Why GLP-1 drugs have a traction problem in India
Indians look down on "taking the easy way out" which is exactly what GLP-1s are seen as. And they are also "artificial, Western innovations", which doesn't help
Life
Pertinent Observations.
Karthik S on startups, meditation, job hunting, and personal reflections.
Recent essays
30 of 41Human context rot
What I used to call "Bayesian recognition" is, I realise, a special case of "human context rot". And we can use our understanding of LLMs to understand our own thinking better!
Ernest Hemingway, Ganesha and Stud Work
Heminway's way of working - where you know at the end of a workday precisely what you'll work on the next morning - can be an antidote to doing too much fighter work. But then there is Ganesha!
Making data tell the story
In 2 weeks' time, I'm doing a workshop on making awesome visualisations using LLM. Here is a nice quick exmaple
Avatars of Vishnu
People say children are like an avatar of Vishnu. Among all avatars, the best candidate is Parashurama. Read on to know why.
Consultants and Employees
Employees and consultants are wired differently. Employees excel at BAU work, while consultants always work "on the edge" (transforming stuff). Most people are wired for exactly one of these
Does Liverpool FC have a data science problem?
Data science team succession is tricky when the models are used for a small number of high-stakes decisions. Did Liverpool get this wrong post Ian Graham?
Takshashila Skills
The Takshashila Institution has made public a whole bunch of skills, based on their public policy research and writing over the years. I take a few for a spin.
Credit and responsibility for AI creations
What makes AI art art? When does AI become a tool in the hand of the artist, and not the creator itself? The answer lies in "one touch"!
I know why the Imam fainted
Imam Pasand is very dense in sugars, and relatively low on fibre and water, and so it can give you a really massive sugar spike. It is no doubt sweet and tasty!
Rats and races
A very belated realisation that running a funded startup can quickly become a rat race!
Vocal for local
There was a Project I wanted to work on using both ChatGPT and Claude. My "elegant" solution has been to keep the files on my computer, and use Claude Code and Codex instead!
Biceps and Goodhart's Law
Biceps have come to represent strength since they are the only part of the male body that can become muscular, and where such muscle can be shown off while wearing "polite clothing"!
Football Elo revisited
Revisiting football club elo data to analyse the current state of top English clubs.
Learning styles
A curious thing about how I learn - whenever the first step of something comes to me easily, I find it really hard to learn. When I grind through initially, later on I ramp up really well`
Food 2x2s
Think of food in terms of 2 axes - good and bad for health, and enjoyable or not. Just cut the "bad for health and not enjoyable" quadrant (in my case that has a lot of density).
Back to school for a panel
I was at IIMB for a panel discussion today. Some pertinent observations both from the panel and my visit to campus.
Bangalore Wind
Some explorations on wind patterns in Bangalore, and what brings rain
Microsoft Teams and Vibe Coding
OK this is fairly hand-wavy, but I think vibe coding is going to change software products for the better, and user experience should overall improve significantly. Even for enterprise products.
Pickup artistry doesn't follow Gale Shapley Algorithm
An important corollary of the Gale Shapley algo for stable matchings is that, on the margin, the more proactive you are, the better the matches you get.
Why Analytics is useful, and selection bias and small samples
For a few months now, I had started wondering if data analytics is useful at all (!!), but then found the answer to their importance during my recent Vipassana!
Google Sheets as a BI tool
People are already using Google Sheets as a limited BI tool. Generative AI will only make it more powerful! Brace for massive disruption here.
Meditation as self-therapy
When you spend long hours with yourself, without external stimulus, you can effectively "therapize yourself", and save the "data transfer cost" that makes professional therapy less effective.
Job hunting and simulated annealing
I’m looking for leadership roles in analytics, AI and data science. Within this domain, I'm starting by casting a wide net, and will narrow it down progressively as my search goes on!
Messaging
After an epiphany at the recent Vipassana, I've decided to significantly cut down on my use of WhatsApp. I've permanently turned off notifications etc.
I dropped out of vipassana
The silence part was easy, but there was also quite a bit of BS there; once I had figured out that it was pretty much a "personality cult", I found it rather had to continue.
My learnings (for myself) from Babbage Insight
A friend asked me about my learnings from babbage insight, now that we've shut it. I made a super long list, and am putting it here for posterity
Something drastic
Desperate times call for desperate measures. And so, having shut my company, I'm here in Hyderabad at a 10-day vipassana retreat
Binaries and correlation
We can define correlation coefficient between any two pairs of "binaries". And unless extremely high, correlation of A with B, and B with C, doesn't say anything about the correlation of A with C
Have we been disrupting BI the wrong way?
Has the fascination of a system that "talks to you data" sent us on a wild goose chase, and have we been trying to disrupt BI the wrong way?