Photo Source: Hormazd Sorabjee
In 1998-Indica is unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show
In 2018-Electric Sedan in unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show
Ratan Tata’s passion for autos shows in his obvious happiness at both the events, spaced 20 years apart.
Reminds me of the Ghalib’s famous couplet:
Ishq par zor nahi, hai ye woh aatish, Ghalib,
Jo lagae na lage or bujhae na bujhe
Translated:
You can’t force love, it’s that fire
You can’t ignite by force nor extinguish it by choice
The Book ‘The Accidental Entrepreneur’ is written by S. Sivakumar, co-Founder of SJS Pvt. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of automotive dials,logos etc and a leader of India’s printing industry.
The Book narrates how 3 entrepreneurs from humble middle class backgrounds built a world class company
The Book captures many of the struggles businessmen and entrepreneurs had to go thru during the 1980s and 1990s when India was just beginning to open up.
Like countless others, the Promoters had to borrow money from friends and relatives to get their business going.
What strikes me is the role of the much maligned PSU Banks who lent money in form of working capital loans and long term debt.Suffice to say, without the nation building efforts of these Banks, many enterprises would have died.
The Book also highlights the importance of attending trade conferences , both within and outside India.Its only by attending such conferences that you understand what is happening in a particular industry,latest technologies etc
The key takeaway from the Book is the importance of meeting one’s commitments and having satisfied customers.In many instances, the Company incurred losses in a contract due to unforeseen cost escalations etc , yet they did not fail the customer.This lead to tremendous good will in the market resulting in customers giving them references,more work etc
The Book is written in a very simple manner and is an easy read.Some parts of the Book are tedious where the author explains in excruciating details of his foreign trips and who picked up him/dropped him off etc
SJS was eventually sold to Everstone, a PE firm as the the Founder’s next gen was not interested in joining the business.This seems to be a trend nowadays where the next gen is educated abroad and prefer to be abroad instead of running their family business.
Do read this Book if interested in Indian entrepreneurship.
Source: WhatsApp Forward
Some stuff I am reading today morning:
Adani group stocks plummet (BL)
80:20 Scam : Bullion Body had warned Raghuram Rajan (MC)
Govt relief for the telecom industry (Mint)
Tata Steel emerges as top bidder for Bhushan Steel (BS)
Mallya’s yacht seized (ET)
Fear & Greed are undefeated (TRB)
Would you have bought the Devil’s Low? (DR)
Who decided 20% makes a bull or bear market? (Almanac Trader)
Volatility or Probability? Now or Later? (Irrelevant Investor)
The Stanford Bitcoin Mafia (Forbes)
The Book ‘Skin in the Game’ is written by Nassim Taleb,who is mainly responsible for explaining the concept of ‘Black Swan’ to the world.
Taleb’s first book ‘Fooled by Randomness’ is one of my favourite books and it left an indelible impression on me .
As such, I was quite curious to read his latest book.
The Book can be summarised in just a few lines.
Most things in life can be explained by ‘Skin in the Game’ i.e. when a person has a stake in both the upsides of a decision outcome as well as the harm/downsides if the decision is a wrong one.
Any person who gives an opinion/view and is not held responsible for it, has no ‘skin in the game’ and is possibly a fraud or a charlatan.
Some experts who come on TV fall in this category.They give advice/targets for stocks/markets etc and yet suffer no consequences if their call turns out to be wrong.Its only the viewers who suffer.
Similarly,in India, you find colossal mismanagement in Govt and PSU companies and banks,as their employees have no ‘skin in the game’.They get their salaries,pensions and benefits irrespective of outcomes.
The Book contains many anecdotes and examples from the Classics….this may be boring to a person who is not a history buff.
The Book covers a wide ground of topics (the author seems to have an opinion on everything) from employment to incentives to education to war to policy making etc etc.
Some interesting insights from the Book are :
Don’t tell me what you “think”, just tell me whats in your portfolio
Bureaucracy is a construct in which a person is conveniently separated from the consequences of his actions.
You will never fully convince someone that he is wrong, only reality can
The market is like a large movie theater with a small door.And the best way to identify a sucker is to see if his focus is on the size of the theater rather than that of the door.
The author considers himself to be somewhat of a Renaissance man…so there are traces of arrogance and pomposity in his writings.He loves to shock as some of his topics indicate (for e.g Is the Pope an atheist?)
I found it to be an entertaining read but it might be difficult going if you are not a Taleb fan.
