| Sunday, 28 July 2024 |
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Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
Dear reader, welcome to this Sunday’s edition of First Principles.
When I write these newsletters (usually Saturday late afternoons), I imagine you’re reading them on Sunday early afternoons, because that’s when we send them out. But I know many of you read it through the week while others read it in different countries and time zones.
Unlike weekday writing, weekend writing has a certain inescapable vibe to it. Sunday reading is unlike anything else, or so I’d like to believe.
Earlier this week, I met Piyush Shah, the co-founder of Inmobi, a company that started out in 2007 as a mobile search engine. We discussed how the holy grail for founders is to be able to build organisations that are perpetual, so to speak—ones that are able to both ride and survive major waves that strike every decade—and ones that attract and retain talented people drawn to a long-term purpose.
As both a founder and business journalist, I told Piyush that I was fascinated by the concept of timelessness and by organisations that sustain, evolve and renew themselves every decade. How did they manage to play a multi-decadal game?
“Every few years, we invite entropy into our organisation,” he told me.
That was such an interesting phrase that I absolutely had to write about it!
entropy noun
broadly : the degree of disorder or uncertainty in a system
Do we invite entropy, or does entropy attract us?
Here’s our lineup for today:
1. Entropy, curiosity, and phase-change
2. The Silent Sunday Monsoon Special
3. Monsoon Bookshelf
4. Are startups no longer fun? Are they no longer as disruptive?
1. Entropy, curiosity, and phase-change
“Your future self guides you by directing your attention in the present” – Carl Jung
A good friend recently sent me a link to this short and interesting video on X (previously Twitter). It’s a five-minute presentation and talk by Tom Morgan, whom I will introduce later. Its title? “The Most Offensively Taboo Idea in Western Civilization.”
The video talks about the differences between the left and right sides of our brains, specifically around how we see the world around us and make sense of it.
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Chairman and MD, InvAscent
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Executive Chairperson, Biocon Limited
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