Aswath Krishnan

This weekend I attended a Buddhism class where we discussed a couple of questions  - what would you do if you feel safer and how can you make others feel safer. The discussion revealed that nearly all of us felt unsafe and we'd live our lives more happily, generously, and ambitiously if we felt safer. Life is inherently unsafe and conditional. If you don't eat, you die. If you don't stay healthy, you die. If you don't do your job well, you'll be fired. If you aren't useful, others may not help you. If you don't have caretakers as you grow old and dependent, life is going to be tough. So, how do you create more safety for yourself and others in this world? The ultimate trick is to always accept life and the present moment as it happens, with no judgement. Every feeling of worry is because of an internal desire or expectation, and if you end that desire, you end the feeling. This requires a lot of practice - of awareness and renunciation. Find and imm...

Based on my own behaviors over the years and observing colleagues, I have noticed different levels of communication in meetings and other situations.   Level 1 -  Disruptor -  High expression, High noise Expresses many opinions with high conviction and confidence. Many opinions are wrong, impractical, or irrelevant. Derails discussions. Level 2 -  Participant -  Low expression, Low noise  Starts to understand gaps in personal knowledge and complexity of problems, so offers fewer opinions and asks more questions. Level 3 -  Driver -  High expression, High signal More competent in role and organization. Expresses many thoughtful and correct opinions, but not all are important or relevant. Drives discussions. Level 4 -  Leader -  Low expression, High signal Expresses few important opinions, but highly insightful, memorable, and inspiring. Opinions get repeated around the organization and impact decisions. Empowers and coac...

I spent the last 3 days in Vegas and played a couple of hours of poker every day. Playing poker is quite fun - it combines uncertainty, probability, psychology, reflection, and the thrill of winning (or losing) money. You get to make many decisions with incomplete information, in a compressed timeframe, and get feedback on it. On one of the days, my wife asked me what my winning goal was for the day, and I stoically responded that my goal for the day is to learn more. In situations where the outcomes are highly variable, you can only focus on your effort. I don't wish to be a professional player as I think there other things to do in the world that aren't zero-sum games and don't have the arbitrary constraints on performance or high dependency on luck. But I'll continue playing occasional games for the thrill and learning. At the end of the 3 days, I came out losing $300 but I still claim I learned a bit :). Here are some things I learned and how it can apply in re...