AIs and opinions

We expect that opinions based on data and facts would be reliable, although not indisputable. Since these are still "opinions" they are bound to contain giver bias that would spring from intuition, experience, judgement or quirks. It's human, and we understand the mechanism.

When it comes to AI, though, it gets troubling when we get opposite opinions from different tools. Being "tools" and driven by "computing", we are inclined to trust what they say, not as "opinions" but as some version or degree of "truth". But what if after consuming all the data, ChatGPT suggests, even encourages, that you do something, while Claude tells you that it's stupid, even suicidal, and you shouldn't do that ever. The data is the same. Are the tools acquiring "personality"? They are expected to, given the effort to mimic human faculties. But with humans, we have a way of figuring out. With AI, we have a totally different kind of quagmire to deal with that's neither unique, nor consistent, nor revealing in the way humans are. And in the background, it's being built, taught, designed, tweaked and tinkered - all by humans. And worst of all, it's not allowed to say "NO".

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 16 Mar 2026

Problem definition - Attention span or too many options?

We keep hearing that attention spans of people have come down, especially the younger folks can’t seem to focus on any one thing for long. It’s usually blamed on addiction to short sized content like tweets, reels, shorts and bites. In his recent podcast, Trevor Noah had a different perspective on this. He said it’s not the attention span that has come down. It’s actually the availability of many alternatives at any moment that are competing for our mental resources, and the availability and access to choices makes us want to switch when something seems not so great. Our tolerance for anything not so captivating at any moment has become low because of infinite range of alternatives we can easily divert our minds to. Something truly mesmerising can still tie us down for a long time, but such things would need us to be in an isolated setting so that we don’t get distracted with other equally good or better options, unless the thing is really unique, exceptional, out of the world and without a close and easily accessible match.

The framing of the problem determines what is seen as the root cause and then how you go about solving it.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 15 Mar 2026

Strategic thinking has many layers

Glorification of fail-fast and iterative approaches in business have misled many leaders into believing it applies in every context. Ability to adapt is subject to prior conditioning that must have involved failure and calibration. A true leader has to be confused on where he/she stands, yet mask the confusion with sincerity of effort. This is at the root of a genuine leader's chosen strategy.

Strategy can, and has to, emerge, but it's important to have a sense of 'by how much'. One can't endlessly trust 'learn as we go'. Most projects in the world, especially those with the highest stakes, are waterfall, rather than agile. The real agility, in fact, is required in the leader's mind - yet only to a certain degree.

Most leaders fit their favorite approaches in every context. And to back them there's always some leadership gyaan and a school of thought. However, competing schools of thought exist for a reason - not every approach applies everywhere and every time. Like a chef, a leader must know his/her recipe well - the ingredients, their proportion and the process - based on who's eating. Some times it needs careful balance, even variants, based on different tastes and preferences. But unlike with a chef, a leader must also understand that the volume of the dish changes the recipe as well.

One can't afford to experiment if the stakes are too high. Yet a leader must choose. How? The system typically offers 2 options:

Trust his/her gut? - that's a function of conditioning and may be corrupt.

Take calculated risk? - follow the process, decide action plan, identify risks and have a mitigation strategy.

The former is noisy, has a casino-like charm and has high rate of failure. The latter, done repeatedly, leads to stronger and more sustainable outcomes.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 12 Mar 2026

We are all Spartacus!

I recently finished watching Spartacus on Netflix. It's a truly inspiring and eye-opening saga involving love, honour, respect, pride, revenge and death. The context, at the core, is master-slave relationship. That slavery was practiced to such an abominable level was difficult to believe initially as I started watching. But gradually I could relate more and more to it. I began to see that while we moved past the raw nature of it, we embraced the core tenets into how we conduct our economics in this world.

I realized my usage of the word "we" squarely implies that I'm putting myself on the master side. 'We' practiced slavery. 'We' put an end to it. 'We' embraced all as equal. 'They' are human too! It's funny - I speak the language of the master, yet by feelings I resonate with the slaves. Ways of the world...

I learnt from Spartacus that there is honour and pride ascribed to being a gladiator, which is meant to offer a semblance of meaning to their assigned purpose - of fighting to survive in the arena, while spectators get entertained by the sight of blood and the act of killing. It masks the sheer stupidity of what they are made to do while their masters - the domini - seek power and make money - coin - at their expense.

Slaves are branded with marks on their bodies - like "B" for those belonging to the House of Batiatus - a ludus for training gladiators. They are supposed to feel proud about it, as the house looks after them, nurtures them with food and place to stay, trains them, and gives them opportunities to fight, earn fame and recognition for their valour. The best fighters get rewarded with titles - the undefeated Gaul, the bringer of rain, and so on. If the dominus is generous enough, he may reward a gladiator with freedom. But such a freedom is fragile and can be taken away at any moment. Such freedom is still better than trying to break free from the master, coz then the gladiator deserves to be punished by being killed, brutally, in front of all the other slaves, so that nobody else dares to even bear the thought of escaping.

And yet, craving for freedom is deep in all humans. So are emotions - love, pain, hate and revenge - especially in that order, they can make any human take on the mightiest.

Gladiators are seen to exemplify true human fighting spirit involving exceptional courage, endurance, fearlessness in front of near-certain death, along with hope, passion and brotherhood - ingrained by conditioning and shared pain. Yet it's an irony that this spirit is evoked under hopeless enslavement leading only to brutal death in a constant cycle of kill-or-get-killed - games that are recreation for most, adrenaline-rush for some, and patriotism for a few. The free masters claim all the comforts yet commit to no such values, while keeping slaves tied down by duty, honour, hope and hopelessness... and God! It's all God's will, isn't it?

Times changed. Power and access to resources no longer necessitate their seekers to physically enslave people. Control changed from physical to mental. The chain of control doesn't have an ultimate top or bottom here. It's a chain that's endless on either side. It's not circular, but it does have various loops. Ways changed. Sight of blood became less exciting (for most but not all, it appears now). Everyone lives, mostly. Yet, on different levels still, aren't we all playing Spartacus?

Strategy must be understood, respected, shared and imbibed across the organization

Aspirin, to be effective, needs to first dissolve in water. So does Strategy. You are unlikely to achieve your visions by throwing plans and roadmaps at your workforce. Strategy has to be understood, respected, shared and imbibed across for it to truly drive organizations. Under the pressure and in the busyness of delivering short-term outcomes, leaders often fail to recognize that they are not truly leading, but are just filling positions that satisfice. Employee engagement has become more about making employees feel “happy”, while making them “motivated” and “proud to be part” has taken a back seat. In fact, if you “ask” these employees, they’ll “tell” you. But most leaders don’t care enough. Without adequate importance given to strategic alignment within, organizations just fool themselves and their shareholders with vision statements and fancy roadmaps never to be walked upon.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 14th January 2026

Cycling in 2025 was about 3650

 Oh, the joy of hitting seemingly arbitrary targets! An average of 10 km of cycling a day meant 3650 km a year, which seemed like a nice goal with a good stretch, considering two successive years of 3Ks earlier. Commitment breeds consistency, both essential to keep you on track - you outperform vis-à-vis your goals sometimes, and need to push harder to cover deficits more often.

2025 was eventful with lots of travel, learning, and unprecedented experiences. And the rains took their own sweet time to retreat. With everything going on, I had a constant tug-of-war with my daily and monthly milestones, but glad I eventually pulled it off, and then did some more!

Thanks Shruti Rao for gifting me this beautiful bike 4 years back. Each year, cycling teaches me a lot about staying committed and being consistent. Hope 2026 brings more of it, along with all the excitement the world is ushering in!

Happy New Year.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 1st Jan 2025

Sell for long-term

Most IT services organizations spend more time on chasing wrong deals - those they can't execute well - than even on delivering value to clients. While this sounds stupid, there is a deep and wide-spread mechanism of incentives at individual and system level that rewards short-term outcomes, that leads to choices which seem rational while they are not.

One of the primary approaches of capability development in Indian IT has been to pick work, often with lofty claims, and then figure out how to execute it. This opportunity-driven model has often hampered the quality of our delivery and hurt our credibility. But it has also helped us push our boundaries, claim newer capabilities in due course and offer more to clients. It is risky, reactive, but clearly has its rewards when played well.

Those who sell and those who deliver are generally different individuals, and their jobs are incentivised differently. The one who sold is rewarded upfront (although some of the reward may be tied to delivery later) for successfully signing that large deal, while the thing falls in delivery's plate to later grapple with. There's often mess that's unforeseen and needs cleaning, 70-90-120-hour workdays of effort when the budgeted were of 40, and a hush hush consensus that it is going to be a nightmare.

And yet we do it repeatedly.

Deal-qualification calls, which are meant to prevent this, are increasingly becoming a joke. 'Bounded rationality' constrains leaders when making decisions, but is not the root cause for flawed choices when there is lack of effort at processing information available.

Bottomline - (1) Leaders must watch out what kind of risks they are subjecting the firm to. There is a thin line between taking measured risks and going "we'll see later". (2) Qualify opportunities, especially the large ones, coz you are going to spend many people's effort on pursuing it for many many days. It better be something you can deliver, even if it's beyond your current set of capabilities. (3) See what behaviour your incentive mechanisms are driving vis-à-vis the roles people play in the organisation, and optimize them for the best outcomes. When decision makers listen to managers who are incentivised to be selective in presenting information, the outcomes can't be in the best interests of firms.

You announce "large deal wins" to the market, while delivery failure is hidden in the P&L. The former, ironically, has become a short-term metric, while the latter reflects long-term sustainability. The market knows this well. So do firms, but they find themselves struggling to pursue the latter because of large scale internal expropriation. The fix needs meticulous strategic intervention.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 26 Dec 2025.