Round 2: Kenya

March 9, 2019

Hello Nairobi! Hold on, let’s back up for a second.

For the good or the bad, I am a planner. Almost two years ago, I grew a pair and quit corporate, conventional life. To justify it, I needed a plan – some direction, some inkling of a purpose to twinkle through. I dug deep and came up with a “big” goal that I scribbled down in pen – buzzword disclaimer: I will dedicate the rest of my life to fighting multidimensional poverty through economic empowerment, leveraging first the power of social enterprise. It sounds all flowery, cliched and dandy, but it’s something that has stuck for the last two years. And that’s been powerful.

I had my “big” goal written in pen, and now I needed a bunch of smaller goals written in pencil that would contribute in some way to this mother of all goals. There were a few options I was contemplating – (1) just go to India and start a social enterprise, (2) do your MBA with a focus on social innovation or (3) educate yourself by working around the world in the social impact space.

The India option was a direct, hail-Mary-esque route. Entrepreneurs are generally impatient and joyfully jump into the deep end without a life jacket, so this was tempting. But I did not want to be this slimy know-it-all hotshot who quit New York to start something in India, pretending to know everything.

The MBA was tempting for reasons of glory. An MBA from a top school establishes your ethos instantly, apart from exponentially feeding your already-bloated ego. My mentor probably gave me one of the best pieces of advice on this – do an MBA if you genuinely need it to achieve your goals. Intelligent people are the masters of justifying almost anything. And it’s dangerous because these arguments can be powerful enough to justify delusion. I didn’t want to delude myself – I didn’t need an MBA to conquer my goals.

To be clear, I didn’t default to option 3. Educating myself by working across the globe had always been my preferred option. The other choices had to be considered though if I was going to be logical about this. So, I considered those glorified options and dumped them, deciding to create my own custom, cheaper global volunteer-based “MBA”. I would spend six months working in Latin America, six months in Africa, six months in Southeast Asia, six months in India, and then settle in somewhere in Maharashtra to ignite my social enterprise there. All the “working” would obviously be connected to social impact.

My first hurrah turned out to be Guatemala. I was to spend six months there working for a social enterprise accelerator. The six months suddenly turned to fifteen. And my ambitious custom six-month rotational “MBA” went caput. But that’s the beauty of it. It made sense to spend the extra time in Guatemala. After six months, I had just about established myself. The unpaid fellowship soon became a decently paid job, and I got a chance to really add value while learning more than I could have imagined. Option three gave me reasonable flexibility.

The big goal had still not changed. But, it was clearly time to just adjust the smaller goals a little. Southeast Asia was out. Africa still needed to happen, but I couldn’t afford another fifteen-month stint, at least in my head. Enter Amani Institute. The program that they offer serendipitously landed in my inbox — it was like magic straight out of the wand of J.K. Rowling. This program is a 9-month certificate in Social Innovation Management, but more importantly, it involves a 4-month apprenticeship with a local social enterprise. They believe in learning by doing, and all this had me taking my shirt off and running around yelling hallelujah. I got in, secured an apprenticeship with Livelyhoods, and here I am in Nairobi.

This is my Round 2. In Round 1, I worked with a bunch of social entrepreneurs working in all kinds of cause areas. The breadth was what I wanted but we didn’t go deep enough. In Round 2, I will be working with one enterprise that is trying to fight poverty through job creation, sublimely aligned with what I want to eventually do in India. Add some theory on communication, leadership and management, a network of like-minded but diverse professionals, and I am all giddy right now. The program starts tomorrow. The first week is a quick crash course on biomimicry. We are going on a retreat in the middle of nowhere in Kenya to introspect and connect. Cliched, I know but I love it when you experience why clichés are clichés.

I found out about this while I was in the middle of Bolivia. I still had a month of travel left. I was about to see Colombia and parts of Guatemala that I hadn’t yet. But all the while, I couldn’t wait for tomorrow, for the start of this next round. I feel so spoilt. There I was, travelling the world, but all I could think of was getting to Nairobi to start my apprenticeship. That’s what is so powerful about direction. “Work” becomes play, and conventional pleasures become unwanted distractions.

Find your big goal. And make it happen. It doesn’t get better than that.

Harari-chal Earthquakes

January 30, 2019

I finished Homo Deus a week or so ago, and just wanted more Harari in my life. And I got more Harari in my life. Enter 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. And it was a mind-numbing, questioning-everything 100,000-foot skydive that capsulated an explosion of knowledge, thought and re-evaluation. Anyone who really wants to understand what we Sapiens are dealing with today should read this book. I.e. everyone.

When reading Harari, there are two contrasting feelings that engulf the trenches of the biochemical reactions in my head:

1) Sensual history word-porn can't stop
2) Constant existential crises

#2 haunted me multiple times. Constantly.

Harari states clearly that his predictions are intentionally more negative as it's important to prepare for the not-so-dandy possibilities of the future. He narrows this down to three global challenges - technological disruption, ecological damage and risk of nuclear obliteration. He explains all of this with brutal, truth-based logical explanations that are hard to disprove unless you strawman them. And strawman-ing is for chums. Steelman him all you want and please invite me to the party.

Besides the future, he also touches on all the key aspects embroiling and polarizing our society today - immigration, terrorism, fake news, education, meaning, nationalism, data and fourteen such other existential battles. My attempt to summarize any of those will definitely be a fool's errand.

So I won't. Instead, I'll talk about my "feelings" towards it.

There is so much knowledge in this book. So many ideas, thoughts, considerations that few have the intellect to imagine let alone the courage to say. In parts, I felt stupid, because of so many "obviously-how-did-I-not-think-of-that?" moments on community and education. In parts, the book validated some of my thoughts on meaning, religion and data. In parts, the book explained things that didn't make sense before such as the psychology behind immigration, ignorance, and basic Sapiens instincts. In parts, the book created notions that I probably never would have even thought of imagining, such as his takes on culture and post-truth.

We are no longer racists, but we are culturalists, and that can be as dangerous because it's more aligned with our current moral construct. We need fiction and have needed fiction to survive, even while we chase truth. The systems and the society we have are too complicated for an individual to understand so kill all those crazy conspiracy theories. Superhumans will happen.

All of that might just seem like random statements, but Harari chisels it out with such flair; combining history, stories and ideas in the surreal adventure that this book is.

What really rattled me was his concrete belief of the destruction of our utility. Most jobs will be automated away sooner rather than later, and this time, it will be different to what happened in the industrial revolution. Why? Because last time, machines freed Sapiens from physical tasks, leaving room for us to dominate cognitively. AI and Machine Learning will take over our cognitive abilities, and there is no third value-add skill that we possess. Then what?

This is personal because I want to spend the rest of my life fighting multi-dimensional poverty through economic empowerment, which basically means job-creation. It wasn't like I was unaware of the threat of AI before, but Harari made it a lot more real and inevitable. Not through fables, but through logic. And logic is a strength I pride myself in, which in this case, for a split-second, felt like a weakness.

But knowing is more important than living in ignorance. Thankfully, Harari agrees with me on this. And now I know. This doesn't change my goal of fighting poverty through economic empowerment, it just makes it harder. Job-creation is and was one way of doing it, but there are others. Sapiens will always need and want purpose, dignity, economic independence and community. We will just have to come up with different ways to attain them whilst our ecological haven crumbles and Homo Deus contemplate the genocide of us Sapiens.

Read Harari. Read all of it. Read it again. And then again.

Traveling Is Dead. Get Immersed And Contribute.

January 23, 2019

Tourism was dead ages ago. Travelling is dying, if not already dead. What’s in right now is contributive immersion. Here me out.

I have two months before my next stop. Thought I would take advantage and travel a little. But, a different kind of travel. Less about seeing, more about being in my head. Less about meeting people, more about reading, writing and thinking. Less about experiencing, more about retrospection. Or something like that.

There was this other weird feeling I was battling before I started this two-month “adventure”. I wasn’t that excited. Here I was, with two months of freedom to travel to wherever I wanted. This luxury that most people crave. This bundle of time that not many people have. And look how spoilt I am. I am not even excited.

Excited or not, I was doing this. I started in Holbox. This quaint, secluded island in the north-east nothingness of Mexico. I remember a random Mexican entrepreneur had mentioned it to me way back in 2017, and it stuck. Aside from the usual commentary of it having stunning beaches and tranquillity, it was also supposed to be Mexico’s best-kept secret. At least back then. Now it’s probably Mexico’s “best” kept secret – in quotes, with a winky face right next to it.

There is this steaming irony while being a tourist. A hypocrisy of sorts. I, a tourist, want to travel to a place where there are no other tourists. I, me, MINE and no one else. Besides my friends, of course. And some local people who I can somewhat communicate with. You know, to get a “local” experience.

Holbox is now infested with tourists. I took a local bus from downtown Cancun to get there. When I got to the bus station, I was wondering which gate I had to be at. So, I did what most tourists would do. I looked for a gate with a line of tourists. And there they were, like a bright orange buoy in a sea of locals. Backpacks, flipflops, an air of superiority and yes, I fit right in. They were also going to Mexico’s “best” kept secret. Obviously. Comforting. Easy.

Holbox is stunning. With or without tourists, the beaches are pristine. The water, as blue as turquoise. No cars, only golf carts. No real roads. Tiny. Hammocks in the middle of the ocean. Bioluminescent plankton sparkling in the blackness of the night sky. Birds, crocodiles (saw three of these salt-water beasts), mosquitos, flamingos. Sandbars stretching into what seems like the middle of the ocean. Sunsets as pure as the painting of a ten-year-old – cloudless, round, perfect.

And then there is capitalism. Opulent hotels, customized tours, yoga (of course), a lot of tourists, a lot of UTL (Universal Travelling Language / English). People travelling in twos, threes, fours. Folks from literally all over the world speaking tongues hard to decipher, bonding over how accents make things sound funny. “How are the beaches?” Beaches are sometimes mispronounced in translation as “bitches” because “e” = “i” in Latin languages, etc. Queue a plethora of pun-tastic jokes, especially among the men. “The beaches in Holbox aren’t as fun as the beaches in Cancun.” Ha. Ha. Crude. But funny. A good way to bond, apparently.

I heard the same pun-ny jokes in Costa Rica. “The beaches here are so beautiful.” After five days in Holbox; reading, thinking, observing and not making friends, I made my way to San Jose. I was done with beaches and wanted some hiking, mountains, forests, waterfalls. Waterfalls. Waterfalls are special. Yes, go chase them waterfalls if you can.

A friend of mine was travelling in Costa Rica as well. Isolated with all this isolation, I thought I’d join him for a couple of days. He was “Twaling.” It’s apparently this new concept where you travel with a local. So, we had Adrian, our local, taking us around. He wasn’t really our guide. He was like an acquaintance who quickly became our friend. He took us to places he found cool, sometimes off the beaten tourist-y path, and sometimes on it. In a short five days, we got more of a local vibe then we would have if we did things ourselves. We rappelled down waterfalls not infested by tourists. We saw a giant seven-hundred-year-old tree of peace, leaf-cutter ants, sloths, scorpions, armadillos, monkeys, spiders, snakes. We stopped in the middle of nowhere to drink coconut water and sugarcane juice without fear. We sat alone in natural, volcanic hot springs in darkness lit only by the candles that Adrian had strategically placed. Yes, an upgrade. But how long can you get a local to just show you around?

Costa Rica is a spectacular mass of land with everything you can imagine. It is a well-run country that decided ages ago to get rid of its army and invest this extra money into education. So, you genuinely sense a general level of development across the board. Almost all of Costa Rica (~98% apparently) is run on renewable energy – hydro, wind, solar. The government also thought it would make sense to invest in making tap water drinkable. Sounds expensive but apparently the medical costs you save from reduced water-borne diseases very much offset the extra cost of purifying water. Plus, it is just a good thing that Governments should do. And, like any intelligent Government, Costa Rica also decided to make the most of the tourism potential that nature had blessed it with.

So somewhat like Holbox, Costa Rica boasts a string of fancy hotels, natural reserves, hanging bridges, ziplines, a lot of tourists, a lot of UTL and typical touristy inflation – shit’s expensive. They also go the extra mile by making things as eco-friendly as possible. “This is an eco-friendly wildlife reserve with a perfectly constructed hiking trail, spotted with comfortable benches every hundred meters to rest, and we are working on making the hiking path wide enough to meet global accessibility standards for the less fortunate.”

All this is awesome, but where has the rawness of brute travel gone? Yes, I get to see pretty things and do safe, fun activities, without any communication issues thanks to UTL, but am I really immersing myself into the culture and the nature that a foreign country offers? Why go there at all? What am I even looking for when I go to a new country?

That’s the crux. What are you looking for when you go somewhere? If you’re looking for an escape, a place to recharge, then being a perfect tourist in a comfortable, touristy place is great, and power to you. If you’re keeping a count of all the countries you have visited, and the number of likes your Instagram posts get, let’s not be friends but do what you need to do.

You could also be a pitiful inbetweener. Someone who wants to genuinely travel and see and absorb and experience, but just doesn’t have the time, the budget or the passport to do so. All you can afford is a couple of weeks a year, imprisoned by your lucrative corporate carcel. Then, you can’t help but plan out every hour of every day, making the most of the limited time you have, and doing all the “touristy” stuff because not only is it easy, it is also rationally your best bet. Unfortunately, despite your traveller instincts, you can’t help but be a tourist. I get that. I was in that prison.

And then you have the gap-yearers. The “true” travellers. 365 days of travelling the world, or a continent or a bunch of countries. The freedom to not really plan things out, to take it as it comes. To fall in love and then just stick around. To live in hostels and yachts. To get wasted and then get laid. To take surf-lessons and salsa classes. To teach UTL or bartend to earn a bit of dough. To experience the world. To get “out of your comfort zone”. To be interesting. To have stories to tell.

One of the most uninteresting things is someone who wants to be interesting.

To me, all of that is not the essence of going to a new place. You can recharge in a fancy hotel down the road. If you want to rack up the number of countries you have visited to prove how “worldly” you are, why even bother spending more than a day or two in a country – just go to the capital city, take a dump at the airport, and then fly to the next capital city. Simple, and you’ve even laid your mark. I just feel sorry for the inbetweeners. I have been there, and it sucks, but honestly it isn’t hard nowadays to break out of your prison. Gap-years are better than two-week affairs but frolicking around from country to country for a couple of months at a time gives you only a flavour of the place. Tastes can be deceptive; an entire meal is what you should be looking for. And, many-a-time you get stuck with other gap-yearers like you, or with locals who are only friends with foreigners. It’s a deceptive little bubble. A bubble that a part of you wants to burst out of and a part of you wants to stay in.

Ugh, why the negativity, Anish? What do you want, why is travelling dead?

If you really want to see, understand, experience, learn and grow from a foreign culture, you must immerse yourself for a significant period. At least six months. Only in one city or town or village. And you have to be contributing there. Adding value in exchange for imbibing localness. That is immersion.

In the past, long-term travelling gave you this. But today, travelling around and just “being” is contaminated by the tourism industry. There are so many people travelling, being tourists and taking country-hopping gap-years that if you enter a country and bartend at a hostel, you’re barely getting out of your comfort zone. You’re still in that little bubble with just enough moral license to convince yourself that this little bubble is where I should be. When in fact, you’re better off bursting out of it. That’s why travelling is dead.

I lived and worked in Guatemala for fifteen months. It started with a six-month fellowship where I was leveraging my finance skills to help local entrepreneurs out. I ended up getting hired by the company and really immersing myself in the heart of Guatemala.

And no, it wasn’t perfect. Being a foreigner, I surrounded myself with enough foreigners conversing in UTL. Some of my closest friends were not locals. As much as I was aware that I did not want to be in a bubble, I sometimes was.

The saving grace was the work I was doing there - my contribution. For a majority of my time there, I was working with locals, supporting local entrepreneurs, understanding the local landscape of social impact, and living the local life. That’s what made the difference. That is where the learning, the growth and the cultural exchange happened.

And it wasn’t always fun. Learning a new language is hard. Cultural differences can be frustrating. Homesickness is always a thing. But that’s the point. No good movie, no good story, no good experience is a 100% positive.

So here I am in San Jose, Costa Rica, trying to travel for a couple of months, and I am barely excited. Some sort of societal pressure has made me want to travel and see things the old school, dead way. A part of me feels like I have earned it after the intense fifteen-month stint in Guatemala. But the truth is, once you experience true contributive immersion, old school travelling is just not the same. Tourism is even more of a joke. My sister felt this after her three-year stint in Spain, and I’m feeling it now too. But I am still going to continue. Yes, shut up, I know. I’m friggin’ human, unfortunately.

I’m glad you’ve made it this far in this long, gloomy post. I am not saying that you should never travel or never be a tourist. I am not anti-travel. Something is better than nothing, so even if you have a couple of days to get out to a new world, do it. Travel. Tour. Recharge. Experience. See.

What I am trying to say is that there is something far better out there. And it has never been easier to do it (sabbaticals, gig economy, the friggin’ internet). If you want a true, deep, pivotal, worldly experience; find a city, commit to it for at least six months, immerse yourself and contribute. And then, experience the magic.

Oh Guatemala, Thank You

December 26, 2018

Fifteen months. I was supposed to stay there for six. This was my first hurrah outside of “conventional” life, outside of society’s prescribed path to success, and my first hike down this new-found path has been everything I hoped for. And, I am not just saying that to adorn an average experience with fake pearls of positivity – it was not all fun. In fact, it was hard, and challenging and refreshing and exhilarating – in parts, and all at the same time. It was exactly what I had signed up.

Learning a new language is hard – not just to get by, but to actually work in. I arrived in Guatemala almost dumb and deaf, hoping to somehow make an impact and learn at the same time. It’s difficult to add and gain value when you can’t communicate - that was the first mountain I needed to climb. But there were enough folks who spoke English, so I got by and it wasn’t all doomsday. And, the people at work and in the city never made me feel unable or uncomfortable. The support and the patience up this mountain have been humbling. In the end, I don’t think I ever summitted this Everest of proficiency in a new language, but I did come to terms with it, hitting a gear of fluidity that I was somewhat okay with.

There is something beautiful and thoroughly engaging about going to “work” to do exactly what you want to do – not for money, pride, status or power. Alterna, this non-profit that supports entrepreneurs of all sorts in and around Guatemala, gave me exactly that. I was a “Fellow” there to start off with, and soon embedded myself into their DNA, giving blood, sweat and tears as we shook things up. We not only re-branded externally, but we hit the reset button internally as well, emerging afresh. We served over 150 entrepreneurs in 2018 in some form or the other. Our signature event is a five-day workshop where twenty of our more advanced entrepreneurs go through a topsy-turvy journey – from questioning the existence of their businesses to embracing strategies that can exponentially grow their sales and impact. Imagine that, twenty entrepreneurs in one room, sizzling with infectious ideas and ambitious personalities, and us trying to rattle them. The vibe that the space has when all these atoms of energy collide is magical.

I will never forget the feeling after our first, re-thought workshop. All the effort, the fighting, the disagreements, the uncertainty and the moments of discomfort were worth it. We came out flying. Our entrepreneurs were overwhelmed with action-plans, introspection and gratitude. And for a hot second, we, the tribe of Alterna, could reflect. The inner explosion of accomplishment, contentment and pride that I felt that day was so pure, so real. It wasn’t about the money – I wasn’t making any nor did the entrepreneurs pay for this workshop. It was purely about the value that we had added, without any sort of ulterior motives and with only the success of our entrepreneurs in our mind. This feeling, the purity of it, is so important for my overtly rational self. In my five years of hustle in Corporate America, I had never felt this way.

It wasn’t all hunky-dory though. My love-affair with Alterna meant that I was invested – heart, soul and mind. And when you’re invested, your expectations sky-rocket. Some days were hard. Everything takes time, but everything takes a little bit more time in the non-profit world, and I was constantly battling my impatience. I was living a lot of what I had read about when it comes to the difficulties of the non-profit space – a lack of resources, a lack of investment in and on talent, living more or less at the mercy of our sponsors. It was daunting and frustrating, sometimes just like any other job, but this frustration came from the desire to make things better. It is so important to be bothered and frustrated because that’s what helps generate change. I think living is a lot about learning how to positively channel change out of things that genuinely bother you.

One thing that the non-profit space has in abundance is passion. That is sometimes the best part about it. But anything in excess is not necessarily good, right? How can we balance the passion of this space with a higher degree of result-centric rationality? When does passion become a moral license to do just enough to internally satisfy yourself, while not really changing the status quo? I have been thinking a lot about what comes in the way of progress, both internally within myself, and externally when it comes to this space.

Externally, how can we change this moral expectation of demanding extreme sanctity from folks working in the social impact space? Why can’t professionals in this space make good salaries, earn good bonuses for dedicating their life to a cause, and even make mistakes along the journey? How do we start changing that mindset? That’s why social enterprise makes so much sense. Social enterprise adds another dimension to traditional business by roping in morality, because morality is tied closely to what impact truly is. So, if we can combine the fruits of capitalistic business models with the morality of the impact space, holding the latter as the true driving force while keeping the cause as incorruptible as possible, I think we have a real chance at true, scalable impact. I want to embody this and find folks that are aligned.

Internally, I have been battling the idea of patience – what is patience? And how do you find the balance between patience enabling mediocrity versus impatience coming in the way of excellence? It is all about managing expectations, and it’s all about finding the right balance. But what is this “right” balance? I need more practice at practicing that.

It was the hardest when Alterna had won my heart over. I always knew I couldn’t commit myself to Alterna for a longer period, but when you’re invested, it’s that much harder to come to terms with it. Towards the end, it was like the nails were inching closer and closer. My duty was not to do but to empower, to leave behind as much value as I could, without really creating severe dependencies. I am a doer, so this was hard. But I need to be better at empowering, and all this was a lesson at that. My long-term goals lie in India – I will work on poverty alleviation through economic empowerment there. It makes the most amount of sense in terms of the impact I can make for a multitude of rational reasons, and that is and has to be the only way I should be making key decisions. Initially, I wrestled with the idea of starting something right away in India versus taking my time and learning along the way with experiences outside of India. The winner could not be clearer. The amount I have learnt about starting and running a social enterprise without investing any significant actual and emotional resources is incredible. I am so much smarter now, learning from the mistakes and successes of other social entrepreneurs without any self-serving bias that embroils them. The best way to learn is by doing, by embedding yourself not in case studies, but in what is real and could eventually become a case study. There are no formulaic “right” or “wrong” answers. Textbooks are guides for what works in general, but it is important to not be trapped by their rigidity. So, one more stop on this magical school bus and then here I come, India.

Guatemala, to me, was not about the volcanoes, the lakes, the crime or the people, it was about what I was doing there. Yes, the people around me were beautiful inside and out, with those volcanoes constantly exploding my sense of self, and the lake, absolutely stunning. But what defined my time there were the entrepreneurs I worked for and the colleagues I worked with. Everything else was icing on the cake. This icing was delicious though – I met some incredible people, breathed in volcanic air, jumped into the lake letting myself go to the all the Mayan beauty that for once didn’t have to revolve around rationality, saw bravery and struggle, learnt how to shut out love, never got robbed but sympathized with those that did, understood that it is important to have standards for yourself and the people around you, but it is also important to not project your ambition onto those who are not wired like you, cried a river embracing the joys and pains of work, life and introspection, felt more alone than ever and also more accompanied than most, earned more self-respect, laughed a lot, learnt a lot more, gave, got and cherished.

For all that and more, thank you.

“Winners Take All” — Dissecting Anand Giridharadas’ Nudification Of The Elites

September 26, 2018

The Probability of Survival on a Chicken Bus

July 29, 2018

I was told never to look up safety statistics of chicken buses here in Guatemala. I was told that if you did, you would probably never ride them. So, I didn’t look them up. Until today.

The Case

A quick refresher on the mystical origins of “chicken buses” – chicken buses or camionetas are retired school buses from the United States that mysteriously make their way into many Central American countries and obviously, to Guatemala. They are repainted and re-branded, sporting shades of colors you couldn’t even imagine adorning a bus, and ripping off brands that don’t really align with the transportation industry (found one with the Playboy bunny once). They are almost creative masterpieces of art. They are also notorious for their need for speed around the mountains of Guatemala, feeling sometimes more like over-stuffed roller-coasters without seat-belts. So yes, it can be thrilling if that is your thing. And oh, they do get robbed occasionally, and drivers have been killed by gangs to facilitate a successful heist of the rest of hapless populous in the bus.

All the above quite directly points to a high perceived level of peril. But I am a numbers guy, so, contrary to popular advice, I wanted to quantify the likelihood of my death on this real, government-subsidized “public transport” option. What I found will blow you away. That is, if you care about these kinds of things. If not, your life won’t really change much.

The Evidence

After my admittedly rapid (but efficient) research on God’s gift to Earth (Google), I found that Guatemala is ranked as the 64^th most dangerous by the WHO when it comes to road deaths per 100,000 people. About 22 people out of every 100,000 die due to road accidents here. For context, that’s 0.022%. For more context, Zimbabwe, which gets the honor of being #1 on the list, is at 75 people out of every 100,000, almost 4 times more. For even more context, and I don’t mean to get too dark with this, but there is a higher chance of a Guatemalan dying of Diabetes (70 people out of every 100,000) than you dying in a road accident in Guatemala. Granted, this research is not specifically related to chicken buses, but it can’t be all that more (or “significantly more”) dangerous. That’s because chicken buses are most definitely a part of the subset, and I have not really been impressed by the average non-chicken-bus Guatemalan driver. I tried looking for numbers on chicken buses specifically, but my robust twenty minutes of research did not pull any meaningful information. All I found was anecdotal evidence or what I like to call  scary-stories-that-foster-irrational-fear (SSTFIF) evidence.

This quote from the United States Bureau of Diplomatic Security exemplifies some classic SSTFIF evidence. Notice the number of data points they use while describing public transportation in Guatemala:

Safety of public transportation: Poor

The most common resource for public transportation is the network of informal bus lines. These bus routes are serviced by brightly colored, recycled school buses. The buses are poorly maintained, and the drivers are barely qualified, creating an untenable security situation. Additionally, these bus lines are prime targets for extortions and robberies. Bus drivers are habitually assaulted or murdered while on their routes as a consequence of the growing extortion problem.

Or I can do the math for you – number of data points used: 0.

The Conclusion

Look, I am not saying your chicken bus is not going to fly off a hill and into the lake. All I am saying is that after my super-extensive fifteen minutes of research, the overall evidence tells us that there is a much higher probability of you being just fine. You might get robbed, but you will most definitely get a good story out it. Also, you should not fear looking up safety statistics of chicken buses in Guatemala. But, if you do find some data to the contrary that didn’t surface during my rigorous ten minutes of googling, you don’t need to share it with me. I rather not know. Because who am I kidding, ignorance is bliss.

Uncles & Book Reviews

July 8, 2018

The Uncle

So, my genius uncle is an angel investor (among many other amazing things). He invests in start-ups that make sense and he invests in books of all sorts. I’ll leave the start-ups for later, but let’s shine the light for a hot second on this book fetish of his. He is a serial reader, and his reading speed is the stuff of legends and folklore in our family, described using adjectives that range from photographic to lightening. Apparently, he has found errors in encyclopedias, written letters to editors, stumping them with grammatic finesse that even the Oxfords of the world would be proud. His love and knowledge of and for books is so vast that it is like currency for him. And, he has a big heart with this book-tastic currency. Most riveting conversations with him end with at least two or three incredible book recommendations, and they are always on point. Inspired by his recent foray into angel investing, he angel-invested books in me. He loaned me two books, “as long as I gave them back” and the interest he charged was that I needed to write book-reviews on them. Don’t get me wrong, it was an awesome deal – outside of just giving me the books, it also gave me a decent nudge to devour them before I saw him next.

This blog post is the interest I owe him – maybe not exactly what he expected, but to be fair, he didn’t set clear rules for what these book reviews could or could not contain.

Rapid-fire Book Review 1 - The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision Of The Future by Steve Case

I want to be an entrepreneur. That’s why the uncle recommended this book to me. And it lived up to all the hype. So, if you are thinking of starting something or have any interest in the start-up space, indulge in this book for sure.

Steve Case is best known for being the CEO of AOL at the beginning of the internet world. He is basically famous for commercializing the internet as we know it. In this book, he talks about the three “waves,” or the current technological growth phases, we have been in and are about to be unleashed into. The first wave was the creation and commercialization of the internet. The second wave was the proliferation and capitalization of the internet - the emergence of the Googles and the Facebooks of the world - and this is the wave we are still sort of in. But Case says that we are about to embark on the third wave, where the world won’t just be dominated by the internet of certain things, but with the internet of everything. Which, to be honest, makes a ton of sense. After setting these waves up, he uses his wealth of knowledge and experience to predict what would be needed to succeed as an entrepreneur in this third wave.

I think that different people take different things from a book. What stayed with me from this book are the three “P”s that will be needed to succeed in the third wave – policy, partnerships and perseverance. He mentions how the days of sitting in your basement and writing code to create a Tinder-like application are almost gone, and how we are moving into a rapidly developing, morally conscious and constantly connected world. He stresses on the importance of social enterprises and impact investing, and is actually walking the talk through Case Foundation. So yes, he has my heart. One cool thing was that, in this book, he actually mentions and opines on my old CEO at iHeartMedia, which I might or might not have read more than once - they worked together at AOL once-upon-a-time.

Also, it’s a super-easy read, double-spaced and short-ish. Don’t we all love good, quick reads?

Rapid-fire Book Review 2 – The Beautiful Tree by James Tooley

I believe that education is the long-term solution to poverty, and pretty much everything. That’s why the uncle recommended this book to me. And, it provided me with a new perspective on the importance of private education for the poor and the importance of looking at a problem with fresh eyes. If you’re in the education space and you care about poverty, you must read this thoroughly-researched book.

The hypothesis the author, Tooley, spends 300-odd pages proving is that the poor can and are educating themselves. The poor understand the value of a good education and if the broken public sector can’t provide it, they are willing to pay small, in-home private schools to get their children educated. Tooley has spent decades in the education space, and his travels and experiments across the developing world in Asia and Africa have provided him with overwhelming evidence that private schools are not only an actual thing in the developing world, they are a relatively more effective means of education than the public sector, and in many cases – more affordable and more accessible. The biggest challenge he faces in his conquest to prove his hypothesis is to convince local education leaders that private schools for the poor are real. Nobody seems to believe him, and nobody local seemed to have unearthed this phenomenon, including laureates like Amartya Sen. Everybody just seemed to be too close to the problem, refusing to believe something as “preposterous” as the poor paying for education (instead of taking advantage of free public schooling) could be true. Honestly, it’s a fascinating journey, corroborating anecdotes with statistically significant evidence that has the potential to make “education for all” a reality.

The other thing I personally took from this book is the importance of having a global, unbiased perspective while approaching any problem. James Tooley was able to uncover a trend going thousands of miles away from his home, while the people closest were completely oblivious to it. Also, private schools for the poor are essentially social enterprises. The importance of making them financially sustainable provides automatic checks to ensure that there is a level of quality that is maintained. Also, teacher attendance rates are significantly higher than in public schools.

I obviously can’t do justice to Tooley’s years of research in a rapid-fire review. But the book was inspiring, well thought-out and well researched. It’s not the shortest read but is worth the patience and the repetition.

Epilogue

This angel investment of books that the uncle made in me was an impact investment. Both books added value to what I want to do in the future, were extremely relevant and made me blog. I think the uncle should continue making these investments with even more gusto, but perhaps with a clause of sorts that clarifies what the book-review expectations are.

P.S. Here are some other books that have struck a chord with me. 

Denting The Social Impact Space

May 18, 2018

Best thing I have read all year? This. Granted I am heavily biased and that letter is a few months old now, but I cannot stress enough how pivotal this could be for the social impact space. Social enterprise is the future, and by social enterprise, I don’t mean non-profits, or companies that make any little social impact, I mean companies that put social impact over everything else. They are financially sustainable not by relying on grants or donations, but instead, on a profitable business model that is not a slave to profit maximization. A 10% margin, before profit reinvestment, is all you need.

I have this draconian theory that every single organization should be a social enterprise. That letter from the CEO of BlackRock to all their portfolio companies just made my theory a little less draconian. He fully embraces the patiently blossoming stakeholder-centric model over the explicitly capitalistic and banal, shareholder-centric model. And he doesn’t embrace it just emotionally, he lays it out as a future requirement for every company that BlackRock invests in. Yes, he doesn’t explicitly call for social enterprises, but he highlights the importance of having a long-term sustainable strategy and the absolute necessity of a “positive contribution to society.” I’ll take it. This is one the kingpins of Corporate America, with almost $6 trillion in assets under management, setting a precedence, and throwing down the gauntlet. I hope others follow suit.

I think this development is on the back of a recent trend in our generation to want to make a difference. Deloitte recently came out with a study where they looked at the 2014 Fortune 500 global companies and found that 89% of them incorporated at least some sort of social impact in what they were doing. Granted, 53% of them were engaging in good-old “Corporate Social Responsibility”, but again, I’ll take it. Meanwhile, Impact Investing is the new cool kid in the equity space. An asset class of its own, it pits financial performance on par with social impact performance, which is revolutionary for the finance world – it might have a heart after all. Personally, I think the impact bit should take primacy over the financial return bit, but for now, I’ll take it.

It is not all hunky-dory though. Measuring impact is this world’s Everest – sometimes it is just way too subjective for us to be objective about, but the Effective Altruism movement is trying. Psychologically, our approach towards non-profits is a lot more critical than for-profits, and that just does not make sense, ask Dan Pallotta about it. There are still tussles over definitions and semantics. B Corps is a great start, but we still need to create a legal corporate entity classification for social enterprises and incentivize them through substantial tax-breaks. There’s a long way to go, but Mr. Fink at BlackRock just gave us a big push. Here’s to a lot more pushes.

An Open Letter To My Little Niece

April 25, 2018

My darling Ria,

You are about three months old. A tiny ball of innocence. Uncorrupted and carefree. Oblivious to most everything, but maybe for once, oblivious with reason, with an inability to process anything, because your brain is still figuring everything out. You have a slight dent in your head because that little brain of yours needs to grow. It will bloom with the wonders of the world, constantly challenged by temptation that it will sometimes give in to. But, that’s okay. You will find that balance, that serene peace with yourself that your mother embodies and that sheer strength your mother personifies. Your mother’s ability to reason emotion will pervade your wondrous life with awe, with the right medicine at the right time, and you will forever be loved.

If you do ever read this, a few decades down the road, remember that I am (or used to be) a wannabe-poet. So, I have been forever finding a way to take the cheese out of the cheesy. It’s hard, and to be fair, it’s a two-way street. I hope just the right amount of cheese melts away at your sentiments as you read through this. I think innocence, life and connection warrant infinite emotions.

There are a few things I want to say to you.

I’ve had the honor and the privilege of changing your nappies. I have put you to bed more times than once, sometimes to the music of someone I love. I have danced embarrassingly in front of you way more times than I would like to admit, but you never judged me. You looked at me, sometimes confused, sometimes with a smile, and sometimes, you danced yourself. Yes, most un-smitten people would call your dance, “cycling leg movements, coupled with offbeat hand gestures, topped off with constantly evolving eyebrow thrusts”. But I’m smitten, so I hope you dance all your life, with or without rhythm, with or without music, but with a whole ton of heart.

I am proud to say that you are also a master burp-er, one that even we, your mother’s burp-tastic side of the family, celebrate with awe. Your baby farts give adult farts a run for their money, making you, quite the Rockstar among your peers. There are limited ways for you to communicate at this age, so I love how you make the most of what you have.

We are still far from figuring out what your hair color is, and what your eye color will morph into, but the bets are on. Your golden skin is the perfect blend between your pale father and your dark mother. You have your dad’s eyebrows but your mum’s eyes, your dad’s chin and your mother’s nose, but your smile is a delightful combination of them both, and everything nice. Your legs, though, are more like “tangdi kababs”, but that will change.

When you cry, it’s like the world has gone still. All the chaos in my head is concentrated on yours. Because you are too young to cry without reason. So, it’s time to play detective, and comfort the discomfort. But I think I am a pretty bad detective, so I play more of the “throw-everything-at-it” game – music, books, soft toys, taking you in my arms, singing off-key, dancing, pretending everything is okay, and somehow something works.

When you look into my eyes and smile, there is an explosion of joy. Your face lights up like a few million stars clustered together in the clear sky, luring me into finding my own happy stars. It’s amazing how powerful your tiny fragile little self can be.

Right now, I am looking at you and you are fast asleep. Yes, that sounds creepy but I feel comforted when I see your chest move up and down. You can call it paranoia, but it comes from a good place. I probably won’t get to spend as much time with you as I want to. You can thank ambition, distance and a laundry list of excuses for all that. But you will always have a piece of my heart, my soul, my brain or anything else you grow up to believe is the right form of the emotional self. You are in the best possible hands. Your mother is my second mother from the same mother – she is already a pro at this, and you are lucky to have her as your guardian. Your father is as sharp as a knife, and this combination of reason and intelligence sets you up to be the ultimate hybrid baby.

Here’s to dancing your way through life, clasping on to innocence as long as you can, with a few burps and a few farts along the way.

A timeless hug,
Your Mamu, Anish.

“Legalizing” Social Enterprise

January 15, 2018

“I want to make a social impact.” — That’s almost a trend right now in the minds of millennials, young professionals and students in general. It’s cool to care, and I love that this is becoming a thing. I am proud (or guilty — however you want to view it) of falling under this spell. But, one thing that bothers me about this hypnosis is the absence of an official, legal recognition of the golden child that is social enterprise.

Yes, “social impact” is and should remain vague enough as anything that does good for humanity and / or the environment. “Non-profits” have a whole IRS section associated with them and are wonderfully defined — I do have issues with calling them non-profits vs something more optimistic like “for-purpose” or “for-impact,” but that’s just semantics — am content with their legal formalization. Woohoo. But, why can’t we do the same for social enterprises?

Social enterprise to me is the future. The idea of having a financially-sustainable social impact business is mesmerizing because it is arguably immune to a sometimes-crippling dependence on donations and grants. What is even more enticing is that a social enterprise is still open to donations and grants, but those donations and grants can be used on growth strategies instead of sustenance — investment in scale, prototyping a new idea, or buying a Super bowl commercial (why not?)

The issue amidst this gold dust is that there is no legal definition of a “social enterprise” in particular. I think it is time we have one. Just like we have a section for non-profits in the IRS, it is time to make room for social enterprises as well, and not just in the U.S., but around the globe. Throw in some significant tax-breaks too if possible. Incentivizing social enterprise can play a key role in increasing the rate at which we make the world a better place.

And a lot of the hard work is already done. B-corps, ironically a non-profit organization, is already doing a stupendous job of certifying organizations that put social impact over profit. Benefit Corporation, almost an offshoot of B-corps, goes a step further to provide legal protection to social organizations from shareholder law-suits.

There is also a somewhat universal acknowledgement of what a social enterprise is, or at least everyone is beating around the same bush. For instance, Stanford Social Innovation Review — arguably the leaders in inspiring leaders of social change — took a whack at the definition, and hit on the right nodes — financial sustainability and primacy of social impact. But they also roped in this complex notion of “shifting the equilibrium” (like Apple did with the iPhone, but in the social impact space). In theory, this equilibrium-shifting ambition is hunky-dory, but puts excessive pressure on a social enterprise and severely filters out a lot of social businesses. Plus, it is excessively subjective in an already subjective space, and does not help if we want a legal corporate framework for social enterprises. Mohammed Yunus also threw in his definition of social business (yes, some people say business, some enterprise, semantics again, but let’s get our nomenclature consistent already FFS). He is also in the same ballpark and stresses on the importance of putting social impact first, and over (not side by side) profit.

My personal view is very aligned with this. Putting social impact over profit also separates social enterprises from enterprises that have a social impact. That’s not just a play on words, that’s real. Google can have a tremendous social impact, but it is not a social enterprise because its primary purpose is not to drive social change. It wouldn’t deserve the shiny gold dust.

The other breakthrough in this space is the focus on a stakeholder-centric model over a shareholder-centric model. Jaqueline Novogratz, the founder of +Acumen, embodied this in her year-end note to donors:

“As it becomes clear that business must move away from shareholder primacy, we are doubling down our investments in companies that unapologetically consider all stakeholders — starting with the poor — at the heart of their purpose.”

So, there we have it — a concept that has significant differentiation, a definition that is somewhat consistent across the board, an organization that is doing a stellar job at certifying social impact organizations and a level of legal protection for “Benefit Corporations” in many states in the U.S. The only thing left is to STOP beating around the bush, take motivation from the precedence set by non-profits / for-purpose organizations and write out a section 501(c)(15) (or whatever) that legally sanctifies social enterprises. Like non-profits, they should receive some sort of a tax-break, maybe not a full tax-exemption, but a significantly lower tax rate on their net income. They should be allowed to have an IPO, but with enough controls in place to ensure their social impact vision and their key stakeholders are not compromised. This is crucial to encourage and incentivize social enterprises.

We need to use all our ever-increasing human IQ and EQ to come up with financially sustainable solutions that put real social impact first. We need to differentiate true social enterprises from wannabe-social enterprises. Or else, we’ll have Joe’s Carwash call itself a social enterprise because they use natural tap water.

Personally, I hope that fifty years from now every single enterprise is a social enterprise, especially in the developed world. And no, not the Joe’s Carwash kind.

P.S. Impact Investing — you’re next.