UnPagalguy

I am moving

2010-12-11T00:22:00.000-08:00

I am relocating to my micro blog at my homepage

Interesting as it has been to write long(ish!) posts on unpagalguy, my new job does not give me time to do the same anymore. Besides, I have kind of bought into the whole Less is More philosphy.

So cya all at http://www.myshk.in/blog

A Guide to Interviews

2010-04-29T23:07:00.000-07:00

ONE)
Understand what the Interviewer wants (the Interviewer is ur client -
You are marketing urself)
3 Things
- Independent Thinking (to find and solve own problems and not
require hand-holding and spoon-feeding)
- Technical Competence and Implementation Focus (People who have a
known track record of having DONE stuff. Made things, written papers)
- Like-able personality (To get along with everyone in the department
and not behave like a psycho)

Try to guess what the meaning behind each question you are asked might
be. Most likely, each of ur answers must tick one of the above 3
boxes. So THINK before you speak out and see what "punch" u can pack
into each ans, to which box it adds weight.

TWO)
Make a Network Diagram.
On the left side of a A4 paper, write down all the projects and
activities you have done in ur life. In any order, linearity not
necessary.
On the right side of the paper, write down all the projects that the
department you are applying to has done, is doing + likely research
interests of the profs in that dept (from website and google).
Match the following. Draw visual links between the LHS and RHS.
THAT is how you add value to the department and the prof's research.

THREE)
In the network diagram, try to see what ur LHS would look like in 5
years time. What would u like it to look like? What words would u like
it to have in that crazy tag cloud?
NOW, see if there is anything on the RHS (the lab/department/prof
project tag words) that can be linked to ur "next 5 years" tag cloud.
Is there?
THAT is how the department adds value to you, THAT is your answer to
"Why do you want to join us?"

FOUR)
Be personal. Find the name of ur interviewer. Ask questions. Be HUMAN
(not a robot answering questions! noone wants that!) - and express
genuine interest in ur interviewer, in the program. Show ur enthusiasm
(of course, dont overdo it! ). Add a touch of light humour whenever
appropriate. Be honest. Dont' "globe" the personal answers. Try to
introspect and find out about yourself. (Things like "What is your
ambition in life?" "Tell me a situation where you have shown
leadership skills" " Tell me an instance where you have failed"
"Strengths/weaknesses")

IQ andProductivity

2010-03-06T09:10:00.000-08:00

Ever been frustrated at work that a "not so smart" co-worker seems to perform better than you at all the things that matter? Or, better, ever been puzzled why someone much much smarter than you manages to consistent mess up at work and not fare well at performance reviews?

Recently came across this interesting little article that covers this aspect, amongst others.

At fault may be our notion of "smartness" of course...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The link between, say, I.Q. and job performance is distinctly underwhelming. On a scale where 0.1 or below means virtually no correlation and 0.7 or above implies a strong correlation (your height, for example, has a 0.7 correlation with your parents’ height), the correlation between I.Q. and occupational success is between 0.2 and 0.3. “What I.Q. doesn’t pick up is effectiveness at common-sense sorts of things, especially working with people,” Richard Wagner, a psychologist at Florida State University, says. “In terms of how we evaluate schooling, everything is about working by yourself. If you work with someone else, it’s called cheating. Once you get out in the real world, everything you do involves working with other people.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

On self determination

2010-03-05T09:12:00.000-08:00

...from Seth Godin's blog....

I posted this eight years ago (!) but a reader asked for an encore.

...are we stuck in High School?

I had two brushes with higher education this week.

The first was at a speech I gave in New York. There were several Harvard Business School students there, invited because of their interest in marketing and exceptional promise (that's what I was told... I think they came because they had heard that Maury Rubin would make a great lunch!).

Anyway, they asked for my advice in finding marketing jobs. When I shared my views (go to a small company, work for the CEO, get a job where you actually get to make mistakes and do something) one woman professed to agree with me, but then explained, "But those companies don't interview on campus."

Those companies don't interview on campus. Hmmm. She has just spent $100,000 in cash and another $150,000 in opportunity cost to get an MBA, but...

The second occurred today at Yale. As I drove through the amazingly beautiful campus, I passed the center for Asian Studies. It reminded me of my days as an undergrad (at a lesser school, natch), browsing through the catalog, realizing I could learn whatever I wanted. That not only could I take classes but I could start a business, organize a protest movement, live in a garret off campus, whatever. It was a tremendous gift, this ability to choose.

Yet most of my classmates refused to choose. Instead, they treated college like an extension of high school. They took the most mainstream courses, did the minimum amount they needed to get an A, tried not to get into "trouble" with the professor or face the uncertainty of the unknowable. They were the ones who spent six hours a day in the library, reading their textbooks.

The best part of college is that you could become whatever you wanted to become, but most people just do what they think they must.

Is this a metaphor? Sure. But it's a worthwhile one. You have more freedom at work than you think (hey, you're reading this on company time!) but most people do nothing with that freedom but try to get an A.

Do you work with people who are still in high school? Job seekers only willing to interview with the folks who come on campus? Executives who are trying to make their boss happy above all else? It's pretty clear that the thing that's wrong with this system is high school, not the rest of the world.

Cut class. Take a seminar on french literature. Interview off campus. Safe is risky.

More on tough things to do

2010-01-11T05:59:00.000-08:00

Well, after my somewhat melodramatic last post, I figured I might follow up with something plainer, simpler and more grounded in the mundaneness and banality of everyday life.

Firstly, most people don't have a dream. Or at least, they don't know if their dream is the "real thing". It sounds like a right conundrum - how can one find out if the dream is THAT dream? The one worth following?

I'm afraid I have no straight short answer. If I did, I would not be writing blog posts like this. In any case, it IS difficult, one must admit. I am tempted to end this post here, because, really, REALLY, you know that anything I say from here-on is going to be mere conjecture. But anyway, making use of the free internet, and my fundamental right to free speech (unfortunate, I know), here goes.

Sometimes, there might not be a "dream". I have a sneaking suspicion that nothing really means anything. That its all really all a bit random. That, if you zoom out, you see that we are all just ants, dots, crawling over this bluish green planet, changing it somewhat, then panicking and attending Climate Conferences where nothing really gets decided, then relapsing into the usual habit of crawling all over the place. Somewhere, someone must be saying: WHAT are these creatures doing? So strange...

I like Forrest Gump. I think he asked the right questions. Are we a "blimp"? Are we a result of randomness? I suspect so. In that case, our "dreams" are just that - random. As meaningless as we are. By the way, by the tone of this post, you might think that I am a bit sombre and morose about this - but I am not. I am in quite good nick. Just wondering, matter-of-factly. WHAT IF. WHAT IF there is nothing.
If one convinces oneself that there is indeed "nothing", then the only thing to do, apparently is to drink/take drugs, and burn out in a blaze of glory. Why try hard when nothing means nothing? What is there that is "higher" than I, that would make me postpone short term gratification, to make "planned" life choices. That would make me follow a dream.

[Dinner time! :D ]

The hardest thing in the world

2010-01-11T05:56:00.000-08:00

The 2nd hardest thing in the world is to follow your dream, despite people either recommending against it, or plain laughing in your face at your stupidity.

The hardest thing in the world, of course, is to find that dream.

How Nations can shape destinies

2010-01-05T04:48:00.001-08:00

There is always a great deal of hoopla about large nations acting purposefully towards an intended objective.

"How India and China can mastermind the next century"
This is the kind of headline you would be hard-pressed to avoid on any given day.

Countries, Nations "masterminding" ? As if!

I would define a democratic nation as a large collection of people who, whatever their individual merits and demerits, collectively, take consistently mediocre decisions (the purpose of which is entirely to satisfice rather than optimize). The chances of them 'masterminding' anything are as remote as a pile of sand on a beach spontaneously arranging itself into a compact glass sculpture of Venus.

And even seemingly innocuous sentences like "We must beware of the might of the Chinesee"...make no sense! The might of the Chinese? All 2 billion of them together - what do you compare 2 billion together for? Always, the unit for an individual impact has to be - wait for it! - an individual! Per Capita of anything is the only sensible unit. And by that token, the Western world's per capita indexes on everything good are miles ahead of anything that the "mighty" India and China have to counter.

One might as well make the statement "Beware of the might of all people whose name begins with the letter S"
Of course I must beware of them - they outnumber me many billion to one! However, on a per capita basis, I am willing to bet - I can beat any of them at sarcasm! Or at least - put up a damn good fight!

What a PhD student can do

2009-03-18T02:32:00.000-07:00

We sometimes talk of "interdisciplinary research" but more often talk of "how the system is bad" or of the numerous reasons why we CANNOT do things.

Here is a very visual example of what a PhD student CAN do.
Fellow geeks will find this truly awe-inspiring :P
Even if you are not a geek, I hope this will at least make your day for one day and make you wonder about what a PhD student CAN do :)

Entrepreneurs,Superheroes and Supervillains

2009-03-11T01:31:00.000-07:00

Very interesting blog.

So yes, I agree that they are like superheroes.

Might I also add, that their intense internal desire to be the one to "save the day" is often quite irritating to others (especially super-villains and/or evil masterminds)

Which brings me to a whole separate piece of my ramble :
How entrepreneurs = superheroes = supervillains

It's all in the eye of the beholder, whether you are a hero or a villain. Truth is the opinion of the majority. It is, as my PhD colleagues would no doubt argue (with subtlety and yet, conviction) "embedded in social, cultural, economic and political context". Truth is only defined, reality is only internalized, within this context. So whether you are a superhero or a supervillain, depends not so much on what you do (or even if you prefer wearing your briefs inside or outside your trousers), not even on who you are, but on where you are and where you were. The context. Your past and present social , cultural , econonomic and political neighborhood. See where I am coming from?

Terrorist and Freedom-Fighters. Opportunists and Entrepreneurs. Cowards and Pragmatists. I am obstinate, refuse to see reason, or perhaps I am determined, stick to my ideals . I am not what I am, but where I come from.

Total World Domination, yes. Thats what Entrepreneurs, superheroes and supervillains do for a living. But the question is Which World?

Why FPM

2009-03-05T00:21:00.000-08:00

Based on the number of requests for information about the FPM at IIM-C that I have ben getting, I gather interest is high this year. I usually ask people to think hard - to introspect - before taking any career decision. I am just posting a set of QnAs, a sort of FAQs. These are based on an email conversation with an applicant, but I hope some of the queries are general enough for other applicants as well.

QnA:

I'm more interested in a corporate job rather than a teaching position. How do you think I can manoeuvre to this end.

I would recommend you think carefully about "WHY FPM?" This is of course what the interview panel will ask you. Most importantly, it is what you should ask yourself right now. From what I have learnt, I would say there are many easier entries to a good corporate job than an FPM - 4 or 5 years of your life at this stage are too precious to be spent trying to 'get somewhere else'. The FPM is a program primarily for training ppl to be academicians and researchers. If you have an inclination and genuine liking towards research then those 4-5 years spent as a fellow wont just be a means to get somewhere else but an enjoyable process by itself. If ur ultimate aim is a career in industry, then I would seriously recommend against accepting an FPM offer - it would only lead to frustration, purely because of the time taken to get to that goal. Just a regular 2 year MBA now or Working in industry for 3 years or so then doing an executive one year MBA from a good school (IIM or a good foreign B-School) would be a much easier and probably economically sounder option overall for a very good corporate placement.

What if I get bored and wish to quit the FPM midway, what are the possible safe exits.

As such one gets no degree if one leaves midway. However, one does have the marksheets, and records of courses cleared at IIM. I have seen people exit and get a good job in the corporate world after jumping ship midway - either because of personal reasons or because they realized that they couldnt carry through with the research. So as such , industry will absorb you if you leave midway, no problems about that. But it is not recommended to join with the express intention of leaving midway.

What are the chances of doing some consulting work during the FPM itself?

This is very much possible. Especially if you already have contacts in industry or if you associate closely with a prof on campus and assist in his/her industry assignments. High value projects are only probable though, if you already have contacts in industry or government from your career before joining FPM. FPM by itself is unlikely to generate those contacts or establish your credentials overnight with those contacts.

FPM is a great opportunity however to "do your own thing". You get a great deal of freedom to explore, to find avenues. You have time, and resources, and what you do with these is in your hands :)

How is a doctorate degree in management viewed by the industry? What are the typical positions occupied by PhD holders in the industry? What is the range of compensation - is it at par with the MBA?

As far as Industry is concerned, there is no difference at all between an MBA and a Fellow. Some Fellows join industry along with MBAs during the placement process. The role offered is exactly the same as for a general MBA.
However, some FPs do not want the type of jobs that are usually offered through the placement process - but want to work in specialized positions in research organizations, academia and government in jobs related to their doctoral work.

Does the IIM provide placement support to doctoral students?

One is allowed to sit for placements with the MBA students as soon as the thesis guide certifies that sufficient work on the thesis has been done - this is generally in the 4th year. Once in the placement process, there is no distinction between MBA and FP students.

How successful can one be at independent consulting with an FPM?

As such an FPM alone will not determine success as an independent consultant. It is after all one's ability to market one's own skills - almost nothing to do with a paper degree. FPM DOES give you some of the skills, some of the confidence, and possibly some of the contacts. However, to be a successful independent consultant, I would say the bulk of the work is on the shoulders of the individual.

From my own personal experience I would recommend against doing an FPM if you are unsure about what to do - and especially if your ambition is primarily a great corporate career. Do not be swayed by the brand name of the IIMs. Rather, take a while to introspect and figure out what kind of work will give you most satisfaction. Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
In anything you do, if you really enjoy it, then you will do it well, and if you do it well, then MONEY AND SUCCESS will come automatically. So try and get those aspects out of the equation - and just try to arrive at the Essence - the most important thing - What it is that you really really enjoy doing. A question like "What is it in the world that I would do for FREE?" helps a lot , I have found.

I currently love the research topic I am working on. But to discover this topic, I had to take a couple of wrong turns and bump into deadends. Its not a nice neat linear process, unlike the MBA program. In the MBA program, you enter, you pass the exams, and you get out. The problem you are likely to face as a FP student is that for the first 2 years you are with the MBA students , you "think like a MBA" and then suddenly, after 2 years, you have to change tracks. You see all your MBA batchmates placed in industry and move away. Its not necessarily the money - but rather the "sure-ness" - the certainty of their life that you suddenly realize the FP lacks - At the end of the next 2 years (or more!) of the research phase, you are expected to make a significant and original contribution to Theory in your field of specialization. This process is non-linear, unstructured, and often painful. It has its high points of course- moments you really enjoy. But at the outset itself it should be clear that the Fellow programme is not the same as the MBA.

It is difficult to be sure what one wants to do...especially in the case of something like "teaching and research" - I would say if you enjoy intellectual challenges, if you generally like puzzles, or enjoy analyzing issues 'to the death', and often come up with original ways to look at a situation or problem, then thats 'research aptitude'. Sorry if that sounds a bit vague :)

In case I sounded too negative about the Fellow programme, let me clarify that I dont mean to denigrate it - The FPM a great opportunity to learn, and to discover new things, and to make something of life (in research, academia or elsewhere) - but its important to be sure which opportunities one can make the most out of, and which outcomes will make one the happiest in life. (aaaArgh, the agony of choice! :P).
Just to re-iterate: The right reason to do an FPM is if one is interested in Research and Academia. You are given a fair amount of freedom and any resources you might reasonably need. It is a great opportunity to learn, discover, and find intrinsic satisfaction. If you take the opportunity in the right spirit, then in my opinion, you can get the best out of the IIM experience. Perhaps even more so than doing just an MBA.

Results Season about to open

2009-01-07T07:20:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year.

Perhaps this year, more people would apply to the FPM than years before.
Here's some (un!) funny rationale on why:
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1078

The Disadvantages of An Elite Education

2008-08-05T00:40:00.000-07:00

Was referred to a great article by a friend at IIFT:
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/elite-deresiewicz.html

Very easy to draw an analogy with the IIMs...

Where did u go to College?

2008-07-26T05:51:00.001-07:00

Just sometimes, you come across a word, a sound, a post, a whole article that just resonates what you have been thinking about at some subconscious level for a while.
Here is my "resonating" article.

Paul Graham, of Y-Combinator fame, speaks.

http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html

September 2007

A few weeks ago I had a thought so heretical that it really surprised me. It may not matter all that much where you go to college.

For me, as for a lot of middle class kids, getting into a good college was more or less the meaning of life when I was growing up. What was I? A student. To do that well meant to get good grades. Why did one have to get good grades? To get into a good college. And why did one want to do that? There seemed to be several reasons: you'd learn more, get better jobs, make more money. But it didn't matter exactly what the benefits would be. College was a bottleneck through which all your future prospects passed; everything would be better if you went to a better college.

A few weeks ago I realized that somewhere along the line I had stopped believing that.

What first set me thinking about this was the new trend of worrying obsessively about what kindergarten your kids go to. It seemed to me this couldn't possibly matter. Either it won't help your kid get into Harvard, or if it does, getting into Harvard won't mean much anymore. And then I thought: how much does it mean even now?

It turns out I have a lot of data about that. My three partners and I run a seed stage investment firm called Y Combinator. We invest when the company is just a couple guys and an idea. The idea doesn't matter much; it will change anyway. Most of our decision is based on the founders. The average founder is three years out of college. Many have just graduated; a few are still in school. So we're in much the same position as a graduate program, or a company hiring people right out of college. Except our choices are immediately and visibly tested. There are two possible outcomes for a startup: success or failure—and usually you know within a year which it will be.

The test applied to a startup is among the purest of real world tests. A startup succeeds or fails depending almost entirely on the efforts of the founders. Success is decided by the market: you only succeed if users like what you've built. And users don't care where you went to college.

As well as having precisely measurable results, we have a lot of them. Instead of doing a small number of large deals like a traditional venture capital fund, we do a large number of small ones. We currently fund about 40 companies a year, selected from about 900 applications representing a total of about 2000 people. [1]

Between the volume of people we judge and the rapid, unequivocal test that's applied to our choices, Y Combinator has been an unprecedented opportunity for learning how to pick winners. One of the most surprising things we've learned is how little it matters where people went to college.

I thought I'd already been cured of caring about that. There's nothing like going to grad school at Harvard to cure you of any illusions you might have about the average Harvard undergrad. And yet Y Combinator showed us we were still overestimating people who'd been to elite colleges. We'd interview people from MIT or Harvard or Stanford and sometimes find ourselves thinking: they must be smarter than they seem. It took us a few iterations to learn to trust our senses.

Practically everyone thinks that someone who went to MIT or Harvard or Stanford must be smart. Even people who hate you for it believe it.

But when you think about what it means to have gone to an elite college, how could this be true? We're talking about a decision made by admissions officers—basically, HR people—based on a cursory examination of a huge pile of depressingly similar applications submitted by seventeen year olds. And what do they have to go on? An easily gamed standardized test; a short essay telling you what the kid thinks you want to hear; an interview with a random alum; a high school record that's largely an index of obedience. Who would rely on such a test?

And yet a lot of companies do. A lot of companies are very much influenced by where applicants went to college. How could they be? I think I know the answer to that.

There used to be a saying in the corporate world: "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." You no longer hear this about IBM specifically, but the idea is very much alive; there is a whole category of "enterprise" software companies that exist to take advantage of it. People buying technology for large organizations don't care if they pay a fortune for mediocre software. It's not their money. They just want to buy from a supplier who seems safe—a company with an established name, confident salesmen, impressive offices, and software that conforms to all the current fashions. Not necessarily a company that will deliver so much as one that, if they do let you down, will still seem to have been a prudent choice. So companies have evolved to fill that niche.

A recruiter at a big company is in much the same position as someone buying technology for one. If someone went to Stanford and is not obviously insane, they're probably a safe bet. And a safe bet is enough. No one ever measures recruiters by the later performance of people they turn down. [2]

I'm not saying, of course, that elite colleges have evolved to prey upon the weaknesses of large organizations the way enterprise software companies have. But they work as if they had. In addition to the power of the brand name, graduates of elite colleges have two critical qualities that plug right into the way large organizations work. They're good at doing what they're asked, since that's what it takes to please the adults who judge you at seventeen. And having been to an elite college makes them more confident.

Back in the days when people might spend their whole career at one big company, these qualities must have been very valuable. Graduates of elite colleges would have been capable, yet amenable to authority. And since individual performance is so hard to measure in large organizations, their own confidence would have been the starting point for their reputation.

Things are very different in the new world of startups. We couldn't save someone from the market's judgement even if we wanted to. And being charming and confident counts for nothing with users. All users care about is whether you make something they like. If you don't, you're dead.

Knowing that test is coming makes us work a lot harder to get the right answers than anyone would if they were merely hiring people. We can't afford to have any illusions about the predictors of success. And what we've found is that the variation between schools is so much smaller than the variation between individuals that it's negligible by comparison. We can learn more about someone in the first minute of talking to them than by knowing where they went to school.

It seems obvious when you put it that way. Look at the individual, not where they went to college. But that's a weaker statement than the idea I began with, that it doesn't matter much where a given individual goes to college. Don't you learn things at the best schools that you wouldn't learn at lesser places?

Apparently not. Obviously you can't prove this in the case of a single individual, but you can tell from aggregate evidence: you can't, without asking them, distinguish people who went to one school from those who went to another three times as far down the US News list. [3] Try it and see.

How can this be? Because how much you learn in college depends a lot more on you than the college. A determined party animal can get through the best school without learning anything. And someone with a real thirst for knowledge will be able to find a few smart people to learn from at a school that isn't prestigious at all.

The other students are the biggest advantage of going to an elite college; you learn more from them than the professors. But you should be able to reproduce this at most colleges if you make a conscious effort to find smart friends. At most colleges you can find at least a handful of other smart students, and most people have only a handful of close friends in college anyway. [4] The odds of finding smart professors are even better. The curve for faculty is a lot flatter than for students, especially in math and the hard sciences; you have to go pretty far down the list of colleges before you stop finding smart professors in the math department.

So it's not surprising that we've found the relative prestige of different colleges useless in judging individuals. There's a lot of randomness in how colleges select people, and what they learn there depends much more on them than the college. Between these two sources of variation, the college someone went to doesn't mean a lot. It is to some degree a predictor of ability, but so weak that we regard it mainly as a source of error and try consciously to ignore it.

I doubt what we've discovered is an anomaly specific to startups. Probably people have always overestimated the importance of where one goes to college. We're just finally able to measure it.

The unfortunate thing is not just that people are judged by such a superficial test, but that so many judge themselves by it. A lot of people, probably the majority of people in America, have some amount of insecurity about where, or whether, they went to college. The tragedy of the situation is that by far the greatest liability of not having gone to the college you'd have liked is your own feeling that you're thereby lacking something. Colleges are a bit like exclusive clubs in this respect. There is only one real advantage to being a member of most exclusive clubs: you know you wouldn't be missing much if you weren't. When you're excluded, you can only imagine the advantages of being an insider. But invariably they're larger in your imagination than in real life.

So it is with colleges. Colleges differ, but they're nothing like the stamp of destiny so many imagine them to be. People aren't what some admissions officer decides about them at seventeen. They're what they make themselves.

Indeed, the great advantage of not caring where people went to college is not just that you can stop judging them (and yourself) by superficial measures, but that you can focus instead on what really matters. What matters is what you make of yourself. I think that's what we should tell kids. Their job isn't to get good grades so they can get into a good college, but to learn and do. And not just because that's more rewarding than worldly success. That will increasingly be the route to worldly success.

7 Rules for Startups

2008-05-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

Now that we have established there is no connection between "MBA" and "get rich quick", let's look at some other ways to ..er....."get rich quick" - or at least, become bankrupt trying!
Entrepreneurship !

Ajit Nazre, a partner at Kleiner Perkins said KPCB has 7 rules for startups they invest in. They are

Instant Value to customers - solve a problem or create value with the first use
Viral adoption - Pull, not push. No direct sales force required
Minimum IT footprint, preferably none. Hosted SaaS is best.
Simple, intuitive user experience - no training required.
Personalized user experience - customizable
Easy configuration based on application or usage templates
Context aware - adjust to location, groups, preferences, devices, etc

Do you have an internet idea that fits this criteria?

The Network Effects of a Good MBA

2008-05-16T01:09:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my earlier post about the "old boys club" and the alumni network that helps MBAs from a good B-School.

This is one of the reasons why the entry ticket to a good B-School is priced much higher (in terms of fees acceptability, effort and time put into preparing for entrance) than other so-called "second-rate" B-Schools. I am sure the quality in content of course matter is not significantly inferior (if at all) in these schools. Why then, do candidates pay a huge premium (studying day and night, slogging over preparation, meticulously planning for applications, interviews, not blinking in the face of fees on the high side, and even taking a "drop" - dedicating a whole year exclusively to "prep") for Tier A MBA schools?

Not only the students, but the recruiters also seem to place a huge premium on reputation. There are many different ways of explaining this, many of these I'm sure, are already occurring to you.

However, I recently came across, quite accidentally, this blog where, a student of course Info 204 at Cornell has already very eloquently put forth thoughts on a similar subject. Quoting directly:

"Upon completion of this four-course meal they call college, Cornell University will stick me with a bill totaling $200,000. The price of college education—especially at private institutions—has been the subject of much media attention as of late. Institutions such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale have instituted bold programs providing free education for students who cannot afford tuition. Earlier this month, Provost Martin outline a similar program here at Cornell. These programs only deal with the beginning of the financial issue vexing many parents across America. Even after financial aid, student loans, and scholarships, a private college education can cost as much as a house. For example, Jenny Russel, an alumna of the University of Redlands prides herself on her private educate despite the $50,000 in debt she received along with her degree. Those, like Ms. Russel, who note a marked difference between public and private schools cite the network effects produced by private education.

In a normalized market, the laws of supply and demand function fluidly. However, network effects examine how networks function when a good or service’s potential value to customers depends upon the number using it. For example, telephones would be relatively worthless if many people chose not to purchase them. The same goes for computer operating systems.
The fact that there is an integrated network of telephone users justifies the value of purchasing a phone and paying for service. Yet, for the purchaser to assess how much he/she will pay for the object, he/she must predict the total number of users of the good. When examining colleges, this term of “users of the good” can be quite vacuous. However, as the article suggests, we can bifurcate the users of the good to general educational experience and resulting job opportunities.

While many like Cal State University’s President, F. King Alexander claim that private institutions have a Chivas Regal affect—having an aesthetic facade, but nothing special internally—a private institution does exhibit network effects. We must be clear, however, the variable cannot be expressed in ‘how many’ use the service, but rather who uses the service. The selectivity is the most desired attribute of private institutions. A group of students is winnowed into an entering class representing the supposed pinnacle of applicants. The perceived benefit of a private education is the ability to be around students of similar caliber thereby creating a cocoon of higher learning that will benefit all. The second variable is who used the good before, meaning what types of alumni and networking do schools afford. I can only speak for Cornell on this matter, unfortunately. Having gone through an on-campus recruitment process and subsequent internship, I can personally attest to the benefit of private school networks. For example, perhaps the most qualified candidate in my analyst class, attends a state school in New Jersey. One day, several analysts from private colleges were discussing how easy on-campus recruitment was. Unfortunately, my friend from the state school did not have it as easy as we. He spent most of his time cold calling banks, sending faxes and resumes, and networking consistently.

When examining the price tag of private universities, one must ask, why would anyone pay such astronomical fees when cheaper alternatives exist? The answer lies in the network effects of private institutions."

Understanding that Total Costs = Fees + Opportunity Costs of Prep (refer my earlier post) - Replace "Cornell" with IIM, change a few numbers and names, consider "Private Institutions" as "Tier 1 MBA colleges" and you have a very nice explanation for the phenomenon of IIM-Worship in India.

MBA SWOT Analysis

2008-05-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

Am I "against" doing an MBA? Do I call it a "useless" qualification? By no means! I would go to great lengths to make this clear. My only gripe is that the MBA (and especially the IIM MBA) has been projected by the media as a "quick way to get rich". Let us, for the moment, forget all that, and do our very own quick and dirty SWOT Analysis. Talk about using a B-School tool for the right end!

For those amongst you uninitiated with SWOT, here is the good stop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis
"SWOT Analysis, is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture." (It might not be quite the appropriate tool here, but are you really going to rebuke me? Are you, PUNK?)

Essentially, its one of those typical "make a simple thing complex" B-school terms that actually stands for a good common sense think-about. Surprisingly enough (or maybe not-so-surprisingly), most people who apply for CAT have not been on a common sense think about WHY they want to do MBA or if it is worth the money.
So here, in clear common sense English, is a ready-made SWOT analysis. You are free to Copy-Paste it into your head, and store it for the next time the urge strikes you to "fill in the CAT form" because your current job sucks.

Strengths

A Grand Overview of what Business is all about is yours to be had
A Bird's eye view helps you to get out of your own rat-hole of a job - not quite in the way you imagine though. The job placement after MBA is one reward - the main reward is the "holistic" perspective in your mind, a different way of looking at everything. You will learn to analyze everything from many angles at once, not merely from your currently limited angle as a lowly cubicle dweller.

Weaknesses

"The difference between Theory and Practice is even more stark in practice than in theory". Text Books and Professors can never replace the Real World as the ultimate teacher
You pay high fees. You also pay high Opportunity Costs - in terms of valuable on-the-job experience forfeited and pay(rises?) foregone by quitting your day job.

Opportunities

An MBA from a good B-School will open doors in mysterious ways. You will be "in the club". You will get to know and be pally with people who will soon be very powerful. "Old Boys" are already CEOs. Don't underestimate the power of The Network.
You may just, maybe just, actually learn something new. If you are proactive (another word you will hear again!) then you can learn so many things - from your professors, from your batch-mates, and (an even bigger cliche!) - about yourself.

Threats

You might just lose your innocence. I can hear sniggering from the back rows, but I see this as a BIG threat. If you learn everything you are supposed to learn in an MBA, you will never quite enjoy another good thing in life, without internally calculating its Net Present Value, at Calculating the Opportunity Cost of time spent in enjoying it, of considering Alternatives, and so on. You will never be impressed by a good product or a great book - You will marvel, however at how superbly it has been "targeted" and how the market has been segmented, how the "brand" has been built and you will make a mental note to learn from this experience.
You might just be forever abandoning what could have been your chosen calling. This is not an "inevitability". You could still go out and become a penniless artist, not opting for the highly paid job, after splurging on your expensive MBA. I am not ruling out that possibility. But chances are, you will make "use" of your MBA - your new found competence. Preferably, to crunch numbers in an Investment Bank, to counsel others in a Consultancy Firm or at worst, to sell Soaps and Sugared Water to a gullible public.

Martin L King said...

2008-05-13T22:35:00.000-07:00

The ultimate tragedy of mankind is not the brutality of the few, but the silence of the many......

The Price of Freedom

2008-02-29T04:15:00.000-08:00

One of my school teachers once told me that "Freedom is the right to say that Two and Two make Four".
I didn't say anything, for the reason that one didn't really say much to school teachers back then, but this statement did affect me.
I had always thought that Freedom is the right to say Two and Two can make Five or Three or anything at all you want. Perhaps what my school teacher meant was that freedom is the right to stick to Truth even in the face of tyrannical lies. You can imagine a totalitatian government, persecuting everyone who believed that two and two made anything other than FIVE, and if you were FREE you would still believe that it was four.
But my understanding was that Freedom is the right to make your own truth. Why should I be bound by the mathematics of the real world, that limits my freedom to believe that two and two make four no less, no more ?
And so, I can never be truly Free. Ever.

The concept of Freedom is just a play with words. Even if I were free somehow from ALL laws, natural and man made, I would still not be free. I would not be free from being a slave for instance. I would not be free to have someone else take decisions and leave me free.... Freedom is a box of paradoxes.

So why am I blabbering on about Freedom on Unpagalguy?
Well, its to do with everything, really. If you want to be free in your professional life, you would not be happy working for anyone else. You would want to be free from the shackles of a 9 to 5 job, from the chains that a tie and suit will put on you, that your company etiquette would demand, that your boss would expect. But if you think you will be free by giving that up and starting off on your own, and thus attain freedom, then you are WRONG. You will be exchanging one set of rules for another. The world of startups has its own set of laws, very similar to the laws of the jungle. You will not be free here.

The only freedom is the freedom is the freedom you make, yourself. The freedom to make your own truth. "To break the shackles" cannot be a good reason to start off something new, by breaking ties with the old. Interestingly enough, a recent study by one of my professors also talked about the 'types of entrepreneurs'. One of the types was the people who took up entrepreneurship by force. Because of some situation in their lives, or because they could not cope with their regular job. In comparison to entrepreneur who had other reasons to take the plunge, would this class be more or less successful? From my understanding, they seemed to be less successful.

It seems to go well with my theory about freedom. But then again, you are free to make up your own minds about it.

An oxymoron

2007-11-26T01:32:00.000-08:00

"Business Ethics" --> My favourite oxymoron :)

Chaotic at top

2007-11-25T11:29:00.000-08:00

Why do you do MBA ?
To be at the top of the world, be famous, by making make all the big decision and getting breakthrough results and all that!

But do you think it is so goody goody and all organized at top?

Alas, the answer is NO
It is in fact as chaotic at the top.
It is probably whims and fancies and other un-rational things which often influence most of the decisions!

For more details, click here

CAT (or, WTF was I thinking)

2007-11-21T11:29:00.000-08:00

The following is what your future might be if you give CAT and get caught in the spider web without fully knowing the consequences

http://mindfxcker.blogspot.com/2007/08/set-me-free.html

P.S.: Its a little dark, but then, a littloe noir never hurt anyone :)

CATeconomics - Part I

2007-11-20T01:41:00.000-08:00

Some elementary economics.

Tools used: Ball-part figures, Std 5 Maths and come rudimentary common sense.

Number of people giving CAT yearly = 200 000
Number of people giving CAT yearly seriously = 100000
(Lets assume half the applicants study seriously , the other don't even open a book before the exam)
Average time given for preparation = 8 months
Hours spent studying/attending CAT coaching per person per day = 3
Total hours spent preparing for CAT per person annually = 3*7*4*8 = 672
Total Man-hours spent for CAT annually = 672*100000= 67200000
That's 67 Million man-hours per year!
Bear in mind that all applicants are at least undergraduate degree holders and presumably, employable young people.
What if these young people were gainfully employed instead? Assuming a wage of Rs 100 per hour (which would come to a monthly salary of about Rs 18000- not a totally unreasonable assumption, considering that quite a few candidates are experienced, and hence higher paid)
we get an opportunity cost of Rs. 6700 Million that India pays for CAT every year.

Let me repeat - That's an opportunity cost of a whopping Rs 6.7 Billion per year!
(And that's not even considering the cost of coaching classes, books, material and travel)

know urself...

2007-11-20T00:58:00.001-08:00

there is no magic potion in the world which can cure us of this perpetual dilemma of deciding which path is better. as the famous saying goes-'the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence'.

there may be many a things which we want to do in life but we dont do it because of the peer or societal pressure of following the generally accpeted rotten paths. and without even giving the slightest of thought whether we are made for it or not we start running towards that unseen, unknown.

now on a more fundamental level, we see that, we are throughout our life running... from nikkar to pant days....from primay to secondary school, from 10 board to 12 board, from college to job days...and then to a better job and god knows what all after this..... running for one thing after another in pursuit of some probable future happiness, contentment but....... unfortunaltey this chase never ends........ jst the time ends.............

so follow ur heart and do what you like rather than herding towards where the whole world is going. and whatever you do ....dont loose yourself in the process...and as the vodafone says..make the most of now...

People who have not even heard of CAT

2007-11-20T00:57:00.001-08:00


Bill Gates	Warren Buffett	Carlos Slim Helú

There are easier ways than CAT to get rich!

Ingvar Kamprad

Lakshmi Mittal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_billionaires_%282007%29

The top 5 richest men. Combined net worth = 222 Billion USD

Number of people who cleared CAT, from Top 100 richest list = 0

Moral of the Story:
There are several good reasons to do an MBA, but money is not the primary one.
If your dream is to get rich quick , CAT is not the way to go!

Welcome to Sanity

2007-11-20T00:31:00.000-08:00

This is a place for people to get together and realize that not only are "All CATS not the Same", but that eventually, no CAT matters.

UnPagalguy will feature enlightened individuals from diverse fields of expertise - who will vouch for the fact that real achievements in life are not dependent on blackening OCR sheets on a consistent yearly basis.

UnPagalguy is not against CAT or MBAs - we are against the mindless lustful greedy peer-pressure-driven pursuit of a not-so-well-thought out goal . Success at attaining such a goal may or may not make you happy in the long run (not All CATS are happy!). But failure at CAT makes people unbelievably depressed with hithertho unexperienced forebodings of futility eating into their multiple-choice averse soul. Their sectional handicap becomes their life handicap!

UnPagalguy asks you to be sane and THINK about what you really want to do with your life. If you are inherently an "MBA-type" then you will love an MBA job. If not, then you'll be living a Dog's life even after CAT!