Ankur Sharma

"You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." When Steve Jobs spoke of these prophetic words at his Commencement Address at Stanford University in June 2005, what flummoxed me that a man of such stature, who had like made Apple rise like a phoenix in recent years was giving away pretty much all the credit of beautiful Typography and developing Macs to Destiny. This was the time, when iPods, Macs & iTunes were already a sensation and though India which at times considered the "nerd country" (owing to the PhDs they have produced in United States), Macs & Ipods were still not a commonality as they have become now. Among all this, I had just started working, was pretty much broke but was consumed by idealism of capitalistic nature which was sweeping away India (where I live). And here was the poster boy of  all the "nerds"

I was in Delhi last weekend, on an urgently arranged trip.  My sister's father-in-law had passed away. Having visited there, was a humbling experience for me and taught me a thing or two about life and most importantly death. I wanted to show up in person to offer condolences, more so for my brother-in-law, than for any thing else. The reason was simply that he is one person I believe closest to who I want to be, in terms of temperament and finding happiness in life. And I truly believe that one of the biggest of reason of who he is and how he is; is because of his upbringing, father being large part of it. For people who think, death scares kids, I found my nephew and niece handling it far more in a far more mature manner than many adults.   During our conversations over the weekend, my brother-in-law talked about the happy times he had with his father, telling me, albeit not directly, what does it take you to be a good father and most importantly a great fa

Can you go through the phases where everyone in the organization resists the idea of your product being developed, from the phase where everyone wants to work on the project when it gathers momentum; not to forget the momentum-gathering phase? If you can keep yourself grounded in all these phases, then my friend, I believe you are a good product manage!

An employee would never ever pick a tiff with her peer for the sake of her subordinate She may pretend or tell the subordinate otherwise, but you know it better! Some people, however, just don't get it.......

So you are interviewing and you feel that you have got the best person for the job. Fast forward 90 days: You are sure that 90 days back, the person whom you found the best person for the job and for the team is a jerk. So much so, that you are ready to bet your fortune on it! So much so, that it has become a public act! Actually it didn’t take you 90 days to figure that out, but isn’t 90 days what every management book tells you should wait before making a judgment over a new employee? Now the perils this jerk can bring are that: 1. She can drive away other talented people simply by being annoying, acting tough, unlikable or simple by being know-it-all. 2. Her personal limitations can prevent her from accepting the change is what she needs and not everyone around her 3. She won’t be able to let the organization drive changes even if it’s a do or die situation 4. To top it all, everyone will know that you have brought this jerk onboard and they will talk about it in hush-h