Secret Goals

Narayan Murthy’s Speech at NYU:One of the Most Inspiring and Influential Speeches You Will Ever Come Across

[N R Narayan Murthy, chief mentor and chairman of the board, Infosys Technologies, delivered a pre-commencement lecture at the New York University ( Stern School of Business) on May 9. It is a scintillating speech, Murthy speaks about the lessons he learnt from his life and career.]

Dean Cooley, faculty, staff, distinguished guests, and, most importantly, the graduating class of 2007, it is a great privilege to speak at your commencement ceremonies.

I thank Dean Cooley and Prof Marti Subrahmanyam for their kind invitation. I am exhilarated to be part of such a joyous occasion. Congratulations to you, the class of 2007, on completing an important milestone in your life journey.

After some thought, I have decided to share with you some of my life lessons. I learned these lessons in the context of my early career struggles, a life lived under the influence of sometimes unplanned events which were the crucibles that tempered my character and reshaped my future.

I would like first to share some of these key life events with you, in the hope that these may help you understand my struggles and how chance events and unplanned encounters with influential persons shaped my life and career.

Later, I will share the deeper life lessons that I have learned. My sincere hope is that this sharing will help you see your own trials and tribulations for the hidden blessings they can be .

The Matrix:Sci-fi Doesn't Get Better Than This

The Matrix,released in 1999 and starring Keanu Reeves,Lawrence Fishburne,Carrie-Anne Moss and Hugo Weaving in pivotal roles, has been the most amazing ,intriguing, and mind-bending film for me to date.Today i dug up again into the philosophical enquiries the film so wonderfully throws before the the audience by watching it all over again.But,as you may have already guessed by now,i have lost the count of how many times i have already watched this one just  to ensure that i know, "What is the Matrix ?" as much as other souls do!

 The film describes a future in which reality as perceived by humans is actually the Matrix: a simulated reality created by sentient machines to pacify and subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source for their operations. Upon learning this, computer programmer Neo is drawn into a rebellion against the machines, involving other people, including his mentor and guide Morphius, who have been freed from the "dream world" and into reality. The film contains many references to the cyberpunk and hacker subcultures; philosophical and religious ideas such as the Brait in a vat  thought experiment; and homages to Alice's Adventure in Wonderland, Hong Kong action cinema and Japanese animation.

The film boasted of masterful direction and an absorbing story by the enigmatic duo the Wachowsky brothers who became world famous overnight after the enormous success of this film and then went ahead with other two films- The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions being added to the Matrix film franchise,both released in 2003 with much fanfare.Keanu Reeves, playing Neo, delivered arguably his career best performance.Some even believe he was born only for this iconic role! The level of sophistication and sheer energy he brought to his character was applauded by everyone including myself.Then we have Morpheus,played by Lawrence Fishburne,guiding Neo to his ultimate realisation of being the one.He most certainly was the most inspiring and magnificent character in the film with his often inexplicable yet thought provoking(if understood,i mean) words of wisdom(click here to find them).Carrie-Anne Moss played Trinity to the best of her ability and didn't disappoint either.However,the character that haunts the movie goers the most long after they have left the theaters(or the TV/Monitors for that matter) is without question Agent Smith,played superbly by Hugo Weaving.He is the worst of the most hatable villains you will ever,ever see in your entire life and yet makes for a gripping screen presence with his quiet but meticulous dialogues,vandalising to an extent the screen importance of almost all the other characters ,except that of Morpheus and sometimes Neo.

To be really honest, i firmly believe if one hasn't watched The Matrix yet,it's time they did.As they say,"If this is not what great filmmaking is ,then i don't know what is".

Confessions: The Underdog Inside Me

I have had one thing to confess for quite a long time now - i never wanted to be an underdog nor did i have the slightest of forsightedness of becoming one one day.

As i have already mentioned in a couple of my posts regarding how unfortunate i consider myself for being part of a college i am.Three years gone,i am now at the end of my college degree but still i am struggling to make a sense of what i have really learned here which would help me in my life ahead.Virtually nothing.First year-i was in a frustratingly retarding dilemma of whether i shoud continue with my present degree course or drop out and do something(or rather not) about it.Second year-i realized there was no turning back and, i thought to myself,i better focus on my studies a little bit and side by side develop the "great" project i was working on then and make my plans clear about what i would do next after my college.Third year-things started seeming less blurred and i somehow managed to reduce fluctuations and my destination got itself washed-up to seem even more plausible to my then-curious eyes.But wait,what do these things have to do with the title of the post then?

All these confessional bursts on this particular day are all due to my fifth sem results announced today.No i didn't get horrible scores, but it didn't seem like quite an accompalishment either.I got 74% this time around and that's my best so far in college.The sad part-just like each of the previous sems i did not top my Maths department this time too ,which would now probably be just something i would think to myself for years to come," i could have done that but i did not."They rightly say,"those who dream of success,deserve success", as i am pretty sure now i didn't deserve to be a topper of the department in any of the sems and this is all because i was always content with my one-day prep scores compared to the days-prep of my fellow classmates.Inspite of having the best academic records amongst us all before joining the college i remained just the "underdog" who fitted somewhere between the extreme performers(in simple terms the guys with the best and those with the worst scores).If only i had the least idea of how those crappy dusty books,rote-learning methodology implementations were going to seem useful to my "innocent" and "sharp" had-been brain..............

My Name Is Khan...And I Am Not A Terrorist

This was one of the best films to come out of Bollywood.Period.

Nothing beats the experience i had today watching this movie.Directed by enormously talented Karan Johar,starring Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in ,perhaps, their career best performances to date, "My Name Is Khan" had all the ingredients in almost perfect proportions to be more than just a great film.Rizwan Khan,the main protagonist played by SRK,is an Asperger's Syndrome(a disorder that makes it difficult for people to interact socially)  victim.He,however,has a special gift-he can repair almost any thing.After a turn of events,he finally settles down with Mandira, played by Kajol,a divorcee with a child named Sam from her previous marriage.And they seem to live really happy together.Untill 9-11.

The Khan family begins to experience the post 9-11 prejudice in their community which is about to bring havoc on them.In a racially motivated teenage fight Sam accidentally dies and for this Mandira blames Rizwan for his being a "Khan" and bursts out at him, telling him to go and tell all the people of America and the President, "My name is khan and i am not a terrorist". This is where Rizwan enters even more into the heart of the viewers by setting on a journey to meet the President, and in this journey he shows us his indestructible determination,no-bounds boldness and his sheer belief in himself -that make him unique in his own rights.He even saves,with his can-repair-anything ability, lives of the people in the hurricane-hit state Georgia, including Mama Jenny who he had befriended a while back.His efforts attract media attention, and with the help of some news reporters, he proves before the world he is not a terrorist and finally,after so many unsuccessful attempts,gets to meet the President-elect Barack Obama.

A message movie at its best entertainment-ly inspired look and feel,a noble effort by Karan Johar and most importantly the totally gripping keeping-you-hooked-to-your-seat performance by Shah Rukh Khan in his most endearing avatar ever.

 

Thank You Sachin

If you have not guessed yet,here i m referring to Sachin Agarwal-the inspirational India-born Posterous co-founder.Who made me a blogger? Simple,he did.Since my very first blog post titled "{Why So Lonely?" on Posterous,i have been unable to be not in love with what it is like to blog on Posterous, compared to all other blogging platforms combined together.I always wanted be a blogger who actually 'blogs'.What i mean by that is simple : not anymore the guy who creates blogs on different platforms one by one ,start posting on them,continues this for a weak or two, and then simply stops posting at all,for he thinks that was so 'uncool' and frustratingly tough to manage. And then one beautiful day(yes, that was),i got to know about a blogging service that would do everything for me,including creating photo galleries,media embedding and streaming, and of course let me post to multiple sites from one place -if only i knew how to mail and what to mail.Fortunately, i had so-so,ok-ok command over the knowledge of both, and here i am,blogging about how i became a blogger!!!

Well,you may be wondering why on earth anybody would feel so strongly about his,you know, "blogised" confessions all of a sudden and start writing something that praises somebody,although actually a SOMEBODY, for precisely no exact reasons.The reason is: today this guy-aka Sachin Agarwal-subscribed to my blog and made the number of people giving damn to my blog a huge 10(2-digit number,mind it!!).Yes, he has a million followers(including me) and he follows another million or so,but it still means a lot to me when somebody -i have always considered inspiring and motivating-also likes my stuff :)

A Brief History Of Why I Never Learned Programming

It all started back in the summer of 2008.I had started working on an ambitious project with two of my friends, who were going to be my would-be partners in the future.Being the project leader and that too- of a project concerning computer geekiness-I had to be knowledgeable about some modern programming language ,atleast that's what my idea at that point of life was.I decided to join programming classes at a reputed institute. It was a three year course that was to give me a software engineering diploma eventually.But alas,things were not this smooth. It turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life.I had enrolled myself there for mastering the .Net platform using C# ,but there was not a single faculty over there to guide,you know, the aspiring programmer in me through the course as not many of them knew what the 'F' they were doing there.Most of the faculty members comprised passed-out students from the same institute who hadn't gotten themselves a good job anywhere else.I dropped out after the first semester with decent marks.I learned almost nothing there,quite frankly,except the basics that were mainly due to my own effort, which was not going to be sufficient-i had been saying this to myself before finally dropping out.
Enter my college. It wanted me to learn Fortran 77-hardly a language any student would want in his course that remotely relates to modern day computing - which did not make much of a point that was relevant to my future prospects and so i gave up even before starting.This was the case in the second year of my college. The final year was going to be most disturbingly interesting for me.
Fast forward to today.I have just completed the fifth semester,except the practical paper on C  to be held tomorrow.This semester required me to go back to the basics. It was my confrontation with C-the most popular programming language to date.Having got some knowledge of the more superior C#, many of the ideas in C seemed dated to me. It became difficult for me to keep up with times but I did not give up this time. I decided to start from this point -my programming journey. After all my initial failed attempts to get a working C compiler on my computer, i was done with this thing too.Yes,you may say it was quicker this time than should have been but it was me.
Maybe, I was not made for this programming geekiness. Am I content with this? No. I will keep trying till my last successful effort. Next semester, I have C++ and hopefully I will , this time atleast, overcome my intrinsic urge to make excuses that make me look innocently programming-phobic, and emerge out triumphant while graduating from college with a good command over C and C++  .Only time will tell.

 

An Inspiring Article I Want To Share With You All

Download now or preview on posterous

SMSONE.doc (62 KB)

Top 11 Ways to Provoke a Geek Argument

Geeks, as a general rule, are pretty easy-going. We like to think things through, so passionate confrontations aren’t commonplace for us. When we get well and properly provoked, though, watch out! We won’t stop talking until every last point that we can think of has been made at least twice. So, what do you say to provoke a geek? Glad you asked!

 

 

 11. “No real programmer would ever use PHP.”

 

10. “Comic books are just for kids!”

 

 9. “Internet Explorer is much better than Firefox—why else would it be the

most  popular  Browser ?”

 

8. “Role-playing games are just for people who can’t deal with real life.”

 

 7. “Homeopathy works, no matter what ’science’ has to say about it.”

 

6. “The Pirates of the Caribbean movies are so realistic!”

 

 5. “If open-source software was really that great, they’d charge for it.”

 

4. “Dreamworks  kicks Pixar’s animated butt!” 

 

3. “Mac, Windows, or Linux? Does it really make a difference?” 

 

2. “Batman is so boring—he doesn’t even have any super powers!”

 

 1. “Who needs Gmail? I’ve got AOL!”

 

 

 

 

Source : www.wired.com 

Because of You

Because Of You by Kelly Clarkson  
Download now or listen on posterous

04 - Because of You.mp3 (7368 KB)

Life can be terribly interesting sometimes, much to cause us irresistible annoyment.We meet people,make friends and, if we are horribly lucky, make "best" friends too.We start sharing everything-even our darkest and deepest secrets-with them.It feels so great.It's like we are the happiest people ever born on earth.But then the twist ,we never anticipated,comes from nowhere all of a sudden.Our so-called best friend becomes a pain in the a**.They tear our life apart,shatters our all expectations and leave us in the cold all alone,all devastated.And then comes the most exciting and fascinating part of the already f***** friendship.The best friend comes back to us after eons, having realised  their unpardonable blunders and hope for mercy from someone they think is still the same as he/she was when left in their most miserable condition.They better shut the hell up!

Well,you maybe thinking as you are reading this why on earth i would write about what i am writing about and want to create fuss.The simple reason is:this time i am the person being "annoyed",and i have included the song"Because of You" by Kelly Clarkson in my post as it pretty much goes along with my story in perfect resonance,i guess. .  .  

A few short(est) stories you probably won't mind reading

'Splendid,' the Professor says. Always splendid. He asks how I am. 'I 
feel like death,' I tell him. 'Splendid,' he replies.

She lay in bed some mornings thinking of what could have been, 
thinking of what never happened. Hoping for better. 

Tiny little people were living in my house. I don't care what you do, 
I said. Just don't freak me out. Okay psycho, one of them said. 

Smiles all around. Everyone was smiling except me. 'Why aren't you 
smiling?' they asked. 'I'm smiling on the inside,' I replied. 

I hear your voice. I stare at you, unable to speak. At dawn you will 
vanish into the morning mist. And I will be alone. 

I see her face everywhere. Even the middle aged business men on the 
train are wearing her head, smiling at me like they know. 

I woke in hell. Why am I here? The devil walked past in high heels and 
fishnet stockings. "Because you're no angel," she said. 

He was a human sex machine, The Love Terminator. After their love 
making she said she loved him. He replied, 'Does not compute.' 

'Make me laugh,' she demanded. 'Make me tell crappy jokes,' I replied. 
And she laughed. 

I hid Dad's shoe polish. I cut holes in his shirts. Then he had a 
fight with Mum and left. I just wanted him to play with me. 

I am like lightening. Devastating. Unpredictable. Leaving disaster in my wake. 

I drove into the desert to find myself. When I was completely lost I 
pulled out my GPS. 

He sat on the pavement with his head in his hands. She waited by the 
bus stop. She didn't love him anymore. 

"What's the password?" I said, as we approached the safe. He replied, 
"The year of your death." 

On this beautiful summer's afternoon I'm reminded of that day we spent 
together here. Before you dumped me. Before I cheated on you. 

There's a place in your dreams where you aren't betrayed and you don't 
get sold short every time. That's why it's in your dreams. 

She probably likes to think I remember her every day. Actually, the 
truth is I forget her a lot more often 

Of all the things remembered. A touch, a kiss. Your tenderness. Your 
giving. And now my heavy heart. All folded in time 

I wrote myself into my story. I killed the King and married the 
princess. My rule was merciless but I lived happily ever after. 

My ex-girlfriend came out of the bathroom with my best friend. She saw 
me and laughed. '"You can't always get what you want,"' she sang. 

I'm entranced. She's perfect, like a goddess. I bet she floats on 
clouds - until she picks her nose and lights up a cigarette 

Slowly, more painfully than he imagined, he forced himself up from the 
wheelchair. He stood for a second and fell back exhausted. 

He could predict the future. When he saw her in the bar, he said, 'We 
are going to fall in love and then you will break my heart.' 

I got a message on my phone saying that I was a liar. I sent a text 
back saying they had the wrong number. 

He never listened to her complaints. He was too busy formulating his own. 

My girlfriend looks so beautiful in that blue dress. Or is it red. I 
can't quite tell, I'm colour blind. That's always my excuse. 

"Fly little bird!" the girl says. The feathered body drops to the 
ground. She doesn't understand. "It's sleeping," I tell her. 

My ex dated my neighbour. I heard them. That's so cheap, I said. She 
replied, Why do you think I dated you in the first place. 

I had one last wish before the firing squad. "I want to tell a joke," 
I said. They laughed. "You've just had it." 

He felt like a prop in her life. She wanted to live in a Lego house 
with plastic pets a plastic baby and a plastic husband. 

"Welcome aboard," said the driver, as the door banged shut. "This is 
the bus to nowhere. Goes nowhere, never stops." 

As I skydived towards Paradise Island, to spend the rest of my life in 
blissful luxury - I realised I'd forgotten to pack my parachute.

The Matrix Revisited

Oktapodi : The Most Delightful Short Animation I Have Ever Watched

The two Octopuses in the short are amongst the most adorable animated characters i have watched to date and their romantic  angle shown here in the film is perhaps the most captivating  of all i  have seen in the short animation genre!

Wikipedia Just Got Better Than.....Itself!

As most of you already know it by now,Wikipedia,one of the most visited and useful websites on the Internet,received a major redesign  a couple days ago.Most apparent in the new revamped incarnation of the website is the look and feel,which includes the refreshed puzzle logo and a much cleaner and elegant interface.

I have attached a screenshot of a Wikipedia page(which is an article on my all time favourite animated film- How to Train Your Dragon) here.And most of the visible changes of the site can be easily spotted on the screenshot itself ,right here by an avid Wikipedia user like me.Other major changes have been brought in the areas of site navigation,article editing and search feature ,along with a totally new feature- Pediapress book creater being added to the already impressive list of changes.Summing it up,the new interface aims to make the experience for visitors and contributors better .Additionally, you can always click here for the full list of new features added to your favourite site  dedicated to give information on whatever topic your mind ventures into thinking every once in a while.

Quotes By Woody Allen

Woody Allen is one of the most critically acclaimed and prolific filmmakers of 21st century, and is rightly so.He has wrote,directed and starred in most of his brilliant pieces of work.For inspiration, Allen draws heavily on such diverse fields of interest such as literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology,and their influences are not very difficult to mark in his distinctive films.Moreover,he is also an accomplished musician and a comedian.I have collected below some of his humourous yet witty quotes which you're definitely gonna enjoy!

                                                                               

 

 There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?

 I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it’s the government.

 I don’t have to ‘freedom-kiss’ my wife when what I really want to do is French-kiss her.

 I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.

I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

 I have bad reflexes. I was once run over by a car being pushed by two guys.

 I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox.

 I’d call him a sadistic, hippophilic necrophile, but that would be beating a dead horse.

 I’m astounded by people who want to ‘know’ the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.

 I’m such a good lover because I practice a lot on my own.

I’m very proud of my gold pocket watch. My grandfather, on his deathbed, sold me this watch.

 If my films make one more person miserable, I’ll feel I have done my job.

 In Beverly Hills… they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.

 Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon. 

Most of the time I don’t have much fun. The rest of the time I don’t have any fun at all.

 My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.

 Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ but not in those words.

 What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carepet.

 When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room.

 You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.

Entrepreneurship: Definition, Types, and Motivational Factors

Entrepreneurship: Definition, Types, and Motivational Factors

Definition

The word entrepreneurship has been derived from a French root which means “ to undertake”. It is also called by various names, e.g. adventurism, risk taking, thrill seeking, innovating, etc.

According to Higgins, “ Entrepreneurship is meant the function of seeking investment and production opportunity, organizing an enterprise to undertake a new production process, raising capital, hiring labor, arranging the supply of raw materials, finding site, introducing a new technique and commodities, discovering new sources of raw materials and selecting top managers of day-to-day operations of the enterprise.

Jaffrey A. Timmons has defined entrepreneurship as “the ability to create and build something from practically nothing. Fundamentally, a human creative activity, it is finding personal energy by initiating, building and achieving an enterprise or organization rather than by watching, analyzing or describing one. It requires the ability to take calculated risk and to reduce the chance of failure…..”

According to A.H.Cole “entrepreneurship is the purposeful activity of an individual or a group of associated individuals, undertaken to initiate, maintain or aggrandize profit by production or distribution of economic goods and services.”

Characteristics and Significance

A Function of High Achievement: People having high need for achievement are more likely to succeed as entrepreneurs, according to McClelland. Motive is high achievement and profit  is merely a measure of success and competency.

Innovation: According to Schumpeter, entrepreneurship is a creative activity. An entrepreneur is basically an innovator who introduces something new into the economy.

Organization Building Function: According to Harbison, Organization Building skill means the ability to “ multiply oneself” by effectively delegating responsibility to others.

A Function of Managerial Skills and Leadership: Managerial skills and leadership qualities are more important than financial skills

A Function of Status Withdrawal: According to Hagen,” Creative innovation or change is the fundamental feature of economic growth. He describes an entrepreneur as a creative problem solver interested in things in the practical and technological realm.

Types of an Entrepreneur

Innovating Entrepreneur:

Aggressive in experimentation and clever in putting attractive possibilities into practice.

Adoptive or Imitative Entrepreneurs:

They adopt best practices. Imitative entrepreneurs are revolutionary and important.

Fabian Entrepreneurs:

Drone Entrepreneurs:

Against any change in production method even at the cost of losses.

Forced Entrepreneurs:

They become entrepreneurs on account of    circumstances

Functions of an Entrepreneur

Perceiving market opportunities

Gaining command over scarce resources

Managing human relations within firms

Marketing of the products

Responding to the competition

Dealing with bureaucracy

Managing finance

Upgrading process and product quality

Managing costumer and supplier relations

Introducing new production techniques and products

Risk Taking

Organization and management

Qualities of a good entrepreneur

According to McClelland:

An unusual creativeness

A propensity of risk taking

A strong need for achievement

According to Prof. Tandon :

1. Capacity to assume risks

2. Technical Knowledge and willingness to change

3. Ability to marshal resources

4. Ability of organization and administration

According to more than fifty research studies:

Total commitment, determination and perseverance Drive to achieve and grow Opportunity and goal orientation Taking initiative and personal responsibility Persistent problem solving Realism and sense of humor Seeking and using feedback Calculated risk taking and risk seeking 9.   Low need for status and power

10.  Integrity and reliability

11.  Capacity to work hard

12.  Self Motivation

13.  Vision and foresight

14.  Sound Judgment

15.  Flexibility and sociability

16.  Persistence in the face of adversity

17.  Will to conquer and impulse to fight

Entrepreneurial Motivation Factor

Educational background

Occupational Experience

Desire to work independently

Desire to branch out to manufacturing

Family background

Assistance from Government

Assistance from financial institution

Availability of technology/raw material

Profit margin

Desire for taking personal responsibility

Anticipation of future possibilities

Success stories of entrepreneurs

To gain social prestige

Heavy Demand

Technical knowledge

via smallentrepreneurship.wpempire.com

 

Gorgeous Paintings By the Artist Joseph McSween

These gorgeous portraits by Joseph McSween, better known as 2H, are really fresh and distinct from his contemporary artists.. I'm really impressed with how much beauty,elegance and personality he is able bring out in his female characters.You just need to look into the eyes of the female characters in the paintings to see how much meticulous detailing they seem to have been given.

"Lately I’ve been told from people that they really connect with my paintings through the eyes of the piece. I feel the eyes are the most important part of my paintings because that’s where the mind is automatically drawn to when first viewed. It establishes an instant intimate relationship between the viewer and the painting, therefore I usually render the eyes with the most detail so you can see the soul of the model even if she is physically not material." -2H

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Looking at Education From Another Perspective

At first, it seems that this video, a smartly illustrated lecture by Professor Philip G. Zimbardo, has nothing to be with virtual worlds. It’s about time preferences in different cultures, countries and even cities. But here it comes: it’s also about different ways to experience time between generations. It seems that in the US one child drops out of school every nine seconds. One of the problems: school is boring. By the time a boy is 21, he has spent 10,000 hours playing video games.

Those games tend to become even more exciting, as the industry develops surround 3D systems etc. I guess some would say this is over-stimulating the brain, others will applaud this media evolution. It seems youngsters find the analogue classrooms very boring compared to the games and the web. A traditional classroom is boring, you sit there passively and you control nothing at all – the hidden but most important lesson of school is how to endlessly delay gratification.

So what do you think about technology’s potential for re-wiring young brains?

via mixedrealities.com

 

John Sculley on Why He Fired Steve Jobs : A Really Interesting Read for Anyone Interested in a Story of Rise And Fall

By Thomas E. Weber

As Apple's CEO introduces his new iPhone today, and its market cap passes Microsoft's, the man who infamously fired him, John Sculley, tells The Daily Beast's Thomas E. Weber about his regrets, their rift—and how their partnership could have worked: Jobs should have been CEO, and Sculley's boss, rather than the other way around. Plus, other 1985 board members on Jobs then and now, and where they are today.

In the annals of blown calls, it ranks somewhere between the publishers who turned down the first Harry Potter book and baseball umpire Jim Joyce’s instantly infamous perfect-game flub last week. It was the spring of 1985, and the board of Apple Computer decided it no longer needed the services of one Steven P. Jobs.

 

AP Photo; Paul Sakuma / AP Photo (2) Fate had a doozy in store for the men—and they were all men—who dumped the famously combative Jobs. The upstart they fired eclipsed them by many magnitudes, as emphasized two weeks ago when Apple passed Microsoft to become the most valuable technology company in the world.

The key antagonist in the tech world’s biggest soap opera of a quarter-century ago: John Sculley, the Pepsi executive whom Apple’s board brought in as CEO to oversee Jobs and grow the company—similar to Eric Schmidt’s role with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin—in 1983. A marketing whiz who had invented the “Pepsi Challenge” campaign, Sculley wrestled with low Macintosh sales and a need to bring some order to the creative chaos Jobs had unleashed. Sculley found that he couldn’t rein in Jobs—and decided he had to go.

via thedailybeast.com

iPhone 4:What You Already Know By Now!

Steve Jobs yesterday finally unveiled the highly anticipated iPhone 4 before the world during his keynote at WWDC 2010 ,putting an end to months of speculation and some controversial leaks(yes,you Gizmodo!).

 

The flagship features of the new iPhone are its extremely high resolution screen at 960*640 and an astonishing 800:1 contrast ratio ,a 5MP camera with LED flash,a front-facing camera complemented by a new app FaceTime,and of course the new eye-catching form factor.Did I forget to mention all the goodies being added to the already impressive new hardware by an all new software-iOS 4?

 

Moreover,iBooks app along with its new PDF reading feature has also been announced yesterday for the iOS 4 platform which will now power the iPhone,the iPod Touch and the iPad;and hence will make for a very useful reading sync across all the iDevices for people who loved emptying their wallets on more than one such devices.

 

Well,of all the new stuff about the new hardware and software regarding the new iPhone announced the price of the iOS 4 was of most use to me.Being an iPod Touch owner without a credit card, I was worried that just like last year this year too Apple will charge $9.99 to people like me for the OS upgrade.And when I got to know that I would be getting the upgrade free of cost on 21st of this month, I became the happiest person alive for a moment.Ok,I admit I exaggerated.Still,iOS 4 is indeed a pretty big deal.Prettier when 'priceless'!

 

Want to dig dipper and know more? Then click here,here and here.

 

Source:Engadget,TechCrunch

Is Entrepreneurship Just About the Exit?

by Vivek Wadhwa on Jun 12, 2010

David Park and Eric Bahn are earning more at their startup, called Beat The GMAT, than they ever did in the corporate world. Every penny of profit from the business goes directly into their bank accounts. They enjoy being their own bosses; have become experts in sales, marketing, customer support, computer programming and graphic design; feel good about helping students gain admission to business school; and are grateful that they can spend their time doing things rather than discussing things—because they don’t answer to anyone. Why should they sell their business and be back to working for companies like Intuit or McKinsey & Co., they ask?

Ryan Sit, who runs a website called Picclick.com, feels the same way. His visual sales site attracts 300,000 unique visitors per month and generates millions in product sales for eBay and Etsy sellers—netting him a healthy six-figure income. He works from home and spends as much time as he wants to with his two small children and wife.  Ryan cherishes the freedom to do anything he wants—like experimenting with new website ideas. The last thing he wants to do is to raise capital or merge with a bigger company. “You become a slave when you are funded, and having lots of employees is just a pain”, Ryan says.

via techcrunch.com

What Is Reality?

There is an objective reality out there, but we view it through the spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes, and values. ~David G. Myers

Objectivity has about as much substance as the emperor’s new clothes. ~Connie Miller

How do we know that the sky is not green and we are all color-blind? ~Author Unknown

There are no facts, only interpretations. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

What is reality anyway! It’s nothing but a collective hunch. ~Jane Wagner

What was once called the objective world is a sort of Rorschach ink blot, into which each culture, each system of science and religion, each type of personality, reads a meaning only remotely derived from the shape and color of the blot itself. ~Lewis Mumford

Humankind cannot bear very much reality. ~T.S. Eliot

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion. ~Democritus

What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable. ~Louise Nevelson

All the mind’s activity is easy if it is not subjected to reality. ~Marcel Proust

Reality is a palette that humans paint on to let themselves sleep better at night. ~Author Unknown

After you’ve heard two eyewitness accounts of an auto accident, you begin to worry about history. ~Author Unknown

Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it. ~Jane Wagner