Saurabh Garg on The New New Thing

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This week the headline has to be stock markets. With no bottoms, markets are falling left right and center. And this is not just one economy that is reeling under pressure. From America to Japan to Europe to Asia to India, sell-offs are everywhere. And since I also invest at times, I am obviously interested in markets and their state. My portfolio is down by 65%. And yet I am loving this. So many stocks are presenting awesome buying opportunities that I am almost tempted to raise cash and invest. Hope I resist the temptation !

Interesting tidbits

• Gujarat gets Nano. ET reports. Its probably the single biggest tragedy to have stuck West Bengal in recent history. Nano is not yet another vehicle but its an epitome of
• Beginning of an End? Are we entering one of those dreaded bear markets that the world saw in 1929? Could that mean I am lucky enough to actually witness one such bear phase this early in my life? Only time shall tell.
• The Snowball. I got a copy form Granth Books and I am enjoying the read. Yet another perspective on the Mr. Buffett’s life. Can someone introduce me to Mr. Buffett? I want to meet him before he grows too old or I get bored of my life.
• Sequoia’s Presentation on startups and global meltdown. TechCrunch reports that this presentation was made to Sequoia CEOs. GigaOM also has a piece on this presentation. I dont know if Sequoia made this presentation or not but it raises few interesting points like importance of being cash-flow positive, manage costs etc. But as with any advice, these things are common-sensical and are easier said than done. What are Indian startups doing about things?

Personal

• Design. I have started reading about design seriously now. Design is something that has excited me from the time I can recall. Although I dont really have a formal training in design, I assume that I have good aesthetic sense. My motivation would be to create industrial design that actually helps users. Lets see how it goes.
• Death of my iPod. One of my most celebrated material acquisitions - the iPod is dead. Thanks to my Nokia e51 and tons of memory on it, I no longer use my iPod. Wondering what to do with it. May be giveaway on Delhi FreeCycle?
• Punjabi Music. The next passion that I am developing is Punjabi Music. I always thought Punjabi was about Dhol, Bhangra and loudness. I could never fathom the awesome meaning that the lyrics had hidden and that beats camouflaged.

Anyways, next week, sadly there are no mid-week holidays and I might have to travel to Bangalore for a product launch. Anyone wants to meet .. ?

2nd October came and went. It was Mahatma Gandhi’s Birth Anniversary. I have read a lot about Mahatma Gandhi and with my limited comprehension, I can say that Gandhi is one of those few people who had real powers. Powers to communicate, connect with the masses, use un-conventional thinking to get more ideas, lead by example, so on and so forth. If I can develop about one-tenth of his people skills, I can bring about a larger revolution that he got. Anyways, getting back to interesting developments over the past week,

Business

• Jagdish Khattar (the man who ran Maruti for about 15 years and recently retired as Managing Director) is back and has launched his new venture. Carnation Auto India will be a chain of multi-brand automobile sales and service outlets. (link to news release). Awesome idea. This is a one of those industries where the unorganized sector rules the roost and as we have seen in the past, anyone who can “organize” or “brandize” even a small share of market, stands to gain a lot (Organized Retail, Jumbo King Vada Pavs etc.). In terms of competition, the ones I can think of off the hand are Mahindra’s First Choice and another one by Shah and Sanghi Motors. Need to read more about this. And probably write more on this brandizing unorganized sectors. Truly a new new thing that I will look forward to.
• Warren Buffet invests $3bn in GE. This is second investment in a week. Last week he put money behind Morgan Stanley Goldman Sachs (EDIT: I have no clue how I could have got this wrong. Thanks Shefaly.) However this time I disagree with him. I have worked with GE and my limited experience, I can say for sure that the management is over-hyped and is not up to the mark. They simply dont know how to allow employees to take risks. And the mangers have no clue how to run the show.

Interesting Tidbits

• On their 10th anniversary, Google created this page where you can search the index of Google as it was in 2001. Google Search in 2001. The world has changed like anything in last 7 years. Google for things as simple as India to as complex queries as “prime minister of India” and you will be surprised.
• Discovered Jose Gonzalez. His Heartbeat was used by Sony for their Bravia (Balls) commercial. Love the way he strums his guitar. He makes me want to learn playing guitar all over again. May be I will pick it up soon.

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• Finally wrote the Credits page for this blog. It was long overdue. Please check it out.
• Have started using visual thinking and visualizations in my blog post. Although it is more time consuming for me to actually create these visualizations (given my limited skills on an image editor) but I think the image gets the message across faster and better. Thanks to David Armano for inspiration.
• The govt. of India has finally banned public smoking. This I think is a welcome move. I dont know if smoking is any good/bad, it certainly irritates me and I would rather live in a smoke-free India. ITC can crib as much as it can but the move definitely is a positive one.

Even though this has been a short week but so many interesting things have happened. The world moves ahead. One baby step at a time. P.S.: This post is being published on Saturday. I was traveling on Friday.

This is one of the most famous piece of work from Warren Buffet. Prof. Bakshi talked about this back in 2005. Finally found it on one of the old harddrives and uploading it.

Here is a link to Superinvestors of Grahamsville and Doddsville.