to subvert the system, rarely go wrong. There is an observation in the book by the name wisdom of the crowds that in the TV program “who wants to be a millionaire”, the best helpline was ‘ask the audience’. Audience could give correct answers significantly more number of times than the expert requested for help through ‘ask the expert’ helpline. The book gives many examples, which reinforce the fact that crowds, even a group of common people, have better judgment than any individual expert does. This book is a must read.

* The entire campus is abuzz with the bidding rigmarole for the fifth term elective courses. Bidding system is used to choose the electives and is followed by most of the big b-schools across the world. Bidding is because there are fewer seats per course than the number of students. The bidding system is a very fair system and allows one to choose the subjects one wants to specialize in and bid for them. Each student is allotted 4000 points and he can use these points in whichever fashion he wants, subject to two conditions – he has to complete 16 courses and specialize in one concentration (take six subjects under this concentration) to get the degree. The downside of bidding is that a student may not necessarily get an opportunity to do a course he wants to do. Given that there are fewer seats, students would bid gratuitously high numbers for favorite subjects taking the clearing price to high levels. Sanity will return only after the first experience, sometime during the Term 6 bids, hopefully. Till then it is madness here……..

* Strategic Analysis of Information Technology course, which ended today, was very good. The Prof., though not all liked him, was quite good as well. The course was not so much about knowing IT as about the understanding of the business dimensions of IT industry and investments in IT. He had a different model of teaching. He had given assignments to various groups and each group would make a presentation on a topic ranging from strategy of Cisco and Intel to Google and E-bay valuations. There were about 15 presentations. Most of what we learnt was from the presentations made by the groups. The Prof would end each class summing up what was presented and explaining how we need to appreciate the entire world of IT. He was indeed a messiah for IT ignorant people like me.

People who follow Scott Adam’s Dilbert Comics would be aware of the characters of Wally and Asok. Asok is an IIT grad. He is the most overworked. Wally is the most politicking animal at office. Wally gets away without doing any work. In addition, he creates all kinds of trouble for the boss. It does not pay to be an Asok. Nor does it pay to be like Wally A good combination of smartness, intelligence, hard work and politicking is the only way to survive and grow in most kinds of organization. Politicking does not mean things bad (Wally, in fact, is an extreme form). It does not have to necessarily mean back stabbing, bitching about someone so that he does not get his bonus/promotion. Politicking is about being in the circuit, better create a circuit in which all the information first reaches you and flows through you. You control the levers. Being privy to information, which is not commonly known, is a great asset in an organization. Knowing the source of information (who is good enough to get the information first but does not have skills to use the information) and to share with whom, in what quantity, and at what time is another important skill. Sometimes, it makes great sense to create information and use it to test people’s reactions so that we understand what type of people we are working with. On the defensive side, being fuzzy and unfathomable is the trick. These, however, are easier said than done. I have recently heard of a case in an organization where a senior person, himself a politicking animal, played this game slightly incorrectly. This cost him his promotion and he is now trying hard to stay put in the job. His assistant, who was completely counting on him and did not have any other source of power, also took the brunt.

To reiterate,

1. Be intelligent/skilful
3. Maybe, work hard
4. Walk around
5. Be eclectic in sharing information
6. Create information
7. Be fuzzy. Don’t be caught in the circuit
8. Play politicking and play this hard and smart

Some people think these things will not happen in certain organizations. These things happen everywhere. The only point is to get to know the rules of the game in that organization.

Today, a classmate made a comment to the other – let me make my choice. Why should any one succumb to peer pressure or social constraints? Why should we approximate our actions to meet others’ expectation? I like it when people exercise free will and feel comfortable about it. I have made at least one big (offbeat) decision in the personal side of my life and have not succumbed to any kind of pressure from anyone. I made the decision not because it was offbeat, but because I felt strongly convinced about it despite the fact that this decision is not acceptable to many people around me. It is my life and I wanted to make my choice. When she made this comment today, I felt good because I knew I had company – there are people here who are willing to be their own.

This week we had a new Prof teaching us the second part of Management of Organization. She has spent much of her time teaching us “psychological determinism”. She showed us videos and gave us many readings, which show that there are two things to which we are slaves.

• Self-fulfilling prophecy=Keep saying that you are good everyday and every hour of life to yourself. Most likely you will become good.

• The phenomenon of “seeing what we want to see” and “hearing what we want to hear” =People make impression / form opinion about people / issues and then pick up only those pieces of information that substantiate their impression / opinion.

Given that there is this strong force of psychological determinism driving our behavior, how correct am I in claiming that I exercise free will. Am I really making my choices?

There is no point being a rich man in cemetery. Nor is there any good having been a CEO of a company. Posterity does not remember all these. All efforts to live beyond the grave through reproduction also do not give much relief.

I read somewhere, and for some reason I tend to believe, that a few days before death an individual comes to know of the imminence of his tryst with death. Waiting for this rendezvous, what would an individual think? Would he think of the money he made or fame he achieved? I believe that he will think more of ‘did I live happily’, ‘was I good to people as much as to myself’, ‘was I good to myself at least’, etc type of questions. I think he would think of the lies he told, the tricks he played to make money or deceive someone. He would think of those times which he spent in office which he knew he should have spent with his dear ones. He would think of his own people and see if their faces really reflect sadness at the impending event. As people lay in the death bed, material things hardly matter. But good amount of our life is spent chasing material things.

Let the world change you…and you can change the world.

The punch-line of the movie the types of which I haven’t seen one in many years now – “The motorcycle diaries”.

This movie shook me out of my slumbers. Who cares if I became a CEO? Who cares if I make money? Would I care these things myself? I do not know. I want to pursue happiness as the sole object of life. But what will give me happiness? I guess I know a bit of it, but surely cannot claim that I have an affirmative answer.

The protagonists of this movie take a 12500 KM journey through the roads and rivers of South America traversing many countries and cultures, during which journey their lives get transformed and they transform the lives of some. The movie is based on a true life story. A brilliant one.

Get the DVD, shut yourself in the corner of the room, tell people not to disturb you, no popcorn. Watch the movie, preferably alone. Do nothing after the movie. Do not even get up from there. Sit about. Think about life. Life will mean something else. Surely not what we are, at least what I am, doing.

There have been many complaints that the ISB students and the alum really do not speak out about things that go wrong at ISB. ISB cannot be heaven on earth, after all.

Here is my take on things wrong at ISB

Each person in life gets kick out of some activity. If one has decided what gives kick to him out of life, then it is easy to trace out what is right and wrong. For himself, that is. There cannot be generic rights and wrongs. Because one’s meat is others’ poison. Of course, bar an odd ball MO professor whose teaching not even one can make any sense out of.

Let me get specific lest I should be branded as trying to hide the wrongs of ISB in the labyrinth of some senseless complex sentences.

• In April, when students come to the campus first, it is too hot here
• ISB is too windy during most of the time.
• When it rains at ISB, it rains cats and dogs. And it rains without any warning.

All the three make doing project works at Atrium well nigh difficult. Unless every group has a married member, it is difficult to find a suitable place to sit together and work on assignments. Why a married person? He/She will have a studio apartment that can accommodate all six people in various shapes, sizes and of course postures.

To get more serious now….

• Some Professors are not up to the mark and fall behind the students’ expectations. These professors have taught at premier schools, have supposedly made their mark at those schools, and still continue to teach at many other schools. Then why cannot they be good. No idea. World is not always efficient.

• ISB administration is feedback friendly. How many managements in the Corporate world are willing to stand before its customers and ask them what are we doing wrong? ISB management does. “However, it sometimes gets into uncalled-for defensive mode and tries to defend its policies / stance”. Then the student body needs to find better methods to represent. Mother is the only creature who is most receptive to cribbing.

Though there is enough diversity and resources, students do not leverage these. Good number of students are only academically oriented and this makes the experience academic and not holistic. But again, it is for the student body to decide. This year there have been many activities which are non-academic and which add value to the overall experience.

There are people who only while away time, so it appears. These people have not been “found” studying. They provide massive entertainment value. Not that I have a problem. Some may have. If someone is allergic to people who only enjoy themselves at an academic place as ISB, then one may keep away. One caveat here, these people have proven themselves in their respective fields before coming to ISB. I guess they know what they are doing.

Our library has a fantastic collection of books, but many of these books would not be read because of lack of time. I have seen many books which have not been issued once. Professors, I guess, do not know what books are available in the library. They do not tell us which of these books we MUST read. Those books that are essential reading are not enough in number.

Girls at ISB are good. It can be good distraction and take one’s focus off studies.

ISB Management is doing a good job in terms of bringing all the recruiters to the ISB. Not all of the recruiters have short-listed ISB yet. Bain & Co came here to evaluate the school; Lehman has not come yet, etc. But ISB is only four year old. It is also important that the students are able to convert these openings into jobs.

There are other problems at ISB which perhaps I have not experienced or which I do not perceive as problems.

Finally, every system comes with its merits and demerits. I am sure there are problems at HBS and Whartons of the world. Every candidate has a trade off to make. The point is a one-year program demands some compromises from us which perhaps a two year program would not. But that is a choice that we made. I, for one, do not regret my decision for a minute. I firmly believe that in India I would not have got better value for my money.

All knowledge/math begins with an assumption. I have tried to look at proofs to contest this belief of mine. I have been trying to see if numbers, regression, LP or any other financial / mathematical models could prove me wrong. None has, at least so far.

Yesterday and today, we had elaborate homework and classroom discussions on Google IPO valuations. The prices quoted by students for Google’s IPO ranged from USD 20 to USD 300. None was the right answer. Nor was any answer wrong. Google itself by pricing its IPO at USD 85 undervalued its own stock.

We had to calculate the discount rate for the company using capital asset pricing model. The following is the formula

Discount rate = Risk free return + Beta of stock (Market risk premium)

Risk free rate and market risk premium were easy to obtain and we were supplied these rates. Beta is the risk associate with a particular stock. How to calculate the Beta of Google when it was never listed on the bourses? The company closest to Google’s model was Yahoo; hence, we “assumed” yahoo’s Beta as Google’s. Discount rate was obtained. Now we had to calculate PV. To calculate the PV, we needed to “assume” the rate at which Google will grow. There is no way we could “know” it. And we also needed to “assume” the number of years for which Google’s cash flows had to be reckoned. We finally applied the formula for PV to arrive at the IPO price.

None of the students got the same price because the assumptions of each of us differed. Fun was, no one knows who of us could be right. Google itself did not know.

We have Nobel Prize winning CAPM and the NPV formulae to give us numbers which can at best be approximations of the possible real values. These models by themselves are helpless because they primarily depend on assumption and human judgment. People who estimated price of USD 20/ USD 300 had different views of Google’s growth.

I will hold to my belief that all knowledge/math begins with an assumption till someone proves me wrong.

PS: Google is at present trading above USD 300 levels.

Have two assignments to turn up tom morning. Am yet to start reading the material required to write our Management of Organization essay. Haven’t yet thought about reading material / google information required to do valuations for google inc. In the context, could not find a better post to put here than the below one. this is usually what happens when we have assignments. this happens at almost all b-schools where assignments are packed into a few days, not because b-school guys are a differnt breed. because, it is human nature. below post is courtesy one of our class mates.

How to write assignments

1. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a well lit place in front of your computer.

2. Log onto MSN and ICQ (be sure to go on away!). Check your email.

3. Read over the assignment carefully, to make certain you understand it.

4. Walk down to the vending machines and buy some chocolate to help you concentrate.

5. Check your email.

6. Call up a friend and ask if he/she wants to go to grab a coffee. Just to get settled down and ready to work.

7. When you get back to your room, sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lit place.

8. Read over the assignment again to make absolutely certain you understand it.

9. Check your email.

10. You know, you haven’t written to that kid you met at camp since fourth grade. You’d better write that letter now and get it out of the way so you can concentrate.

11. Look at your teeth in the bathroom mirror.

12. Grab some mp3z off of kazaa.

13. Check your email.

14. MSN chat with one of your friends about the future. (ie summer plans).

15. Check your email.

16. Listen to your new mp3z and download some more.

17. Phone your friend on the other floor and ask if she’s started writing yet. Exchange derogatory emarks about your prof, the
course, the college, the world at large.

18. Walk to the store and buy a pack of gum. You’ve probably run out.

19. While you’ve got the gum you may as well buy a magazine and read it.

20. Check your email.

21. Check the newspaper listings to make sure you aren’t missing something truly worthwhile on TV.

22. Play some solitare (or age of legends!).

23. Check out bored.com.

24. Wash your hands.

25. Call up a friend to see how much they have done, probably haven’t started either.

26. Look through your housemate’s book of pictures from home. Ask who everyone is.

27. Sit down and do some serious thinking about your plans for the future.

28. Check to see if bored.com has been updated yet.

29. Check your email and listen to your new mp3z.

30. You should be rebooting by now, assuming that windows is crashing on schedule.

31. Read over the assignment one more time, just for heck of it.

32. Scoot your chair across the room to the window and watch the sunrise.

33. Lie face down on the floor and moan.

34. Punch the wall and break something.

35. Check your email.

36. Mumble obscenities.

37. 5am – start hacking on the paper without stopping. 6am -paper is finished.

38. Complain to everyone that you didn’t get any sleep because you had to write that stupid paper.

39. Go to class, hand in paper, and leave right away so you can take a nap