Aswath Krishnan

I still remember the phone call 14 years later, so it clearly meant a lot to me. In my final year of college in Singapore, I was selected to interview with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) . BCG Singapore was known to be extremely selective - interviewing only a handful of people every year and hiring maybe 1 or 2. So the pressure was on and I spent every ounce of my energy in the next 1-2 weeks preparing for the interview. I also bought and borrowed some nice clothes and got a haircut to look presentable. The interview day arrived. I was nervous but as prepared as I could be. I did okay, but I knew I hadn't really nailed it. A couple of days later, I got a phone call. It was one of the partners who had interviewed me. He shared the bad news quickly - I didn't receive the job offer. He also explained that he was the dissenting partner, so he was calling to explain his decision. He talked through the case study (it was about a small airport trying to grow profitable), highlighted t...

It's been a few weeks since I published my first book - The 5-Step Job Search . I feel happy about the milestone and how the book has been received. But I have to admit that I also feel conflicted about writing a book on the topic of job searching. I was confident it was needed and would be helpful - that isn't the problem. I feel conflicted because it's a band-aid to succeed in an inherently broken system that I have come to despise, despite being reasonably good at it. I'd much rather prefer if we can fix the system. I'd much rather prefer if we made the system perfectly meritocratic so that everyone can just focus on being good at their jobs and be magically placed in the right job for them, rather than spending even an ounce of energy in learning to be good at this bizarre skill of job searching.

"Be healthy" is a misleading and unhelpful slogan and goal.  Most young or middle-aged people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s enjoy "good enough" health. So being healthy isn't a very inspiring or urgent call to action. It's a low bar that they have already hit.   The health issues start in their 50s and beyond.  Fitness, as measured by strength, speed, flexibility, or endurance, is a much better goal because most people would agree they aren't fit enough and fitness is actually a leading indicator of long-term health.

In poker, there’s a concept called selective aggression to maximize your winnings - be conservative when you have an okay hand but get aggressive whenever you have a good one.  A few years back, I got a good hand in my career. I was doing really well in the job and had also developed a good rhythm and reputation. I was also getting paid over 3X what I had ever made before, with a path to more raises and promotions.  But instead of doubling down, I decided to roll the die again and take up another opportunity that seemed interesting. Turns out I didn’t roll sixes this time.  The lesson is that life is always going to be a game of chance. When you hit a winner, double down. Explore and extract.  This is true for business as well. It’s extremely hard to find a Product-Marlet fit, but when you do, go all-in and extract as much as possible, rather than exploring another P-M fit. This is also true in investing, relationships, hobbies, or habits. 

I published my first book last week, and I’m very happy about the milestone and how it’s been received so far.  The process has made me more familiar with the Amazon Kindle bookstore. I’m suddenly aware there are tons of books published and many of them seem quite promising. But despite that most never really take off in a big way.  This has made me realize that the secret to success isn’t doing just one hard thing. Writing a book is hard! It takes a ton of motivation, resilience, domain knowledge, writing skills, and creativity. But clearly, just doing that one hard thing isn’t enough.  But if you combine that one hard thing with another hard thing, you dramatically increase your chances. If you do a tour promoting your book, run a marketing campaign, or if you have already earned a reputation in your domain, your book suddenly rises above all others.  The reason is simple - there are 7 billion people in the world and we have a pretty efficient market. For any singl...