Week 1: Start anyway, because...

Welcome to the Week 1 edition. I must admit that I wasn't totally ready to start my newsletter on LinkedIn. A newsletter is a huge commitment and I can literally sense butterflies in my belly as I type these words.

When I noticed that the feature was enabled on my account I saw it as a great opportunity to get started. After all, I have always been in this process of continuous learning, curating the knowledge for myself and sharing my learnings in small groups. But to do it in a structured format, on a consistent basis and in the public domain are the challenges this newsletter will invite me to take up.

Start anyway, because only then you will know what lies ahead.

And most importantly if I hadn't started this, I would not have been able to reach all of you. To see that so many of you have already subscribed is a true delight in itself and this brings another level of responsibility on my shoulders. What else do I need to trace my own mastery!

To keep the signal to noise ratio of this newsletter high, I will jump into the topics right away but before I do that I wanted to say just one thing.

I see that so many people start newsletters which is great and like many things in life all of us are great at starting but notorious for not following through. Credentials don't matter, backgrounds don't matter and in fact nothing matters except the sheer grit, commitment and hard work. If there is something that I am mindful of, having started this newsletter, it is this - that I must keep the promise of coming back week after week and sustain it for 100, 200 & more editions.

I will be sharing more about the why / what / how of this newsletter in future editions but for now let us get into the topics of the week.

Topics of the Week

Generally, I try to consciously look for topics that are deep, diverse and aligned with my interests. But here is the thing - I am interested in multiple topics, perhaps like many of you do. In the announcement, I mentioned the topics I might wander on. So in this section, I plan to share some of my favourites from each week.

1. Trillion-Dollar Valuations:

If billion-dollar companies are called "Unicorns" and a group of billion-dollar companies are called "Blessing of Unicorns", what are trillion-dollar companies called?

Maybe we should ask Aileen Lee who first coined the word Unicorn in the context of billion-dollar companies. Let me know if you already know a name!

Every such valuation is interesting because they provide multiple lenses for us to look at the overall story - the company, the industry, business model and economy but the most interesting thing I always look forward to is about the management and leaders at the helm.

With Tesla being the latest company to join the trillion-dollar club a couple of weeks, I happened to read Ashwath Damodaran's blog on Tesla's valuation revisit. Thanks to the Prof who makes it easy for us to understand and I can say that if you stay with his blogs till the end you will be able to understand most of it and have really some good takeaways.

Even if you don't read the full blog, you must check out the paragraphs that talk about how Tesla and Elon Musk are deeply intertwined together. Detailing about the positives and negative of this association between the company and the leader, the professor writes, "While his net effect has clearly been a net positive for investors in Tesla, over the last decade, it is worth remembering that you are getting a package deal, when you invest in the company".

He ends the blog with these beautiful words ". . . but I would also rather leave money on the table and have an investment philosophy, flawed though it may be, than make money, and end up without a core set of beliefs about markets. I can say with certainty that I will be back valuing Tesla sometime in the future, either because it has crossed a new threshold or because it is in the news. This company is far too interesting to ignore!"

2. First-Generation Talent Pool:

A few days back I entered into a rabbit hole that led me to think of a new segment of the talent pool. Perhaps it is not so new, especially during the time of sponsorships in college and higher education however it is something that broadens the definition of diversity itself.

I am talking about the community of first-generation students/workforce. This new set of talent pool segmentation already exists in the current students/workforce base but doesn't get surfaced unless we are deliberately looking for them.

I wasn't aware of the fact that over 15% of Harvard students are first-generation college students. When I thought about my own family and the network of people that I am exposed to, I suddenly started to become more mindful of the challenges, aspirations, ideas and voices of this first-generation talent pool, which are unique to themselves.

So my question to you is, if you are a CEO/Founder/CXO/Leader/Manager, do you know who are the first-generation employees in your organization/teams? what are their unique needs and strengths?

Think about it, most of the elite universities have been running dedicated mentoring programs for First-Generation students, but do you have one such in your company for the First-Generation workforce?

3. Of course, COP26:

How can I not follow COP26! Now I don't want to add to the enormous amount of information (a.k.a noise) that is already out there. So I like to share a very good resource I have been following regularly for several weeks on the topic of climate, sustainability and ESG.

It is from Sasja Beslik, who is a Finance practitioner and a global thought leader on Sustainability. His newsletter ESG on a Sunday is something I have been looking forward to every Sunday since I stumbled upon it. It is available both on LinkedIn and in Substack.

His choice of words and the tone of the language used in everything he writes can be attributed to his care for climate action and concern for sustainability. So I do hope you will enjoy and learn from his rich expertise as much I do.

Such topics like climate change, ESG are highly multidisciplinary in nature and so I look forward to spending some time regularly on them. If you are someone who is also interested, send me a message and perhaps we can exchange thoughts, ideas and learning resources.

I will end this section here in this edition. But I continue to gauge your feedback to see how to craft the future editions and make this newsletter highly valuable to you for the time and attention you are providing. This is going to be my only other priority apart from aiming to sustain this newsletter for the long-term.

Does any of the above topics resonate with you the most?

I am keen to know what topics are you spending your time on, these days? Can you share in the comments?

Living & Learning on the Internet

How do you manage your multiple interests?

A couple of days back I stumbled upon a post on LinkedIn which reminded me of a TED talk I watched several years ago. As I now think about what is said in the video, it definitely feels so true that many of us have multiple interests and it is difficult to box ourselves to just one thing.

I also happened to meet so many multipotentialites since I watched this video. Apparently, it is also a great career strategy to be a generalized specialist but it is just so difficult in current times.

Do let me know in the comments if you want to know more about this topic so I will cover it in future editions.

As you watch this video, do also check out my comment on Leena Nair's recent post on a similar topic highlighting the need to find a balance between multiple interests we all might have, yet it is important to go closer to what we really wish to do.

I am curious to know, how do you find a balance between your multiple interests?

Can you share your thoughts in the comments? If I like them I will mention your comments in the next edition of the newsletter.

How is the creator economy shaping the future?

A meaningful shift that is brought by the creator economy is that people who otherwise would keep their work restricted to a closed group or even shy to share with the larger world, are thinking about opening up, just like what I am trying to do with this newsletter.

Read the below two paragraphs as food for thought (credits: Balaji S):

Personal Updates

There aren't many updates yet, considering it is only the first week, except a special one. Last month I spent a few early mornings at the nearby beach and it was truly amazing.

I have also learnt something very interesting about myself - as an individual, I don't seem to differentiate between various aspects of nature because nature doesn't differentiate between anyone of us.

A bunch of clouds I may gaze at, a tree I might see from my window and the lovely moon that revolves around our beautiful planet, all are as beautiful as the famous beach that I visit once in a while.

Choose only one master : nature. —Rembrandt

That brings me to the end of the Week 1 edition.

Now, can I ask you a small favour?

Can you use the comments section and let me know what did you like in this edition?

I hope this is not a very big ask. Do also let me know if you have any feedback for me to consider for future editions.

Lastly, I want to express my wholehearted gratitude to the 1,000+ of you who already subscribed to my newsletter and are taking the time to read. I look forward to this weekly opportunity of collecting the dots and eventually connecting the dots.

Do share this article with your friends, family members, colleagues, managers and team members if you think they will benefit by reading this.

Until next Friday, keep tracing your mastery.

#TraceYourMastery

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