Greek Complexity

The vice of creativity

http://doulosyap.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/the-lightness-of-racism-the-vice-of-creativity/

"Greed is good. Fun will not go unpunished."

Why the One-Child Policy Has Become Irrelevant

Excerpt: "Before getting pregnant with her second child, Lu Qingmin went to the family-planning office to apply for a birth permit. Officials in her husband's Hunan village where she was living turned her down, but she had the baby anyway."

More here: http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/03/why-the-one-child-policy-has-become-irrelevant/274178/

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

The economics of crime with Gary Becker

Excerpt: " In 1968, University of Chicago economist Gary Becker solved the problem that had plagued law enforcement officers, politicians, and city planners since, well, the dawn of civilization: How do we stop criminals from committing crimes, and is stopping crime even desirable? Becker’s paper, “Crim"

More here: http://chicagomaroon.com/2012/05/25/the-economics-of-crime-with-gary-becker/

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

Singapore continues to be attractive to start-ups from elsewhere

Notwithstanding my post the other day about a shortcoming of one specific government support scheme for tech entrepreneurs, Singapore continues to be seen by entrepreneurs as an attractive place to do business , and rightly so.

Taslima Khan quotes me and several others in Business Today, a fortnightly publication in India, about Indian entrepreneurs' Look East Policy, specifically focusing on Singapore as a destination for Indian entrepreneurs to move HQ to, raise money or otherwise expand.

Singapore's advantages over India? Briefly:

• Ease of listing Singapore-domiciled companies on various stock exchanges. India-domiciled companies cannot be listed directly on a foreign stock exchange.
• Singapore's small market, perhaps paradoxically, gives start-ups the cachet of being a regional or global company, as opposed to an Indian (Chinese/Malaysian/American/Indonesian/etc) company, which might be seen as focused purely on the domestic market
• No capital controls
• Predictable policy-making
• Comfort among customers and partners from around the world to work and sign contracts with Singapore-registered companies
• Low taxes
• Established brand in the business world
• Being a regional centre for decison-making for some industries, such as advertising and financial services
• Indian entrepreneurs feel culturally comfortable in Singapore

Having said that, only moving one's legal HQ to Singapore while maintaining substantially all operations within India may not achieve much, as I said in the Business Today piece.

There are of course disadvantages too, two of the most commonly cited in my experience being higher cost of operations and a much smaller base of potential employees to choose from.

Wealth Over the Edge: Singapore

Interesting piece from my reading list. Not written by me.

Excerpt:

It's midnight on a Saturday night at the Marina Bay Sands resort near the sparkling Singapore River, and all the boutiques are shut. But past a cosmetic-surgery clinic and a Ferrari accessories store close by, a large crowd is getting increasingly agitated.

More here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324662404578334330162556670.html

This is an auto-generated post courtesy IFTTT.  See http://ifttt.com.

 

Insistent innovation

I just discovered a new set of buildings in Singapore that house a bunch of research labs and university facilities.

"New buildings in Singapore? Ok, so?" is what you're thinking. As you should.

But this post isn't about the buildings. It's about the names of the buildings.

One was labelled RESEARCH in large letters embossed on the outside of the building.

The second was called INNOVATION.

The third was branded ENTERPRISE.

And the building I was visiting had been christened CREATE.

Remind you of anything? Yes, the names were in all-caps. Maybe they just wanted the name to be big-big so peeper could see from far-far.

Except that when I entered CREATE, I read that it was actually an abbreviation that stood for Campus for Research Excellence And Technological Enterprise.

Draw your own conclusions.

US immigration policy and the tech entrepreneur

http://www.inc.com/eric-markowitz/asaf-darash-entrepreneur-deported-visa-error.html

"The percentage of immigrant-founded start-ups declined from 52.4% to 43.9% [in Silicon Valley over the past seven years]." Much to glean from this one stat.

• Two in every 5 tech start-ups are founded by immigrants -- good :-)
• Pool of top talent, not just founders but also employees, available to the tech start-up scene getting restricted -- bad :-(

A detailed study by the Kauffman Foundation also notes that a stupendous 1 in 3 tech start-ups has an Indian founder and 1 in every 4 start-ups in California has an Indian founder. To put that into perspective, 8% of tech start-ups have a Chinese founder (the next highest demographic group after Indians) and 1 in every 10 Californian start-ups has a Chinese founder.

The article noted above itself focuses more on the (quite detrimental) effect of US immigration policy on tech entrepreneurship, not on the demographics of entrepreneurs.

Good? Great? First get the job done

Good is the enemy of great, was the first sentence in Jim Collins's Good to Great. Lucy Kellaway said more recently, Good enough is better than perfection. Those are two seemingly contradictory ways of looking at things. (Actually, they're different, but not quite as far apart as they may seem.)

In India, unfortunately, there is a third way.

As I said to a journo recently, one first needs to do at least the minimum needed to get the job done and only then start arguing about the virtues of good versus great. I'll point you to that journo's piece later in this post but first: For those of you who're unfamiliar with India, it is common in India for people to use the Hindi word jugaad to describe the concept of making do. I detest this word. I grant that, in various unavoidable situations, resources are limited in India and one perforce has to make do with what one has. However, more often than not, this word and the entire philosophy behind it, if one can call it that, is used just to disguise (not very well) the clear intention to not even do the bare minimum.

An example: every year, the monsoon rains leave the streets of major Indian cities potholed, often flooded and barely usable. This is a major hassle for motorists and a major embarrassment for India's image. Every year also, each city's municipal authority awards contracts to contractors to repair and rebuild the damaged roads. Every year. Why? Is India the beneficiary of particularly violent hailstorms? No, just the beneficiary of shoddy work. There are some roads that are built and maintained really quite well but those tend to be the minority. The same sort of thing is seen across other areas: health, education, construction, the environment, energy... the list is endless. (See yesterday's post What was revealed when the lights went out in India)

So why does this happen? A variety of reasons:

• Vested interests
• Agency problems
• Diversion of resources
• Cutting corners for the sake of profits
• Just plain not caring

Ultimately, it is a cultural issue.

What does this mean for start-ups? It means that, if one is not careful, jugaad can very quickly infect a company and become an established mode of operation. This is dangerous. When you start a company, you want to make sure its foundations are solid. This may even being a bit of a dictator on issues that you consider truly important. I myself am picky enough about the details that, if a portfolio company sends me a legal contract or a marketing brochure to review, I not only check and comment on the essentials of the document, but also hunt out and correct every spelling error and every grammatical mistake, sometimes even pointing out formatting inconsistencies. I don't impose spelling lessons on my interlocutors but still -- does my approach take it too far? Quite possibly -- but I'm in the Jim Collins camp, not with Lucy Kellaway on this one.

You also need to ensure that you control the core of what you've set out to do and that you prioritise it above all else. Once you have met minimum standards, you can start the good versus great argument, but not before.

Link: Jugaad may be good, but it doesn’t lead to greatness

To clarify, I didn't actually say that jugaad is good. I think it's terrible! Entrepreneurs should aim higher! Some of the quotes aren't verbatim but the article does convey the essence of my views pretty clearly.

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Update: My uncle who is a professor at IIT Bombay just wrote me to say that Chapter 3 of his doctoral thesis began with the words, "Good is not good if better is possible." True!

What Was Revealed When the Lights Went Out in India

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/08/what-was-revealed-when-the-lights-went-out-in-india.html

The sheer scale of incompetence boggles the mind. Or rather, it would if it weren't completely in line with past performance.

More blame-the-victim idiocy in Singapore

http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/EDC120914-0000060/Stiffer-penalties-for-cyclists-do-not-solve-the-problem

The cycling community has called for more protection for cyclists who take to the road, and so the authorities are reviewing penalties for cycling offences.

The weird thing is, from personal experience, the vast majority of drivers in Singapore are actually quite sensible and even friendly towards cyclists. It's the few that need to be cracked down on. Except the authorities won't. "We'll cane visa violaters if we need to but if you kill someone, as long as you're in a car when you do it, ah, that's a bit of a pity. Sorry that it delayed your commute."