| Sunday, 25 January 2026 |
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Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
Dear reader, winter is on its last legs. The skies are gray, the weather is dry, and the air is still. Everywhere you look, the trees are depressing shades of brown, brown-green, or dirty-green. Except the Indian almond tree, many of whose leaves have turned a bright and fiery red before they fall ahead of the impending spring. Another “almond” tree that has red tricks up its sleeve is the Java almond. You can see some of them around the Domlur flyover as you approach Indiranagar, laden with garish and suggestive red fruit that absolutely make your head turn.
As winter fades, cozying up is also on its last legs.
Yeah, that’s Gabru who decided to snuggle up against me as I was writing on Saturday morning. By evening, he was all fluffed up after his weekly bath, like Hobbes fresh from a rinse-and-spin in the washing machine!
Currently listening to: Work Energy Principle (The Chemical Brothers)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtDV4Jxmmn0&list=RDvtDV4Jxmmn0&start_radio=1
Currently reading: The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told
https://www.alephbookcompany.com/book/the-greatest-malayalam-stories-ever-told/
Currently watching: Season 5, The Wire
What rewatching ‘The Wire’ taught me about nostalgia for a lost America – Kabir Chibber (FT)
Here’s everything we have for you in First Principles this week:
1. Hope IS a strategy
2. Breaking out of the mould 📚
3. Landscape mode: on 📸
1. Hope IS a strategy
“We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” said Canada’s PM, Mark Carney, earlier this week at Davos in what felt like a speech for the ages. I couldn’t help parse it as a second avatar of the Non-Aligned Movement from the 1950s, with India’s then-PM Jawaharlal Nehru arguing for pretty much the same.
We are indeed in the midst of a rupture, not just in global geopolitics, but also in our careers and lives.
Careers can no longer be taken as a given. College was about education, then it became about jobs, and now it’s not about that either.
I enjoy reading The Ken because it is informative, the articles are well researched, well written, without the spin and bias. I admire The Ken team for their dedication to getting closer to the true picture.
Hari Buggana
Chairman and MD, InvAscent
Transparent, Honest, Detailed. To me, The Ken has been this since the day I subscribed to them. The research that they put into each story and the way it is presented is thoroughly interesting. Personally, I’ve always had a great time interacting with the publication and reading the stories.
Harshil Mathur
CEO and Co-Founder, Razorpay
The Ken has proven naysayers wrong by successfully running a digital news publication on a pure-subscription business model in India. They have shown that discerning readers are willing to pay for well-researched, well-written, in-dept news articles.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
Executive Chairperson, Biocon Limited
As a designer, it’s easy to get lost in the craft of building products. As a business owner however, keeping up with a rapidly changing landscape is key to saying relevant. The Ken doesn’t just help me stay on top of what’s happening in India(and beyond), but makes it fun to do so.
Rahul Gonsalves
Co-founder and CEO, Obvious Ventures