All about fantasy

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. 

-Socrates

Since my last blog post, I have received many words of praise from people around me. I am touched, and humbled, and want to thank each one of you for your encouraging words. It’s my responsibility that I delight you with my writing, should you choose to spend your valuable time reading my blog. I assure.  

So many things have happened in the last ten days. I mean, of course, the program was very fast paced in the first place, but the diversity of events that unfolded and the variety of people I met over the past few days were absolutely revealing for me. Techcrunch disrupt, class elections, microeconomics exam, Google visit, taking a nap in the afternoon. One thing which was common to all of these events (ok, most of these events, if not all) was that there was one Indian at the helm in each of these events. Well, I am not being parochial, just reiterating the fact, in case somebody missed it.

Let me talk about Techcrunch first. Was it the mother of all start up events or the mecca of technology geeks or the most awaited (officially speaking, the most anticipated) tech event of the year, I don’t know. What I do know and remember very vividly is that there is a company called The Honest Company started by Jessica Alba. Seeing her in the physical world was, indeed, a great feeling. Behind the veneer of an innocuously sounding company name, there is a very strong underlying problem that her company is seeking to address. I sincerely request everybody to buy shares of her company, and I offer my free advice to the investment club (I assume, the investment club has deputed somebody to read my blog) to invest in this company whenever it goes public. All the luminaries of tech world were there - Mark Zuckerberg, Vinod Khosla, Michael Arrington, Marissa Mayer, Amit Kandpal, Sumit Verma and Rohit Beri. I am sure my readers are sufficiently informed and don’t need any background information on these stalwarts. These shining stars provided insights which will become fad in the near future. Mr. Zuckerberg said his improvisation skill is unparalleled. Launch a product, see user reaction, take it back, if criticized, and launch another version in another avatar. Please mind that the previous statement is my own interpretation. Nevertheless, I am safe as long as my reach is meager, and it is, for there is near zero probability that somebody from Facebook likes my blog. Mr. Khosla was in his usual self, on a mission to democratize technology. Last time, I heard him talking about the promises of pure science and how he was very bullish on a company based on a novel optical technology. This time he talked about promises of cleantech, and novel food technology that is attempting to create an artificial beef. But, he also disapproved the hype surrounding some of the well-known incubators, cautioning that startups are prone to get distracted by their pampering. Crave for wisdom, not money was his advice. “My job is to help startups recruit right people and build great team”. Well said, Sir. Michael Arrington cracked jokes on Mr. Zuckerberg’s fortune and Ms. Mayer’s pregnancy. Ms. Mayer’s asked one of the finalist teams, how it is planning to reach the emerging markets. But, most importantly, the other three dignitaries spent some quality time pondering over the past, present and future of technology as well as on their own lives while also attending the after party on the last day of the event. Please keep in mind that attending after party was the most critical of the tasks. Mr. Kandpal was, well, no points for guessing it, very bullish on Enterprise Software but in the same breath didn’t stop cautioning that it was the least sexier one as well. Mr. Verma (who the hell is this?) re-emphasized that he was technology agnostic and that he would focus more on addressing the customer pain point, if there is a critical one, without bothering about the technology it belongs to. Wow, what a thought Mr. Verma, who the hell is this. Mr. Beri, explained the past, explained the present and explained the future of technology.

The class elections went on predicted lines - majority of nominations were taken back at the last moment, Colin became the President and Sten the GSB reporter, and I lost the social innovation chair. And, visiting Google this afternoon fulfilled one of my foremost fantasies. I will talk about my other fantasies some other time!

P.S. Amit Kandpal, Rohit Beri, Sten and Colin are my esteemed, lovable and extremely accomplished classmates.

First Thing First

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and Hang on.
-Thomas Jefferson

I like playing; I play with words. They aren’t inanimate abstractions. They have flesh and blood. They are shaped by the nature around them. Some of them are gaudy, garish, tawdry, loud, garrulous; others bland, murky, mundane, subtle, soothing. Some live fanatically by your side, no matter what. They do Brownian motion in my head, random, straight, innocuous changing direction only when hit by the enclosed wall. I wanted to apply a field force to give them a direction. I have to say this. Starting my blog and writing it regularly was one of my objectives of coming to Stanford, for the simple reason that, I thought, time would be very ripe to do so. I have joined a full time management program which is giving me umpteen amount of opportunity for self-reflection. The urge to express my feelings about life, family, career, politics, education, creativity, poverty, entrepreneurship, and so on had become irrepressible. 

I sincerely started to think about my blog title and after stirring my creative juices some more, came up with the word "OptiMystique". I am an optimistic - a true blue on that. There is no doubt about this in my mind. My subsequent posts will corroborate this fact even more. For now, I will dwell a bit more on the unusual but appropriate title. There is something about my facade which is enigmatic. Over the years, this facade has been gaining life. Like a strange creature, of a movie, dormant in the beginning but gaining life gradually only to grow ferociously difficult to handle. The mystique in my optimism represents everything that I am not, at least I want to believe so, and still it is my integral self. I have no control on it, there never was. It's like a child disavowed and left to flourish on the perils of a thousand forces of nature. It's not under my control, it doesn't even have my consent to grow on me, still it shapes consequentially, if not considerably, my electric field or magnetic field or whatever field human being exudes. That's why, I am an OptiMystique. Selecting a title that reflects, in a way, who I am, and at the same time creates some literary effects too would be a good idea, I believe.

Enough for the ground work. The mission that I am embarking upon, I hope to continue for a long time with the desire of touching upon matters of mind and heart, love and hate, passion and pleasure, price and prejudice, spirituality and earthiness, hope and despair, entrepreneurship and servility. This is the beginning of a wonderful journey. Everyone is invited. You would be pleasantly surprised, if you become part of my voyage, I promise. After all, I am an OptiMystique.