Thoughts on Zero to One by Peter Thiel

The following is a curated except from my personal diary. These next few months, I am reading a bunch of books around MBA/marketing/business etc., and after I wrote in my journal, I felt this could have a wider view, hence sharing!

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In Zero to One, there were certain concepts which were interesting for me. In the book, Peter talks about indefinite pessimism (Europe – high savings, low investments), definite pessimism (China – high investments, low savings), definite optimism (America of 50s-70s, high investments, high savings), indefinite optimism (Post 80s America, low savings, low investments). Of course, he’s critical of the current American position (I think we tend of be most self-critical and favourable of others’/our glorious past). But this overall concept was new for me.

Definite pessimism indicates growth is possible but cannot potentially keep on increasing (future can be known, but it is bleak)

Indefinite pessimism indicates no further growth is possible (future is going to be bleak and there’s nothing one can do about it), so just chill (apparently indicated by the vacation-mode of Europeans and that they make savings for savings’ sake as money is important).

Indefinite optimism indicates growth/hypergrowth is possible, but no one knows exactly how. There is no plan.

Definite optimism indicates growth is definitely possible, but one must plan towards the future we want to see.

I think from my own investment style, I tend to fall in the definite optimism side, but from a career perspective more leaning towards indefinite optimism. Or rather, in my career at least, I don’t think this is yet that pronounced.

The other thing that stood out was the opening question of the book, “What is one important truth that no one agrees with you on?” When I think of this question, it makes me think I am not having enough intellectual discussions to really answer this question. So I have to keep going back to this question. But off the top of my head, I think this is what it would be: no matter how sophisticated our technology gets, we will stay animals at heart. Hence, mankind on the whole will continue to be competitive. Something which Peter Thiel however suggests companies shouldn’t be doing.

His recommendation is that capitalism and competition don’t go hand-in-hand. Companies should collaborate more (that is what I think he is trying to say, but not explicitly).

He also says, monopolies try to hide they are monopolies (Google doesn’t advertise itself as an search engine company where it’s a monopoly, rather calls itself a technology company to not be labelled as a monopoly and save itself from a lot of legal hassle). On the other end of the spectrum, you have industries from very competitive markets call themselves as unique/differentiated, because they think that’ll help them in the market.

What I didn’t like about the book was the portion that was spent in discussing founders’ eccentric styles (be it about Richard Branson or descriptions of Lady Gaga). I didn’t understand why in a book about building the future such chapters merit a presence. I don’t get the American obsession with showiness. But in the end, I think the book reclaims itself, by talking about how to think about the future might look like, It made me think about how I think the world might look like in the future:

Recurrent collapse or an equal amplitude sinusoid of progress and decline (potentially unlikely accordingly to the author, I partially believe this)

A plateau where all poor countries become like the America of today (I don’t believe this is going to be the reality either and neither does the author)

A complete destruction (which the author doesn’t subscribe to and neither do I). I feel collectively, the people that define history are also learning from it. I don’t believe for all we have achieved, we’ll blow the Earth up.

Exponential takeoff – Singularity – (which the author believes we’ll reach and probably I agree too. I think it’s hard to be a technologist and not believe this way)

However, I don’t think the models are going to be as simplistic as this. I think it’s going to be a sinusoid with a constantly reducing amplitude before it takes off to something really radical.

I think that is probably the most realistic view because we will make mistakes in the process and there will be periods in which there will be stagnation. Progress cannot be constantly unidirectional. This world is too large and there will be great opposing forces cancelling progress out and for periods, generations will try to find themselves and then get back on track.

I see parallels of this in my life. Up until now, I had been craving a certain work-life balance. But after couple of years of this, I feel I can push myself more and I want to do it. I want to push myself to the extreme and really find out for myself what I am capable of.

On another note, what was interesting to see was that Peter Thiel seemed to agree with Byron Sharp that selling the product (marketing/sales/customer development) is as important as the product, if not more. I am not sure if Peter Thiel read Byron Sharp (How brands grow?). Probably he did, but I love when different things I read all converge to the same fundamental truths. Byron’s book did teach me a bunch of new things this December.

Fish fries and curries

As a Bong, it comes across as strange when I tell people that I do not like fish.

But really, I don’t. I wouldn’t eat it as a kid. My mother, being a soft-hearted person, would not force me to do something I didn’t want to. But in my childhood, the other mother figure in my life was my aunt. She was convinced that without the weekly quota of fish our nutrition as young kids won’t be complete.

So every time I went to her house (which was quite frequent) and she came to ours (which too happened frequently), she would take the primary responsibility of feeding me and my brother. I like to think that there were stories involved in coaxing me to swallow those morsels which I thought smelled like stink, but there was also a lot of coercion and use of force. I hated it then but in hindsight, I supposed that’s what parents are supposed to do.

We lost my aunt to breast cancer almost two decades back. Sometimes, I like to think what it would have meant had she still been alive, very much part of our life.

She was the centrepiece of our family, the thread that brought everyone together. She was headstrong and loved to talk. She knew people and people knew her and she could convince people to do her bidding. After her death, our family became less closely connected. The other aunts and cousins who would regularly come to visit my aunt ad us gradually stopped. Now, we’re pretty much on our own. Especially after my dad’s death.

One thing is for sure, if she were alive, we would be less alone. And maybe, I’d still continue eating fish (without her influence, it didn’t take me long to do my own bidding).

Who is it that you want to be?

These days I spend a lot of time thinking about who I want to be. This question is probably most asked to kids in school, but I realize it is so important to keep asking yourself this throughout your life.

When I was younger, I was probably only focussed on doing the immediate thing. I also probably did not have a lot of time at hand. It was all about going to school, finishing studies or later, in Bangalore, getting ready, going to work or making meals.

I think the pandemic changed a lot of things for us. While I am writing this in June 2023, a good amount of time has passed since a major COVID spike, yet, for a lot of us I genuinely feel it has left a life-long impact.

Especially those in the IT sector who have realized they have an option to go back home and continue to work from there. We are now questioning, what is it that is there in the big city lives that we may need to re-home ourselves?

I for one, feel a strong sense of belonging and roots in my hometown. It’s a tiny town with all of the decent amenities and is also incredibly hot. But today, it has rained and I spent some time with my mother and brother and laughed a bit and right now, as I type this and feel the cool wind of my body, I wish this could be the life I could forever hold onto.

Anyways, back to the question of who I want to become. As a kid, I wanted to become a lot of things, but probably, those were tied to careers. There was a phase of wanting to be an air-hostess, a journalist, a doctor or an engineer. That’s what we all think of, right, when we think of who we want to be? These professions?

But who do we want to become for ourselves? Maybe, it could be something physical, like being a beautiful healthy woman. Or it could be someone who entertains others with their stories. Or someone who cooks lovely meal on the spot. Or just tends to plants in the garden and grow the best roses that anyone has ever seen. Or probably take care of wild animals or street dogs. Or someone who has walked through a forest in the night, trying to see the stars through the canopy. Or lain beside a fierce mountain river and listened to the music of it roaring through, day after day, year after year.

I think more and more, for me, what I want to be is becoming a matter of a lifestyle and not a career. But the problem is, a lot of your lifestyle is influenced by your career. If you love forests, you’re probably better off finding a career in the forest department, or be part of an NGO that works with tribals in forest areas, or conservationists who are responsible for endangered animals. If you are working a desk job for hours and hours together, will you ever get to be that person?

Sadly, the way we have conditioned the human race, we work towards serving capitalism. We don’t imagine, even for once, who would we be had we not discovered economics and trade. We might have been animals who would have needed to fight lions and tigers for our meals. That is who we were on Earth. But today, we have lost all of that and this is not a complaint. We’re probably better off doing desk jobs than fighting wild animals. At least some of us are.

But for the rest, when can we have an opportunity to be who we want to be?

For me…. I want to be a writer. I also want to care for animals. I also want to help young kids with their education, teach them myself. I want to sit with someone who knows their history and tells me the stories of cultures and religions and wars and famines. I want to sleep 8 hours everyday. I want to lie on the earth and watch the stars. And I wanna be doing this everyday. Or at least for 70% of my time on Earth.

And you? Who do you want to be?

Dealing with duality as you get older

I have always been an emotional person. Also, someone who often felt that she wasn’t fully understood by anyone. Getting older has broken that myth: that I am so unique in my thoughts, in my pain, in my desires that no one can fully understand me.

You get around in the world, meet enough people and you realize that you are really part of the milieu. There is definitely more than one person who has felt the way you’re feeling and no matter how hard or difficult or easy or beautiful your story may be, there’s someone else who might have lived that exact same life, in parts at least. The only thing that comes out of this awareness is that if you still feel you’re unique, you have not met enough people in the world.

This realization is extremely powerful.

It is powerful because, when you know that there’s nothing extraordinarily unique about you, the angst of feeling misunderstood should no longer have that power over you or your relationships. Because then it’s about finding solutions. Then the question becomes: if someone else is having the same constraints as you, how are they living their lives? Is there something that you can learn from their story and apply in your life?

So getting older has been cathartic in some ways. Cuz now, although I’d still take the occasional delight in crying my heart out every time I have a heartbreak, there’s a small part of me that’s a wise, old woman. That voice tells me, “Get your shit together, cuz what exactly are you cribbing about? There are things far worse in this world than what you’re going through. Do you realize how lucky you are?”

And that’s one train of thought.

Within me, sometimes, there’s this wild 18-year-old. The one that only read romantic novels growing up and hoped for the forever kind of stuff. And that girl, every day going through this life, realizes how different real life is from the stories she grew up with. Unfortunately, she has no idea of what a fairytale modern-day story can be and if that would satisfy her as much as the stories she grew up with. Hopeless romanticism is useless in the world of AI and multitude of options, cuz here, no one is waiting forever for anything, anyone. We all must move on. What would Devdas do in 2023?

So, growing older, for me, is about this duality of being. This split personality phenomenon. And finding that while there are a lot of people that are out there like me, whether or not I have met them, it’s just I myself that must deal with the duality of my emotions. There is no one else (although the 18-year-old will probably never stop looking for that someone) that I can expect to share in this responsibility.

So, in a way, I wonder, am I making any progress at all as I get older? As I write this, I have NO IDEA.

Somewhere in a quaint town

She walks under a clear monsoon sky after the dark clouds have just subsided. It’s hot and sticky. She is wearing a black pencil skirt and a green t-shirt. In her mind, she visualizes that she looks beautiful. She wonders if the people around her are looking at her as she passes them by. Women her age in pencil skirts are not quite common in the suburbs. In her heart, she feels a flutter of excitement, the kind of excitement women can only feel when they are looking their best. Yet, in another part of her heart, she’s scared of unwarranted male attention. So she keeps her head up and looks straight, taking special care not to pay attention to the people she passes by: the idle elderly man chewing on something in the mini garden in front of his house, a middle-aged man in blue checkered lungi on his scooter looking in her direction.

She is out to do her chores, to send a package at the small bookshop that doubles up as a courier place & afterwards, to frame a photo. It’s just before dusk. The tiny colourful shops in the marketplace are just opening up. Some men are throwing splashes of water in front of the shops to settle the dust, a ritual they have done since the first day they opened their shops. Some men sit in chairs, talking to the shopkeepers across the road. She catches slices of their conversations, usual banters about the latest political gossip.

At the bookstore, the familiar man greets her. He must be sixty or older, but too thin for a man his age, so she can’t be sure how old he really is. He smiles at her.

“How are you?” she says.

“It’s going,” he says.

She waits as the man ties a package, an old cloth bag, with thin light brown threads.

“This is going to Vizag,” he says as she continues the last line of the thread.

“What is it?”

“It’s a blazer. The boy has some function there, asked his parents to send this.”

She looks at the package closely now. She feels it’s a tad small to hold a man’s suit – maybe the parents have squeezed it in as hard as they could. She wonders if the faceless, nameless boy would be annoyed when he receives the package. Would he calls his parents and say, “Couldn’t you send it in a bigger box? And why didn’t you send the original bag? It’s all creased up now!”

“Do you send stuff internationally?” she asks the man, thinking about faraway places where she will never send things. Earlier, if things turned out differently than it did, maybe she would. Now, no more.

“No. Many years back I did. Now, you need all modern tools – you need computers, you need to be skilled enough to operate it and do the work. If I had a girl like you working here, someone who knows computers, maybe I could have continued it.”

The man looks almost lost in his thoughts. “I’m struggling with even national orders now. So many orders that I can’t take.” He shakes his head and goes towards the back of the shop to keep the package aside.

“Here’s mine. Mumbai. Rakhi for my brother.”

“Sure,” he comes back.

In the mean time, another customer has come to buy pen. “Do you have a pack with pens of two different inks?”

“We don’t get those kinds of packs very much anymore… but here’s one.”

“How much?”

“Twenty five rupees.”

The man brings a wrapping paper.

“No, don’t wrap it. Just give the wrapping paper to me. Need to get a chocolate as well,” says the customer. He hands the money and takes the pen set & the wrapping paper. He folds the wrapping paper in places. She almost says to him, “Why are you folding the wrapping paper? It will have creases!” But she doesn’t. She simply watches him make neat rectangles, feeling uncomfortable with the perfect white creases that will show up when the paper is unwrapped.

Twenty minutes and three more customers later, she is finally done with her own courier. One had come to get an exercise copy for a schoolkid, another to wrap a chocolate box and the third one to refill ink.

“Come tomorrow for the tracking number,” the man says.

“No problem, I’ll call you if I can’t come and get the tracking id.”

“Take care now,” the man says.

By now, it’s dark. The shops from a distance look like a bundle of colours & lights. She walks towards the small shop with hundreds of framed photos on the walls. In her hand, she has the photo she is going to get framed. The only memory, the only luxury that she would allow of him, as a bookmark to the chapter of life she wishes had never ended.

Taking stock of the year

We’re in June of 2022! I remember reading this a long time back: why does time seem to move faster as we grow older? The answer to that was that one year is a high percentage of our life when we are younger. For example, when you are five, 1 year is almost 20% of your life. But as you get older, that percentage shrinks and time feels like it is moving faster. The answer had made sense to me then.

Now, with some more experience, I realise time moves faster when we are busy. If we are by ourselves, alone in solitude, with no one to share our thoughts with but ourselves, we spend a lot of time living in our heads. And time moves incredibly slow then. If you are retired and without a partner, perhaps you will realize this. The reality is when we have lived our lives and have nothing more to look forward to, time kind of slows down too. As if to give us more space to reflect on a life lived well.

This year, so far, I have mostly been living this idyllic life in my hometown. We had a couple of family trips to visit some relatives. My uncle had passed away earlier in May, so we went there. A couple of weeks after that we had a memorial to commemorate the first death anniversary of my dad. A bunch of our extended family came down to our place, some of them almost a decade later. It was good!

I think if I had to summarise, so far this year has been about family. About going back to the roots. There is a family trip planned in July; I am very much looking forward to it. There’s a cousin’s wedding on the cards. Another one at a discussion stage as well. Meaning, that we get to see more and more of the family as we move on. It’s great!

This year, for me personally, has also been about growing more as a woman and getting to know myself more. There have been certain aspects of life from which I have been shying away including beauty and skincare, clothing, investing in self-care and feminine relationships. I have always been a more work-oriented person. But this year, I am trying to consciously focus on relationships outside of work, prioritizing living a whole life than just in parts. It’s good so far.

There’s still a part of me that wants to stay a child though. A part which is sometimes frustrated with how stressful and mundane adult life could be. But there’s also another part which is growing more comfortable balancing different things, having too many rings in the air.

There has never been a better time to be alive!

Caring a little less about work

Today is a lovely day! I woke up to thunderstorms and rains at 6 and then went to sleep again and woke up at 9 AM. I could afford to do that because it’s a holiday today. Eid Mubarak to my Muslim friends!

It’s May and the temperature is comfy 27 degrees Celsius. I am sitting on the bed next to the window, typing this away. Outside, there’s the pitter-patter of rain on rooftops and treetops. There is a white oleander downstairs brightening up to the rains with its lovely white flowers. Farther away, there are the big jackfruit trees with their dark green leaves and the wood apples with their recent crop of lime-green baby leaves. I love looking out the window and being greeted by this water-washed green. It is beautiful! More importantly, the light that’s filtering in through the window has a translucent quality, the quality of glass or clear water. That and the temperature makes my day!

You won’t believe the thing I’m researching on the internet today.

How to care less about work?

I don’t think this is a very relatable problem. I suppose most of us have very clearly defined boundaries when it comes to paid work. If one is paid for it and based on how much they are paid, they work. If they are not, they couldn’t care less. Many of us have this inherent compass which helps us judge how much work is worth our time and pay and accordingly say no to extra work.

Not me. I should say I am one of those Type A personalities who are too detail-oriented and want everything done right. I strongly feel it’s based in how I was raised. I was taught to do exceptionally well a school. I was promised that the world has amazing things in store for high achievers.

Then I grew up and I realized the world does not always work like that. There’s an upper limit to how much money/success you can earn at whatever stage in life. And I’ve come to realize over time that spending hours extra at work for mere thousands in an annual bonus isn’t the success perhaps my elders had envisioned for me.

But I can’t stop. I can’t stop my ambition to be good enough for my internal standards (which are perhaps always higher than what my bosses have for me). I have always been asking for more work because I wanted to know more. I wanted to be in a position where my voice has value, and I can get things done in the “right” way. I wanted to be someone to reckon with, someone people look up to and respect.

I do realize now what I missed out on in all of these. I forgot how to care about myself. I never learnt how to care beyond work and care for the people in my life. To really understand what is important in life and what isn’t.

And so, on this beautiful day, what I am searching for on Google is how to care a little less about work. It’s not with the intention to cheat at work and work for 3 hours of work when I get paid for 8 but more about saying no to the less important things. I think that can only start if we give enough importance to our personal lives. It comes by putting our whole self first, even before work. You are your investment. If you don’t look after yourself, no one else will. And you’re not just who you are at work. You are someone outside of work too – who is that person? Who does that person support in their life? Is that person present enough for the people in her life?

Have you guys ever faced this in your life? How do you slow down?

It rained and I made some fruit juice…

I just finished making some fruit juice for myself the old-style way. The fruit was a wood apple, a typical summer fruit in West Bengal, India. I have always loved the sweet taste of it. My mother made the best juices out of it when we were younger and were thirsting for some drink on a hot summer day. She makes them even now – I love ’em.

Today my mother and brother are both out, today being a Saturday and all, at our family medical store. It was my dad’s shop back in the day, but my mother regularly helped out. Now she’s become the proprietor and my brother goes and helps out once in a while. Voids fill up. It’s beautiful.

So I broke the wood apple by hitting it against the floor – it broke into two nice pieces with a clean crack. I scooped out the orange stuff with a spoon in a big bowl. Then, I kneaded the orange thingy with my bare fingers to smoothen it out. Then I poured some water and made it into a drink. Of course, I had to filter out the seeds and the fibrous parts with some effort. Then added some sugar, and voila! I had a lovely drink ready for myself. It felt nice, to make my hands useful.

I was reading this book today “Steal Like An Artist” by Austin Kleon. In that book, the author talks about working with your hands. About how ideas stem not just from sitting in a static position but from moving along, being in the motions. I agree. I walk a lot. I walk while I talk on the phone. I generally go for a walk. Walking is the only exercise that I ever do. It’s the only exercise I can get myself to do regularly. And I do think when we are in motion, ideas come our way.

By the way, it rained today. I thought the entire April would go without any rains whatsoever, but today was the last day of April 2022 and there were rains! It was good.

In the last post, I spoke a little bit about marriage. I’m thinking I’ll likely talk a lot more about it in the coming days in this space. This space has generally been the space for me to talk about anything and everything that is on my mind. I also want to talk about it because talking about it in a public forum makes me uncomfortable and I want to move past it.

As I have been looking at the Indian arranged marriage scene for the last two years or so, I have gone through many stages. I think I have to be truthful and say that for the most part, I hadn’t comprehended what an important life decision this was. While I think I have always known this in my core, that I could be a great person if I were married to the right person, part of the right family, but when it came to the thick of getting married, I wasn’t so sure what to look for. Now, don’t get me wrong – I like myself single quite much and I’m not saying I need a partner to make me particularly great. But I firmly believe that with the right person by your side, you become a better version of yourself.

I often tend to have self-doubt. This is why I need someone who can reassure me that I am on the right track from time to time. I need them to be supportive of my dreams. And I want dreams that are not just my own, but theirs too. I want a good story, a good life and a good family. And I want to work at it, with all its hardships and ups and downs. But in the end, I want to be able to sit down and feel proud of the life that we made together.

I haven’t come very close to finding a person like this yet. The pandemic especially made it hard. You couldn’t bring your whole self to this. But now, I want to. I want to step forward and own the life that I want to build, together with the person who can be the right person for me. I don’t know how it will come to be as of today, but I feel like something will work out. It always does.

What’s your idea of the right life partner?

Life update

It’s the 18th of April. I am sitting on my bed, my little green laptop table in front of me as I type out this blog post. It’s extremely hot these days, here in my part of the world. I think the maximum temperature today was 41 degree Celsius. And we have had no rain for the entire month of April so far, which is kind of unexpected given the amount of rain we saw during winter this year.

It’s been a while since I have written something here. In fact, the whole thing about writing something was just a spur of the moment decision – based on a conversation I just had with one of my close acquaintances.

I suppose some life updates are in order?

I recently got a promotion at work, which was pretty great considering the fact that I have been working towards this for some time now. Also, this is the first real promotion that I actually worked towards, so I was very happy when it actually happened last Thursday. Somehow this particular promotion felt really important for me: it’s like proving to myself that I am capable of taking up more responsibilities in an organization as big as mine.

I join the new role fully in July. I’m looking at these 2.5 months as the best that I can make in my old role, but also use this time to finish some long-pending work at home. When I am into work, I give so much of myself in it that sometimes I just cannot meet a lot of family commitments. I’m hoping to use this time to make up for some of it.

Next month, it’ll be a year of my father’s death. It feels surreal that we haven’t seen him for an entire year. Yet, in our hearts he’s present as ever. To this day, all of us can remember him by his words and mannerisms in each and every situation.

On the personal front, we’ve been looking at prospects for my marriage for a while now. I have not been in any relationship, so there wasn’t someone to get married to right away as I was getting ready mentally and emotionally for this. And as with everything which we are trying to do right in our lives, these things take time. I have spoken to a few guys in the past 2 years or so, but there has not been any significant progress. In these two years, I have gone through multiple phases: frustration at not meeting someone, helpless at the prospect of not having settled down while lots of people around me have, a sense of peace at knowing that my life isn’t necessarily worse off for me being single to finally, thinking of a life that I spend all by myself, but not necessarily feeling sad about it, because there isn’t really missing from my present life in the first place. I realize that I am quite happy at where I am in my life right now, and I am looking at marriage to only make things better from here on.

As of today, I am fully on-board with the idea of marriage, but with the right person and at the right time. I know I am fully ready, and hopefully that might mean that things would work out soon.

This is it for now, but I will be back again with more things to talk about in the coming days. How have you all been during this time? Do let me know in the comments.

Be my Lake

When we interact with each other as individuals, we share our energies. We share our thoughts. These thoughts generate tiny ripples in other people, so much so that they may be moved to act in a way they otherwise would not.

In life, most of us are rivers. We are in a constant state of flow. There are streams of dirt and dust that we accumulate throughout our journey, but our flow keeps us going and keeps us fresh.

There are probably very few people we meet in life who are lakes. Self-contained bodies of water that are pure and unperturbed by the dirt and dust of quotidian life. These people are precious because when you sit with them for a few minutes, in peace, you can see your true self reflected. They, by virtue of doing nothing and just being themselves, reflect a version of you that you may not be consciously aware of.

Not all of us will be lucky to meet such people in our lives. Most of us have to be at peace with the fact that we will be rivers and we will meet more rivers like us. Our waters will mix, swirl, generate tiny waves and in that process, dirt and dust would float, sediment, sink and even dissolve.

But sometimes, in rare moments of introspection, we may be lucky to find ourselves at peace. Maybe because the wind is not fierce, maybe because the beauty of the moon has no pull over us. It takes a lot of time, and effort, to reach here. And in this instant, we hold the power to be lakes ourselves and mirrors to all who come to our banks, in our paths of interaction.

But one must be careful, because sometimes, the power of our interactions may be so strong that we lose the calm of our waters. It may be so strong that small ripples break out on our surfaces and we lose who we are.

Love is powerful. And sometimes when we love someone we make them rivers too, even those who were lakes once. But in the end, when all is said and done, may it be that our lovers return to being the lakes they were when we met. Because that is who we fell in love with, and in the process, loved ourselves a little more too.