Comments for Shajey Rumi

Comment on Let the future be your guide by Let the future be your guide (via Shajey Rumi) « Asads Private Blog

Let the future be your guide (via Shajey Rumi) « Asads Private Blog — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 15:19:44 +0000

[...] December 1, 2010 One of the challenge of the conventional business planning is total reliance on past data. A typical business planning session will look at the past performance, and then project that on to the future. Simple right? Not really. In this way of planning there is a deep assumption that the future will be just like past, just a little bigger. There are number of revisions that go through these projections. In most of the smart teams and organizations … Read More [...]

Comment on Venture Capital is just like Parenting by Shajey

Shajey — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:38:01 +0000

Indeed.

Comment on Venture Capital is just like Parenting by John

John — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:15:26 +0000

I think we are both right, in a certain sense. The start-up/venture capital relationship is a particular human convention in the long natural history of exchange and communication, while hospitals/schools/prisons are particular institutions in the long history of raising learning children. So, to compare start-up behavior and childhood development directly is to compare an institution versus a natural process, and is a kind of category error from that perspective (whoops, my bad). Nonetheless both overall subjects can productively use observations from natural and institutional history.

So, yay, consensus!

Comment on Venture Capital is just like Parenting by Shajey

Shajey — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:35:48 +0000

I agree with your analysis that both raising startups or human off-springs are affected by human institution. My only point was that “amount of time” nature has already spent on perfecting the act of raising human kids is proportionally more than the time startups have been around.

Now come to think of it, I may be wrong here too. May be the startup experience [mental model, emotions, joy] of today is not much different than the first caveman trying to barter fruits for vegetables.

Comment on Venture Capital is just like Parenting by John

John — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:08:44 +0000

I’ll confess I don’t understand how your human/nature distinction separates these two domains. There are hardly more human institutions then those with which we raise children: hospitals, day care, elementary schools, and juvenile courts. Similarly, I don’t see any lack of natural instincts and trust relationships governing the actual way in which start-ups are run. Both activities seem rife with the human hand of institutional formation and the natural hand of our own evolutionary reactions.

Comment on Venture Capital is just like Parenting by Shajey

Shajey — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:58:41 +0000

Thanks John.
Very interesting point about rapid learning organizations and kids. You are right both Startups and children are rapid learning entities.

Though I think they slightly differ, as to there are many learning opportunities for kids, the startups still are pretty specialized endeavours.

Continuing your metaphor, the kids can learn from parents, teachers, grandparents etc and the body of knowledge is pretty well defined.

In startup’s case though, it is, shall I say, a human [created] phenomenon. While raising off-springs is a process nature has perfected to the dot.

Comment on Venture Capital is just like Parenting by John

John — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 13:21:30 +0000

One similarity that occurs to me, at the level of analogy, is that both the parent and the VC are working with entities that are learning rapidly. One tension that comes from that is not only control versus freedom, but also structured versus unstructured. From what I have read recently, children learn remarkably well on their own, when subject to a complicated world, and often don’t need many of the educational apparatuses presented to them. It’s a good question if it is actively harmful, compared to the stimulation-rich bustling experience of nature or the city. Maybe this also suggests that a start-up incubator is also a mistake of a kind.

It’s also suggestive that these creatures will find their own way, in that just as one sibling might enjoy a career another has explored and rejected, a company might find that a business model is profitable for them when an apparently similar business had to move on.

Overall, I’m not sure how much of this is just analogical, and how much reflects a genuine shared underlying process. This is one question I’ve posed to myself recently: if early stage learning shares some features with the process of scientific discovery as is currently thought by some developmental psychologists, does it also share features with design discoveries and business discoveries?

Comment on Hurdles to Entrepreneurial Success: Employee Mindset by This post can make you a millionaire « Shajey Rumi

This post can make you a millionaire « Shajey Rumi — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:37:48 +0000

[...] Resource based thinking is somewhat crippling thinking. Following this line of thought we will be thinking of any what kind of resources we have access to and what we can do we these? If my resource knows how to program in Blackberry then I will retrofit him into an iPhone development project. We may not even see that its possible to, for example, partner with a small company somewhere and get things rolling way cheaper, faster and of better quality then retrofitting ourselves or our resources. So a good way to start towards the entrepreneurial path would be start thinking in terms of opportunity first. But hold on…I shall warn you “opportunity thinking” is not natural way of thinking for most of us chronic employees who befriend employees and have been raised by employee parents, and employee grandparents and so on. The old saying was so true. “A man is known by the company he keeps.” I will go as far as that “A man is made by the company he keeps.” So Employee mindset is deep rooted in our being and to become an instant entrepreneur is suitable for Hollywood art movies. In real life we need to go through a learning and unlearning process, which I call “Employee Mindset Detox.” [...]

Comment on Future by Design by Jacque Fresco – Future by Design 2.0 « Shajey Rumi

Jacque Fresco – Future by Design 2.0 « Shajey Rumi — Sat, 15 May 2010 21:53:46 +0000

[...] May Sometime ago I wrote about Jacque Fresco in Future by Design. Since then I have been exposed to a number of different ideas of tackling complex problems, so to [...]

Comment on Downloading vs Thinking by Shajey

Shajey — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:07:19 +0000

Vow, someone put a system to this insight. Feyman’s method is brilliant.
Anyway I feel these techniques of visualizing before it’s painted on our mental canvas by author’s narrative are brilliant.
The best form of empathy an author can desire.