Author: SK

Aadisht writes in:

BTW I forwarded your cricket and hedging post to R who is putting jobhunt these days. Got this mail:

Thanks folks.. I thought I must mention that when I had my interview with N, it went something like this:

Me: I like markets a lot
N: Do you find anything bad about markets?
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The discussion then turned to betting markets which I defended on standard libertarian grounds. He then asked me to explain the crucial difference between betting markets and the stock market. I told him that the difference was that in betting markets, incentives were not aligned, i.e. unlike stock markets, in cricket players did not have an incentive to perform better in order to increase the price on their team. He looked happy with the answer (because he was clearly anti-legalization of betting markets. )

Then he asked – do I have a good knowledge of hedging? I said yes. So Sony lost a lot of money because India was out of the cup. What could it do to mitigate the risk? I had my answer ready of course… It should have betted against India..
Thanks Aadisht!

I didn’t know that my blog is this useful! Hope R gets that job. I should then be able to bully him for a treat.??

So, following Kumaranna’s promise in the ad earlier this month, Easy Auto has now got a website. It’s still under construction but it does look like Easy Auto will happen soon.

I promise a post on how I think this should be implemented by the end of this weekend.

PS: “Auto Raja group” sounds rocking!

PS2: Credits to Ashwin for the link

Check out this ad.

It looks like they are taking some short term measures after all to improve Bangalore traffic. They say that these measures can be implemented in six months. And it IS practically possible to implement all of them in that time frame. Considering that six months will mark the end of Kumaraswamy’s term as CM, it would be a fitting finale if he does manage to pull off whatever he has promised here.

Hoping for the best.

PS: The text in the ad may not be clearly visible in the image. You can read the whole thing here

Yesterday I was telling that it takes a lot of balls to say “my part is clean. the mistake must be in your part”. He countered saying the opposite. That it takes a lot of balls to admit a mistake!

My argument is that if I know it’s my mistake, it is easier for me to say since I’m 100% sure that the mistake is in my part, and I also have control over it to correct it!

By saying that the mistake is not in my portion, I’m saying it with a certain confidence bound, and I can’t give a 100% guarantee that I’m clean. Also, in a way, I’m accusing you of making a mistake! And there’s the danger of falling flat on my face if it turns out that the mistake was indeed in my part!

Today, the Dhakkan Herald has written an editorial about IIM Placements.

The amount of effort these newspapers take in dissecting IIM placements is hilarious, maybe even ridiculous! Journalists need to get paid better – else we’ll only find people who will write about crap like this!

Right now, at times, life seems quite meaningless. I have frequent bouts of depression, and I believe that having a woomaan should help. However, I believe that the set of problems because of which I’m depressed is temporary, and in due course of time things should become better and I should be fine.

Now, if you remember, basic finance says that terms should balance – the tenure of a liabilities and assets should match. To explain it in English, if I need to fund a long term (say 10 year) investment, I should ideally take a loan for ten years. If the need for money is immediate but short-term (say a couple of months), I should raise short-term capital.

You can clearly see that my problem is short-term, rather, I think that my problem is short-term. Hence, a long-term liability (such as a girlfriend) is not the ideal way to fund it. I’m better off taking on something short-term. In other words, I need a petromax!

So, if you are a girl approximately my age (24) and live in Bangalore, and are looking/willing to petromax, get in touch with me with detailed CV. If you are lucky enough, and not enough people apply, I take you out quickly enough and interview you. If, however, I’m hotter than I think, and lots of people apply, I might be forced to have a Group Discussion.

Update: For those of you that don’t know what petromax is, it was introduced by the Anant Nag starrer Golmaal Radhakrishna (circa 1990; sorry, it’s not there on IMDB). I introduced the concept to the readers of this blog in this seminal post, about a year and a half back.

A petromax is a lamp which uses Kerosene. During the infamous power-cuts in Bangalore in 1980’s and 90’s, most homes had a petromax which used to be turned on during power cuts.

Figuratively, petromax is the light you use for a short term, typically when the light of your life is away. However, in cases such as mine, there need not necessarily be a long-term light-of-life. To summarize, petromax is a short-term romantic relationship.

Juniors at IIMB got placed last week, many of them with fairly fat salaries. This leads me to ask myself what I am worth, and whether I am being paid as much as I deserve.

Now, the only way to actually figure out how much I am actually worth is by putting myself up in the market. By putting myself for “transfer”, and interview with a few firms, and negotiate and then find out how much they are willing to pay me!

The selection of firms to interview with presents a dilemma – if they are firms I actually would want to work for sometime, I can’t bump them after they’ve made the offer. If I interview with firms which I’m never going to want to join, I don’t think the valuation is accurate!

In other words, I can’t measure my “worth” without disturbing the current situation. Doesn’t that remind you of Quantum Mechanics?

Another post on the implications of Quantum Mechanics

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from H. My previous employer was likely to make him an offer and he wanted my opinion. I started off by telling him “two months into that firm, I decided to quit”. And then went on to tell him why I quit, and the good and bad things about that job.

Finally it was time for him to make a decision. Despite my pleas of “i’ve told you what i’ve to tell you; it’s up to you to decide now”, H wanted my advice. After a couple of minutes of thought we decided that it’s best he “plays it safe” and “accepts the offer”. After all it would be “better than most day one jobs” (yesterday was day zero at IIMB).

Now, I had had a really tough time in that job. It was almost traumatic. Ended up screwing both physical and mental health 😛 And when i quit, I’d taken a vow to “do something horrible to the firm” and “actively negatively campaign against them so that no one joins them next year”!

And all that goes for a toss. The slotting system is supreme. It defines a hierarchy. A commonly accepted hierarchy. And if not anything else, it is “safe” to follow the slotting system. I’m in awe of it!

Another factor was something like “i hated that place, but I shouldn’t deny this guy his chance. Let him go find out for himself”. I think this was the overriding factor as to why I finally told H to take the offer.

I’m also wondeirng how I would’ve reacted had he approached me immediately after i’d quit that job. Maybe i would’ve been angrier then, adn much more against the firm. Maybe I would’ve advised him then to not take it at any cost. Hmmmm…