Tag: Anurag Kashyap

Wk 23-25 – Weekly Notes

Weekly update from weeks 22 and 23. This has Saurabh Garg’s notes, thoughts, reflections and everything else.

Hi!

I am back after a break of a week. I couldnt write. I was on the road. No, I am not beating myself over it (unlike past times). But I am acknowledging that I am not being consistent. I will try harder.

Now with that motivational self, pep-talk, lets get back to business.

The update for the last two weeks.

From the top of my head, a large part of update would be about Bangalore trip, health, personal brand and village. Lets see what else do I write.

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the past two weeks

A/ Anurag Sir
I want to start from here. You know, how heroes fall? That! I love the guy. I love his films. I love his storytelling. A large part of my life has been dictated trying to be what he and Vikram Sir have been.

But, the guy’s falling. Hard. I can say a lot but I dont want to. I just want to catalog that I am sad about him falling 🙁

PS: In case I forget in the future, note to self, read about what he said about Netflix launching in India with things apart from Sacred Games.

Staying on films, saw Khosla Ka Ghosla, at an event organised by Balram. Each time I see the film, I am amazed that the film captures Delhi nuances so well that I am inspired to do similar things!

And staying further on films, I really want to be in the films business. I know AI and all is gonna disrupt how this business works (we are already making short films using all the AI tools) but there’s something about visual storytelling that still moves people. I need to be a player in this space. Come on, universe…

B/ Bangalore
Many notes from this one. Lemme write in bullets.

  1. Played poker. Enjoyed it. Must play more. Met some really incredible people on the poker table. Must do more to be around Poker
  2. Realised that my personal brand needs a lot of work. I orgniased a meetup and I was unable to meet a lot of good folks. I HAVE to work on this
  3. Spent time with Sonam and each time I meet her, I want to be able to afford person like her to work with me (either at C4E or at Meru)
  4. Met a couple of really interesting folks (you know, the VC, startup kinds). I realised I enjoy meeting these people. I had this VERY strong urge to move to Bangalore, just for these connections. But I realised that I am chasing vanity and I would do well staying away, keeping my head down and building.
  5. Saw collective-thinking in action at a couple of places. A new fancy coffee shop has opening in Bangalore. I try to not go to these fancy places. And while I was not keen on going, I was taken there. By folks who apparantly “boycott” these places. Plus everyone famous at Bangalore seems to be there as well. It’s like how socialites want to flock the fancy places? No, I will not rant about it. Merely saying.

Ok this is it?
I thought I would have a lot to say about this trip to Bangalore. I clearly do not.

C/ Counter Strike
Recorded a video where I talked about how I am inspired by Counter Strike and how each thing their echos how I have structed C4E. In case you want to see, it’s here.

D/ Life Manual for the your 30s
On someone’s request, I wrote this manual where I talked about what . You may read this here.

The Life Manual for your 30s

On this note, please give me prompts that you want me to write on. I work the best when triggered!

E/ Build a new format to track what I am working on.
Each few days I have something new that I track. This time I have copied this from what I saw on screens of my new team at Meru. I’ve been at it for a few days now. Let’s see how long this lasts.

F/ FOXO
Got myself a FOXO subscription. This is the most expensive thing EVER that I’ve got for myself. Prior to this, the most expenisve thing was sgElectra.

So far the only tangible thing I know is that I can hold a plank for a minute and I am a diabetic. Oh, thrown in a gym, I can do 10 pushups. Plus my balance seems to be good and calcium in my bones seem to be ok as well. So, apart from my diabetes, most things are ok. I need to figure why and how do I have bad skin and less stamina. I need to work on my lower back and improve my posture. Let’s see what more I discover.

The other related thing is that I read this thread about Ray Kurzweil and one of the thing he says is that we will probably live forever. He says that “death will be optional” and there are three things he talks about – a, science seems to have learnt the secret of aging, companies like Neuralink seem to have found success in Brain Computer Interfaces and then the digital twins are already around (thanks to FOXO).

So, if we can live for the next few decades, we can be immortal. This is the frontier that no one knows (except Ashwatthama or may be Trivedi :D). Let’s see.

PS: I am an investor in FOXO. And C4E does some work for FOXO.

G/ Getting the AI FOMO
On a day to day basis, I have this HUGE AI FOMO. I have written about this in the past. And its all over my twitter. I think the only way to go about this is by actually doing this. I think the only way to do this is to carve time (now that I have agreed that I wont find anyone to work with me and support me). And I need to probably cut down on a lot of other things.

H/ Broke “H” on my laptop’s keyboard.
I tried to fix C’s laptop’s keyboard. I had fun. I was bored. On a whim, pried open the H on my keyboard and now I can’t fix it!

Grrr…

I/ Recorded an episode of The Optimist’s Manifesto Podcast with Subendhu (of FOXO).
He’s had a stellar life and has such a wide range of experiences that I want to be him! Spoke to him for two hours. I need to build a life where I have similar richness of stories!

J/ Jayant Mundhra
One of the conversations in the last two weeks was with Jayant. He’s an incredible writer and over the last 2 years, has built a community of about 100K folks that read general purpose advice from him. While I dont about each person I meet, Jayant is special. He’s doing EXACTLY what I want to. And he’s doing a GREAT job at it. And he’s consistent with it. If I could be a shade consistent of him, I would be elsewhere in life!

He also told me about Zero1 network, again something I want to be able to build. But unlike the Kamaths I dont have a lot of FCF. Maybe I will build a corpus as I go along? Let’s see.

K/ KP got hitched!
This means Pooja ka bachcha is growing up.
Poo saas ban gayi ;P

L/ High-Performance Org
One of the latest lessons from Hareesh Sir has been that I need to be a little more strict with my people. The idea is to build a high-performance organization that delivers on the promise to the stakeholders.

This is similar to the riff about idea people and people people from the last update. In fact this is something that I lack in my life.

I am way too kind when I work with people and I need to learn balance. I dont want to create weak people. May be that’s what I had done with other businesses? That in my unwavering support, did I create weak orgs there?

Lot to think!

M/ Mountain Goat
Thanks to J, discovered a new retaurant in Lokhandwala. Mountain Goat. They serve Wai Wai Sadeko. I think I will go there a lot (went there on May 28th and havent gone back, lol) if my sugar doesnt spike.

So this is it from the last 2 weeks. Lemme know what is interesting and what is not. And what would you like to see more.

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from week 22 and 23. A lot to be honest.

The one that I would like to plaster on my blog is…

🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by?

Book 2
I didnt get time to even think about thinking. The person I was working with seems to have a lot on her plate and thus I am unable to move. No, I am not leaning onto her and blaming her for my inaction but I didnt move on this at all.

PS: Dropped 2025 Plan a few weeks ago.

☑️ What did I get done last two weeks?

This is a one-line report on things I got done on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.

At this point, the following things are important to me (I know too many but…) and these are IN ORDER.

  1. Health
  2. Meru
  3. C4E
  4. Brand SG
  5. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  6. Book2
  7. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

Health. Got FOXO membership. Now I have a CGM (for a few days) that tells me how I recat to food and all. I am more aware. No action. No done. So a 0.

Meru. Was an ok week. Moved the needle. But still far from where I’d like to be. Thus, a 0.

C4E. No action. 0.

Brand SG. No action. The trip to Bangalore told me that I remain an insignificant person in the large scheme of things. I need to get more active. I want to give a -1 but one a day to day basis, in my world, I get by ok. So, a 0.

People. No action on this. I’d say 0.

Book 2. Lol! -1

Shauk. No large things. Bangalore trip, FOXO, Poker. So, a 0.

So the overall score is -1 for this week.

Trends from the previous weeks: 3, 0, -4, 0, -4, -5, -5, -3, -2, -1
The max I can get is 7 in a week. Let’s see when I get to it.

📊 The tracker from the last week

This is the tracker for the last 2 weeks.

 

I really need to pull my socks on this. I cant be missing.

PS: I have noticed that each time I am on the road, I miss updating this. And once I am back to ground, I take a few days to get back to speed. And that causes the chaos. May be I need to find a way to do this better.

📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

Some links that I want to share…

  1. Rahul on Obvious – here
  2. Mary Meeker’s report on AI – here. Do not miss this.
  3. Derek O Brian was in a flight that got damaged in the hail. In this video, he talks about his near death experience.
  4. On “choice”, from David Ogilvy. Here. Thanks to Pradx for sharing this.
  5. From the top person at Snapchat – how to build companies – here.
  6. V told me about Navagunjara (no I did not know about this even though I claim to be a fan of Mahabharata)
  7. This is a great list of superpowerful maxims about life. From founders. The ones I love are as follows…
    • 1. Money comes naturally as a result of service.
    • 4. Be a professional opportunist.
    • 7. You don’t need to be a genius; you just need to collect more information.
    • 12. Mute the world, build your own.
    • 17. Make yourself easy to interface with.
    • 18. Relationships run the world.
    • 20. Quality of your life is the direct result of the quality of your decisions.
    • 23. Problems are opportunities in work clothes.
    • 31. Actions express priorities.
    • 32. The public praises people for what they practice in private.
    • 36. Business is problems; the best companies are problem-solving machines.
    • 40. Always more audacious.
    • 44. Making mistakes is the privilege of the active.
    • 46. Incentives rule everything around you.
    • 50. Intensity is the price of excellence.
    • 51. You can’t save souls in an empty church.
    • 61. Imitation precedes creation.
    • 63. Optimism is a moral duty.
    • 69. Repeat, repeat, repeat; volume and consistency win.
    • 72. The hard way is the right way.
    • 73. Be intolerant of slowness.
    • 74. Hire a professional critic.
    • 79. “Action solves everything.”
    • 88. Avoid boring people.
    • 90. All good things in life come from compounding.
    • 93. Have pride in creation, not consumption

PS: Are these useful? Do these help in any way? I read a LOT more than what I share here but these are what I think people I know must read. Skewed towards startups, hard work, deliberate living etc etc.

🧠 Reminders from last week

This section captures things that I want to not forget. I will copy paste these week on week and track updates. I will also add these to SG’s Office.

Here are things from the past few weeks that I want to remember. And no, this may not be a comprehensive list. In categories.

  1. Long term
    • Professional pool / snooker / poker. I played poker in bangalore and it was fun. I dint win a lot but I was able to read some players. So that’s cool. Other thing (pool) saw no action.
  2. Health
    • Kitchen setup (incomplete)
    • Gym membership (incomplete)
  3. C4E things (I will stop tracking these things and have C do these)
    • C4E Base
    • Design
    • Borderless agency
    • Adding films
  4. Shauk / Personal
    • Use of money to buy time – doing this already.
    • Better dressed – lol
    • Find love – lol!
    • Demand more from life
    • Speak better!

In case you know me, lemme know if I have missed something.

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Grind.
That’s the world I would use for the last two weeks.

Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… Busy for Nothing, Regular, Getting back to action, Slack, Busyness, Action, Survive, Looking Up, Survival, Taste, Community, Respect, Money, People.

—
Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. The previous editions are here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (missed)

PPS: Please do point typos. Grammarly is not working well and I don’t have energy to cut paste edit this in some other spell check thing.

PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.

Wk 02-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes from Week 2 of 2025. I talk about things I did, things I learnt and things I am thinking about.

9 AM, 12 Jan.
Blue Tokai Oshiwara (yeah, not Starbucks :))

So, week 2 is over.

It took its time to come and pass by. Like most other weeks (and months and years and all that), this was a blur as well. I don’t know when one day ended and the other began. I have the same routine – wake up, take 3 steps to my table, put on my morning track list, reply to emails, get ready, get to Starbucks, make calls, eat, sleep, repeat. And in between, find distraction on Instagram (which has become a serious addiction and I need to fix it) and daydream.

I have an idea. Each time I open Instagram, I will do 3 pushups.
Let’s see. Will keep a track.

So, in this entire madness, the only good part is that I don’t have to worry much about money (no I am not financially free but I have an ongoing business that on most days does ok; these days however it’s not doing that well as I would want it to).

The other good part is that I am mostly ok in the head, apart from the days when I have to travel. I think I am blessed.

Ok, this is becoming a blog by itself. Lemme get to the notes, reports, reflections and all that from the week gone by.

Lemme start with what I thought I would do this week. And my report on the same.

I said I would work on the startup and work on my 2025 plan.

I am glad to report that I made progress on the first one.

And nothing on the second one. However, once I publish this, I plan to spend the rest of the day planning for 2025.

So we are ok on this count.

The tracker from the week that went by.

I thought (and decided) that I would live in public and track some metrics thru the year. Here’s a screenshot from the week that went by.

While this tracking is helpful, here are my takeaways.

  • I don’t have discipline when it comes to food. I need to work harder on it.
  • I haven’t been able to slot workouts or exercise into my routine. From how things are, I think I can try for an evening session. My mornings are way too important for me to do anything. So lets see if I can make an action on that.
  • I can’t really make any correlation between what I eat, how much I walk and my emotions. The last two have been bad. I don’t know why. And because they’ve been bad, I can see that I’ve been eating more than I typically do.

On the tracker, VG has made a public motion of no-confidence. I no longer want to argue or fight. Each time I have wagered against him, I’ve lost. But I will try my best to keep this going. If I’ve done it for 10 days, there’s no reason why I can’t do this for 364 more.

Time shall tell.

Oh, here’s an ask.
If you see me missing these updates, please remind me and force me to update this. I need to gun for consistency in each thing I do.

May be Consistency would be the word of the year for me?

Things at the top of my head

1/ I said no to an opportunity to travel to Noida.
If I had gone, I would’ve probably built some business connections. But I want C to take on the lead. And I want to not travel and focus on health.

2/ Should I offer this?

3/ I am deleting food delivery apps from my phone.
Let me see if I can live without it. The only thing I will miss is the instant delivery of groceries. But lemme try and be more planned about it. I anyway don’t care about being wasteful. I’ll report next week.

4/ Twitter threads
In my pursuit to grow my distribution, I am working with someone to help me write Twitter threads. The first one they’ve sent has come out nice. Let’s see how that grows.

Some photos from the week gone by

I am starting this new thing where I hope I get to share some of my “masterpieces”. Here are some…

You may see this link in case you are unable to spot it.

What didn’t go well?

1/ Lost a classmate
Last night I got to know that one of the 150 odd people I went to MDI has passed away. Unlike a lot of others, I am immune to it. I know that as I grow older, I need to grow up. But I am unable to make sense of loss. These are the times when I question the existence of good and the usefulness of all the things around us.

But I also know that life is beautiful and I love to live and whatever time we have, we ought to make the most of it. So that.

I hope the family finds peace.

2/ People didn’t join me
I reported last time that I am working on a startup that I am very excited about. And now it has reached a place where I am trying to build a team. All my life I have prepared for a Mahabharata and it seems to be upon me. And all the allies nad friends and alliances I forged had to come in handy at this time.

But not one of them did.

So many thoughts and lessons in there. The biggest one? I need to rethink and redo my take on my ability to be with people. I often say that I am a great scout and I can read people well. This experience is teaching me that I am anything but that.

I’ve written more about this here.
There’s more but that’s for my notes.

What went well for me? for C4E? for my village?

1/ I wrote Twitter threads every day (except one day)!
Woot!
If I can get this consistent with things in life, I will change the world.
You may see those here.

2/ Sent handwritten notes to some people on New Year
I am not sure if I covered this in last week’s update. I am too lazy to go check.
Yet to send some.
Will send today.
I like the idea of doing such things for people I love.

What did I learn / realised / discovered etc etc?

1/ At C4E, we need to get more efficient.
While we are and will remain a culture-first company, we don’t operate from a place of urgency. The principles of ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’ are not practised. And that’s not cool at all.

2/ Twitter is a goldmine when I comes to people
With all the brouhaha around Elon and his antics, I’ve made some incredible connections with Twitter. In the past week, I met Anand, Saurabh, Rohan, Amul, Advik (Advik was the highlight) and many more people. Need to amp my twitter presence. Any ideas anyone?

3/ Graeful that Astha exists.
While am in general grateful about a lot of people, this week’s highlight would be a chat with Astha on Jan 08.

4/ I published these lessons from this TED talk by Anurag Kashyap.
Each of these lessons is worth chasing.

5/ Amul taught me about branding, identity and more.
If you are a curious soul, you MUST follow Amul.

6/ I need to work hard on the AI stuff.
the world around us is changing fast and I feel I am missing the bus by staying on the sidelines. While the world is already talking about AGI and other things, I can’t even tell people a difference between AI or Intelligence!

So, need to get my act together on it.

7/ I’d love to be around a Bonnie.
Imagine the rest.

Ok, coming to what I look forward in the next week?

This assumes that I will have finished my #in2025 document by end of the day today 😀

1/ Build a business case for a project that I am undertaking.
This is the part of the startup I am building (I mentioned it last week).

2/ #dateSG document.
Where I want to list things that people must know if they want to date me. Assuming they want to. assuming I want to (with all the action happening around me). But then I have discovered that in my life, if one thing does well, other things fall in place. And if one thing gets fucked up, everything else does!

3/ The 2024 Review Letter
Again, this depends on my ability to write the 2025 letter. From the look of things, I’ll block next Sunday and work on this. Let’s see how it goes.

That’s about it!

Honestly, as I end this, I think I could’ve written lot more but I am trying to manage my time well. I’ve been on it for two hours now and I don’t want to invest more time. I’d rather do more things. May be the next week’s update is better.

Oh, here are the previous editions: Wk 01

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes.