Satya Nadella is the third CEO of Microsoft succeeding Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. He was born in India to a father who worked in government. After majoring in electrical engineering, Satya eventually found his passion in computer science. His first job out of college was at Sun Microsystems, which has since been acquired by Oracle. His 22+ years of experience at Microsoft included running Bing (Microsoft’s search engine) and Microsoft’s cloud business. Here he shares his insight on Microsoft, life and career.
How do you succeed two legends like Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer as CEO?
Steve and Bill gave Satya the advice to just be himself. During the interviews for CEO, Satya was asked in the boardroom if he wanted...
Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO) on Leading Microsoft, Life and Career
Mar 2, 2018 -
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Coherent Arbitrariness Bias – Absolute Value vs. Relative Value
We are not very good at understanding the absolute values of products, but we are good at figuring out how much something is of value relative to other products.
Researchers asked subjects to assign values they would be willing to pay for a variety of different products, including a bottle of wine. However, they were first prompted to write down the last two digits of their phone numbers. This basically provided the subjects with an “anchor”. In other words, they were predisposed to certain numbers, which would influence future thought processes. You could have guessed that those who had higher last two digit phone numbers assigned higher values to the bottle of wine than those with lower last two digit numbers. One thing that...
6 Things I Wished I Knew When I Was Younger – Simon Sinek
See the bagel.
One day, Simon Sinek ran a race with one of his friends and at the end of the race there was a sponsor giving away free bagels. There were tables full of bagels and lines of people waiting to get a bagel. Simon turned to his friend and asked if he’d want a free bagel. His friend said, “No, the line is too long.” At that moment, Simon realized there were two ways of seeing the world. You can see the thing you want or you can see the thing that is standing in the way.
2. Turn nervousness is excitement.
Few years ago, Simon was watching the London Olympics. All the journalists would ask the same question to the Olympians, “Were you nervous?” All the Olympians would say, “No, I...
How to Never Have Awkward Silences in Conversations
You are doing well on your first date or social interaction with a new co-worker. You exchange pleasantries and for the first five minutes, all is well. Then comes the dreaded awkward silence. You blank out and you can sense the other person’s eyes wander and look for other people to talk to.
Play ‘reminds me of’ – Look to the environment and pick something that reminds you of something. This could help in opening up additional conversational threads that lead to more topics to talk about. Another thing you could do is tack on to what someone else just talk about and say that that ‘reminds you of’… People are attracted to people that are similar to themselves and related stories can help build a conversation...
Five Simple Actionable Keys to Happier Living
Nothing is inherently good or bad, but your thinking makes it so.
Bob has always worked an office job for as long as he can remember. He dreaded coming in to work everyday. Like clockwork, he would be at his desk at 8:00 AM and stare into a black box until it was time to go home. He longed for a job outdoors.
Jim has always worked in the field for as long as he could remember. He hated being in the hot blistering sun for most of the day. There was no shade to be had where he worked. Day in and day out he was at the mercy of mother nature. He longed for a job indoors.
Human are hardwired to focus on the negative experiences because it was what helped us survive in the past. While we can not change our past experiences...
The Reason Why You Haven’t Achieved Your Goals
Pick your goals and stay focused on them and check your list and keep going back to it all the time. That goes against what we’ve ever said about the goal. However, that is the mantra we’ve all been exposed to.
We all talk about setting goals, but how do you actually achieve your goal?
When Reggie Rivers was in sixth grade, he wanted to ask a girl out named Lasandra Johnson. She was the most beautiful 6th grader God had ever created. He used to look at this girl and wanted Lasandra to be his girlfriend. He was young and afraid, so he didn’t say anything to her. But one day he was standing on the playground and decided that today was the day, he mustered up the courage to and asked his best friend, John Chenchurro to ask Lasandra to be Reggie’s...
Three Steps to Finally Pursue Your True Calling
Find Your Resistance
Have you ever bought one of those abdominal crunch machines and brought it home only to let it collect dust? Or perhaps joined a gym and end up not going? Or stop short of starting a business you’ve always wanted to do? What has stopped you is Resistance.
Resistance is that voice in your head telling you that today is NOT the day to do it because you aren’t ready, your kids soccer match is today, or you aren’t completely financially comfortable.
Resistance is not a real voice. Use your eyes to take a look at resistance. What do you see? You can’t see anything because it doesn’t physically exist. It isn’t a physical barrier. In fact, it’s your own mental construction. Have the courage to step...
Insights on Investing and Life Advice from Charlie Munger
Scott Derue the Edward J. frey Dean of Business gleans life and investing insights from the incredibly intelligent Charlie Munger.
Benjamin Franklin once said, there are two things you can do in life. “You can write something worth reading or do something that is worth writing about.”
Charlie Munger has definitely done something worth writing about. Growing up in Omaha during the great depression left a lasting impression on Charlie. Most people that are currently alive have no idea what it was like. Charlie described growing up near a hobo jungle not too far from his grandfather’s house. The rich people didn’t even have any money and people were begging for a meal.
You have a morally duty to make yourself as unignorant...
How to Achieve Your Most Ambitious Goals
What stands between us and achieving even our most ambitious dreams has less to do with possessing some magical skill or talent than how we approach our problems and make decisions to solve issues.
Stephen Duneier was a consistent C or C- student up till his second year in college. His teacher all said the same thing. Stephen was a smart kid, but he needed to apply himself or focus. Stephen wanted to focus, but he couldn’t sit still for more than 5 minutes at a time. Finally in his junior year of college, he had enough and decided to make a change (a marginal adjustment).
This change would result in him graduating on the Dean’s honor list and on the President’s honor roll. He took that same approach and...
Three Ways to Finally Pursue Your True Calling
Dec 18, 2017 -
Odysseus returns to Aeaea for Elpenor's funeral rites. First the Greeks must get past the Sirens whose irresistible songs lure sailors into their island's coastal reefs. Next they must avoid the Clashing Rocks, which only the ship of the Argonauts ever escaped.
As he sets sail, Odysseus passes Circe's counsel on to his men. They approach the island of the lovely Sirens, and Odysseus, as instructed by Circe, plugs his men's ears with beeswax and has them bind him to the mast of the ship.
Even though he knew that the Sirens would lure his sailors to danger in the island's reefs,
Odysseus was curious and wanted to listen to the Sirens. However, he had plugged the ears of his men, so they would not hear the Sirens songs or Odysseus'...
There's More to Life than Being Happy - Emily Esfahani
Oct 1, 2017 -
Like Emily Esfahani, I also used to think the whole purpose of life was to pursue happiness.
My initial pursuit of happiness had led me to search for the ideal job, the perfect companion, and the best house or condo. However, when I finally got all of that, I was still left feeling empty. What was I missing inside that I couldn't explain?
I turned to books and would spend countless nights reading books on how to become happier. These books ranged from topics on Psychology of Optimal Experience to books written by the Dalai Lama and even a book written by arguably the "happiest person in the world" in Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill. While I did learn a tremendous amount from reading these...
8 Days in Japan - Day 8 in Tokyo
Aug 21, 2017 -
Day 8 in Tokyo
Key Highlights
- Check into Emblem Hostel Nishiarai
- Eat Ramen at Ichiran Shibuya
- Shopping at Don Quijote
- Eat Delicious Yakitori in Shibuya
- Flight back to the States
We checked out of our hostel in Osaka at around 6:00 AM to get to the Osaka train station. We headed back to Tokyo for our last night. Originally, the hotel that we booked was in Narita, but we realized that our flight was out of Haneda. At the last minute, we ended up booking a cheap hostel at Emblem Hostel Nishiarai. When you first enter in, there is old carpet and old rusty lockers to your right. There was a stench about the place, but it wasn't dirty just worn. I knew immediately that it was a smoking hostel, which made it a huge turn-off for me.
Ramen...
Seven Tips on How to Act and Become an Alpha
Aug 17, 2017 -
An alpha is the dominant figure in a social or professional setting. The main role of the alpha is to be the leader of the group and with it comes responsibilities to protect, inspire, and motivate the group.
What does it take to be an Alpha?
First things first, it is no surprise that as an alpha you need to be confident in yourself. After all, how can you expect others to look to you as a leader, if you yourself are not sure in yourself.
Confidence comes from believing in yourself. But there is a difference between blind confidence and true confidence. Blind confidence is a false belief in your abilities, which can also be construed as overconfidence. True confidence is when you exude the will, persistence, and have the ability to...
Summary of 2017 Elon Musk TED Talk
Aug 13, 2017 -
Elon started a company called the Boring Company with the goal of accelerating underground tunneling speed. The hope is to build an underground infrastructure to alleviate the traffic above ground. He spends about 2% of the times on this side project.
The goal for Tesla self driving cars is to take a trip from a parking lot in California to a parking lot in New York without having to touch the wheel by the end of 2017. In fact, Elon believes that we would be able to dynamically change the route say from Seattle to Florida and it would still be able to take you there.
Self-driving cars will never be 100% safe as traveling in a car lends itself to at least some kind of probability that it will crash. But if autonomous driving...
8 Days in Japan - Day 7 in Yamazaki/Osaka
Aug 1, 2017 -
Day 7 in Kyoto, Yamazaki, and Osaka
Key Highlights
- Breakfast at 7-11
- Self-Guided Tour at Yamazaki Distillery
- Dropped off luggage at Osaka Guesthouse Hive
- Lunch at Okonomiyaki Momji
- Being touristy at Osaka Castle
- Dinner at Okonomiyaki Chitose
- Experiencing Japanese Nightmarket at Dōtonbori
- Finally eating Okonomiyaki dinner at Ajinoya
- Second dinner at a takoyaki stand
My travel partner and I left our glorious Prime Pod in Kyoto at around 9:00 AM. We had a 10:30 AM reservation at the Yamazaki Distillery, so we needed to make haste. Yes, alcohol before lunch. We picked up two pieces of bread for breakfast at a 7-11 near by the Prime Pod. It was an hour ride from Kyoto to Yamazaki via...
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