Would you suggest a fresher to join a startup?
Posted on May 16, 2008 | Categorized under Startup
Just having pondered over the question of working for a startup, it does make sense to revisit the same question from a different point of view — from a fresher’s eyes! Perhaps, given all the “risky” and equally “rewarding” nature of startup jobs, many rush to conclusion that it’s the ideal land for freshers - the candidates fresh out of colleges and universities. Actually, there are two main attributes those are usually associated with freshers; and those make them ideal startup candidates in the eyes of many -
Not-yet-committed: A fresher’s just completed his studies and so most likely to be a “single”. He doesn’t have many commitments to keep those usually come into life with a better half and thus he can make best of the long-hours startup culture.
Not-yet-settled: A fresher is usually not considered as settled in life as his professional life’s just began. He’s assumed yet away from any financial responsibilities those usually start resting on your shoulders as you move further in life. And so he is assumed to be free to take the risky but rewarding startup jobs — any day can be his (and his company’s) last working day together (but if succeeds then he can be millionaire overnight)!
Do online social networks indeed connect people?
Posted on May 9, 2008 | Categorized under Internet
With easier than ever ways to connect people, Online Social Networks (OSNs) are growing with a skyrocketing speed! Prior to their arrival, the set of people with whom we could share an interest or collaborate over an activity was pretty much limited to our neighborhood. OSNs have removed that proximity barrier all together. It takes only moments to search and befriend with a similar mind or an activity partner that could, in reality, be located across the globe! But does it all really come without any price-tag on it? Well, not really. It indeed has a black side that can work exactly against its very purpose of connecting people!
In a broad sense, we can divide OSNs into two categories — specific OSNs and generic OSNs. Specific OSNs, as the name suggest, focus on a specific interest or activity. For example, consider Debate.com — it’s a platform that focuses on facilitating debates among people; and that’s it! Another kinds of OSNs i.e. generic OSNs don’t focus on anything specific as such. Those are, by far, more popular social networking platforms today e.g. MySpace.com, Facebook.com, Orkut.com etc. And these are the ones who carry a concerning downside with them that we’re precisely going to talk about here.
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Is working for a startup your cup of tea?
Posted on May 2, 2008 | Categorized under Startup
Every ambitious professional must have pondered over this question, at least once, during his career. A question of - whether to work for a startup or to follow the traditional preference for a well-established company. And yes, startup jobs are too alluring to just ignore. Like every new thing, they’ve got more energetic and happening environment than somewhat routine life in a stable company. Many pieces of puzzle are yet out of place and so plenty of opportunities to try and learn new things. I often hear people saying, “dude! just 6 months at a startup can teach you more things than spending 2-3 years inside some stagnant pond”. Now that would make learning pace of about 6 times faster! Well, it could be an overstatement but again, considering sort of ubiquitous nature of this advice, it won’t be completely smoke either.
For souls aspiring to prove themselves, there are some more candies in the store! Startup staff is always small in size so you’ve got better chance to stand out of a crowd. Each employee plays an important role in building and shaping company’s future; this fact itself can bring excitement and a sense of accomplishing something big. At the end of a day, if the startup succeeds, everyone involved is entitled to a great fortune through their stocks and shares. Thus, too alluring to just ignore, ain’t it? Well, given all the seducing facts and stories, there are some caveats to this affair too — and that make it a not-everyone’s-business kind of deal.
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What an entrepreneur wants?
Posted on April 25, 2008 | Categorized under Entrepreneurship
So, by now, we kind of agree over the fundamental entrepreneurial motivation; it’s nothing but a non-ceasing desire to innovate a business. Also as already discussed, there can be some other desires that can possibly spur a person to pursue innovative business - those include Freedom/Independence, Money, Fame, Philanthropy, and Power/Influence. Now, especially after looking at these comments, we ought to accept that these other desires are not all that insignificant. They can’t create entrepreneurs, per se; but carry another (may I call subtle?) significance — they decide how the entrepreneurship is pursued. Confused? Well, that was indeed the intention. Lets see if we could make it further comprehensible!
An entrepreneur is a person who’s essentially driven by a desire to change the way business is done - and so he’s always in search of not just any but only the opportunities those are innovative in his perception. Agree. But the story doesn’t end there! And that’s where the other desires come into play. These desires usually have a role in deciding - which of the possible innovative opportunities gets identified and further how the identified opportunity gets seized. In other words, there will always be opportunities those are not perceived as innovative by an entrepreneur but can possibly fulfill other desires (if exploited). Those are unlikely to be pursued by him. Whereas, again, there will be more than one innovative opportunities lying around at any point of time; and which one gets identified and how that one gets seized depends largely on his other desires.
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Do you need anonymity over the internet?
Posted on April 18, 2008 | Categorized under Internet
Life is full of coincidences! Just after having a personal experience with phishing attack, I happened to land up to a talk by Dr. David Cheriton (Professor, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Stanford). The talk was about concerns with the internet as a reliable platform; and as you might guess, it was mainly focused on security issues - with anonymity being a prominent one!
Except face-to-face, any other form of communication is vulnerable to anonymity and so is communication over the internet. Then shouldn’t we just live with it - like we live with anonymous letters or phone calls? Well, we won’t be able to say so innocently after looking at some numbers and facts - among the total of about 6.5 billion people over this planet, more than 1.3 billion are connected by the internet between them! And this number is growing faster; it’s already 2.5 times more than it was in year 2000! Perhaps, the more concerning fact is that, anyone can publish any kind of information (text/media) over it and everyone else of those 1.3 billion (minus 1) is possibly exposed to it — like an easily writable and globally readable, huge white board!
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