Author: Murali

  • Learning anytime, anywhere, and continuously

    Learning anytime, anywhere, and continuously

    Thanks to increasing access to broadband and much improved real-time communication software, we have novel models to learn. An avid learner with a smartphone or computer or (or tablet) and broadband connection can learn many things from anywhere, anytime, and from anyone!  In 2020, I had the opportunity to try out several models of learning.…

  • Opportunities Aplenty

    Opportunities Aplenty

    Last week I had a very interesting conversation with a young and upcoming engineer who I worked with in the past decade. His first input was that there are insufficient opportunities for him. And hence he wanted to go look for a new opportunity. At the surface what he indicated seemed convincing. As I dug…

  • Tracking Health, Fitness, and Training

    Over the past few months I had been working out on my own in the house. Plus occasionally I had taken personal training lessons from an accomplished trainer in Chennai. Besides I had been tracking food intake and the like to stay healthy during this #COVID19 situation. A few takeaways from these experiences. There are…

  • Disruptor 2020: GoodRx

    GoodRx is #16 in the CNBC Disruptor List for June 2020 Purpose: a marketplace for affordable and convenient health care, in particular with pharmacy refills.  Recently, they also added HeyDoctor by GoodRx – for telemedicine, which adds another product line to their business. Through this platform, GoodRx offers $20 family care physician checkups online. The company…

  • Top 50 Disruptors – from CNBC

    Often, news media has been filled with discussions about disruptors. Disruptors embark on a pioneering journey to bring novel solutions to problems. Or at least they find ways to do an existing thing significantly better or cheaper than before. CNBC publishes a list of top 50 disruptors based on the recent performance from private (often…

  • Product Hunt – June 15, 2020

    Product Hunt provides an excellent resource to learn about some of the up and coming ideas. There are 10s of ideas posted and ranked daily. I will periodically read and take some notes about some of the ideas posted here. MainStreet claims to simplify the organization and submission of request for various government grants. The…

  • COVID19 Founder and VC Sentiment

    After economic upsets like the one caused by COVID19, often one looks to Startups as a way to power forward with new ideas and growth. NFX (a VC firm) is conducting regular surveys with startup founders and VCs. Their second survey provides updated sentiment. See https://www.nfx.com/post/vc-founder-sentiment-survey-part-2/ for the details A few things stand out Funding…

  • Graduates, pursue your dreams with thanks!

    Graduates, pursue your dreams with thanks!

    Prof. Kwame Anthony Appiah elegantly encourages all the Graduates of 2020 to pursue their dreams with gratitude in his recent article. He urges the graduates to help build a better future. Members of the Class of 2020, I’d urge you to take this lesson with you. Pursue your dreams, yes. But remember that they are…

  • Smoothies for a Healthy Me!

    Smoothies for a Healthy Me!

    For nearly a decade we have been smoothie fans. On a rainy Saturday morning we were at the usual Costco Store in Kirkland, WA. There was salesperson hawking some fresh colored and textured drinks to us. It tasted delicious, especially when were hungry from long minutes of shopping that morning. He claimed that there was…

  • The New Normal

    The New Normal

    We were normal; We sought things, novel! We had weekdays and weekends.We made things during weekdays;We enjoyed things during the weekends.Such was the working life. Too much novelty may not be the best;for who would have thought about the rest? We were normal;We sought things, novel! Suddenly from Wuhan, sprang a virus, was indeed novel! Invisible…