The 3 I's principle

Warren Buffet has devised the principle of the 3 I's. The innovator, the imitator and the idiot. In any market, the cycle starts with the innovator followed by the imitator and then comes the idiot. The current financial crisis is currently in the idiot phase. It seems in the idiot phase, an innovator comes along and says "this is easy to fix" and comes with a newer, better innovation. So guys currently depressed with their investments, some innovator is working on a fix!

Leadership

Richard Stengel's latest article in TIME lists the 8 lessons from Nelson Mandela's struggle to overthrow apartheid and create a democratic nonracial South Africa. The article is extremely well written explaining the the 8 lessons with examples from Mandela's life. I found the lessons quite valuable and great management principles one can use in their lives.

1. Courage is not the absence of fear - it's inspiring others to move beyond it
2. Lead from the front - but don't leave your base behind
3. Lead from the back - and let others believe they are in the front
4. Know your enemy - and learn about their favorite sport
5. Keep friends close - and your rivals even closer
6. Appearances matter - and remember to smile
7. Nothing is black and white
8. Quitting is leading too

Stengel's article has also prompted my interest to read Mandela's autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom".

Greg McAdoo, Partner at Sequoia Capital, talks at Startup School 08

Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com

Paul Graham at Startup School 08

Marc Andreessen at Startup School 08

Google Moon Landing

Google is sponsoring the Google Lunar X Prize, a competition with $30 million prizes for the first two teams to land a robotic rover on the moon and send back images and other data. Ten teams have announced their intention to participate in the competition. The teams include universities, open-source engineers, and aerospace startups. One team is led by renowned roboticist William L. Whitaker, a Carnegie Mellon University professor. Other teams include an affiliation of four universities and two major aerospace companies in Italy, and a group that is a loose association of engineers coordinating their efforts online.
The competition has its scientific merits but wouldn't the money have been better spent on more practical applications? I wonder...

Moon Landing

Google is sponsoring the Google Lunar X Prize, a competition with $30 million prizes for the first two teams to land a robotic rover on the moon and send back images and other data. Ten teams have announced their intention to participate in the competition. The teams include universities, open-source engineers, and aerospace startups. One team is led by renowned roboticist William L. Whitaker, a Carnegie Mellon University professor. Other teams include an affiliation of four universities and two major aerospace companies in Italy, and a group that is a loose association of engineers coordinating their efforts online. The competition might have scientific merits but couldn't the money would have been well spent

Dream job!

Isn't this apt!

Web based music player

Anywhere.fm lets you upload your music collection onto their site and then play your music anywhere from the web. They offer their own iTunes look-alike music player through which you can play your songs. The site also incorporates social networking aspects, allowing you to create your own profile and discover new music through Friend Radio. I have used it and have found it awesome. I think when the ubiquitous network connection problem is solved, this service can be mainstream.

World's cheapest car

The world's cheapest car will soon be hitting the roads of India. Tata Motors recently unveiled the Nano, a car that will surely make many middle-class people happy, particularly Hyundai owners, who will now feel like they're driving luxury cars! The Nano will come in three models, with the standard one carrying a dealer price of only Rs. 1 lakh (about $2,500)! The Nano may seem cheap to some Indians, but for others, it's just the right price, enabling them to switch from two wheels to four, to put a roof over their heads. Check out the car details here

Open source Car!

The majority of concept cars never make it to production, but that may not be the case for a revolutionary prototype car that is being designed entirely online using open source methods. Tens of thousands have signed up to participate in designing the OScar, though most of the design is done by a core team of a few dozen, under the direction of Markus Merz. For the past six years Merz has directed the development of the OScar allowing all decisions to be made democratically by anyone who wants to participate, which includes car designers, programmers, companies, universities, and individuals. The OScar is designed to be made from a minimum number of mechanical parts and perform somewhere between the original Volkswagen Beetle and a Mark 1 Golf, with a top speed of 90 miles per hour. In the OScar, the drivetrain, body, engine, power, safety, and information systems were designed independently and are fully interchangeable, just like a computer, so a manufacturer could easily swap parts, easily changing a passenger car to a pick-up truck. The fundamental rule of the project is that the design should be freely available to every member of the community, creating the opportunity for small manufactures to produce a car without paying a license to produce a design. Other obstacles, such as legal conflicts and manufacturing and distribution costs, prevent the OScar from being produced and adapted as successfully as open source software programs have been, but creating an open source design for something like a car places the opportunity for innovation and invention, which have recently belonged primarily to corporations, back in the hands of the individual. Merz admits that OScar is only a hobby, but the car itself is the result of hobbyists' life-long enthusiasm.
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EPON or GPON

There has been tremendous debate about advantages and disadvantages between GPON and EPON. Check this opinion from a NTT official about why he feels Japan is embracing EPON while Europe and US are embracing GPON.