Farewell, my friend

It is with immense sadness that I learned of the passing of a classmate and good friend, Rajiv Agarwal - a victim of colon cancer. Rajiv is survived by his wife Radhika and two college-age daughters Devika and Sameera. Our prayers are with the extended family as they somehow need to find the strength to see themselves through these troubled times. Rajiv's health had been deteriorating steadily over the last month. So, in a sense, his passing means that he is probably in a better place. Yet, we were all hoping and praying for a miracle that he will be able to beat this deadly disease. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case. May your soul rest in peace my friend.

Rajiv was a swash-buckling, fun loving guy. He made friends easily with his open mindedness and disarming smile. He was always fun to be around. His spirit of joy will sorely be missed as our circle of friends regroup in the future. Friends and visitors would constantly be swarming at Rajiv's house. I would often wonder how he found the energy to socialize as much as he did.

It is ironic that just yesterday there was an Op-ed in NYT by actress Angelina Jolie about the preventive measures that she took to fight breast cancer. Modern medicine certainly provides alternatives for each of us to evaluate and consider.

I would certainly like to see the day when the discussions on cancer revolve around combating it and defeating it - not just preventing it. While it will not bring Rajiv back, it will certainly stop this senseless, "why-me" disease from taking away lives of wonderful people like Rajiv.

TiEcon 2013

This year, TiEcon 2013 will be held at the Santa Clara Convention Center on May 17th and 18th. As in the past, there is an army of volunteers working round-the-clock to deliver a successful conference.

Last year, I was the Co-Chair for the MentorConnect event - where Mentors (who are VCs / successful entrepreneurs / high profile Corporate Execs) were paired with Mentees (conference attendees). We had a semi-automated way of pairing the Mentees. The feedback that we heard was unanimous. Mentees wanted a more "intimate" setting and, most importantly, to have more control on who their Mentor is.

My role in this year's TiEcon (at MentorConnect) is to steer on the systems side. The co-chairs are two highly accomplished, excellent Charter Members - Sanjaya Kumar and Ravi Amble. Early in the process, the TiE Silicon Valley Systems Lead, Deepak Bhagat, and I evaluated MentorCloud as a possible solution provider.  In order for MentorCloud to work, there was a list of changes that needed to be done to the platform. Understandably, the CEO of MentorCloud, Ravi Gundlapalli, was not keen on doing "one-off" tasks for TiE. Nevertheless, he was quick to see the potential benefits (to MentorCloud) of working with TiE. Ravi and his team worked tirelessly with us to roll it out successfully. The proof, of course, is only in the pudding and I don't want to "declare success" before the event. I will certainly blogging about the "on-the-ground" experience after the conference. Nevertheless, the user experience is undoubtedly improved from last year.

Given the availability of this platform, the TiE Silicon Valley team, led by Venk Shukla, mobilized some very high profile mentors to participate. I am really happy to inform that we have 100+ eminent Mentors registered and available to Mentor TiEcon 2013 attendees during lunch on the days of the Conference. The list of Mentors include Vinod Khosla and Kanwal Rekhi. This is a unique opportunity to meet these folks and learn from them. They have all been successful in building public companies or having substantial exits.

TiEcon offers so much more than the MentorConnect opportunity to the attendee. Here are a few more reasons to attend TiEcon.

1. Inspiring keynotes from Jeff Weiner, CEO LinkedIn, Manoj Bhargava, CEO 5-Hour Energy and more! See the full list here.
2. Discuss the latest trends and meet the hottest companies, entrepreneurs and VCs in these high growth tracks - BigData, Mobility and SW Defined Infrastructure
3. Meet some innovative companies in the Expo Hall.
4. Listen to 18 lightning round startup pitches and meet the TiE50 winners

With prices starting at $275 (using discount codes) TiEcon certainly offers best value for your money. I believe the prices go up on May 1st. So, register today to what promises to be an exciting conference. When you register, be sure to check the "Interested in MentorConnect" box. In case you are already registered, and did not check that box, you can back and do so. This will allow you to participate in MentorConnect and get mentored by some awesome Mentors.

An evening with Kapil Sibal

[Disclaimer: The views expressed in this posting are entirely my own and are not, in any way, representative of TiE or the Govt. of India]

On Wednesday, January 30th, TiE Silicon Valley hosted a reception and talk by Kapil Sibal, Cabinet Minister of Communications and Information Technology with the Government of India. He had come to the Bay Area with a delegation that included the Secretary of Technology, J. Satyanarayana and the Joint Secretary of Technology, Ajay Kumar. Their mission was to communicate their vision of  embarking on a very ambitious agenda to develop the Electronic Systems Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) industry in India. There are a number of incentives being made available by the Government of India to the right entrepreneurs and companies. They expect that India’s ESDM demands will be in the order of $400 billion by the year 2020.

Kapil Sibal was everything that I had heard of and read about - erudite, articulate and humorous. He started by talking about the current state of the GDP in India where the service industry accounts for 57% of the GDP; Agriculture is 14% and the balance is Manufacturing. "If India is going to survive as a Global Economy, the shift from Service to Manufacturing needs to happen. We need to move from Software to Hardware," he said. Getting there needs a change in mindset. People in India tend to live in the "glory days" of the past - how India's GDP was the highest in the world during the days of Emperor Asoka. They rue that all the wealth was looted by East India Company. "The past," he said, "is an impediment to the future." By 2020, they would like 65% of all electronics products to be manufactured in India

Next Ajay Kumar gave a presentation on the policy initiatives for promoting this vision. This presentation can be viewed here. The subsidies and incentives are very impressive and the plan seems to be very well thought out to allow them to reach the objective.

Kapil Sibal now took the stage to answer questions. The audience (of ~ 150 professionals in the Bay Area) did not hold back. I have attempted to paraphrase (to the best of my recollection) some of the questions asked and answers provided by Kapil Sibal.

Q1: We attempted to set up a manufacturing facility in India and shipped expensive equipment to Chennai. These machines were sitting in Customs for many months before we decided to scale down our operations in India and move the manufacturing to Singapore.

A1: I am not aware of any issues with importing machinery to India. People are doing this every day without any problem.

Q2: I tried for many years to set up my IT operations in India. It is just too frustrating because of all the red tape we had to face. While the presentation I heard today is very encouraging, my experience is telling me is that it is far from reality.

A2: I don't know the details of your specific problem. People are successfully setting up IT operations in India by the thousands.

Q3: What will it take to get subject matter experts to take on the important decision making roles in the Indian Government?

A3: Why don't you relocate to India and stand for the elections. We can talk after you win the elections.

Q4: Can you talk about the status of the UID project. I have read reports that this has resulted in Identity Theft and abuse of power.

A4: UID is very successful. It is merely a number. It is not possible to abuse it for anything. Don't believe everything that you read.

Q5: We are a Venture Capital firm with an India fund. We had funded companies in India due to some favorable laws. However, the laws changed and were applied retroactively. This resulted in unfavorable conditions for us. We are now skeptical about investing in India.

A5: There was just one law that we changed to be retroactively effective. This has happened numerous times in the U.K.  - where changes were applied retroactively. If you don't chose to invest in India, there are plenty of others who will.

At the end of the session, it seemed to me that Kapil Sibal was not used audiences who spoke to him at his level. It is not as if the questions were "hostile". They were genuine issues and concerns that people faced. I would have preferred if his responses were more along the lines of, "Your issue of grave concern to us. We have a grievance council set up. I encourage you to follow up with them - so that not just your specific issue is addressed, but we have a process and a knowledge base for handling similar issues."

I was reminded of an episode from BBC's "Yes PrimeMinister" (which I had seen many years ago) when Sir Humphrey Appleby rationalizes a significant pay raise to civil servants (in the wake of severe budget cuts in the Government) by simply moving civil servants from one pay category to another and showing that even after the pay increase, because of the reduction in staff (euphemism for lateral movement of staff) the actual salary budget for civil servants got reduced :)

Outraged!

How ironic is it that the name of the Newtown, Connecticut Elementary School where the horrific shooting took place earlier today is Sandy Hook? What is it with "Sandy" and 2012 that association with that name is resulting in unbearable tragedy.

Today's event, however (unlike Hurricane Sandy), was completely avoidable. Gun control advocates start pressing for legislative action in the immediate aftermath of such events. Unfortunately, we have seen one too many this year. We had the Oikos University shooting (in Oakland, CA) on April 2nd - where seven people died. Then there was the Aurora movie theater shooting on July 20th - where twelve people died. Immediately on the heels of the Aurora shooting was the sikh gurudwara shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin - where six people died. Today's shooting, where 27 people died was the worst of the year (and the second worst in a school - only behind the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 where 32 people died). President Obama called for "meaningful action" to prevent such tragedies.

Gun control has always been a controversial issue in American politics - ever since the second amendment to the constitution that protects the rights of the people to bear arms was passed in 1791 (over 200 years back!). With the easy access to automatic weapons now, this "Bill of Rights" has been abused far beyond imagination. While these larger scale events bring the gun control debate to the forefront, the appalling statistic is that there are over 10,000 gun homicides each year in the United States alone. Another data point is that ~ 70% of all homicides involve guns (the source of these statistics is a US DOJ paper on Homicide Trends in the US). I certainly hope that the killing of innocent, young children today will bring the Gun lobbyists to their senses. The NRA, Gun lobbyists, Gun control advocates and politicians should reach an agreement to put some meaningful laws in place to have proper checks and balances when firearms are sold. Most certainly the selling of automatic weapons to individuals should be banned.

Red Letter Day for the Internet we know and love

On the face of it the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), taking place next week in Dubai, seems innocuous. However, the decisions made by governments at WCIT could redefine the international regulatory environment for the Internet - impacting how people around the world are able to use the Internet.

Who remembers the days when it would cost us money every time we picked up the phone and placed a call. The reason for that in the analog world was, "Somebody has to pay to use this service". With VOIP and the digital world, we now pay a monthly "subscription" for unlimited usage of our phones. The complex world of the Internet and its interconnected global network is currently working on the same principle - of paying a subscription to the service provider. The ITU (International Telecommunications Union) is looking to change this and is considering taking us back to the (more regulated) analog world. WSJ's Gordon Crovitz has written an excellent article talking about the far reaching consequences of this conference. Some countries are looking at this "additional regulation" as "an opportunity for censorship".

Companies like Google are spearheading a campaign saying, "A free and open world depends on a free and open Internet. Governments alone, working behind closed doors, should not direct its future. The billions of people around the globe who use the internet should have a voice." You can add your voice and sign the petition to support a free and open internet here.

Life of Pi

Director Ang Lee brings Yann Martel's Booker Prize winning book to the screen and does justice to this marvelous epic.

The book has been said to reverberate echoes from sources as disparate as Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. The trans-Pacific sea adventure of Pi Patel has been likened to the Kon-Tiki expedition.

Ang Lee uses stunning visuals to accentuate the journey of Pi Patel after he survives a ship wreck and is adrift in the ocean with a Bengal Tiger, humorously named Richard Parker. A majority of the movie focuses on the 227 days Pi and Richard spend on the lifeboat. While that may sound boring, the brilliance of Ang Lee and screen writer, David Magee, are seen in these sequences. It is for this reason that I would recommend watching the movie in 3D. Whether it is watching the majestic hump back whale or the frolicking dolphins or the spectacular flying fish, Ang Lee has used every technical wizardry at his disposal to bring these scenes to life. Unlike James Cameron's 2009 film, Avatar, where all the characters are make-believe, we can relate to the characters and players in Life of Pi. We suffer along side Pi Patel, brilliantly played by Suraj Sharma. We question his faith in religion and in God as he suffers one hazard after another through his arduous journey.

Irrfan Khan's performance as the older Pi Patel is brilliant. Whether playing the police constable in Slumdog Millionaire or the immigrant Ashoke Ganguli in Namesake, Irrfan Khan acts with conviction and portrays the character of the storyteller here.

If I have to point out a weakness in the film, it is the music. I wish Ang Lee had used A.R. Rahman instead of Michael Danna. Even though "Pi's Lullaby" is performed by the renowned Bombay Jayashri, I was somewhat underwhelmed by it.

This film is most definitely on its way to winning Oscars for Direction, Cinematography and Screenplay. It will certainly get nominated for Best Picture. There are many good movies contending for Best Picture this year, including Lincoln (surely Daniel Day Lewis will win Best Actor) and Peter Jackson's Hobbit.

Why you should vote for Obama

Note: Obama's winning in California is a foregone conclusion. California's 55 Electoral College votes belong to the incumbent. So my vote for the Presidential election is immaterial. The "swing" states (aka "Battleground States") of Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Colorado, Arizona and Wisconsin will determine the winner in this Election on Tuesday, November 6th. This post is intended for the voters in these States.

When Barack Obama and Mitt Romney squared up for the first Presidential debate on October 3rd, Obama had prepared based on the messages he had heard Romney mention in his campaign and in the Republican Primary. However, a completely different, free-swinging, conflicting, I'll-do-anything-to-get-your-vote Mitt Romney showed up and thrashed Barack Obama in the debate. Mitt Romney won on oratorical points and a stumbling, bumbling Barack Obama was left dumbfounded. Late night talk show hosts had a field day in describing Romney:

• Mitt Romney is not pro-life or pro-choice. He is multiple choice.
• Obama's speech was, "You can be whatever you want to be". Mitt Romney's was, "I can be whatever you want me to be."

For Barack Obama, this was serious business. He went back to the drawing board and coined up phrases like "Romnesia". In the second debate, on October 16th, Obama (perhaps sympathetically) was assisted by the moderator, Candy Crowley. It was deemed that Obama won that debate by a narrow margin. He had, however, asserted himself strongly as the commander-in-chief. Romney's position on women's rights, abortion, contraception, health services and equality came out in the open when he bumbled his way through a question from a female voter.

More jokes appeared on the Republican party's position on rape (click on the picture to the right to see it in full size). It became clear that under a Romney Presidency (when two new Supreme Court justices may get appointed), the rights of women to control their own medical care would be limited. No I am not spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. I am helping the voters in the Battleground states read the tea leaves. Mitt Romney will run the Federal Government like a P&L center. Romney will not take into account human consequences. While that may be good for Corporate America, it not the tonic for the Federal Government. 

Obama may not not have accomplished everything we had hoped for. However, I believe that the nation is moving in the right direction. Besides, he is more likely to reach bi-partisan agreements in the second term since the Republicans have less of an incentive to "make sure that he failed". 

Here is my prediction for the 2012 elections (again, click on the picture to see it in full size): a narrow victory for Barack Obama: