What we see in the science is something very different. We often see that romantic partners basically see the best in each other. They're wearing rose-coloured glasses. And the primary thing that brings people together is what we would call attachment bonds or pair bonds: the idea that people are looking for somebody who they feel has their back, somebody who's going to celebrate their successes, and somebody who's going to be there for them.
— Paul EastwickIn biology we are still in a kind of Ptolemaic era with man considering himself the centre of the universe.
We have a much more connected marketplace. We have had, what I reckon to be an extremely overvalued stock market since 2000. When you have that situation, you are prone to very sudden negative revaluations.
The team was a meritocracy in which performance alone was rewarded. As I got better and my team started winning championships for my school, my status as freakishly tall black kid became a badge of accomplishment and inclusion.
All we can control in this life is our dedication, our self-belief, our determination. I can guarantee you, I will always have that, and that's my legacy. That's what I want to leave as a gift to my kids – the message that they should never give up, never have regrets, to give everything.
I guess that's been my biggest quality – to understand what customer's want, 3 or 4 years ahead of time. That's more or less probably my biggest quality as an entrepreneur.
If I say to you 41, it's data. If I tell you 41 is the temperature in centigrade, that's information. If I tell you 41 is the temperature, in centigrade, of a human patient, that really is information – in fact, it's in danger of becoming knowledge because of the contextualisation it gives you.
While participatory culture can create a Wikipedia, it is not likely to produce something like the Star Wars franchise. I don't think that's a problem, because I don't think we have to choose between participatory and top-down culture – both will thrive.
We didn't initiate this venture to merely establish another VC fund – India certainly doesn't need an additional one, given the abundance of capital already available. Our belief at Together Fund is that we can effect change through our current, first-hand experience, as operators who have scaled a company in this decade. Our knowledge is fresh and applicable, not outdated.
It's hard to create a very successful company, not many people do that. It's even harder to create a company that is durable. Our aim is to create a company that outlasts its founders, and to build a hundred year company you need to provide great customer value, have great employees and great processes.
I made a principled decision that none of my wealth will be passed on as inheritance, that my capital will work for philanthropic causes. In other words, philanthropy is the reason I make money.
I've been doing this a long time and have very rarely seen a company with sustainable competitive advantage like Amazon has.
While it may seem an altogether preposterous notion that people should have to pay for air, a very basic component of life- one must read this hypothetical tale in context of the fact that over 1.7billion people cannot afford food (also a very basic component of life)- and a similar amount have little access to clean drinking water (another very basic component of life).