Google and Yahoo

So Google and Yahoo have come out with their results. While Yahoo has really disappointed the market and has announced 1000 job cuts, Google just missed analyst forecasts by a whisker (one penny to be precise). I think it is time for Yahoo to stop trying the turnaround story by itself and accept Microsoft's bid. With the portfolio of websites they have got I think an MS managed Yahoo can compete with Google better.


BTW I think this is the first time Google has missed forecasts since they went public. And one aspect that caught my attention was Google CFO's remark that ads from social networking websites have not monetized as well as well they had expected it to. I think there are two reasons why this is happening. One, Orkut is less popular in US when compared to Brazil or India where internet ad spends and click potentials are lesser. Two, while ads in orkut are still being experimented and debated in India/Brazil, I think the risk of appearing in wrong forums would make advertisers shy away from this medium. Some more rejigs are necessary before this channle can really bring in the money.


The more interesting thing for me however is to see whether the projected recession will make advertisers seek to invest more in clearly accountable Internet advertising. Can this be the some kinda goldmine during tougher times?

Jeffrey Sachs on India

6:30 PM, August 8th, 2007: The Indian School of Business played host to the greatest economist of this generation, Mr. Jeffrey Sachs, Director, Earth Institute, Columbia University. Jeffrey needs no introduction to the ISB students. Prof. Krishnakumar from Rand Corporation taught us Global Economics in term 2 and he extensively used videos featuring Jeffrey solving hyper-inflation and extreme poverty in third world countries. After a raunching introduction by Rajat Gupta, Jeffrey walked up the stage to talk about 'Climate change and Sustained development in India'. He started out talking about the three major phases of economic development in India since independence, the 1947 to mid 1960s perios when essential PSUs were set up, the mid 1960s to 1980s when Green Revolution and infrastructure development happened and finally the 1990s onwards opening up of the economy and the rapid growth. Prof. Sachs feels that any country has to do two three things(in that order) to achieve sustainable growth.

i) End extreme poverty
ii) Achieve rapid growth
iii) Create a framework for sustained growth

And all of these have to be done consistent with our environment. Sadly, India has achieved the second step, achieving rapid growth, but has failed very badly on the first and third step. The high incidence of stunted growth in children(malnutrition), maternal and infant mortality is proof for that. In spite of great advances in the technology & infrastructure sectors the spending on primary health is among the least in the word (Some thing like $10 per head compared to $3000 in US). To add to this India is a coal based energy producer which contributes to a lot of carbon addition, a major greenhouse gas. The need of the day is to have public-private partnerships to uplift the poorest of poor in India and improve the primary health care system. he particularly lauded the efforts of the Satyam group which was setting up mobile public health clinics using a public-private partnership model. Prof. Sachs likes the fact that anything if decided happens very fast in India and he wants our country to target achieving this by 2015. After conquering this major challenge starts the gargantuan task of achieving sustained growth in an environmentally friendly way. He strongly encouraged carbon sequestering and use of nuclear and solar energy to a greater extent. Then followed audience questions. He stunned everybody with his knowledege about India. I felt that he was not just an economist. He is a technologist, environmental activist, public planner and visionary all packed into one wiry body. It was indeed a privilege to listen to such a great legend from such close quarters. Three cheers to ISB.

The Three Islands

'The Three Islands' is a nice little game that was part of the 'Bind Unwind' team building exercise we had last week. The concept of the game was simple. A group of 30 odd people were split into three teams and were made to move to circles that were drawn on three ends of a small grassy area. Apparently as part of the game these circles were designated as islands and out of which two were sinking. The rest of the ground was supposed to be water. The three teams were then deliberately deprived some essential physical faculties. One team was totally blind folded, my team was deprived of any chance to speak (the dumb team) and the third team's members had their legs tied. Now the blind team was given small pieces of sponge which were the props that can be used to cross over to the island that will not sink. The blind team and our team(the dumb team) were secretly told that our islands were sinking. The lame team was only told that two islands were sinking, so they were not sure if their island was sinking. The whole group was then given one hour to get ourselves transported to the island that is not sinking. Sounds simple right. But what happened over the next one hour unraveled some really striking management fundae. Actually the fact that I was part of the dumb team helped me observe things much better. Ok, so here is what happened.

As would any logical team do, the lame team shouted out to the blind team and asked them if their island was sinking. The blinds said yes and we the dumbos were listening. Then the lames turned over and asked the dumbos if their island was sinking and the dumbos nodded "Yes". But the interesting thing is the blind guys could not see this and so they were not sure which other island was sinking. So now the lame team knew that they were in safe harbor and realized that only they can help the whole group achieve the team goal of getting rescued from sinking. So they called out the blind team to get one of them come over to the lame island placing the props sequentially and get saved. Then one of the lames can limp over to the dumb island and then the dumbos will get the rest of the blind guys saved.

Here is when an interesting twist happened. The blind team got a feeling that the lame guys were probably trying to deceive them. They started asking why the lame team wanted to help them when their own island was not sinking !!! What the heck can the lame guys answer for this??? The seeds of distrust were sown and the blind guys decided to come to the dumb island which was an impossible task based on the arrangement of the islands. We dumbers were totally at loss as we could not do anything to make the situation better. The one hour elapsed and the blind guys could manage nothing and essentially the entire group lost the game.

Thinking back on the game I could relate it precisely to any organisational set up. The blind guys were like the top management. They had what it needs to save the entire group(the props) but they were blinded from reality and had distrust running in their blood. The dumb team (which I was part of) was like the worker class. They have no voice and can do nothing to change the world. The lame team meanwhile is like the middle management of an organisation. They can see what is happening and can advise the top management what to do but they still are tied to their feet and can't really drive the change. They want to save the organisation but don't have the power to do. What a sad situation...

I was really amazed at how a simple game like this can teach such profound lessons. I'm really thankful to the alums and the external org. that helped in this team building session. Way to go ISB !

Career Options and self discovery

One of the better events that happened during the orientation week at ISB was the career perspectives forum. The forum was conducted in a panel discussion model and there were five panelists, all alums from ISB. The backgrounds of the panelists and the order in which they spoke are

1. Management Consultant
2. Investment Banker
3. IT Strategist
4. Marketing Professional
5. Entrepreneur.

The forum basically had two parts to it. First the speakers came up and talked about their profession which was followed by a moderated Q&A session. The first speaker was the management consultant. Due to the fact that he makes his living out of powerpoint presentations he decided to buck the trend and instead talk without a PPT to support. Management consulting in his words is the job of dealing with CXO level problems. Typical assignments range from 4 weeks up to 5-6 months. The diversity of the assignments and thrill of working with the top-management of clients obviously gives the career highs in this industry. On the flip side there is a heck lot of travel. Our speaker for instance flies out every monday morning to a client site and stays there till friday evening. After 5 years in the industry he dreads the sight of an aircraft and always keeps an air-sickness bag handy. To put in a nut-shell consulting is a thrilling career for one who wants the broader perspective, loves to solve other's problems and for one who is either not very family oriented or has a very supportive family which understands his career aspirations.

Next came the investment banker. True to his profession he looked very much emaciated. He called on to the finance honchos in our batch and beckoned them to investment banking. I-banking, as it is popularly known, is among the highest paying sectors and salaries to the tune of $200,000 are more the rule than the exception. Investment bankers probably handle much higher stress than consultants and usually have 65 hr work weeks. But the job is really rewarding with the large bonuses and the high profile work style. A key learning was the fact that career shifts into investment banking by engineers/IT pros are rare and very difficult in 1 year MBA programs.

The IT strategist was up next and the first thing he asked for was a show of hands from all who had an IT background. This year's student directory claims that our batch has only 28% students with technology background but the show of hands indicated something much bigger. This instantly thrilled him and he said that the IT industry needs all of us to come back and is also ready to welcome students from other backgrounds. He was commenting on the multitude of middle management opportunities in IT and the way the outsourcing wave was booming. In his words, the industry has still got a long way to mature and opportunities are galore for ISB grads in IT. It was really gratifying to listen to him as career advancement in IT is exactly what I'm looking at accomplishing.

On came the marketing lady. She talked a lot about how every consumer decision is influenced by marketing and she also talked a lot about branding. As is expected out of any management discipline hectic schedules, excessive travel and high targets are to be expected in this role. The auditorium had a good number of marketing enthusiasts and her presentation struck a great chord with them. She also alluded to the marketing side of IT and it rung a few bells in my head too.

The stage was finally set for the entrepreneur to come in and walk away after winning all the hearts. He started by saying that as an entrepreneur you can be a consultant, i-banker, marketing pro and a lot more single handedly. He took a dig at every profession and also drove home the point of personal satisfaction that he derives out of being an entrepreneur. He also talked about the mental strength and risk appetite that one needs to have to set out on his/her own. This guy was really amazing 'coz he had his venture running even when he was studying at ISB and he used to travel every weekend to take care of stuff. It was absolutely fantastic listening to him and I'm certain that his speech inspired entrepreneurial ambitions inside the minds of a good number of people.

After this the experts clarified a lot of questions from the audience. I thoroughly enjoyed this session and gained a lot of insight about what each of these professions meant. Hearing about more and more options can confuse you a bit but it also lays a path to self discovery. For now I know that I need to tread this path soon enough !