The Percolator Readout

SPONSORToday's post is brought to you by The SampleDiscover the best independent writers.Each morning, The Sample sends you one article from a random blog or newsletter that matches up with your interests. When you get one you like, you can subscribe to the writer with one click.Living in the Age of Hyper-ActivismIn the age of internet and social media, every cause seems to be dire, and every voice seems concerned. It takes too little to get tempers high and drive trends in favour or against any subject - ideology, person, event or entity. When we see such large number of people or rather accounts coming together posting their opinions - mostly outraged, it is hard to deny that we are living in the age of hyper-activism.Social activism as a tool to protest against authorities and push forward the will of people is a hallmark of free society. As the societies matured and adopted rights based liberal & democratic system, people became freer to assert their wants. To represent those wants, the social leaders came forward. Across the globe, at different stages in the human history we saw social movements changing the world for better. Since past century, as the imperialism and colonialism declined, the access to education increased and more people made their path upward the power structure; avenues for civic representation increased and along with them activism. With changing times, news ideas and new awareness came along, which demanded that people rose against the old system. It did a lot of good.But in last decade or so, if you notice, suddenly the quantum of activism seems to have increased whereas the change expected to come through them seem to have declined. What has changed? Why it seems so? Is it even true? Let's Explore.Public Protest in the Past CenturyActivism has risen dramatically in past years, and it continues to rise. A growing percentage of youth believe more in the protest politics than the formal political participation as the older generation did. From #BlackLivesMatter to #ClimateStrike, the hashtags trends have created much larger public mobilization than most movements we had seen in the preceding couple of decades.The current rise in the ‘activism culture' also seem amplified because towards the end of the last century we saw a bit of dip. The dip in political activism towards the end of last century had a couple of reasons behind it. First, and the fundamental one was the fatigue. The last century was the century of political transformation across the globe. The world remained on edge for most part of it and by the time cold war ended, a level of fatigue had set in. At the same time free markets were expanding and new range of ‘capitalistic products' were reaching to a larger part of the world. To some extent the generation politically active earlier took a bit of time out after the century of turmoil. Second reason is that the nature of cause was shifting in this time and was still to capture critical mass. For the much of last century, the civil movements largely focused on freedom from oppressive form of governments - colonialism, monarchy and communism. As the century was closing, more nuanced and mature causes came to foray – equality, climate, free-speech etc which had yet not gained momentum with larger mass.  As the millennium turned, and a new generation was adulting, this new range of civil causes started to become more mainstream. They captured the public psyche as freedom of speech, expression and demonstration became available to larger number of people across the globe, and now were being exercised with help of much more available & accessible mass media. Although, there was an ease of access and higher availability, the media, in terms of technology, being utilized for these civil agitations were largely same as earlier.But there was something else which was still in its nascent stage, that would change the game completely within a decade – internet and social media. While the internet had become available towards the end of last millennium, its usage by a large number of people to organize together hadn't not become mainstream. Civic bodies and activists had certainly built a presence, but it was still a niche group utilizing technology.  In a few years, Facebook & twitter turned everyone in to an activist.Activism in the age of social mediaWith advent of social media and rapidly growing penetration of internet, the power to opine, organize and agitate became universally available. The cause, the causer and the casualty became borderless. You didn't need to belong to any organization, nation or even continent, to become a participant in a civil agitation. It essentially was a good thing; to support a valid cause – let's say gender equality, anti-racism or climate change – you do not need to belong to a specific demography. We saw a lot of platforms coming up, such as Change.org, providing people a medium to petition for cause they wished to raise support for. We also saw governments and authorities moving to set up channels of communication over social media for users to register their views, complaints and protests.But then, the water started getting muddied. As people learnt to use technology, some also learnt to manipulate it. Some fell prey to algorithmic manipulation of thought and behaviour by the platforms themselves. And, we started seeing a storm of manufactured agitation taking place on internet. Fast forward to now, you wouldn't find a single day when there isn't a twitter trend protesting or boycotting one thing or another. The number of activists and activism events have sky rocketed; yet, the value of activism seems to be going down. There are essentially three reasons behind this.Ease of Organizing & CommunicatingIn the era before the internet, taking a cause to a critical mass took a lot of effort. Serious organizations spend a lot of time, money and effort to reach a large number of people and make petition to the authorities. A lot of cause – which may or may not have had extremely serious impact on the life of people – got side-lined simply because the advocates couldn't put together the cost required to organize. While internet solved for this, it also removed any filter that checked for seriousness or the legitimacy of the cause. Today, anyone at any point of time with enough time at hand and a certain level of internet savviness can generate enough traction for any cause to make it look legitimate to a large number of people. Once they cross the critical mass, the snowballing effect makes the agitation trend. On top of that, add the ease of creating and circulating propaganda material to a large number of people. There is little to no entry barrier when it comes to someone becoming a social activist. The correct music and a clip of right length donning the trending move can take your cause across the world in no time.In an ideal world, all of it would have been a good thing. But we do not live in an ideal world.Low Cost of ParticipationBefore internet, if someone truly believed in a cause they would volunteer, attend gatherings or donate. The participation for a large part was active and put a real cost on the supporter in terms of time, money and effort.Social media made the cost of participation zero. All you need to do, is click a button –like, share or sign a petition. Passive participation has grown exponentially. Nowadays when you come across a digital agitation backed by a million people, it is practically impossible to tell how many have actually even given it a thought. Infinite scroll, double tapping like and the tendency to align with peer group means that millions of users are sharing, resharing and lending their support to civil causes without even being consciously aware of it.Such passive participation has completely taken away credibility from any kind of civil mobilization that happens on internet. And, because of this reason we see gems like #NotMyPresident trending in Mumbai, India when Donald Trump swears in as President at Washington DC, USA. Yes, he is not your president, you live in an entirely different country.Now, add another layer of fake accounts and bot farms on top of all this. The numbers that we see become completely immaterial. Have you ever wondered why someone pulling millions of traction on social media, fail to raise even a few thousands when they go out asking for donations? Yes, that happened. A group of prominent social activists when asked their millions of supporters and followers in India to donate, they couldn't even raise $1000.Then comes another emerging trend of cause influencers. It has started paying to be a supporter of a cause. So now we have social media influencers broadcasting causes to their followers which neither they nor their followers have any real awareness or interest in. As opposed to activist who fail to raise donations; these ‘activist influencers' are actually raking in a lot of money to support their ‘activist lifestyle' and as a compensation for stress that being active causes them.All of it put together, social media activism has created a mirage of huge mobilization whereas the real impact of such activism rarely yields much.Cumulative EffectEven if, for a minute, we forget about all the motivated and manipulated online agitation along with their passive or fake participants, there is still much larger number of activism events that we come across on the internet which are genuine and have real backers. They also seem much higher than many of us would have seen in preceding decades. This can be attributed to cumulative effect.Internet is a borderless place. Events happening anywhere in the world become available to us. This is true about content, trends, crime and even about causes. If not for internet, a child sitting outside her school for climate would at max be replicated in a couple of global cities and feature on the fifth page of some newspapers in a bunch of countries followed by a discussion in a non-prime slot on a few news channels. Most people would never find out that such an agitation ever took place. Internet makes everything visible. We end up seeing some sort of civil protest going on everyday in some part of world for some cause and cumulatively it seems that world is in turmoil all the time. This is aided by the algorithmic design of social media platforms which feed us with more of what we see. Together the impact lead us in to believing the scale of an event to be much larger than what it actually is.Over all internet has changed the way social activism happened and was perceived. We are in an age where the serious civic issues are being treated in the same manner as any other social media post. The messaging is reductive, the engagement is momentary, and churn is short. A phenomenon, which can be defined as the ‘tiktokization' of activism.Thank you for reading The Percolator. This post is public so feel free to share it.Downside of ‘Tiktokization' of ActivismWhile the internet had helped in bringing a lot of very serious issues to the foray and have mainstreamed many a cause which earlier found it extremely difficult to gain critical engagement; it has also come with a lot of downside.A continuous stream of protests, agitation and boycotts results in a level of fatigue among the larger mass not personally invested or directly impacted by the cause. Over time, they become immune to the issues being discussed not only on internet but in real life as well. Over exposure in an extremely reductive manner on social media dilutes the seriousness of topics being discussed. The leadership, representation and expected outcomes, all become contested even among the supporters of the cause. And then as if on cue, as the support had surged for the cause an equally prominent opposition also builds up. If you have followed trending issues on social media, you would recognize this pattern too often. Many extremely serious issues are now just ending up being a trend war.Then there is the issue of false expectations of immediate outcome. In the world of social media users, the expectation of turn around and the attention span is too short to match with how things work in real world. When no significant movement on the issues happen in real life, a lot of supporters either simply get disappointed or a bunch of conspiracy theory start rising. Neither helps in maintaining the seriousness and integrity of the cause. A cause reduced to internet trend gets the same lifespan as any other trend, and then all those who paid attention to it simply move on to a newer trending issue.But biggest adverse impact of this phenomenon is the false sense of righteousness that barrage of manipulated communication and seemingly millions of supporters can result in. Internet does spill in to real life, and off late we have seen real violence resulting in loss of life and property caused by set of people taking moral high ground following agitations spurred on internet. Internet activism is becoming a breeding ground for radicalization. It has become almost too easy to whip up issues, raise temper and encourage individuals to break law, all in the name of a ‘good cause'.  How to separate wheat from the chaff?It is not easy. There are two layers here. First, to keep yourself rooted and not give in the temptation that internet creates to raise your self-value by climbing on the moral high ground. Rise for a cause that you are invested in, have understood on your own and willing to bear a real cost for. Second layer is when you have found your own bearing within those issues also identify who you lend your voice to and who you give your ear to.Imagine four quadrants made by two axis – one going from passive to active and another seeking to discovering. The first one is the spectrum for participation, whether you are a passive participant in a cause or an active one. The other axis is about how you came across the issue. Were you actively seeking it, or just happened to randomly discover it?Now put this all together. If you are a passive participant in a discovered cause, you have nuisance value. It is even worse, if you have discovered it from another passive participant. Either start seeking more information or if you really care then show more active participation, bear a cost. If you are a passive participant in a cause that you were seeking out, at least your interest is genuine, but your participation is not very productive. Either you are still not convinced or do not have the risk appetite to put you name on it. Then the quadrant of discovered and active. It is a dangerous place, and you need to be extremely careful. If you are putting in real cost, you might want to spend time in understanding the source from whom you discovered the cause and ensure you are not being manipulated either by platform algorithm or cause marketing by influencers. Seek more information before you get more invested. The causes you genuinely believe in will fall in the quadrant of Seeking and Active.The temptation on internet is too high to be part of most trending issues and say things which is expected to be received well by peer and aspirational groups. But at scale such motivated behaviour by people do not help anyone. We end up living in and showcasing a make believe world which in the end results in disappointment and delusion. Civil movement are the foundation of societal growth; the weakening, manipulation, commercialization – the ‘tiktokization' of it, is bad for everyone.RECOMMENDATIONS1440 Media - Fastest way to an impartial point of viewThe Average Joe - Stock market insights for youChartr - Free newsletter with visual insightsSPONSOR2.6 million people wake up to this newsletter every morningThere's a reason over 2.6 million people start their day with Morning Brew - the daily email that delivers the latest news from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Business news doesn't have to be dry and dense...make your mornings more enjoyable, for free. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit percolator.substack.com

In this week's brew:The Subtle Art of Embracing Failure by Neelendra NathVisual Thought of the Week featuring creative shared by @visualizevalueA twitter thread on Museum of Failure by Trung PhanSPONSORToday's post is brought to you by IntellifluenceLooking for quality content and links from bloggers? Social shares? Deeper engagement on your social posts?Hire influencers and SEO-friendly bloggers without a paid subscription. Browse thousands of flat rate offers and engage with our 100% free plan.If you're looking to take your influencer marketing to the next level, Intellifluence is an end-to-end platform with subscription options that help you create campaigns, discover and collaborate with over 190,000 influencers, manage outreach, and handle payments with ease.POSTThe Subtle Art of Embracing FailureOne of the fundamental deterrent to action is the fear of failure. Nothing impedes our plans as much as the fear, that we will fail to make them happen. Yet, the truth is that for any endeavour worth taking, failure is the most probable outcome. Success, in the absolute sense of the word, on the other hand are rare events as they should be.So, the question arises when failure is so natural and omnipresent why is there such a deep seated fear for the failure? For good reasons. In our evolutionary history, for most part, failure meant existential crisis. You died if you failed to outrun a predator. You died if you failed to find food. You died if you got lost in the wild. The cost of failure was too high. While, as species we have moved further from such high cost failures, our genetic memory still hold on to that fear. Thus, we need a conscious process to evaluate the cost of failure and not be bogged down by the exaggerated fear. But, to do any of that, the first step is to understand failure.Let's unpack!The Anatomy of FailureFailure is neither an event, nor an action; It is a recognition. At some point of time we make a decision to recognize a scenario or an outcome to be a failure. As this recognition is subjective to individual perception, failure in itself is not an objective state. What might seem as failure to one, can actually be quite an opposite outcome to other. Growing up we have all known those kids who cried hoarse for scoring a few marks less than the perfect score, and we have also known those kids who cried with excitement after just barely earning the pass mark.Like success, failure is also a very private achievement. Only the individual who is the subject to success or failure can decide for themselves whether they have or haven't. Thus, we fail only when we decide that we have failed.So, what makes us decide that we have failed? The anatomy of failure. Anatomy of the failure is made of five components:Expectations: Every endeavour or action we set out for, starts with an intrinsic expectation of an outcome. When we socially share our endeavour, expectations of others also gets attached with our actions. Those expectations are actually a good thing as they work as great motivator for us, but if unrealistic they can be extremely overwhelming, and may set us for the failure from the very beginning.Scale: Most of the thing, most of us do in our lives often have a scale attached to it. They are benchmarked based on what others around us have achieved while attempting similar endeavours. In some extremely standardized cases (education, competitive exams) they are quite objective whereas in other cases (quality of life, happiness, contentment) they can be very subjective. It is important that we benchmark ourselves and our endeavours well, so that there is no mismatch in our expectations and our scale.Effort: Remember the earlier example of kid who got a few marks less than the perfect score. Our perception of failure is directly proportional to the effort that we put in to the endeavour. It is important to understand that there are many other variables that affect the outcomes. Thus, while we give our best effort, we shouldn't expect the outcome to be directly proportional to that effort.Cost of Recovery: In many situations one can face an adverse outcome and quickly recover from it. When the cost of this recovery is low, we might not even recognize the outcome as failure. Our perception of failure is stronger when the path to recovery seem bleak and cost of recovery seem beyond means.Peer Response: Then there are also times when everything about our endeavour would turn out to be what we expected and quite good on all kind of standard benchmarks, yet we may feel like we have failed. The people around us, our peers hold enormous power over us and can cloud our own perception of reality. At times, failure can be just bad judges.A conscious understanding of our ‘source of failure' can help us recognize the true extent of unfavourable outcome, and thus empowers us to resolve the situation rather than lamenting it.The Neuroscience of FailureThe failure is real and thus the fear of failure that we have is also very real. But what do we fear when we believe that we fear failure and what does happen to us when we actually fail. Let's tackle the neuroscience behind them separately.When we start an endeavour, we certainly do not do it with the intention of failing. While we of course want to succeed based on whatever metrics we have set, the outcome remains uncertain. A 2017 study at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in London identified that the pathological anxiety that makes us feal scared of failure is not specific to failing itself, but linked more to the uncertainly of the outcome. When we accept failure as a possible outcome, we tend to be less fearful of it.Now the second part, what happens to us when we fail. There is concept called winner effect, which says when someone wins, the brain releases testosterone and dopamine. When success is repeated with time, these secretions morphs the brain to make those successful more likely to succeed in future. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. Failure begets failure. A study has shown that when between two equally trained monkeys one made a mistake, the failure threw it off it capabilities and it tended to fail more afterwards. A person going off the diet once, is more likely to fall off the diet completely than those who never cheated.The Art of Embracing FailureNow that we know that what doesn't kill us, make us weaker; it is important that we know our way out of that weakness. There are many adages such as ‘Fail Fast' or ‘Fail Forward', but to be honest as much as possible don't fail. Let me explain.Again, failure is not an objective state of events. It is a recognition of an end state of situation which we believe has not turned out favourable to us. If we do not believe we have abjectly failed, then we have not failed. So, the first step towards not failing is to understand all possible outcomes of the endeavour that you are setting upon and then, those which might seem like cases for failure, embrace them as a probability. Embrace the failure, not that you have faced but the ones which you know are possible in the future.Any astute investor will tell you to identify your risk capacity before entering the market and then write off some of your most risky investments with no expectations of returns. Same holds true for the most of the actions that we take. Write some of them off, and for rest understand your risk capacity well.Still there will be some cases, when our own expectations will beat us and we will feel like a failure. When that time arrives, be mindful that failure begets failure. More you would dwell on the failure, longer you will remain off your game and will be more likely to fail again. Instead of dwelling on failure, reframe it to understand how many good things came out of it, then pick them as learning and move on. Set a further goal and reduce the current outcome to just one misstep in the larger scheme of things. Once again, embrace the failure but only in the form of learning.Remember, you have failed only when you have decided that you have failed. RECOMMENDATIONSMoney Machine Newsletter - The Red Pill of Stock ServicesAlts.co - Invest in Alternate AssetsMicrons.io - List you startup & get acquired Founder's Book - Resources for first time founders & early stage startupsFinny - Personal Finance for Young AdultsWEEKLY ROUNDUPVisual Thought of the WeekA Twitter thread on Museum of Failure by Trung Phan This is a public episode. 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In this week's brew:A Primer on Human Nature & Judgement by Neelendra NathVisual Thought of the Week featuring creative shared by @RMantriThe Network State - a twitter thread by Balaji SrinivasanPOSTA Primer on Human Nature & JudgementWe judge, that is our thing. Judgments keep us alive. Well, most of the time.Nature is a harsh place and anything that should not survive, ends up not surviving. The survival of every living being depends upon instinctive judgments that they make every living moment. In a way, it is our first line of defence.Before we head further, first let's get the fundamentals sorted. What is the difference between judgement and decision making? There are many ways of defining and differentiating between them. I typically go with the one which distinguish them based on conscious effort that goes in to the two. Decision making is a conscious process of rationally comparing two or more alternatives and selecting one of them. Whereas, judgments are often involuntary and instinctive identification of people, thing or situation in various baskets of favourable or unfavourable classifications.Having a sound judgment leads to making good decisions.Given that the judgements are often instinctive and involuntary, we made them without consciously considering the subject and hence, our ‘nature' impacts them greatly. Bad judgements do lead to making bad decisions, so it is quite critical that we do not let the weakest and worst aspects of the human nature be in control of our judgments. And, to be able to do that it is important that we understand what those weak traits are.Here are a set of human nature or traits, which can cloud our judgements.Ability to feel Jealous or EnviousIt is in the human nature to feel jealous or envious of the people who have gotten more of what we want. Ideally when we come across someone who has already achieved what we wish for, sound judgment would be to emulate them or seek guidance from them. But, when clouded by envy or jealousy, we tend to judge them extremely negatively and undermine their methods. That bad judgment, clouded by jealousy, actually adversely affect our ability to replicate the same success for ourselves.Extension of Likes/DislikesIt is a very natural human tendency to think favourably of people in every aspect, because we deeply like one thing about them. People who are fan of a sportsperson, extend that liking in to believing that they could do no wrong otherwise as well. Similarly dislike of one trait of an individual can lead in to judging them negatively about everything that they do. People's adoration or condemnation of public figure often follow this pattern.Social ProofThe instinct to seek safety in number is deeply coded in our genes. This instinct creates a sense of cooperation in us which dictates that we either believe or do things that would gain approval of the social group that we are a part of. This can lead us to making extremely foolish judgements just because the group is making them.Narrative InstinctStorytelling is very fundamental to social evolution of humans. We have a very natural instinct to construct narratives, and seek explanations of events in our environment in forms of the narrative. Which means we are more likely to judge a situation favourably, if it has been brought in front of us in a coherent and well put narrative. From religion to media to advertisers, all try to manipulate our judgement by exploiting this instinct.Availability BiasBrain is a massive machine which is frequently capturing and processing information. To keep itself going, the brain creates a lot of energy – saving methods, and one of which is the availability heuristics. It essentially means that it tends to prioritise information which are salient, important, frequent and recent. Given that judgements are often instinctive, we tend to base them on these four kind of easily available information in the brain. An outcome of this heuristic is seen in our anchoring and sunk cost tendencies.StereotypingStereotyping also comes from a mental heuristic. One of the method of creating shortcuts to easily recollect information in the brain is creating large categories and broadly generalization. In our early hunter – gatherer life this must have worked as an effective method to stay alive. One didn't need to be killed by every feline before deciding each of them were dangerous. But in modern times, such broad categorization can lead us away from more nuance judgement on individuals.Base Rate InsensitivityBase Rate technically speaking  describes the odds in terms of prior probabilities. Humans are extremely bad at understanding or considering them. The insensitivity towards base rate is the reason why many people believe that a bad thing which they have known has happened before will not happen with them. Lack of the base rate sensitivity is also something which leads to real poor judgment in financial markets.First Conclusion BiasPointed out by Charlie Munger, it is a human tendency to get attached to the first satisfying idea or conjecture that we get exposed to. It is again an energy saving mechanism for the brain to stop asking questions the minute even slightly acceptable conclusion is offered. This tendency leads to many bad judgments.Commitment Bias & Fundamental Attribution ErrorHumans have a strong tendency to keep prior commitments or display certain level of consistency in their behaviour. As humans evolved to form large groups, trust became the currency for cohesion. In that context, displaying consistency of thought, belief and behaviour helped build trust. But this tendency can also result in a sequence of continued bad judgment because we once got set on that path.From the other side, we at times can also tend to overestimate the consistency of behaviour in others and thus mis-judge them. This false judgment of their consistent behaviour in the future is fundamental attribution error.Confirmation BiasIt is in human tendency to believe what we wish to be true. It is a deeply ingrained mental habit to look for confirmation instead of violation. This bring us comfort and is energy saving for the brain. Thus we are more likely to judge a situation or person in a manner which confirms our bias.DenialDenial is a very effective coping mechanism – some animals like Ostrich, physically act it out ( the whole head in the sand thing), while others like human play it out in the brain. Denial is a very strong tendency which can turn us completely blind to reason and thus result in a string of bad judgements.This by no means is an exhaustive list of everything that is an impediment to our ability to have sound judgments. Most of them actually on a very primal level might have worked  in favour of the individual making those judgments in more natural environment in early evolutionary time for humans. But given that we now live in an extremely complex cooperative societal structure, they tend to interfere with the social and cultural values we expect the word to operate with.These tendencies are a part of our nature, so of course, we cannot completely do away with them. But, knowing how they affect, can help us to take a pause when we are making quick judgements and reflect if we are being blindsided by our own selves.WEEKLY ROUNDUPVisual Thought of the WeekA Twitter thread on The Network State by Balaji SrinivasanSPONSOREDTo stay updated and interesting read everyday, I am using Refind. They curate posts from many sources and send it directly to your inbox based on your selected topics. It is free to subscribe. Give it a shot and I am sure you will find something of your interest. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit percolator.substack.com

In this week's brew:The Subtle Art of Making Decision by Neelendra NathVisual Thought of the Week featuring creative by @elliottaleksndrOld fashioned way to stand out - a twitter thread by Sahil BloomPOSTThe Subtle Art of Making DecisionsThe decisions that we make are essentially the steering wheel of our lives. Yet, we are never really taught how to make good decisions. Decision makings isn't a skill in itself, it is the ability to effectively use a series of skills, frameworks and tools in unison to reason the situation and respond rationally.Quite early in the human history thinkers identified the importance of decision-making process and spent much time understanding it. All of them concurred that in some way or other, a decision should be an outcome of rational and deliberate reasoning. If that be true, every person facing the same set of dilemmas will take exactly the same decisions. But that doesn't happen. More often than not system one thinking – the intuition – plays a much bigger role than rationality in our decisions. Intuitions indeed are based on our long term learning and speed up the decision making process by helping us make judgments without conscious consideration. But it fails in factoring for the second order effect and long term consequences. Thus, often the intuitive decisions turn out to be sub optimal.Good decisions have the power to change the world, or at least changing the world for ourselves. We shouldn't be making them subconsciously.  Understanding Decision MakingDecisions are an integral part of our lives. We make hundreds of them everyday and they affect us in more ways than we recognize. What we eat on a particular day, might seem like a trivial decision but if we keep making bad decisions about it every day then that can be detrimental to our health. Thus, it is important to be conscious of both, the decisions that we make and the pattern of our decisions. But, it is also important to recognize that not all decisions that we make will be important or have significant consequences, so that we are not always bogged down by the burden of decision making.One way of organizing our decisions and have a quick method to identify which requires what amount of attention, is the decision matrix. The decision matrix groups all the decisions in four quadrants distributed by two axis – reversibility and consequentiality:Irreversible & InconsequentialIrreversible & ConsequentialReversible and InconsequentialReversible and ConsequentialThis matrix can be extremely helpful in determining how much time, effort and attention we would like to spend on each of the decision. Something which is inconsequential requires our minimal attention. Those which are consequential but reversible, can be our playing ground to run experiments and be innovative in our approach. It is the consequential and irreversible ones which demand our complete focus.Why we make bad decisions?Making good decision is not a function of intelligence, or at least of the intelligence alone. Extremely intelligent people can make terrible decisions.The source of bad decisions can be many but at the core of it lies the fact that the society that we live in has designed the learning process in a manner where we gain expertise in a narrow space of knowledge, whereas the world that we live in is essentially multidisciplinary. Thus, we can have a great judgement in a niche and make excellent decisions about them, while making really silly decisions about everything else. Look around at all the extremely intelligent people you know and then look at the terrible personal finance decisions that they make.Sources of bad decisions can be:Unintentional Stupidity: We, more often than we would like to acknowledge, act in very stupid manner. Some of this stupidity is born out of biases that we hold and other could simply be circumstantial – being busy, being tired or being extremely focused on one thing. Bad influence or mob mentality can also be sources for stupidity.Bad Knowledge: We might be very good with our process of making decision, and yet go completely wrong if the information we have is itself bad.Bad Process: We might have all the right information needed to make a good decision, but if our process of decision making is not correct we will end up with bad decision.Validation: We crave validation and want to do things which have good optics, acceptable politics and peer approval. This need for validation can often lead us in to making bad decisions even when we know better.How to improve decision making skills?Three things that essentially go in to making decisions: information that we have, process that we follow and our perceived consequences of the decisions that we are making.To improve our decision-making skills, we need to improve each of them.Our perceived consequences of the decision is what dictates the amount of time and effort we are going to put into making that decision. If we wrongly assume the decision to be inconsequential, it is unlikely that we will be very mindful while making it. Improving our second order thinking can be the key to gaining this capability.Second is the information that we have. It is important that we be very mindful of the information which we are using to make decisions. We often, intuitively, favour one decision over other. This can lead to a level of bias in how we go about collecting information i.e. ignoring the one which doesn't support our innate want. Having all the information and treating them with the importance that each of them deserve, is key to arriving at a good decision.Third, is the decision making process. Even if we are acutely aware of the consequences and have the right information, and yet do not know how to process them  then it is unlikely that we will come up with a good decision. Why that happens? Because more often than not, instead of consciously processing our decisions, we let our intuition make judgments. We should improve our understanding of thinking processes and mental models to make ourselves capable of making good decisions.A blue-print to effective decision makingWell, there is none. If we have had one, no body would be making bad decisions. But, certainly there are steps, if employed properly can minimize the probability of going terribly wrong with the decisions that we make.In their book, Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions, authors John Hammond, Ralph Keeney and Howard Raiffa  suggest eight steps to make good decisions:Define the problem that requires a decision, properly and preciselyIdentify all the criteria to evaluate the situation and decisionImagine all the alternatives that existEvaluate the consequences of each of themUnderstand the trade-offs associated with choosing one over otherSeek further clarification or evidence for the uncertaintiesHonestly evaluate your own risk capacityConsider all the decisions that would be linked with this one decisionBe mindful that not all decisions require this kind of rigorous exercise before taking them. Consider the decision matrix; these eight steps are probably what would be employable while dealing with the decisions which are irreversible and consequential.No matter what we do, there will always be some decisions which, in the hind sight we would realize were not the best one. A very important aspect of decision-making is taking responsibility for those decisions. In the end, it is our decisions which makes us who we are.WEEKLY ROUNDUPVisual Thought of the WeekA Twitter thread on Old Fashioned way to Stand Out by Sahil BloomSPONSOREDTo stay updated and interesting read everyday, I am using Refind. They curate posts from many sources and send it directly to your inbox based on your selected topics. It is free to subscribe. Give it a shot and I am sure you will find something of your interest. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit percolator.substack.com

In this week's brew:The Rule of the Information by Neelendra NathVisual Thought of the Week featuring creative by @GoLimitlessEvolution of Decentralization - a twitter thread by Miles JenningsToday's post is brought to you by Bookk.me!For all my independent consulting engagements from product management to startup investment, I am now using Bookk.me to manage my calendar and call bookings. If you would like to book a slot in my calendar you can do it through my link https://bookk.me/neelBookk.me is a solution for independent advisors and consultants who can monetize their expertise through just one link, and save themselves the hassle of maintaining calendars, payment gateways etc. You can try out it out here.POSTThe Rule of the InformationInformation is much like sugar. We evolved in a world where sugar was scarce source of energy, so we instinctively started loving it. But once we learnt how to mass produce sugar, our love turned in to diabetes. Similarly, we evolved to be curious through the times of information scarcity and now in the era where information is being mass produced and distributed at every corner, our love for information is giving us intellectual diabetes.Over the last decade or so, the supply of the information has grown exponentially, and we the people are not equipped to deal with this unrelenting barrage of competing narratives coming at us from every direction on every medium. Our brain still craves for every piece of information it can get, and thus it becomes extremely difficult for us to shut ourselves out.Information plays an extremely important role in the society. Any kind of civilized order that humans have ever developed has been sustained by a method of limited information distribution. Those who have control on what people know, also control how people behave. And, that is true even today. But, the scale of information has changed dramatically, which means the scale of impact, those who disburse information can create, has also changed dramatically. Although, there have been substantial changes in the information ownership; much larger number of people can create and distribute information now than ever before, but that fundamentally doesn't mean the information quality has improved or the intent behind information distribution has become more noble.Essentially, we are just a reflection of the information we have. No matter what kind of political or economic system we live in, we are essentially ruled by information. And, when there is anarchy in information, it must spill over in the streets. There is eminent need for individuals to upskill themselves to be able to filter information effectively, identify their own blind sides and do not let information get us.How do we get information?We have gone from the era of limited information sources to unlimited information sources very fast. Bulk of the information that we get come from essentially three sources – academic, press and fiction. Academic information shapes our character and inherent believes, while fiction helps us build cultural perspective and imaginative sense. Both of them influence us over time and hold lasting impact. Press on the other hand delivers information in time and extract an immediate reaction from us. While on societal scale academic and fictional information are critical in shaping us, on individual day to day level press is the biggest influencer.Until a couple of decades ago, these stream were well defined and isolated from each other to a large extent. They were also owned by a small set of people who to had earned varying levels of trust and respect; people more or less took them on the face value. That changed suddenly. Today anybody can be a creator, owner and distributor of any kind of information, and line separating them has also blurred. A fictionalized narration of event can get passed on as news, a well-researched report can be put down as conspiracy theory and actual news can get labelled disinformation. As the sources and channels of information has increased, the trust in any of them have decreased.An adage coined by Theodore Sturgeon popular as Sturgeon's Law, states that “ninety percent of everything is crap”. While he said this in context of science fiction work in 1950s, it can hold true for most other information as well. Good quality work requires expertise, a lot of effort and time. With no barrier to entry, and rush to be the first to produce information means that bulk of the information on any medium are low effort, in Sturgeon's word, crap. As someone at the receiving end of this information barrage, be very judicious with what information you consume and consume them with extreme prejudice.We need to take special care when we are consuming news and political information, as they are intentionally actionable and competitive with expected reaction from the consumer in short term. A news channel wants you to tune in to them over others, a political communicator wants you to believe them over others. They are not just relaying information, they are selling it to you, and it is a barter scheme in which if you bought their information, you have sold yourself over to them.In that context be aware of two concepts often employed by media and political communicators, Paltering and Deadcatting.Paltering is a type of cherry picking in which one creatively selects or makes a set of truthful statement which delivers a specific misleading narrative. It is often used by media and politician to either dodge a complex question or paint a picture of someone doing so. Here Gurwinder gives a good example of it.Deadcatting on the other hand is a malicious implantation of a scandalous news or rumour spread by the media channels with the intent to divert the public attention from a news which might have negative impact to a powerful person, politician or any entity.How do we perceive information?While the information originates outside of us, we do play an important role on its impact based on how we perceive it. The same information can extract a completely opposite reaction from people based on how they interact with it and process it.We do not receive information in isolation, nor we process them so. Our perception of an information is shaped by our cultural upbringing, prior knowledge and biases. These can be very individualistic in some cases, and a group behaviour in other. But there are some common fallacies we all make when making sense of information.Two most common ones are The Principle of Least Effort and Piece is not the Whole.The principal of least effort states that it is in human nature to take the path of least effort in any endeavour. It holds true when processing information as well. Most people will accept or anchor themselves to the first piece of information that they have received; they will believe the first conforming search result that they get. This makes us vulnerable to make errors, and overtime it compounds to make firm believes and biases.Piece is not the whole is illustrated well by the story of the blind men and the Elephant, which most of us have heard and if not then here it is: Blind Men & The Elephant. In context with the information, the ideas are that when provided by a small piece of the whole truth, most people believe that to be the nature of the truth. We take a piece of news or information about a person or event and extrapolate that to define the whole of it. It leads to a sort of absolutism, negating any space for nuanced understanding. A similar fallacy is defined as, ‘Map is not the Territory', which conflates a picture of reality taken at one point of time is not the reality for all the time.Then there also the limitations that we have in our comprehension capabilities. For a very large part of human history, people spent their whole life in a very small territory with very limited knowledge of people beyond their current time and space. We often fail to comprehend the vastness of time and space, unless we consciously take a note of it. That is the reason when someone points out that Russia and the United Stated of America are technically just 3.8 kilometres away from each other, it takes us sometime to comprehend that. Or, the fact that Cleopatra lived closer to the commencement of space travel than construction of the great pyramid baffles us when we hear it.This kind of limitation highly affects how we perceive the news or information about events which is beyond our instinctive understanding of space and time. We are more likely to trust inflated or deflated representation of situation reported to us of a time or place we are not very well acquainted to. But the opposite can also be true. If you strongly associated with a group identity, you start believing you personal experience to be the same as that of the whole group and thus become almost blind to any deviant experiences within the group.The narrative created at the source is only a part of the impact information has on us, a large part of it is always within us. Introspecting and identifying own limitations & biases can help us receive information better and make better sense of it.How does information get us?Information owns us, always. With all the precautions and safeguards, the information will get to you and will get you. Knowing that we are susceptible to it can also be a very effective tool to protect yourself from getting owned by it. So, look out for tell-tale symptoms – having developed an extreme view of something, being dismissive of contrarian view or anything that is uncharacteristic of you – and then trace your steps back to identify how you got there.Have a sense of proportionality and when it starts looking like you are spending a disproportionate amount of time or energy on something, then probably it is the time to identify why you believe it deserves that sort of dedication. What has made that information so important for you? Agenda setting is a thing that media is almost always a culprit of. While we believe something is important and that is why it is being reported, often it is that media reports what they want you to believe is important. Step back and think through when you are giving undue importance to a news. Now, also consider the opposite. Do you at time seems to get over an event too soon and give less importance than due? Are you a person sitting in a third country who in March was extremely worked up about Russian invasion of Ukraine, but now have barely thought about it? Were you giving more importance than required back then or are you giving less importance than required now? Both can be true at the same time. The second is called Feiler Faster Thesis. The pace at which we move on from one event to another is set by the pace at which news breaks. In a networked 24x7 news media world, information comes and goes at a very fast rate, and our perception of their importance get greatly affected by how they are portrayed by media.  Another check is how certain and bleak your view has become of the world. Information spreads by competing for attention, thus any medium which wants to spread information far and wide uses tactics to grab your attention. They do it essentially by shock and awe. In this age and time when there is too much of information and medium, everyone shares information in a manner that it induces shock and awe. There is no news which is neutral. Consuming information in this format will lead you to have extreme views. If you think it is a mean world, information has probably gotten you. Now consider the opposite, do you feel lack of certainty and doubt about everything? With it being so easy to put multiple narratives out in the world, when information owners find it difficult to convince people to believe one narrative, they put out so many contradictory narrative that you start doubting everything and withdraw from active participation. Information has gotten you again.Every now and then information will get us, and make us believe in to something which wasn't true or make us behave in a manner uncharacteristic of us. We cannot shut the information out, because it is essential for us, but we can certainly build a system around us to ensure we get the best of it and yet be shielded from the worst of it. Just like we do with sugar.WEEKLY ROUNDUPRecommendations for the WeekHakune - Free weekly newsletter helping entrepreneurs build businessesPod - Platform for retail investment in Indian Startups simply & safelyIndiCultr - An initiative to bring artisan and natural products to global marketsVisual Thought of the WeekA Twitter thread on Evolution of Decentralization by Miles JenningsSPONSOREDTo stay updated and interesting read everyday, I am using Refind. They curate posts from many sources and send it directly to your inbox based on your selected topics. It is free to subscribe. Give it a shot and I am sure you will find something of your interest. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit percolator.substack.com

In this week's brew:A Glimpse in to the Future by Neelendra NathVisual Thought of the Week featuring creative by @visualizevalueDiscussion around Sentient AI - a twitter thread by Giada PistilliPOSTA Glimpse in to the FutureIt is a perilous task to predict the future. There are innumerable ways to be wrong and only one to be correct. Yet, speculating the future is the first step towards creating things that doesn't exist.Technology has taken great leaps in the last couple of decades. But, the foundation of everything amazing and almost ‘miraculous' that we take for granted today has been laid more centuries ago. The earliest scientific development of wireless communication would go back to late nineteenth century, but in human imagination it has existed for millennia. Thus, it can be a good exercise to let your mind go on a wild goose chase every nor or then. Worst case, you will be a goose short.Over last couple of years, I have made it a practice to maintain a list of technology that I believe will become commonplace in my lifetime. It is part wishful thinking, and part extrapolation of existing technology. I can be massively off on a few things, and some of the technology might not even exist yet. But we definitely are moving in that direction.Universal AutomationThis is the lowest hanging fruit. We are already deep into it for workspace assistance, technology development etc. My proposition is memoized cronjobs will become available as a service for everyone for pretty much everything which is mundane and repetitive. Voice assistants like Alexa, Siri or Google Home are continually moving in that direction.I believe soon we will just be performing a trigger action or set objectives and from there on automation will follow through on associated processes. This can be done for everything that we do in life, whether it is daily activities or life decisions. Take an example of daily routine activity you might follow when you get back home from work. As you start from work for home, a sequence of heating your coffee, preparing your bath, warming your food etc can be set in motion. Similarly for life decisions, as you select a learning objective, it will triggers a sequence to select the right tutorials or academic institutions, prepare the schedule, seek appointment with the right people to learn from or process admission application of universities, summarizes books and articles, evaluate the career prospects that open up once objective is met and accordingly apply for those roles as you progress through your learning based on your performance. A similar sequence can be triggered when you set a relationship objective or even a holiday. The idea is you will just take decisions, and never have to go through the process of planning.   Embeddables & LifeOSDevices are an inseparable part of our lives. So much so that they are now object of addiction and abuse. Yet, we do not seem to get enough of it. Wearables are commonplace enough and growing continually. Embedded device is well out of its testing and beta phase. Rumours were apace during Covid-19 about vaccine having nanodevices. While they were baseless and unfounded, the fundamental idea is not ridiculous. In fact, embedded device in healthcare has a been a reality for long. Think stents, pacemakers etc. It is just that so far, they had not been connected.The popular culture has effectively normalized the idea of half human, half machine. And, truth to be told we are already some sort of Cyborg with wearables and hand held devices almost an extension of ourselves. So, embeddables will not come as a surprise. It is, in fact, the next obvious step.The point here is, how soon and how far can we go with it? I believe, we will soon be able to turn thoughts in to commands, reinforce skeletal structure and use our own biological hardware – eyes, ears, nose, tongue, limbs – instead of external devices to perform tasks. A common operating system – LifeOS – will run our bodies and all the external machines. It will also enable us to effectively stay connected to every other living being. A convergence to singularity.Sentient AI CompanionLast week much got written about the sentience of LaMDA. Google sent its engineer Blake Lemoine who claimed that, on forced leave and completely rejected his assertions. I am, to be honest, also highly sceptical about the sentience of AI, though do not completely rule out the possibility. But one thing that I believe in with full certainty is the ability of artificial intelligence to pretend to be sentient. One can argue, as far as interactions among human are concerned, pretence is probably the most exercised token.AI is our companion in much part of our life, as we are dealing with chatbots to accomplish many tasks. But I imagine of a near future, where we will have personal companions – friends & family – who will be AI, if not sentient then at least pretending to be. Enhanced graphic capabilities and true AR can bring metaverse to life, where an AI can get its form – human, humanoid or animal – whatever we fancy. It will be completely capable of having conversation which would make anyone believe that they are real human being. I mean, it has made a Google engineer working on AI believe that. And then between audio-visual stimulation and embeddables running on LifeOS, we will be able to make those experience quite a livid memory to the extent to trigger emotional and involuntary bodily responses.Space LogisticsOrdering online although seems a very trivial action to most of us, the eCommerce has been the mover of many technological development that we have come across in the last couple of decades. We do not appreciate it much, but logistics sits at the core of the global civilization that we have developed in to. Be it war or trade, both method of expansion was enabled by our ability to move huge amount of supplies from one place to another. It is a process which have been refined since the dawn of the civilization. Arrival of eCommerce put it on steroid.Awareness generates demand. We are now in an age where consumer expects that products from any corner of the world should be available to them for minimal or no additional price burden. The investment in improving end to end logistics is huge. Amazon alone have spent billions of dollars in developing every aspect of logistics including warehousing technology, freight fleet build up, process optimization, last mile etc.A few recent developments make me believe that we might very soon move logistics operations to the space. They are advanced drones, reusable rockets and Elon Musk's mission to become interplanetary species. While consumer need on Earth might not be able to justify the cost of developing technology for space logistics, the mission to populate Mars will. For his mission to build civilization on Mars, Elon will have to move a lot of material from Earth to Mars for an extended period of time. It would make sense to have series of warehouses and delivery system between the two planet. Like it often happens, the consumer technology will piggyback on space technology. Between our air space and lower earth orbit, the vast space – stratosphere is largely unutilized. We may be able to build super warehouses is this space and then floating delivery balloons ready to ship out consignments using drones closer to earth.  I have other things on my list which I believe will happen sooner than later, and also of intriguing complexities that would come with that. For example, if and when Elon Musk does set out to establish civilization on Mars, will it be completely populated by transfer of people, animals and plants from Earth, or will we be artificially creating some on Mars itself? If we do create, will we produce them in our image, a final product or will we just spring out single cell life and let it evolve on its own?Between converging in to a singularity with embeddables and creating new life on a new planet, how far are we from being the Gods, the ancient theologies told us the stories of?WEEKLY ROUNDUPVisual Thought of the WeekA Twitter thread on Sentient AI by Giada PistilliSPONSOREDTo stay updated and interesting read everyday, I am using Refind. They curate posts from many sources and send it directly to your inbox based on your selected topics. It is free to subscribe. Give it a shot and I am sure you will find something of your interest. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit percolator.substack.com

In this week's brew:Inflationary Downturn: Living through the Snowy Winter by Neelendra NathVisual Thought of the Week featuring creative by Tracy TangThe top 1% new ideas - a twitter thread by Sahil BloomPOSTInflationary Downturn: Living through the Snowy WinterIn last couple of years, the world has changed and how? It is obviously not news at this point of time that we are in an inflationary downturn, staring right into global food shortage and headed to some sort of ‘post free trade' political economy. A snowy winter has been proclaimed in bold lettered doomsday headlines. Businesses have been warned of VC pullback, and employees of massive attrition. Food and energy prices are already soaring in most markets. The political environment has also been getting strained, even among the allies and friendly nations. It has not been said in so many words, but the underlying sentiment is definitely of ‘each to their own'. In a nutshell, the doomsday headlines aren't too off the mark.But the headlines are not the whole story. We have been here, and if anything, today we are far more equipped to tackle the situation than we were ever before. Make no mistake, there is a winter on the horizon, but we will see the sun on the other side.Is winter here, and is it snowy?Yes, unambiguously yes. And one indicator that most effectively have captured the magnitude of the bad weather, is the pull back in the revenue multiples of technology businesses. It has been if not worse, then as bad as in the earlier recessions, during the financial crisis of 2008-09 and the dot com bust of early 2000s.We have been on the brink of a global recession since the pandemic induced shutdowns across the world. If we seem to just escaped, which we have in past year, it was just an extremely hard effort pushing the inevitable a little further ahead. That further ahead is now. The pandemic and then the war in Ukraine ensured that. Between Chinese lockdown, and the capacity shrinkage everywhere, the supply chain continues to be disrupted.The bull ride of the last decade is definitely over.What to make of the doomsday headlines?When situations like these arrive, the public narrative turn negative very fast. It is indeed hard to keep head high and cool, when the ground seems to be burning. The headline hunters do not help, specially in an environment, where sensational sells more than the rational. The trouble in the market has halted the run we had seen in the past, but what many would like to proclaim, this is not the end of the road.Differentiate between the progress and growth. While growth is cyclical; progress, especially in technology, almost always move forward. Market slumps impact high risk high cost endeavours dearly in immediate and short – term; might also impede progress a bit but doesn't change its direction. And, for that reason, despite the headlines predicting doomsday, you should be optimistic about coming times.What to expect in this period?If you are in the consumer business, expect a very slowed down adoption of whatever new you have been rolling out in the market. Over past few years, we have seen a surge in offerings which catered to needs higher up on Maslow's hierarchy. If you are or planning to earn a premium from consumer on account of prestige, ethics and morals; you might want to let go of that premium and try to be price competitive. Rising food and energy price inflation have pushed a lot of consumer to care more for self than the planet. Also, expect them to hold a bit longer on appliances and electronics, lengthening the depreciation & replacement time for existing technology.From the funding perspective, there is a pullback in VC money, but trend doesn't seem to be that bad on early and pre-seed investment front. If you are already in post Series – A rounds, then expect the further rounds to dry up. It is unlikely that for coming couple of years we will be seeing alphabets going too far beyond the first row. Revenue multiples will give way to good old DCF, and valuation drops are expected.With those two things happening, the period is particularly not good for those working at technology startups. Companies will correct their assumptions, business model and growth predictions. They will seek to improve their unit economics and will cut losses. That means there will be attrition, some of which we have already seen.What businesses should be doing?A tough capital environment demands strong fundamentals. This is the time for the businesses to go back to the storyboard and cut off the fluff. Reconsider your growth assumptions and organization designs.In the period of the easy capital companies grew rapidly and to certain extent the cash inflow afforded them some inefficiency. The crunch of talent in the market had spurred a short of renumeration competition which took feet independent of business rationality. It is probably the time to revisit headcount and rationalize company size.It is also the time to reset your KPIs, identify your true north and hone your business model to deliver on them with highest efficiency achievable. In short, realign your business to deliver on unit economic. Profitability is no longer a metrics which can be kicked too much down the road.Don't let a good crisis go waste.If anything, the history of recessions has shown us that those who put their heads down and rationalized business, have emerged stronger after the market has gotten back to normal. Think of all the business built in the wake of 2008 crisis, the AirBnBs & the Ubers of the world. It is the time to prepare for the disruption that is about to come.SPONSOREDTo stay updated and interesting read everyday, I am using Refind. They curate posts from many sources and send it directly to your inbox based on your selected topics. It is free to subscribe. Give it a shot and I am sure you will find something of your interest.WEEKLY ROUNDUPVisual Thought of the WeekA twitter thread on top 1% ideas by Sahil Bloom This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit percolator.substack.com

In this week's brew:Onboard the Future: A Case for a ‘Shadow Board' with Gen Z Members by Neelendra NathPercolator Job Board & Talent CollectiveVisual Thought of the Week featuring creative by Tanosei40 mind altering concept - a twitter thread by GurwinderPOSTOnboard the Future: A Case for a ‘Shadow Board' with Gen Z MembersOne in every three people today on the planet are younger than 25 years of age. They are what is categorised as Generation Z and more recently Zoomers, the successors of the millennials. It wasn't long ago when the corporate world cried hoarse about how millennials had just not shaped well to be part of the work force. So, imagine, how out of place the generation Z would be in that environment.Before we get in to the thick of it, let us get some of the terms defined for uninitiated. While there are no consensus on exact years, it is generally accepted that those born between 1945 and 1064 are called Boomers; those between 1964 and 1980 are the Generation X; the ones between 1980 and mid to late 1990s are the millennials; and those born between late 1990s & mid 2010s are Generation Z or Gen-Z. Apparently, those born after 2016 are being called Alpha, though one would argue it is a bit late in the product lifecycle to ship the alpha.Now that is shorted, lets jump right into it. Generation Z, and the younger ones form the single largest cohort of humans in the world with about 40% of the total population. They started entering the workforce between from about mid 2010s based on how you define their starting year. They are also the newest of the consumers. And the rest of us are not in sync with them. There is a lack of understanding and interoperability. One would think that millennials would find much in common with Gen – Z, and while that is true to certain extent; the differences are significant enough for the need of conscious effort to understand the world view, engagement terms and philosophy of the new generation.The differences become clearer where the participative expectations largely lie on the new generation, but the power resides with the skip generation. Higher education, corporate workforce, consumer business, politics etc are still completely controlled by Generation X if not by Boomers. Even the “new age innovative startups” of global scale are mostly led by Generation X. Whereas, the ones entering all these places and getting directly affected by decisions being made, are Generation Z. It is imperative that the twain shall meet. In fact, it would be extremely smart of the older generation, to put out a sincere effort to learn from the newer generation. Sort of a reverse mentoring.The idea had been discussed in public domain in past few years and there are some examples with some companies forming ‘high potential youth' or ‘youth committee' kind of groups with their newer employees, mostly millennials. But now with the newer generation coming in, I believe there is a need to take it a notch higher.What makes Gen – Z so different?Every generation is different from the ones which came before them. Growing up in a different political and economic environment with newer technologies, opens people up to the possibilities that their predecessors didn't have. So, in that context, there is nothing unique about Gen - Z being different from millennials and earlier generations. But when you compare the deviance between generations, the current generation seem to display significantly more than that among earlier generations. The reason lies in rapid shift in computational technology and access to internet.The first generation to get access to computers and internet at scale are the millennials. But for most of them, for most part of their life, they grew up without those technologies. Hence, they still had a point of reference for understanding life & time of their older generation. The millennials grew along with the internet, while the Gen – Z are born in the internet era. For this generation, connectivity and access to information is as basic as access to food, housing, education, and healthcare. By the time firsts of the Gen – Z grew up, the internet had already become the behemoth that it is. The access to information that this generation has grown up with is unprecedented, and the ability to network across the globe in unlimited. These two things have resulted in a world view – social, cultural, political, and fiscal – which is significantly different from earlier generations, even when compared to one that precedes them directly.The difference in the world view manifests in form of ambitions, aspirations, ethical and moral standards, and expectations from political & business leaders.Why build a shadow board?The generational disconnect has become wide enough to make the ways of current leadership to a considerable extent completely unrelatable to the newest generation. We got to admit that we have no clue how the current generation operates and how they want to shape their future. Rest of us might be using social media and consuming a lot of information. But we are not on the same platforms, and not even using the same lingo.Most of the millennials if end up landing in a discord community wouldn't understand a sentence uttered, and many to start with wouldn't know how to land into a discord community.But we need to learn that because Gen – Z is the most networked, most aware and most tech savvy generation that, and now they are becoming adults. They are joining the workforce; they are becoming paying consumers and are taking part in politics. They are the future, and we need to learn to tune the systems in to meet their expectations. That is why we need them close to the ears which matters, and those ears need to sincerely listen to them.Understand that the purpose of such a board is not to solve the current challenges that your organization faces. You need them to keep you abreast with changing trends and call out your ideas which patently won't sit well with their generation. Typical things that you want them to help with are:Predict future service and product wantsBrand and Communication reinventionRedesign your workplace practices and environmentUnderstand public sentiments and be more sensitive toward themCreate your future vision for the next generationIncrease engagement with Gen – Z and upcoming generationsThere are actually a few examples from companies like GroupM that created Youth Committees for innovation and new product development with their millennial employees, and that has shown success. A shadow board with next generation nonemployees, is taking it a notch further and displaying more commitment towards being future ready.Who should have a shadow board?Short answer, everyone.If you run any organization, the newest generation is the one which you are going to primarily cater to in coming years. This is already true for all academic institutions and young adult centric services. Across the globe, in any election held in last few years, Gen – Z were the first-time electorate. So, no matter what sort of organization you are, you need the perspective of this generation.Educational Institutions: Admit it that our educational system has remained primitive and despite all the technology infusion the fundamentals hasn't chained. It more or less worked with millennials but the learning landscape and opportunity for the next generation is wide. For them the current education system is actually more restrictive to their development than supportive. We need to reinvent the education system and to do that we need to understand the perspective of this generation.Governments and Political Parties: Do you even need an explainer? Your understanding of governance, equity, equality, diversity, ethics, aspirations, public discourse, public participation – all come from a bygone era and doesn't sit well with this generation. They have shown that quite clearly, across the globe, on the street. You would do good to bring them in the meetings and learn from them how they see these things.Companies: Gen Z is your youngest employees and your newest consumer. They are more likely to try new things than any other generation and have more options available than any other generation. They learn, understand, and use technology faster than anyone else. So, they are always one step ahead of you. For you it makes a strong case to have a shadow board which keep you updated on latest market behaviour, the viral trends, the moral issues, and sensitive topics as they are being discussed in public domain. You had great difficulties adjusting with millennial employees coming in the workforce, be proactive this time and create a workplace which works with the newer generation.Investment Firms/VCs/PEs: You are literally investing in future, then why the intellect of past is being used to make those decisions. You should have a shadow investment committee made of the youngest that you can have. If they are not impressed, it is not going to work in the market.These are just few examples. It applies to everyone. Actually, it applied all the time in past as well. But the impact of not having it was never as significant as it can be today.One thing that everyone really needs to understand is that Gen – Z is also the most capable cohort of young people we have had. So, they are not going to sit around and just adjust themselves for the system available to them. They have tool and intelligence to build ones themselves. So, if you are an organization which doesn't want to go obsolete in coming years, engage them before they oust you.How to constitute a shadow board?There are no formulae that fits all. Remember that your need for the shadow board is to stay on the top of the shifting generational trends that appear on horizon, not to tackle the problems you are facing today. Thus, your new employees are not to be your shadow board. They can be encouraged to bring changes within the roles that they have been employed for and should be given attention when they make a suggestion. But your shadow board should ideally be a body completely independent to any of the day-to-day activities at your organization.Ideally, your shadow board should be formed of individuals who are not an active member of workforce and can be as young as allowed to engage in your legal jurisdiction. Depending upon the kind of organization you are, you will have to find the right mix in terms of distributing them across age, education, skills, and industry. You might want to see for demonstrable interest or understanding among the candidates about your sector or business function. It can be reflected based upon their public writings, demonstrated knowledge or even life circumstances. You should also have members to advise on causes like diversity, equality, climate change etc where they would bring a perspective that we have no way to access other than talking to younger people.The size of your shadow board can reflect the number of critical issues for which you want to engage them or people in your leadership whom you want them to shadow. Understand that this shadow board doesn't need to perform as a formal board and have meetings where all of them convene. So, you can probably create a large board made of smaller committees. They should have many opportunities to observe your actual board and senior leadership, and also to share their perspective with everyone.This board is not a statutory body, so there is no obligation on how often you should consult them and how often they share their opinion. But it will be able to serve its purpose effectively only if they are treated with respect and seriousness that they and future of your organization deserves. While this will not be an employment position for the members you bring on board in the typical sense, but you must renumerate them and let them fee the value of their contributions.For large part of it, it is going to be an ever-changing requirement and experimental process. So, keep evaluating and keep iterating.If the thought resonates with you or, you have already been part of such a board or, have constituted one at your organization, I would love to hear your take.VALUE ADDPercolator Talent CollectivePercolator talent collective is a private community I am curating for individuals who are seeking high value high impact technology and growth roles. How it works is that you apply to the collective, and once selected; a curated set of companies reach out to you for the roles they have open.You can chose to be listed anonymously, or make yourself invisible to a selected set of companies.If you are in a mental space of ‘not actively seeking but open to see whats out there', then being part of the collective can actually help you.Percolator Job BoardIf you are actively looking for a job, then we have some really interesting curated remote roles in technology and growth listed on the Percolator Job Board. You can directly apply to them.Director, Content at Spotify (Remote - Global)Director, Community Governance at Reddit (Remote - Global)Senior Product Manager, Growth (SEO) at Reddit (Remote - Global)Growth Project Manager at Pipe (Remote - Global)Frontend Engineer at Stripe (Remote - US)COMMUNITYWe are experimenting with communities to help our subscribers connect with each other and engage more effectively. We have set up two communities for that purpose - one on twitter and another on discord.Twitter has recently launched community feature, and it will be interesting to try out how does using tweet within a private community works. Please join in if you want to try it out. If you do not have the feature available to you, please follow & DM me and I will try to invite you.Discord community is more tried and tested place. It gives a lot of feature to manage and moderate discussions, have separate channels and also verified anonymity for the members.SPONSOREDTo stay updated and interesting read everyday, I am using Refind. They curate posts from many sources and send it directly to your inbox based on your selected topics. It is free to subscribe. Give it a shot and I am sure you will find something of your interest.WEEKLY ROUNDUPVisual Thought of the WeekA twitter thread explaining 40 mind altering concepts This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit percolator.substack.com

LISTEN TO THE POST - Mining Crypto Downhole: Use Cases for Blockchain in Oil & Gas In this week's brew:Mining Crypto Downhole: Use cases for Blockchain in Oil & Gas by Neelendra NathPercolator Job Board & Talent CollectiveVisual Thought of the Week featuring creative by Visualize ValueDeep dive in marketing tips - a thread of threads on twitter by VictorPOSTMining Crypto Downhole: Use Cases for Blockchain in Oil & GasA couple of weeks ago, I got an invitation to be a part of a panel on ‘application of blockchain in energy industry', to share the oil & gas perspective. Now, application of blockchain in Oil & Gas isn't really a very new discussion, nor a very hard to understand one. Initiatives withing the industry have been put in place as early as at least 2017. Yet, when you try to read up or talk to the people working in the industry, there is awfully little to show for. Five years hence, while blockchain isn't anymore a niche technology, it's utility in oil & gas is still being put across as a very novel approach. It shouldn't be.Is there a case for Blockchain in Oil & Gas?Short answer. Certainly.Like any other traditional large industry, oil & gas is marred with challenges which comes with large scale operations, multiple stakeholders, cross-market transactions and a huge data management. The point of inefficiencies is a lot and given the sheer scale of the industry, each can bleed billions in terms of value lost.Over the years, fossil fuel industry has gained a somewhat ‘edge of the society' status – it is still extremely critical for the way of life we have; yet is largely unwanted for huge footprints it leaves in terms of climate impact. Under such circumstances the pressure, from the investors, regulators and people at large, is immense on the industry to be leaner, efficient, low impact and transparent. Blockchain, as a technology, can enable all of that.The obvious use cases leveraging Blockchain technologyThere are a lot of use cases, which are obvious and have been well evaluated in other industries such as finance, logistics, shipping etc. In fact, even oil & gas have done a pilot which gave commendable results. In 2020, a OOC Oil & Gas Blockchain consortium of about ten companies, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, did a pilot which showed incredible results decreasing process workflow from 90-120 days to 7-9 days and steps required down to 7 from 16 with no manual intervention.The fundamental of the blockchain use cases lies in knowing operative inefficiencies, reducing the costs associated with them through secured interoperability among systems of multiple stakeholders.Automating Transactions with Simultaneous AccessA lot of invoicing and reconciliation process still requires manual intervention, especially when multiple intermediary and stakeholders are involved. By bringing transactions on blockchain, each party – sellers, buyers, financers, banks, regulators etc. – can have a single immutable record of truth simultaneously. It enables real time cash & fiscal management, frees up working contract and reduces contract leakage, even across different sovereign jurisdictions. It cuts down on time needed for process workflow by providing auto validation and ensures end to end transaction security. Each transaction stays on record with provenance available to all stakeholders and can be readily made available to any new entity by giving access to the shared ledger.Maintaining Safety & Security StandardsOil & Gas industry have some of the highest risk operations and activities. It needs to keep extremely high standards for sourcing, testing, licensing, training for both personnel and equipment that is used. A lot of these activities involve multiple contractors and subcontractors.A private blockchain among the involved parties can keep a complete record of employees and contracted workers, their exposures, health risks, clearances, trainings etc. Also, a complete transparency can be brought in for maintenance and testing of safety critical equipment. Blockchain can also be used to implement project/operation/companywide security and access clearance for locations, information and data.It can be extremely useful in reducing unsafe practices, and saves the time lost in conducting multiple verifications.Impact Monitoring & Climate Compliance TransparencyBlockchain can be used to more effectively record events and evidence to keep track of adverse impact of the operations, steps taken to mitigate, and efforts being put in place to be compliant. The regulator can keep an almost real-time view of compliance status and raise alarms when needed.Companies themselves can also ensure and track that all its suppliers, vendors and subcontractors are meeting the climate standards that has been set. Having a clear and traceable record of this information, can help organizations build reputation and trust for green finance.Provenance and TraceabilityBlockchain creates opportunity to build system which allows commodity tracing, end to end which ensure the provenance of every barrel. It can help reduce prevalence of unethical produce and manoeuvres against sanctions. Having a method to trace back commodity to its who source and supply route, can also help figure out the impact individual unit is creating and true differentiation between low footprint and high footprint fuel could be made.Same holds true for all kind of asset acquisition and mobilization that happens in the industry, from land to machinery to chemicals. The ability to trace them up to their source can bring much transparency and hence trust in the industry.These are few examples of simple use cases which have parallel in other industries reaching maturity. But in truth wherever there is need for data storage, data distribution and validation from multiple stakeholders, blockchain can be implemented and will be useful for more efficient workflow.The not so obvious use cases for Cryptocurrency and NFTsYes, I am talking about that part of blockchain technology, which many just roll their eyes over. But you got to give that beyond memes and funks, there is a very real point and purpose which likes of Bitcoin can serve.Obviously, they are not extremely popular with financial institutions and governments across the globe as they seem to be directly gunning for one thing which essentially is their complete monopoly. Money. But slowly and steadily they are opening to it. In time one would think legacy industries will also look at them for potential utility.There are a few I can think of which can shape up eventually.Why not mine bitcoin instead of flaring the gas?Completely practical and already in practice with wind farms. The idea is that any energy production which is lost because of limiting factors – storage, processing etc. instead of letting go can be jacked to a mining rig and cryptocurrency such as bitcoin can be mined producing some value and reducing immediate loss.The clear case from oil & gas is the flaring. Associated gas getting flared is a monumental waste. Onsite rigging of cryptocurrency mining unit can consumer that and create a monetizable asset and create value for the producer.Can there be a cryptocurrency pegged against oil?Given that oil is a scarce resource, it does make a case for an industry wide cryptocurrency pegged against the oil itself. It would eliminate the need of external intermediary for transaction among parties within the industry.Where is NFT in all this?It can be a bit farfetched but IP ownership, data allocation and innovation partnerships can be some use-case where a non-fungible token makes sense. For example, bulk of subsurface data stay under-analysed and under-utilised. They can be offered as NFT to crowd source analysis. It can be used to encourage research contributions, where any individual who end up making meaningful contribution, say a piece in algorithm – can own the specific contribution as an NFT.More than a decade ago, when I graduated as a Petroleum Engineer, I started working on a solution which enabled crowdsourced research input and contribution to large company project by engineering students across universities. Needless to say, it didn't workout. Blockchain would have been the perfect way to bring them together, NFT to own the contribution and cryptocurrency to reward them.Blockchain, or Web3.0 is not a niche or novel technology anymore. We will soon be moving to a point where this is going to the obvious way for digital existence. Legacy industries including oil & gas has been a bit slow on adoption, and in academia there is little cross skilling that is happening. There is much value to be created and much to be saved if more experiments start happening to assess use cases.VALUE ADDPercolator Talent CollectivePercolator talent collective is a private community I am curating for individuals who are seeking high value high impact technology and growth roles. How it works is that you apply to the collective, and once selected; a curated set of companies reach out to you for the roles they have open.You can chose to be listed anonymously, or make yourself invisible to a selected set of companies.If you are in a mental space of ‘not actively seeking but open to see whats out there', then being part of the collective can actually help you.Percolator Job BoardIf you are actively looking for a job, then we have some really interesting curated remote roles in technology and growth listed on the Percolator Job Board. You can directly apply to them.Director, Content at Spotify (Remote - Global)Director, Community Governance at Reddit (Remote - Global)Senior Product Manager, Growth (SEO) at Reddit (Remote - Global)Growth Project Manager at Pipe (Remote - Global)Frontend Engineer at Stripe (Remote - US)COMMUNITYWe are experimenting with communities to help our subscribers connect with each other and engage more effectively. We have set up two communities for that purpose - one on twitter and another on discord.Twitter has recently launched community feature, and it will be interesting to try out how does using tweet within a private community works. Please join in if you want to try it out. If you do not have the feature available to you, please follow & DM me and I will try to invite you.Discord community is more tried and tested place. It gives a lot of feature to manage and moderate discussions, have separate channels and also verified anonymity for the members.SPONSOREDTo stay updated and interesting read everyday, I am using Refind. They curate posts from many sources and send it directly to your inbox based on your selected topics. It is free to subscribe. Give it a shot and I am sure you will find something of your interest.WEEKLY ROUNDUPVisual Thought of the WeekA Thread of Twitter threads to up your Marketing Skills by Victor This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit percolator.substack.com

LISTEN TO THE POST - Employment: Most Significant Paradoxical Challenge of Our TimeIn this week's brew:Employment: Most Significant Paradoxical Challenge of Our Time by Neelendra NathVisual Thought of the Week featuring creative by Janis OzolinsMoney, mindset and growth - a twitter thread by Val KatayevPercolator Job Board & Talent CollectivePOSTEmployment: The most significant paradoxical challenge of our timesAbility to cooperate at scale is essentially the key that helped humans grow into the civilizational people that we are today. Very broadly speaking, such cooperation for a very large part of the history, fell in just two categories – voluntary or coerced. Coerced being slavery and voluntary, employment.As the societies became more complex, and requirements for a settled life increased – employment became the form of cooperation which fulfilled practical needs of free people. While in it's earliest stage employment largely meant physical labour, as the larger cities, industries, mass production, services kicked in, the type and quality of employment varied widely. As an outcome learning and employment, got linked. Since there was a cost - in terms of time and capital - to learning, those who produced better result for that cost, were rewarded higher in their employment. Obviously, employment and prosperity got linked.Employment, very early in our civilizational history went from being a monetarily rewarding method of cooperation to a marker of prosperity and success.Role of Employment in SocietiesAbility to be employed, and earn your living in many manners have contributed heavily towards making our world peaceful.The understanding, that a low risk path to prosperity exist curbed the instinctive urge to use force to fulfil desire. As the type of employment changed from mere labour to skill, the urge for learning developed. The fear of loss of employment, or inability to gain one on account of having criminal precedence served as a deterrence.Learning skill and gaining employment has been, and even today remains the most common method to bring significant single generation shift in prosperity for families.As a mean for sustenance and path to prosperity, employment very early on became a key demand of people from whatever governance system they were living under. The ability of rulers – monarchs, authoritarians or elected leaders – to generate employment in their land became a sign of fair ruling. People migrated and continue to emigrate to those countries or regions which provided higher and better employment opportunities. The places which showed spurt of growth, offered more employment opportunities and thus attracted better talent who in turn helped in further growing the place. Similarly, lack of employment equated to degrowth, slowdown, exodus of talent and failing economies. A correlation between lack of meaningful employment and crime is also well established.Availability of employment in many ways has become an essential feature of a balanced, prosperous and thriving society. So, it has become incumbent on governments to ensure that the opportunities remain available for everyone seeking employment.Why is it a paradoxical challenge in current times?For most of the government managing employment – availability, renumeration, benefits and employee treatment – has always been a challenge, specially in free markets. For this mode of cooperation to remain effective, it is important that people who seek employment can rely on its availability and the benefits it brings. Availability is often affected by economic cycle, whereas quality and benefits gets affected by micro policies of the organization. So far, those remain the key challenges in the employment space. Government played a role to secure economic environment, and regulate companies employment policies.Today, we are facing a uniquely challenging situation. On the turn of the century, with technology revolution that gave us internet, global connectivity and high power computing the employment opportunities, skill requirements and benefit terms completely changed. The economic cycle also went through a flux and on the other side of it we saw the most massive shift in skill requirement for meaningful employment.Today, we face the situation where companies are finding it extremely challenging to hire skilled people and at the same time, skilled people are finding it extremely difficult to find jobs. The supply side, and the demand side both are complaining of unavailability. That is the paradox.It becomes even more mystifying, when we account for the fact that over time, the regulatory framework guiding employment terms, remuneration and benefits have comparatively improved; as well as, the education participation and throughput of skilled individuals have also globally increased.There are no simple answers to explain this paradoxical challenge. But at the core of it sits a massive mismatch between academia, employment and aspirations.We have transitioned in to an era of rapid technology growth and thus the specific knowledge requirement for being employable is rapidly changing. The traditional academia comes out too slow to match the requirements of the industry. Even though as the name of it, the qualification matches the labelled requirements for employment, the skill the said qualification is offering is falling short of what is required to deliver the work. The quality expectations, and specific knowledge requirement for employability has gone up. The standard educational methods have failed to deliver on that.Also, with then new age technology giants coming in, the understanding of good jobs and job benefits have widely changed. The aspirations of individuals seeking employment have grown muti-folds, which the larger traditional employers are not able to match. Hence, with the environment and benefits that they are offering, they find extremely challenging to get required skilled individuals.Is there a solution in sight?Employment and education, were in fact one of the earliest sectors which saw web platforms coming up to cater to. From learning, skilling, upskilling, employment search, sourcing, interviewing, training etc. the whole recruitment and employment management cycle has moved online pretty early in the internet era. Yet, the problem exist.In the past decade we saw a lot of EdTech solutions come up and grow massively. While much of them helped improved the access situation, they haven't specifically designed to improve the quality of learning, specially in terms of matching the need of the industry. They have been successful in closing the knowledge gap, but not the skill gap.We have also seen a surge of skill matching platform, innovating recruitment process solutions come up, claiming to bring the right job to right candidate. But, the problem is supply and demand side not matching. So, these solutions are bringing large numbers of opportunities matching a few candidates or large numbers of candidates matching a few jobs. Doesn't solve the paradox.The solution requires to match the pace of rapidly changing nature of jobs, and the way to gain those skills. In past few years, a lot of unconventional ‘educational institutions' have come up claiming to narrow this skill gap though bootcamp style cohort based skill oriented learning. But they are few and far between, in no way capable of matching the size of the challenge.The other part of it, the mismatch between offer and aspirations, largely remain unaddressed. It will require an introspection from large legacy companies, some sort of regulatory push and a huge amount of popular demand for change.Paradoxical challenges are the ones which have exponential upside. If an innovator or entrepreneur, can effectively build to solve this challenge, the opportunity for that business to grow would be enormous.CURATEDVisual Thought of the Week Money, Mindset and Growth - Twitter thread by Val KatayevVALUE ADDPercolator Talent CollectivePercolator talent collective is a private community I am curating for individuals who are seeking high value high impact technology and growth roles. How it works is that you apply to the collective, and once selected; a curated set of companies reach out to you for the roles they have open. You can chose to be listed anonymously, or make yourself invisible to a selected set of companies.If you are in a mental space of ‘not actively seeking but open to see whats out there', then being part of the collective can actually help you.Percolator Job BoardIf you are actively looking for a job, then we have some really interesting curated remote roles in technology and growth listed on the Percolator Job Board. You can directly apply to them. Director, Content at Spotify (Remote - Global)Director, Community Governance at Reddit (Remote - Global)Senior Product Manager, Growth (SEO) at Reddit (Remote - Global)Growth Project Manager at Pipe (Remote - Global)Frontend Engineer at Stripe (Remote - US)COMMUNITYWe are experimenting with communities to help our subscribers connect with each other and engage more effectively. We have set up two communities for that purpose - one on twitter and another on discord.Twitter has recently launched community feature, and it will be interesting to try out how does using tweet within a private community works. Please join in if you want to try it out. If you do not have the feature available to you, please follow & DM me and I will try to invite you. Discord community is more tried and tested place. It gives a lot of feature to manage and moderate discussions, have separate channels and also verified anonymity for the members.SPONSOREDTo stay updated and interesting read everyday, I am using Refind. They curate posts from many sources and send it directly to your inbox based on your selected topics. It is free to subscribe. Give it a shot and I am sure you will find something of your interest. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit percolator.substack.com