And Vijay Says…

Couple of decades ago, I worked in UK for a bit . The biggest challenge for me was getting used to the relaxed pace of a 35 hr work week after the 60 hour regular weeks in US that I was used to . I think our manager spent more time with us at Pubs and horse races than at the office . Strangely instead of taking life easy – I really longed to go back to US with the faster pace .

Then came a stint in Germany – where work was all about efficiency . When the work week is 40 hours – it literally means you spend every minute of those hours focused on work . Very little small talk etc – which was usually limited to lunch time in the cafeteria. In fact I hardly remember seeing anyone take their lunch to their desk there . Also – I got used to the idea of employees negotiating for more vacation and better company cars and willing to sacrifice their cash compensation . Vacations were sacred and no one generally thought of work during their time off – and practically very few would be available even on phone after work hours during the week unless it was an emergency . There were clear boundaries between personal and professional lives .

US workplace generally had a culture of very long hours when I entered the workforce. As a young associate – it was a badge of honor one earned by showing up before the bosses showed up and leaving after they did . And the execs did not slack either – often pulling very long hours themselves . Sacrificing vacation for work was another “badge of honor” thing from my past – which took various forms from not taking any vacation some years to checking in on work while on vacation . I am not at all proud of any of these – I wish I was smarter to not do it .

This week – I took my daughter to UK and Italy for a vacation . The last time she left our home town was just before the pandemic hit – when we had taken a week in a London and Paris . She will be off to College next month and this was a daddy-daughter thing we had planned for a while and were eagerly looking forward to . The last time just she and I traveled together was 12 years ago 🙂

I more or less succeeded in staying present and not worrying about work – with maybe six work emails and a couple of slack messages in eight days . All of those could have waited for me to return next week – but I will give myself a B- for an improved performance from past vacations 🙂

I have been in several European countries over the years for work – and occasionally on vacation as well . The difference from a work trip to a vacation trip is significant in all aspects

1. I realized how much I depend on my EA for booking travel – she makes it all seamless across flights , cars , hotels and so on . Researching and getting through all of that myself was both fun and stressful . Thankfully, the experience of a few million air miles does come handy in terms of knowing must-do and must-avoid items

2. I enjoy food a lot , as does my kiddo . The work trips generally don’t leave a lot of options for trying out the local food options to the extent I would love to . Well this time – I think we had almost all the stuff we wanted to 🙂 . The standouts were the lunch at an organic farm in Tuscany, Pizza in Naples, and the dinner at Dishoom in Kensington .

3. The sights to see – it’s actually pretty pathetic that I hardly spend any time to stop and smell the roses when I am on work trips . Usually I walk from the plane to a cab and my eyes are on my phone the entire ride . A cabbie in Paris was once so annoyed that he would stop at every landmark on our way to my meeting to make sure I appreciated his city 🙂 . NY is perhaps the best example – I go there several times a year for work , but I love to go on a double decker bus with my wife and daughter and watch this amazing city from the eyes of a tourist . We totally made amends on that front – weather was hot , and we walked more these last few days than any one week in recent history . But we loved every moment of it !

4. Water ! So I have always had a big problem with spending $$ on bottled water . Even when I travel for work – I don’t drink the $5 bottle of water in the hotel room. I would go buy water from a convenience store for cheaper . Well – all that changed upside down this week in Italy . It was so hot that we were finishing two bottles an hour throughout the trip . By the time we were driving back to the airport – I briefly considered opening a shop for selling just bottled water in Rome 🙂

5. Skechers shoes are life savers ! I knew from past trips that there will be a lot of walking involved and the decision to put a pair of Skechers on was perhaps the single best decision I made . My legs are sore – but I know how much worse it could have been !

6. Everyone in Italy seems to be a Formula 1 driver . My original plan was to rent a car in Rome and drive to Amalfi coast from there . Lucky me – a client of mine talked me out of it last week when I had dinner with him . Best advice ever – I wouldn’t have enjoyed the trip if I had to deal with the stress of driving south .

7. The heat wave and the Taxi strike ! Italy had been cursed with a heat wave for the last few months and I think we caught the peak of it . First week of July seemed worse than the last week of August . To add to the misery – there was the taxi strike in Rome to protest against Uber . Uber is twice as expensive as regular Taxi when I checked . And it seems taxi drivers spend 200K euros to get their license to operate – a situation similar to what happened with the taxi medallion owners in NY . The result of this was that we ended up walking a lot more than we planned to . By the last day – we could navigate the city quite well without a map , and I think I can swear decently in Italian now 🙂

8. The quality of tour guides we got – that made a huge difference ! They were courteous to a fault , throughly professional and had a great sense of humor . Their knowledge of history is stunning to say the least, and their pride in it is heart warming . I was curious what they thought of Mussolini – and it was clear none of them cared for that time in history . I think this is the best I ever experienced so far anywhere in the world . I also left Italy thinking this might be an area that INDIA could do better about tourism .

9. Cash is still king . I generally don’t carry cash with me when I travel and I regret it every time . This time was no exception . The exchange rate losses alone could have funded the expense on bottled water 🙂 . Credit card acceptance is much better now compared to the past – but for tipping , buying water and eating an ice cream on the street , you need a lot of small change . Even the cabs had notices that they prefer cash !

9. What did I learn from this trip ? I think the biggest learning for me is to slow down and smell the roses along the way . I admire the general culture of Italians – over the weekend, they drive to a small village and take it easy . When they eat in a restaurant – they take their time to enjoy their wine and their meal . No one is ever in a hurry unless they are driving 🙂

There are three things that limit extraordinary or exponential progress for mankind in my opinion .

1. Physical ability

2. Mental ability

3. Time

When you make even small improvements in each bucket, you gain some competitive advantage . For example – if you have adequate food and healthcare , you have better chances of spending time learning , hence a chance of better jobs and hence more wealth creation . If you have better mental abilities than others – you can find better opportunities to create and retain value . All of us have the same amount of time every day – so those who can spend it on higher order activities generally tend to have better results .

The people who tend to have a better combo physical / mental abilities and have more time on their hands – they tend to gravitate towards being the large scale suppliers of goods and services and everyone else becomes consumers .

Scale for suppliers is good for consumers in the short term – gives them better service and better price . Obviously this can turn bad in a hurry when there is no competition . I don’t worry about monopolies very much – I think the more realistic scenario is that there will always be a few large providers for most things consumers need .

The interesting aspect of scale is how technology will be used to make it happen . I think the suppliers will be the first to benefit – be it longer life span due to better healthcare options , better intelligence due to gene manipulation and use of powerful tech , better use of technology to predict what consumer wants , and maybe even better ability to manipulate consumer into wanting something that the providers have to sell , and perhaps the ability in future to be in multiple places at the same time and accomplish more within the same amount of time .

The fact that tech is not there today doesn’t mean it won’t get there in future – and given the tech progress is usually exponential and not linear , its only a matter of whether it takes 20 years or 200 years .

So what about consumers ? Suppliers need consumers – otherwise there is no future for them either .

I don’t expect any sudden change in global job markets . But it’s not hard to imagine that most skills that we consider useful today will become irrelevant tomorrow . We can mitigate it for some more time by changing how we learn and up-skill – but that only delays the inevitable . Eventually the majority of things that a lot of humans do today will be replaced by fewer humans and lots of automation .

So the people who don’t have the skills to do anything that adds value – how will they act as consumers ?

When automation can do stuff better/faster/cheaper than regular humans – there is no reason for suppliers to use these folks to create value . Even at no salary and “will work for food” – as in a terrible “slave labor” type scenario – there may not be any takers .

Even for the consumers who have useful skills – technology might be a good tool for them to gain efficiency in their purchasing . For example – if a personal digital shopper does all your purchases , it might be able to negotiate better prices from all available sources . The side effect is that the suppliers might be the one providing such a solution to the customers . So eventually the consumers loses value long term in that scenario too .

Then there is a possibility that the tax paid by suppliers will be enough to pay for all citizens to live comfortably – the Universal Basic Income concept in some form . This will need a complete rethink of our political and economical systems – and perhaps our religious belief systems too .

Take countries like INDIA and USA for example – which are a union of states with a federal government . Would rich states agree to pay extremely disproportionately to support the poorer states ? If they do – will Americans accept some kind of hybrid communism as a way of life ? And if they don’t – can the rich states stop mass migration from the poor states ? Will the rich states want to become independent countries at that point to retain their advantages ?

Even if no states leave the union in INDIA and USA , and the tax situation somehow works out with negotiations etc within each country – that still doesn’t solve the problem . Mexico and Pakistan might not have enough supplier taxes to cover their population adequately . Will US and INDIA send them their tax money to prevent mass immigration and its associated problems ?

The likely outcome given how government works everywhere is that they will increase the tax burden on the suppliers . It will get to a point where the supplier has no incentive to be in business any longer . Given they are already better than others with physical/mental abilities and time management – a good number of them probably will find a way to keep the advantage they have and stop contributing to the tax base .

At that point – what is the definition of “a country?” . Would physical boundaries and National flags mean much at all ?

I was born and raised in INDIA . If you look at the history of British rule in INDIA – you can easily realize that technology (ships , weapons, looms, medicine etc) gave a huge advantage to Britain – and INDIA eventually became a source of raw materials and a consumer for the finished goods. The kings who ruled INDIA at the time largely didn’t get along with each other , common people identified themselves with the territory their king ruled , and there were a lot of immediate problems to solve instead of worrying about technology . Looking back – it didn’t end well for INDIA at all for a couple of centuries .

The mistakes of the past like what happened in INDIA could repeat itself with even greater impact across the world . We will probably look back at last few decades and take a stance that automation has been a boon and not a curse – and we will be quite right in saying so . We might even look forward to say it will still be a boon for next twenty years – and that could be also quite true . But in doing so – we maybe doing our future generations quite an injustice .

It maybe ok for our grand kids to not have any nationality or religion – but we don’t have a clear idea of what will take their places as identities . And if we leave it for future generations to figure all this out from scratch and go on with our lives , we may not be doing humanity any favors . At a minimum we need to start taking small steps to define these solutions and work towards it with clarity .

In 1997, I was an apprentice engineer in a Tire company in India after finishing my degree in mechanical engineering . One evening, a machine broke down in the line and I quickly figured out that it’s just a broken spindle that needs to be replaced . I did some quick calculations and figured a 10.2 mm diameter is what the replacement should have . I could see the confusion in the eyes of everyone around me . Someone quietly went to the store and got the replacement and work progressed . The next day – my boss took me back to the machine , and showed me there was a panel with clear instructions there on parts – and the standard size replacement was 10mm . There is no such thing as a 10.2mm . He was sympathetic – he coached me that 90% of the time , you don’t need to worry about actual calculations and have to just follow the manual . He never gave me an example of the 10% when I will need to know the calculations 🙂

The next episode happened in Colorado in 2000 . I was a young programmer struggling with a massive old C program that started misbehaving after I added some functionality needed for my project . I didn’t change any existing code – and my code would compile without error and execute when I did it as a stand alone program. I went to the team leader – a long time veteran of HP-UX and probably the best programmer I have seen in my life . He casually asked me “Anything odd with the assembler code?” . I am not a CS major – and while I thought I was a really good programmer in C and a few higher level languages , I didn’t have the faintest idea on how a compiler actually worked or even how to read assembler code . Well, I was given a 30 mins tutorial and a manual for instruction set architecture . I struggled for weeks and eventually figured out what was wrong . I will spare you the details – but I walked away thinking that all mission critical code should be compiled without Optimisations turned on . I also learned to my horror that compilers can actually have bugs . Till today I don’t know if the compiler I used had an issue – but to be honest , I have never felt confident enough to blame a compiler even once when my code fails .

I wrote my first BASIC program in 1986 and first C program in 1989 . Till this episode in Colorado in 2000, I had never thought about the need for understanding what happens at a level below (N-1) what I needed to learn for everyday use . And in general I would say I had spent more thought on higher level abstractions (N+1) from where I am operating from .

My father was a very talented mechanical engineer . He used to tell me when I was in college that an engineer’s job is to make sure that whoever used the output of an engineer’s creation should be able to take it for granted – a lamp should switch on , a car should run when ignition is turned on and so on – without the operator knowing how it happens . And when it doesn’t work – most of the time the operator should know what’s wrong , and quickly decide if it needs expert help . By his definition – I wonder if he would have agreed that software is a real engineering discipline 🙂

If the episode in 2000 with Assembler had not happened – I doubt I would have developed an interest in N-1 thinking as my learning philosophy at all . It did help me quite a bit as moved into more business leadership roles later in my career . As I wrote recently about scaling a business , the ability to go to N-1 is critical when rethinking the building blocks . Otherwise we routinely get stuck in status quo and at best some incremental progress . Equally important is the fact that the moment you have solved things at N-1 , you need to zoom out to N+1 to pick up speed .

Keeps life interesting , doesn’t it ?