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Observations from IIT Guwahati Campus Placement Visit

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This week, I spent time at IIT Guwahati giving pre-placement talk and the next whole day at the placement process trying to find our next Product Managers. The idea was to find someone who could join MakeMyTrip's Young Turks Program.  I and my colleague went through 258 profiles who had applied for the Product Management role. The number made us realise that it was one of the hotly contested role in the campus. We had some real good profiles - Students who were undisputedly working on super hot stuff!  While the shortlisting itself was a herculean tasks, eventually we could whittle it down to a manageable number. And when we started speaking to theses folks, I was blown away with the clarity in their thought process. Following are my observations from the experience: Electronics Engineers have finally found a niche! : When I was in college, placement for E&CE was always a tangential experience. Either you go to IT companies prevalent then (there were rarely ...

Reading List for an aspiring Product Manager

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cc: Ben Ward While at a event  yesterday, discussing what an aspiring product manager should read, I mentioned the list of blogs I usually read. It ignited a lot of discussion. So here I am sharing the list of all what I usually read. Please take your pick. VC Blogs: Fred Wilson Blog : AVC   Benedict Evans:  http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans Mark Suster:  https://bothsidesofthetable.com Hunter Walk:  https://hunterwalk.com Sam Altman:  http://blog.samaltman.com Paul Graham:  http://www.paulgraham.com Chris Dixon:  https://medium.com/@cdixon/ Brad Feld:  http://www.feld.com Product Management Blog: Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG):  http://www.svpg.com/articles Stratechery:  https://stratechery.com Accidental Product Manager:  http://theaccidentalpm.com Good PM, Bad PM: Ben Horowitz Seminal paper on Product Management Technology News: Global (Primary):  http://www.techmeme.com G...

What I am reading this weekend (23 April 2016)

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cc: Katy While Google promptly fixed it, MS took its own sweet time and previously generated OneDrive shortened URLs are still vulnerable - LINK Not all productivity tools yield productivity. Slack turned it upside down for Agilebits - LINK Yes, you can build a sustainable income from apps. Here's how - LINK 1 , LINK 2 Looking a HackerRank like solution for podcasts. Here it is - LINK An open source project is revealing salaries at MS, Google and Amazon - LINK “Your performance is tied 100% to your attitude.”. OR as Coach Katia Verresen says, Abundant Thinking - LINK

Right way to read PDFs on Kindle

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cc: alienratt I have been hearing since eternity that how bad is Kindle for reading PDFs. The fact is everyone who says is has been doing it wrong. They transfer them directly via USB and grumble how bad PDFs look on Kindle. As far as reading PDFs on Kindle is concerned, don't transfer them directly.  Instead, do the following: 1. Go to your respective Amazon website ( http://www.amazon.in/ or http://www.amazon.com/ etc) 2. Sign-in with the e-mail id you have registered on Kindle 3. On the Top Nav, under Hello, drop-down, go to "Manage your content & devices". Quite , like this: amazon.in  2. In "Settings" tab, look for "Send-to-Kindle E-Mail Settings" - you will have an email id with @ kindle.com 3. Send  your desired pdf  to this @ kindle.com email  id from your registered email id as an attachment, with subject of email as CONVERT, nothing else in the email 4. You will have the book in your kindle in few min...

Do what scares you

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CC image by Rosmarie Voegtli Fear is actually a funny thing. The biochemical reaction of fear always prompts you to " fight or flight " while emotional response is very personal to everyone. One of the my personal fear has always been cooking. Yes I know it may sound silly to a lot of wonderful cooks out there, but phobias have no reasonings. Now this is despite of me being a foodie and blessed in my life with wonderful cooks at home, from my mom to my wife now. What's more I have role models in the form of my father and father-in-law to my brothers who all know to how to cook and cook wonderfully! I don't remember now where it started. I don't know if it was because I have always had a extra sensitive skin towards heat. Or whether because I feel I won't be able to end up with the perfect dish. So here is my 2016 to-do: I will look my fear in its eyes. I will learn how to cook. And it starts today! Together with Shweta, we have come up wi...

How I managed to read 72 books in 2015, despite being a slow reader

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CC image by Pietro Bellini 2015 was a year of hits and misses. But one of things I love most - Books , was a real hit for me. I discovered the joy of reading while passing out of college but got real infected when I was married another book lover. I read 72 books in 2015. Yes, that's 6 books a month, approximately 1.4 books a week. And this is apart from the blogs and articles and what nots. Now before you think I am some crazy speed reader, let me tell you that unfortunately, I  read really slow and hence I am writing this blog. I want others to understand that how I end up growth hacking my reads, so that it can help others too. I truly believe that you can live many lives via books. So here's what I did to read more and hence learn more: 1. Slot time for books : Reading books like any other good thing, is a habit. The easiest way to form reading books as a habit is to put a specific time on your calendar for it. I said books specifically, because in tod...

Happy Anniversary Babe!

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I still am at a loss, just like I was 8 years back! She is smarter than me. She is more confident than me. She is more intelligent than me. Heck! She even calls spade, a spade! Then, why did she choose me? But well, sometimes, you don't question your Karma, when it is showering such blessings on you! I am still not questioning it, after 8 years :-) It has been some journey with lots of joys and some tears. Happy Anniversary Shweta to you (& to me)! Here is to many more years of love and joy and bickering.  Life is never going to be un-eventful together!