Excellent timing.

Anshuman was flying in from Bangalore. I was flying from Goa. We were supposed to meet at Chandigarh airport and then drive about four and a half hours into the mountains. On the ground, thankfully, things looked fairly normal. So we went.

Anshuman and I were headed to IIT Mandi to run a workshop for about 50 professors, researchers and PhD students who had come from institutions across India. The subject was storytelling and research communication. Which is slightly funny because researchers already spend a large part of their lives communicating their research. They write papers. They make presentations. They defend theses. They speak at conferences. The problem begins when the person listening is not from their exact field. And that turns out to be most people.

There was a larger reason for this workshop.

ANRF, the central research funding body, has been trying to get Indian researchers to talk about their work more often and more effectively.

If more people understand what researchers are working on, perhaps more students become interested in the field. Other researchers discover opportunities to collaborate. Industry notices work that may otherwise remain inside a lab. And there is probably a better chance that some of this research eventually finds its way into the real world. I had written about this topic earlier too.

Some people at ANRF had been following the work Anshuman and I have been doing with IIT Madras. Earlier this year, through Story99, we started working with IIT Madras on a YouTube channel called TechTalk IIT Madras. The channel now has over 30K+ subscribers and more than seven lakh views.

Every Friday we publish a three-to-five-minute video explaining one piece of research happening at IIT Madras. Some of these are fairly deep technical subjects. Once in a while a video gets 50k or 80k views too. Not every video does, obviously. Science has not yet defeated cat videos.

But hopefully, over time, TechTalk becomes a place where anyone curious about what IIT Madras researchers are actually doing can go and find out.

Anyway, so this work apparently caught the attention of some people at ANRF, who suggested to the IIT Mandi team that it might be useful to bring us in for their two-day programme on research communication. And that is how two best friends from IIT ended up travelling back to an IIT, many years later, to tell professors how to explain things.

Life has strange loops.

We reached IIT Mandi a day before our session.

Our workshop was on day two, so we spent the first day sitting through parts of the conference, meeting researchers and getting a sense of the room.

We had decided early that we did not want our session to become two people standing in front of researchers and giving them a long lecture on why they should not give long lectures.

So we kept the workshop activity-heavy.

We showed examples of what happens when technical communication goes badly. Then we showed how the same research could be explained differently. And we kept the principles fairly few. Because communication workshops have their own version of the problem they are trying to solve. You can easily give people 27 principles of simplicity. They will remember none of them.

A big part of what we discussed was something we have repeatedly observed while working with professors at IIT Madras.

When you know something very deeply, you stop noticing what other people don’t know.

Terms that once needed explanation begin to feel like ordinary words. Background knowledge starts feeling universal. A ten-year journey through a subject gets compressed inside your head into: “Obviously, this follows from that.”

Except it isn’t obvious.

This is probably why expertise and communication sometimes have such an odd relationship. The better you become at something, the harder it may become to remember what it felt like before you understood it. So a lot of good research communication is not really about simplifying the research. It is about reconstructing the mind of the person who has not spent the last fifteen years thinking about it. Which is harder.

Towards the end, the participants took their own research and tried applying some of what we had discussed.

There is something quite nice about travelling with your best friend for work, spending the day doing something both of you enjoy, arguing about how something should be explained, eating together, talking nonsense in between, and somehow calling the whole thing a business trip.

I don’t know if this is what I imagined work would look like when I was twenty. Probably not. Back then I am fairly certain neither of us had any idea what we were doing.

There are days when that is still true.

But travelling to a campus in the mountains to help researchers tell better stories about things they have spent years discovering felt like a pretty good way to spend a couple of days. Will get back with more stories to tell. In the mean time, may you get to do more of what brings you joy and less of what sucks it away.

-Amrit

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He’d been watching some videos from the Jantar Mantar protests, and they had set off a chain of thought in him. His conclusion was that Indians don’t hold the country in high esteem because we don’t see it as a “fit” the way, say, an Apple employee sees their company as a fit. And this absence of pride shows up everywhere - he explained - from littered roads to broken rules.

It’s a lack of pride that makes one carve “I love you” into an ASI structure, was his point of view. And he wanted to know my thoughts on using storytelling to fix this problem our nation seems to have. Stories of real people doing real things, not manufactured nationalism (that our news anchors do 24X7).

This reminded me of a story on Arvind Gupta that I had done about a decade ago, when he had not yet won the Padma Shri (I changed the thumbnail later).

And I think many more stories like this already exist. In fact, if you just consider the overall theme of ‘pride’, every mainstream news channel is technically telling you to feel proud of your country. If anything, the supply is enormous.

Nationalism vs Patriotism

George Orwell offered one of the most influential distinctions between patriotism and nationalism in his 1945 (essay).

Patriotism is devotion to a place and a way of life, without wanting to force it on anyone else. It’s defensive, not competitive.

Nationalism, on the other hand, is the version where you start ranking your nation against others. This is when your own identity gets fused so tightly with the country that any criticism of the nation feels like criticism of you personally.

Diving deeper, in a series of studies published in 1999, political psychologists studied what they called blind versus constructive patriotism:

• Blind patriotism means unquestioning positive evaluation of your country, staunch allegiance, and no tolerance for criticism of it (now you know where andhbhakti originates from)

• Constructive patriotism means you’re attached to the country too, but you support questioning and criticising its practices because you want it to actually get better.

I don’t see what the kids at Jantar Mantar had to do or say as a lack of pride. They are patriots. They care about their country. And they are doing what they can just so that their voices can be heard. If what it takes to be heard is to protest, give gaalis to a shrewd politician and make memes about him and his party, so be it.

But obviously if you end up fusing your identity with the nation, anything that complicates the nation’s image begins to feel like a threat to you.

Den insisted he wasn’t in the “nationalism for nationalism’s sake” camp. I believe him. But the storytelling instinct he described - pick real heroes, celebrate what’s genuinely world-class, skip the messy parts - is also pretty much how a well-meaning constructive impulse can slowly move closer to the andhbhakti kind.

The problem is less with celebrating real heroes but when as part of the narrative, failures are consistently edited out and criticism starts being treated as ‘betrayal’. Selective celebration, done consistently enough, can start to function like unquestioning loyalty. Even when you don’t start it that way.

People Who Report More National Pride Also Tend to Report Greater Personal Life Satisfaction

In fact, research in this area shows that this relationship holds even after accounting for things like income, education, employment, marital status, where people live and the wealth of their country.

But there’s a small nuance. It matters what exactly you are proud of.

In the 2011 paper Subjective Well-Being and National Satisfaction: Taking Seriously the “Proud of What?” Question, researchers looked into what exactly people meant by national belonging. They measured two separate ideas:

• Civic nationalism is the belief that respecting the country’s laws and political institutions is important to being considered a true national.

• Ethnic nationalism is the belief that having the country’s ancestry is important to being considered a true national.

These are not opposite ends of one spectrum. A person can believe in both, one, or neither. And irrespective of which of these beliefs people held, one of the main findings was: greater national pride is associated with increased life satisfaction.

The nuance? Civic nationalism is associated with a higher level of wellbeing overall, while ethnic nationalism is associated with a lower one.

Proud civic nationalists are the happiest group. And non-proud ethnic nationalists are the least happy. In fact, even the proudest ethnic nationalists are only slightly more satisfied with life than the least-proud civic nationalists.

What Den was describing sounds closer to pride in collective achievement. And while that kind of pride can be perfectly healthy, it can also quickly become blind, depending on whether the storytelling leaves room for criticism, complexity and equal belonging.

Respect is easier to sustain when institutions repeatedly earn it. Whether our courts work. Whether the rules apply to everyone. Whether institutions do roughly what they say they’ll do.

And I think this boring civic stuff probably matters more to durable pride than another story, telling us that someone from India did something impressive.

By the way, one can take national pride and still think like a world citizen. In fact, a more recent research on national identity, global identity and life satisfaction found that people who reported both strong national pride and a strong sense of being a world citizen, also reported the highest estimated life satisfaction. The two don’t necessarily have to cancel each other out.

Coming Back to Storytelling

I don’t think storytelling is useless here. But it will only matter if feeling follows the substance, not the other way around.

If institutions work, pride is more likely to show up as a side effect. If they don’t, I don’t think any amount of well-shot documentary about a determined scientist is going to hold that feeling in place for long. Unless you build an authoritarian information system capable of suppressing every competing account.

So maybe the actual behavioural-change lever isn’t a story about a hero, but something much narrower and less cinematic than that: does the water connection get fixed in a week or three months? Does the FIR get filed without a bribe? Does the government website actually work? Does the person at the counter treat you like a citizen or like an inconvenience?

Although I can claim from my experience of having made hundreds of 3MinuteStories, that’s not a story many people share or consume. The pro-government lobby almost always over-markets everything and goes completely silent on the failures. And the anti-government group and activists can sometimes see it as pointless, or even dangerous, to acknowledge anything good happening in their country. And so a narrative or story that fuels either of these sides simply performs better. The success of Dhurandhar on one side and the anti-government, meme-fuelled CJP protests on the other, probably illustrate this.

Anyway, I don’t think I have a 100% clean answer for Den yet. I told him I’d think about it more, and I still am. Feel free to add your own commentary to this blog.

— Amrit

If you are a new subscriber, here’s my short bio. Think of this newsletter as a means to be in touch with a curious friend who is still figuring out life. And if you are in the same boat as me, hello friend - we will figure it out!

I wanted help in making smarter decisions with my own savings. Many useful answers / suggestions followed. This blog is an attempt to create a useful summary for myself (for future). Also, putting it out there in the hope that these suggestions / insights benefit others too.

-Amrit (here’s my short bio)

Overall summary

1. Add global equity exposure
   This can be through Indian fund-of-funds, direct US stocks/ETFs, or UCITS ETFs

2. Use overseas brokerage accounts for serious global allocation
   IBKR came up repeatedly as the most flexible route, especially for UCITS

3. Consider UCITS once the portfolio becomes meaningful
   This is mainly to manage US estate tax risk while still getting global market exposure

4. Match assets with future liabilities
   If your future expenses may be in dollars, pounds, euros, or Singapore dollars, holding everything in INR is risky

5. Use advisors only when the fee model is clean
   Flat-fee advice is easier to trust than commission-led or AUM-led advice

6. Don’t confuse available products with good strategy
   Just because one international fund is open for investment does not mean it belongs in your portfolio

Alright, let me elaborate these points one by one. If you have your own POV on this, do share in the comments. Thanks.

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1. Indian international fund-of-funds: easy, but limited

One approach is obviously to invest in Indian mutual funds or fund-of-funds that offer exposure to US or global markets - something that I have been doing lately.

For example, I’ve bookmarked https://thefynprint.com/feeder-funds-tracker - which lets me know which fund-of-funds are open to invest in. My friend Vineet (founder of Atypical Advantage) had let me know about it - so thankful to him. You can use the standard India-based platforms to do these investments (I use Mobikwik and Zerodha).

The limitation of this approach, as someone pointed out in the group, is that it’s not always reliable in the sense that many international mutual fund schemes in India are closed or restricted for fresh inflows. So one may end up investing not in the best available global exposure, but in whatever happens to still be open (which I agree with). And that’s an odd approach to build a long-term investment strategy! :)

Then there is the issue of thematic distortion. For example, if the only available global fund has exposure to a niche theme like water, healthcare, or energy transition, you may be taking a sector bet when your actual goal was just global diversification.

Net, net, fund-of-funds do work as a good starting point (better than letting your hard-earned savings deplete just because you own them in rupee that is getting worse by the day). But clearly not the best sustainable long-term strategy.

2. Direct US investing through apps: convenient, but watch the fine print

Another common route is to use apps like Vested, INDmoney, or similar platforms to buy US stocks and ETFs.

The appeal is obvious. You can buy Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, S&P 500 ETFs, Nasdaq ETFs, and so on. The account opening process is relatively smooth, I understand. For many Indians, this also seems to be the first real step outside INR assets. For example, I checked with my brother on how he was de-risking against a depreciating rupee and he shared that he was doing it through INDmoney. Is that also your strategy?

Two concerns came up in the group.

One - the foreign exchange spread: when money is converted from INR to USD, the exchange rate is not always transparent. You may lose money at the conversion stage itself.

Two - (maybe more serious than the first, for some) - US estate tax risk: for non-resident investors, US situs assets above a certain threshold can become exposed to estate tax if the investor passes away. One participant pointed out that this can apply not only to US stocks and ETFs bought through investing apps, but also to RSUs.

I don’t think either of these concerns mean that direct US investing is bad. But clearly beyond a certain portfolio size, you might want to understand the structure properly. I am still not sure I want to go this route. Especially now that I understand option 3 as well.

3. IBKR + UCITS: the serious DIY route

This was the most discussed route - here you essentially open an account with an international broker, especially Interactive Brokers, and then get to invest through UCITS ETFs.

UCITS funds are typically Ireland-domiciled ETFs or funds that give exposure to global indices, including US markets, but without holding the investment as a US-domiciled ETF directly. So for Indian residents, it basically reduces the US estate tax problem while still allowing exposure to the same underlying markets.

This is what I’ve understood - let’s say you want S&P 500 exposure. Instead of buying a US-domiciled S&P 500 ETF, you just buy an Ireland-domiciled UCITS ETF that tracks a similar index:

• Use LRS from your Indian bank account

• Move money to an international brokerage account

• Buy global ETFs, preferably UCITS beyond a certain threshold

• Keep investing regularly

• Use India-based assets mainly for India-based needs

I did some digging. I don’t think this is the easiest route.

IBKR felt more complex than the consumer apps I am used to (but may be if I may get used to IBKR too - these are early vibes). But what’s clear is that, going the IBKR route also means that the onus of things like tax reporting, LRS paperwork, foreign asset disclosure (which thankfully I don’t have for now) etc. - all of that rests on me. :/

I did find a hack (thanks to Claude) - https://paasa.com/ - which is essentially a layer on top of IBKR but takes care of these other things it seems. Seriously considering it now.

Anyway, if you are someone who likes to manage your own money, IBKR seems to be the most robust DIY approach. And maybe if you are that person, you already know about it. Do you?

In fact one fellow entrepreneur shared they had more than 90% of their net worth in USD-denominated investments, mostly UCITS through IBKR, because of

• dislike of Indian restriction on moving capital

• overseas investments historically benefitting from currency depreciation, and

• a large part of their family expenses being abroad

If your child is going to study abroad in the future (if not presently), if you travel internationally often, or if you think you might relocate outside the country (or spend significantly abroad for any other reason), then holding everything in INR makes little sense.

4. Other broker options

Vested - someone said they personally use Vested, noting that some global fund investments there are structured as UCITS (also looks like Vested is more popular among sub-cr or few cr. international portfolios, while IBKR is preferred north of that).

Charles Schwab - was also mentioned as a strong broker that supports Indian customers. But there’s a caveat - Schwab may not support UCITS in the same way, so it may be better suited for US treasuries or for keeping US investments below the estate-tax threshold.

I guess on one hand, the consumer investing apps are relatively easier to deal with while the global brokers offer more flexibility. Banks feel safer to some people. Each route has its own trade-offs and everyone will have to arrive at their preference on their own.

The “best” answer will probably depend on the size of the portfolio, comfort with paperwork, need for UCITS, and how much handholding you want.

5. Overseas bank accounts: peace of mind, at a cost

One fellow entrepreneur said after exploring GIFT City, IBKR, fund-of-funds, Indian global ETFs, and other routes, they finally opened an overseas account with DBS Singapore alongside a DBS India account.

The logic was not necessarily purley cost optimization, but also ‘comfort’.

Through the Singapore account, they could access shares, ETFs, funds, and fixed income. They kept doing LRS from India. They also used IBKR through a spouse’s account, but felt more comfortable holding larger sums with a regulated bank in a stable country.

This did lead to some debate on cost. Overseas banks may charge trading fees and custody fees. In the example discussed, ETF trading fees were around 0.10%–0.25%, with an annual custody fee of around 0.2%.

I guess for a buy-and-hold investor, that should be acceptable. But obviously for someone optimizing every basis point, it will feel painful. And not justifiable.

Also, what risk does a foreign bank really reduce - compared to a large global broker like IBKR? Maybe the answer is just emotional. A bank in Singapore could feel safer? But for others, the answer might not be convincing enough to justify additional custody fees.

Risk tolerance is not purely mathematical of course. So to each their own.

6. Professional advisors: useful, but incentives matter

The conversation also brought up the role of SEBI-registered investment advisors.

One argument in favour of a SEBI RIA is that they cannot earn commissions from distribution. In theory, this removes a major conflict of interest.

You can think of going to a doctor versus going to a pharmacist - the pharmacist may earn from the product being sold; the doctor is supposed to advise you based on your interest.

But the group also pushed back. SEBI registration alone does not guarantee quality.

The better model seemed to be: work with a vetted, fixed-fee advisor who helps with goal mapping, broker account opening, UCITS selection, LRS process, foreign asset reporting, estate tax complications, and tax filing.

Also, the fixed-fee point matters. Several people in the group seemed allergic to wealth managers charging 0.5%–1% of assets every year. I also don’t get the logic of paying life-long for a one-time help (or few times). Over decades, just that cut becomes a massive drag on returns.

Another warning that came up in the group was - advisors also do get commissions from foreign banks or brokers for account opening and transfers. So even in global investing, incentives are messy.

I guess, go ahead and take advice - but understand how the advisor makes money? :) Then see what you want to decide, for yourself.

7. Gold, real estate, and “FD-MF-Gold-House” thinking

Someone did a WhatsApp poll on different attitudes towards investment - many in the group were fine with the conventional FD, mutual funds, gold, house type of route.

In India, this is obviously familiar and emotionally comforting. Gold has historically been seen as a currency hedge. Real estate feels tangible. Fixed deposits feel safe. Indian mutual funds feel growth-oriented. And I guess not everyone is as worried about the rupee depreciation as I am.

Gold is a bit different though because if you really think about it, it can act as a partial hedge against a depreciating rupee - unlike Indian real estate or FDs or Indian equity mutual funds.

8. Getting paid in USD: not an investment strategy, but still relevant

Someone jokingly said: “Get paid in USD.”

That is income, not investment. But it is not irrelevant.

For freelancers, consultants, founders, exporters, remote workers, and SaaS operators in India, earning in dollars while spending partly in rupees is one of the strongest natural hedges. Your income itself becomes currency diversified.

But it would be wise to figure out how to park those dollar bills. If you end up converting to rupees - then it’s wasted money.

Hope this was useful. I am going to try route 3. Something feels right about it. You do you. And may you get to do more of what brings you joy and less of what sucks it away.

-Amrit

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If you are a new subscriber, here’s my short bio. Think of this newsletter as a means to be in touch with a curious friend who is still figuring out life. And if you are in the same boat as me, hello friend - we will figure it out!

It’s not a famous market or anything. In fact, nobody from Patna would know of it unless they grew up around it too. It was just a building (still is) with a series of shops on the ground floor, starting with a barber shop on the left and ending with DK’s samosa shop on the right. Over the years, the barbers kept changing, though DK continued to run his samosa shop for as long as I remember.

Between the barber shop and DK, there was a video-cassette shop, at least two kirana stores, probably one stationery shop and a bunch of more. The owners, they all lived in the same colony. And almost nobody was in this business because they wanted to.

Being a ‘shopkeeper’ was not the most respectable thing to do (and maybe that hasn’t changed even today). It was something you did if you couldn’t get a job—primarily a government job back then. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone in Patna who cleared an exam, secured a government job, and then chose to become an ‘entrepreneur’ by opening a shop.

Job vs Own Business

When you take up a job, you are essentially entering a system set up by someone else. The system meets you where you are and takes you on a journey. If you leave the system, someone else will be found to replace you.

The system doesn’t need you per se. It just needs someone to execute a bunch of tasks so that, in the end, more money is generated than is needed to pay the people working as part of the system. And today, one option for that “someone” is an AI agent. Which is perhaps why systems across the world seem to be reconfiguring themselves, as we speak.

But when it comes to starting and running your own business (and if you are aspirational, then also growing it) - that requires a fundamentally different set of skills and, more importantly, a different attitude than what is needed as an employee.

To be an entrepreneur, you need to know how to sell and deliver.

You need to build and set up your own systems. You ask for help. You learn. You make mistakes. And struggle a lot because the path is just not that well defined. Plus there is competition and external circumstances to deal with.

The culture of white-collar employees leaving the job ecosystem to become entrepreneurs (out of choice) started gathering momentum around the time I graduated from IIT Madras with a dual degree in 2008.

Ninety-nine percent of my batchmates either took up a job or went for higher studies—that’s my guesstimate.

A very, very small percentage chose to do their own thing, and there too, mostly because they had a family business. In fact, I captured some of this in a film I made a few years ago.

But over the years, more and more white-collar workers started leaving their jobs to start up. Or just freelance, like I did when I first took a break from my corporate job as a management consultant.

“If you look at the reasons for becoming an entrepreneur, there’s a book called Founders at Work, where over thirty successful founders share their journeys,” Ashish tells me. He volunteered to speak with me on this topic after I put out a public post on LinkedIn. A few others reached out too, and I will quote some of them later in this essay.

Ashish runs a zero-to-one community of founders, so he spends his days talking to people who are trying to figure out how to survive outside the system.

I looked up the book he recommended. From there, I have listed down the various reasons why someone chooses entrepreneurship—as an annexure towards the end of this article (if you’d like to read).

Anyway, so that brings me to the main question that I have been asking myself lately.

The way AI has started reshaping the world’s economic structure—would it force more white-collar employees to become entrepreneurs?

I am basically talking about the arrow in the above diagram.

"My transition - from job to trying to do my own thing - wasn't driven by AI," Harsh tells me.

Harsh and I studied together in XI-XII in Ranchi (same school as Dhoni’s). He now lives in the US and is building something for the maritime industry.

After spending many years in the maritime supply chain and operations, earning a master’s at MIT, and working deeply across technical and commercial management, at one point he realized that the time was right for him to do his own thing. He wanted more autonomy and he had enough savings and no liability. So he left his job.

But he agrees with me on why businesses may need less employees today. “If AI allows a business to deliver the same output—or a hundred times more output—with a fraction of the staff, they will absolutely take that route”, he says.

Ashish is not very convinced with this take. “Take the massive IT service giants in India—the TCS’, Wipro’s, and Infosys’ of the world. You hear their executives talking about AI enablement and digital transformation, and you assume mass automation is already happening,” Ashish says dismissively. And then he tells me that these legacy corporations simply lack the caliber, organizational structure, and basic capability for that kind of genuine innovation.

So why are they constantly talking about AI? “It is just a share price game.”

Now what about the person who lost his / her job to AI? Can the same AI also help them become an entrepreneur? I had argued earlier that entrepreneurship requires two broad capabilities: the ability to sell and the ability to deliver. But perhaps AI changes that equation. Perhaps it allows people to compensate for the skills they lack and amplify the ones they already possess.

“AI has fundamentally lowered the cost of intelligence, creating a massive decentralization effect,” Harsh says, aligning with this broader thesis. “Almost everyone will become a company unto himself or herself.”

If that is true, are we moving away from a world dominated by large, centralized companies towards one filled with millions of highly personalized, small-scale businesses? And if so, is this simply a new version of the kirana model—not for groceries, but for skills? A world where white-collar professionals run tiny, AI-powered enterprises, serving niche needs with remarkable efficiency.

Arjav, a young IIT graduate, recently moved out of Surat to start working from the hills.

He left his job and wanted a remote role. He spent months applying to startups, but kept running into founders who expected one person to do the work of an entire department. After a point, he stopped looking. Instead, he figured out freelancing—using AI to create web apps, build workflows, and generate content.

“I am not dependent on anyone else,” Arjav tells me.

“Because of AI, I’m able to create workflows and take a creative direction that was not possible before.” He shared that he was able to reach his last corporate income level within a few months, gaining total autonomy over his time.

When the technical barrier to execute an idea disappears, you don’t need a massive system behind you. You can sell and deliver your service directly.

But having the tools to build a business is not the same as surviving as a business.

“I think many people are jumping into entrepreneurship purely because of the AI hype,” Ashish remarks.

“They string together fifteen AI agents for sales, lead generation, and marketing, expecting to sit back and collect cash. But there is a massive failure rate because they don’t understand their financial runway. They don’t know how to survive long enough to just be ramen profitable,” Ashish adds.

AI can draft a perfect sales email. It can automate your accounting. But can it give you the psychological endurance to handle a hundred rejections in a row? And if not, can you really become an entrepreneur if that’s not who you really are at heart?

Simran, who runs a B2B digital agency, has seen this firsthand. Her entry into entrepreneurship was less of a choice, and more a way to survive. Years ago, her dad slipped into a coma, and she and her brother had to figure out how to make money immediately. She knows the grind.

She shared with me the story of one of her operations heads who quit to start her own SaaS venture. “I told her that she still needed to know how to sell and handle the gruelling parts of a business,” Simran recalls. Two months later, the girl called back asking for her old job.

“Not everyone has the thick skin for entrepreneurship,” she sums up.

Anyway, one way or another, something tells me we are stepping into a strange phase. People who prefer the structure of employment—who want to focus on doing good work without the anxiety of hunting for the next paycheck—will still want jobs. But as corporate systems automate and shrink, those safe jobs might become harder and harder to find. And maybe these folks will never thrive as entrepreneurs. But I hope that with AI, they can at least survive.

PS: Lal Babu Market - extracted from Google Street View.

Annexure: Why people become entrepreneurs

Summarized from the book Founders at Work.

• Solving a personal problem - out of necessity by building a tool or service that didn’t previously exist

• Desiring financial independence and the high-reward upside of stock options instead of steady employment

• Refusing to work for someone else and wanting the autonomy to dictate one’s own terms and avoid undesirable office jobs

• Wanting to change the world and leave a lasting legacy by creating something that benefits humanity

• Taking pride in craftsmanship and wanting to build a genuinely great product without the interference of corporate bureaucracy

• Growing a hobby or side project that unexpectedly gained massive traction and naturally morphed into a viable business

• Following in the footsteps of entrepreneurial parents, which makes starting a company feel like a normal career choice

• Seeking recognition or fame, using great design as a way to get noticed, especially for founders who are naturally shy

• Helping out a community by providing a service that connects people or assists them in their daily lives

• Avoiding tedious or undesirable tasks, such as starting a web-based company simply to avoid having to learn Windows programming

• Recession - creating a job opportunity during an economic recession when traditional employment is difficult to find

Here’s the process: I first brainstormed with ChatGPT to write the lyrics (essentially based on the visuals that I had). I then used Suno to turn that into a song (using my voice). I’ve a paid subscription but you can do enough in the free plan as well.

Suno works even if you don’t know how to create a tune yourself. But in my opinion it works much better when you can actually come up with new melodies. You just need to hum, record and upload whatever you can sing.

I’ve been creating melodies since I was in school (90s). My own singing is pretty average. Below is an 18-year-old recording of me singing in my 5th and final year at IIT Madras. You be the judge.

I particularly like the grooviness of another song I created earlier this week - Mitti ka Badan (using the same process that I described in the opening paragraph). What do you think?

For me, a tune often just comes from nowhere and then I just have to take it from there and do something with it.

Suno is a game-changer in that respect. Like earlier I remember spending around a month on Logic Pro to put together just one decent song. And now, I get something more than decent in mere 20 minutes of iteration. Crazy it is.

By the way, I have two other Substack newsletters that you may consider subscribing to, if relevant:

• Learn with Story99 Substack - for those interested in improving their storytelling, marketing & brand-building skills (if you know a friend like that, let them know about it)

• Learn Storytelling from Ads Substack - this is a niche newsletter where I basically break down new and old ads to decode the storytelling that goes behind them; did it for Melody recently

In another news, Princy (my wife) finally did an official wrap-up of her clothing-brand . We hosted a garage sale of the remaining stock last week.

Running and growing her gym and fitness community in Panjim (& online) had left her with very little time to focus on this business. It was fun while it lasted though. Over the years, I not only got to photograph many of the outfits, but also ended up being a model occasionally. 😀

Alright, will get back with more stories to tell. In the mean time, may you get to do more of what brings you joy and less of what sucks it away.

-Amrit

But when it comes to workout videos, I think the more perfect a movement looks, the less anyone actually cares to watch it.

Let me explain.

I was just talking to Princy about this today. She is my wife. And she runs a popular fitness studio in Panjim. We were looking at one of her latest workout videos. And I wondered why some videos grab me, while others just get totally boring.

It has nothing to do with how physically difficult the movement actually is.

The video that I saw of Princy (above), whatever she was doing, was clearly not easy. But it was not engaging (to me).

I think here’s what’s happening - if I haven’t tried a particular workout move myself, I basically have little idea how tough it is in reality (unless the video clearly shows that). And when I can’t feel the difficulty, the struggle, I get disengaged.

The same logic may not apply when the “difficulty reference frame” of what I am watching already exists. Like say for running. When most of us see someone running ten or a hundred kilometers, we immediately know it’s insanely hard... mainly because almost all of us have run at some point. The baseline is already set.

Same goes with performance arts like dancing. Most of us have tried to dance. So the moment a Michael Jackson does an insane move, we just know... wow, how did he move like that? We appreciate it right away because the backstory is directly connected to our own experience.

Anyway, so I guess this is my main feedback to those making workout videos that they want the regular folks - like me - to watch (if they do). Make it clear in your videos that what you are doing is difficult (do that early on - in the first one or two seconds). Show me a bunch of failed attempts. Or show the veins popping... the face straining. Struggle is basically the keyword here.

Because normal people (like me) just don’t get it unless we see you sweat.

You spend all this time trying to master something, but maybe looking effortless isn’t actually what people like me want to see.

PS: Below is a 17 year old video of me doing a 10Km in the Andamans (I was in my 5th year of college back then). By the way Youtube recently informed me that my 20+ year old channel now has 25k subscribers. Funny, because a brand new channel that I started only in Jan this year, is already about to hit 15k! :D

My batch Whatsapp group has been super active since the last couple of days (above is a group photo taken at the 10 year reunion in 2017).

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AI<>Future was a recent topic that attracted many POVs. I am attempting to summarise the overall thesis that emerged. Feel free to drop your personal POV in the comment.

Firstly, there was a lot of disagreement about where this ends:

• Some said India is resilient because we’re agrarian and families “take care” of each other.

• Then there was a darker view (including mine) - that the government and industrialists might just collude to create a “suppressed regime” to keep the 90% occupied with random things.

• Some also seemed to think it could lead to civil war if the educated unemployment gets too high.

But when the middle class is too divided by hierarchical identities, would they ever mount a common cause if they get disrupted?

Personally, I think those who manage to be in the top percentage of people who have an AI agent with enough leverage that the top industrialists / government can’t / won’t own entirely - they might have a justifiable role in the future.

For everyone else, we’ll just have to hope the government does the right thing. Can’t really imagine the current political / economic fabric lasting through this at all.

What all of us agreed upon was that we’re clearly heading into a “jagged transition” where AI isn’t just coming for the boring, mundane tasks, but for the “reasonably intelligent” jobs we thought were safe.

One batchmate mentioned he doesn’t even create his own emails or presentations anymore - his agent does it.

Another batchmate said the most important skill is changing from: “knowing how to do the work” → “knowing what work is worth doing”.

In a world where AI is commoditized, the only real differentiator left could be the human talent guiding those models. Though you wonder - how many humans do you actually need for that? A slimmer human workforce working in conjunction with AI seems to be the likely path. But that leaves many questions for those who will not get to be part of this “human-guide” workforce.

Also, if code and analysis can be offshored to tokens instead of people, where does that leave all our service-oriented tech companies? More so if the gains from AI only stay with a few hyper-scalers in the US, that’s another problem because those profits aren’t going to redistribute to us here. We’d just be providing the data and getting none of the wealth.

So for a country like India, either we find a way to own our own “sovereign” technology stack, or we end up in a situation where the middle class loses its upward mobility and things get... well, unstable.

The irony

There was this one anecdote discussed in the group chat about auto drivers in Bangalore wearing GoPros. They are being paid to provide cheap training data for robotics. It’s a bit chilling when you think about it. They are literally being paid to train the models that will eventually replace them, and they probably have no idea.

Crazy times.

If you are a new subscriber, here’s my short bio. Think of this newsletter as a means to be in touch with a curious friend who is still figuring out life. And if you are in the same boat, all the best.

Did you see Michael? What did you think?

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I’m aware of the allegations against the guy. And if he abused any child, that’s horrific. The film doesn’t go there, by the way—there are theories as to why, but I’ll move on.

The day before, while walking my dogs, I found myself wondering: how does the stock performance of listed companies vary based on the celebrities who endorse them?

I put Gemini to work and pulled together the chart below.

Correlation isn’t causation. I’m not suggesting certain celebrities drive better stock performance. Still, it’s interesting.

SRK’s numbers surprised me the most.

What stands out to you?

Would this change if we included private companies? Probably—but that data is hard to compile. In any case, private market valuations behave very differently from public markets, so combining them wouldn’t make much sense.

I was discussing this with my friend Vineet, who pointed out that the trend in my correlation chart may have more to do with the sectors these celebrities are associated with, than the celebrities themselves.

Some sectors have underperformed in India’s public markets over the past five years—perhaps that’s what’s showing up here.

So I asked Gemini for a sector-wise breakdown for each celebrity.

It doesn’t explain everything, but one pattern is clear: brands endorsed by SRK and Katrina Kaif (among listed companies) skew heavily toward FMCG.

And how has FMCG performed? Not great. Which explains the lower numbers for SRK & Katrina.

I’ll leave it there. It’s remarkable how easy it’s become to follow curiosity and generate insights that refine the mental models we use to see the world.

Have a great Sunday.

And again, if you are a new subscriber, here’s my short bio. Think of this newsletter as a means to be in touch with a curious friend who is still figuring out life. And if you are in the same boat, all the best.

Anyway, most of this blog isn’t about rain. It’s about a conversation on storytelling that I had the day before.

-Amrit, Founder - Story99 (here’s a short bio on me)

Someone a year or two senior to me in college (IIT Madras) reached out last week. She wanted to get some insights around a specific type of storytelling that I do - simplifying deeptech research (“Techtalk”). We finally spoke Monday morning.

D shared that she had recently left her corporate job at Unilever and is now exploring building a business around “storytelling training” - specifically for science and tech professionals.

I am recounting here some of the thoughts that came to my mind - as we spoke.

I realized that my dataset - the professors I usually interact with as part of my Techtalk series - is likely biased.

I deal almost exclusively with a top-quartile cohort of professors who have already successfully published papers and secured funding.

Which means there may very well be a cohort of faculty out there who are genuinely struggling to get their grants approved, possibly due to poor storytelling skills. They are simply invisible to me. I don’t know how large (or small) this pool is. Could they benefit from storytelling training? Yes. But there is a nuance here - and that becomes clearer if one thinks through the functional use-case of storytelling for an IIT professor.

A point that D made during our call was: “Many researchers possess the potential to share their work beautifully but are held back by a lack of access to communication tools.”

Now while ‘sharing one’s work beautifully’ is certainly one application of storytelling, I think there are many more - from a faculty’s point of view:

• Research funding: to secure grants for their research

• Admin-ladder: rising to positions like department heads, deans, directors, etc. (for those who prefer this route)

• Startups: to launch startups (a small %age but they are there)

• Teaching: teaching better in class (this too might be a smaller percentage)

There could be more applications. I could think of only these.

Anyway, so while improved storytelling should help across all of the above, the frequency with which one gets to practice storytelling varies depending on where it is applied.

For example, if your primary goal is to raise grants, you don’t have to tell stories that frequently. But if you really love teaching, then you get to practice storytelling literally in every class.

Why does this matter? Because a training program can last only so long. For meaningful improvement, the trainee (the faculty, in this case) needs to be in an environment where they can practice the skill regularly. Otherwise, the gains may not sustain.

D mentioned how she wasn’t a great storyteller early on but developed the skill over years in her corporate career. That journey inspired her to help others build this ‘trainable’ skill. My point, however, is that some roles naturally allow for more frequent practice than others - and that creates a challenge.

I also look at it this way: even if you democratize storytelling training and raise the overall baseline of communication skills across an institute, the naturally ambitious and communicative professors (who were better storytellers to begin with) will likely maintain their relative advantage.

This is because most storytelling applications (as listed above) operate in a zero-sum environment.

• There is only so much of research funding available

• There are only so many admin positions

• Only a fration of startups will succeed

Teaching is probably the only application here that is not zero-sum. If every professor became a better storyteller in the classroom, every student would benefit. But I suspect teaching is not the most sought-after use-case for many faculty members. For many, it is perhaps a good-to-have, not a primary pursuit.

Anyway, I wished D the very best in her new journey. I agree that storytelling can be taught - and even if it doesn’t benefit everyone equally, a world with more deeptech researchers who can tell better stories is certainly better than one with fewer.

-Amrit, Founder - Story99 (here’s a short bio on me)

I asked NotebookLM to extract the data from the YT video into a table (here’s the CSV download link if you’d like to take a look yourself). Ever since Notebook, I’ve stopped watching most long info-videos on Youtube. It’s just so much easier / faster to read a 1 pager than watch a video - unless the video is really really well made and has something more to it, than just the info.

Anyway, so I then fed the tabular data to ChatGPT, and asked it to look for trends (I just feel more comfortable asking such questions to ChatGPT than to Notebook; I did ask Notebook for an infographic which I’ve inserted below).

Sharing those trends in this post.

-Amrit (Li, Insta, YT) // a short-bio on me

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So these are the trends:

1. IIT CSE → US PhD → Academia / Research is a dominant track

2. Stanford + MIT are disproportionately influential

3. US is the default destination

4. Clear bifurcation: Research vs Money tracks

5. Recent trend shift: More direct-to-industry (fewer PhDs)

6. IIT Bombay dominates disproportionately

7. Dropout → MIT → Global success is a recurring micro-pattern

8. Very low entrepreneurship representation

9. India-return cases are purpose-driven (not money-driven)

10. CSE dominance is overwhelming

1. IIT CSE → US PhD → Academia / Research is a dominant track

A huge chunk follows a near-identical path:

• IIT (mostly CSE)

• → Stanford / MIT / Princeton PhD

• → Professor / Research Scientist in the US

Examples: Sanjiv Arora, Subhash Khot, Kamesh Munagala

What this suggests:

• IIT CSE acts as a feeder into top-tier US research ecosystems

• Theoretical CS + Algorithms is a very strong export category from India

• Stanford/MIT appear repeatedly as gateways

2. Stanford + MIT are disproportionately influential

If you map “post-IIT destinations”:

• Stanford → recurring for CS PhDs

• MIT → both direct (dropouts/transfers) and postgrad

• Others (CMU, Princeton, UCSD) are secondary

Net, net you can say that these institutes act as global talent aggregation hubs, likely driven by:

• Faculty networks

• Alumni pipelines

• Strong research alignment with IIT toppers

3. US is the default destination

Rough split (approx):

• ~70–80% USA

• Small pockets in:

  • India (academia / consulting / public service)

  • Europe (ETH, CERN, Amsterdam)

  • Asia (HK, Korea)

For JEE toppers, India only seems to retain:

• Academia (IIT Kanpur, TIFR)

• Civil services

• Some industry roles

4. Clear bifurcation: Research vs Money tracks

Two dominant career clusters emerge:

A. Research / Academia

• Professors

• OpenAI / Google Research

• Theoretical CS, AI, math-heavy work

B. High-paying industry roles

• Quant trading (Jane Street, Optiver)

• Big Tech (Google, Microsoft)

• Finance (Morgan Stanley)

Examples:

• Quant: Pranav Goyal

• AI: Sushant Sachdeva

If you really think about it, the same cognitive skillset splits into:

• “Truth-seeking” (research)

• “Money-maximizing” (quant/tech)

5. Recent trend shift: More direct-to-industry, fewer PhDs

Older cohorts (pre-2010):

• Strong bias toward PhD → academia

Newer cohorts (post-2015):

• More:

  • Quant trading

  • Startups / ML engineering

  • Direct industry roles

Examples: Aman Bansal, Sarvesh Mehtani

I guess over time, the opportunity cost of PhD has increased and industry (especially AI + quant) is now as intellectually rewarding + far more lucrative.

6. IIT Bombay dominates disproportionately

Possible reasons:

• Stronger competitive culture in CSE

• Better peer signaling

• Alumni network effects

• Higher concentration of “top rankers”

Can you think of more?

7. Dropout → MIT → Global success is a recurring micro-pattern

Examples: Chitraang Murdia, Satvat Jagwani

8. Very low entrepreneurship representation

Almost no founders (except 1–2 like Machineifi / NGO) became entrepreneurs.

May be this makes sense because A list of IIT toppers simply optimizes for: Exams → Research → Jobs, not for things like risk-taking or company building.

9. India-return cases are purpose-driven, not money-driven

People who stay/return to India:

• Academia (IIT, TIFR)

• Civil services

• NGO

Example: Immadi Prudhvi Tej

So you can say that:

• India = impact / stability / institutional roles

• US = frontier work / money / scale

10. CSE dominance is overwhelming

Almost everyone is:

• Computer Science

• Or adjacent (Math, Bioinformatics, AI)

What is your one key takeaway, if any?

I thought (and shared in the group) that it was perhaps slightly unfair to refer to a delivery platform (where consumers can order what they want to) as an unhealthy food provider.

Though I acknowledged that Zomato (or Swiggy for that matter) has definitely enabled more eating of outside-food. And since outside-food in general is more unhealthy than healthy (both in terms of overall availability and what consumers tend to order), I do see his logic at the same time.

But I got a much better explanation from him.

Very good point indeed.

Now this made me wonder how each of the three parties - the consumer, the distributor (or platform) and the product-maker can technically be blamed for unhealthy product consumption by the other parties.

And then I said to myself - could I apply the Indian mythology framework made popular by Devdutt Patnaik to explain this? The rest of the blog is exactly that.

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Using Indian Mythology to explain guilt-avoidance reasoning of consumers, platforms and manufactures of unhealthy products

Essentially each party is justifying their actions by retreating into a limited subjective reality (brahmanda), where the business environment is a battleground (rana-bhoomi) rather than a happy playground (ranga-bhoomi).

1. The Maker (Producer) – The Pursuer of Lakshmi (The Indra Mindset)

The maker justifies their actions by claiming they are merely satisfying existing consumer desire: “This is what consumers want and this is what sells on platforms -so why should I not make this?”

From a mythological perspective, the Maker typically operates with the mindset of Indra, the King of Devas.

• Hunger and Justification: The Maker is primarily driven by the hunger for Lakshmi (wealth/revenue) and seeks a high return on investment. Human hunger for resources is insatiable and expanded by imagination (Kama). The Maker sees themselves as simply capitalizing on this persistent hunger.

• Avoiding Guilt: The Maker sees the product (e.g., cigarettes, unhealthy food, porn) as the necessary svaha (input / offering) to generate a proportional tathastu (output/revenue). By focusing on what sells (the measurable, tangible Narayani), they evade responsibility for the why (intent), often adopting rajas-guna, where they cling to their own opinion and see wealth as the primary target.

• The Violence of Creation: Creating wealth often involves violence (bali), which is inherent in extraction and production processes. The Maker rationalizes that this violence (e.g., creating unhealthy products) is an unavoidable consequence of creating economic activity, much like the Devas defeating the Asuras to access wealth. As long as they are not the victims of the violence, they do not mind being the perpetrators.

2. The Distributor / Platform – The Compliant Follower (The Duryodhan / Daksha Mindset)

The distributor claims neutrality, viewing themselves as a passive conduit: “I am helping the product pass from one hand to another. Why should I be blamed?”

This position reflects a mindset obsessed with rules and procedure, seeking security rather than ownership.

• Focus on Rules and Process: The Distributor acts like Daksha, who is obsessed with rules and sees the yagna merely as a process or duty. They operate as a karya-karta (one who follows the directive) rather than a proactive karta or responsible yajaman (initiator of exchange).

• Avoiding Guilt: They operate with a focus on compliance, adopting the persona of Duryodhan, the “pretender” or “mimic” who follows the letter of the law but ignores its spirit. They use rules and systems to control the world around them and get their way. By sticking strictly to the rule that the products are legally permitted or follow platform guidelines, they encourage the organization to promote tamas-guna (mindlessly following the system). They avoid the burden of uncertainty and consequences associated with being a true yajaman.

• The Pursuit of Durga: By strictly following protocol, the Distributor seeks Durga (power / security). They gain security by not rocking the boat, fearing that deviations (like refusing a legal, albeit harmful, product) would invite scrutiny or failure, thus maintaining their position in the social hierarchy.

3. The Consumer: Externalizing Responsibility and Seeking Validation (The Asura/Indra Victim Mindset)

The Consumer absolves their guilt by focusing on the external factors that led to their choice: “I consume because it’s being marketed and legal and is available to me easily.”

The consumer operates as a devata (receiver of the transaction) whose hunger, amplified by imagination (Kama), leads to continuous craving. They see themselves as the victim of Seduction (Kama) and Maya (Delusion), denying their own accountability (karma).

From a consumer’s POV, marketing and advertising seduce them by creating irresistible cravings. Imagination (Kama) expands human hunger, making it insatiable, even for harmful products. They are convinced by the delusions (maya) of advertising, which code intangible thoughts (status, power) into things.

Consumers also expect Sanskriti (society/rules) to protect them by only providing things that are “good”. By blaming the law/regulators for allowing the product to exist, they externalize their failure to exercise internal wisdom (Saraswati) and claim they were denied Durga (security) by the system.

So if you really think about it, the consumer can always frame the entire exchange as an external phenomenon, resisting the idea that they are a karta (responsible decision-maker) and instead acting as a reluctant devata or a victim of circumstances. They can refuse to see themselves as the villain, only as a hero or martyr within their subjective reality (brahmanda).

Could there be a consolidated view here? The Vishnu Gaze perhaps?

If you think about it, this constant cycle of guilt avoidance and conflict (the rana-bhoomi) essentially persists because all parties prioritize chasing measurable wealth (Narayani) and external power over intellectual and emotional growth (Narayan/Saraswati).

So may be below is for all of to consider:

• Accepting Karma: True accountability, or dharma, is achieved when humans realize that every experience is a consequence (karma) of their own conduct, and blaming others is not an option.

• The Dependable Yajaman (Vishnu): Vishnu (the preserver) is the embodiment of the leader who outgrows his own hunger and is consumed by other people’s hunger. He recognizes that the yagna is an exchange of Lakshmi, Durga, and Saraswati.

• Upliftment (Uddhar): Vishnu descends (avatarana) to prompt uddhar (upliftment of thought), encouraging Brahma’s fearful sons (like the Maker and Distributor/Platform) to expand their gaze. Growth happens when the yajaman makes the devata’s growth an outcome of his own, investing in others’ growth so that the return is mutual growth.

• The Value of Intent: In the Indian framework, what matters is the reason why rules are followed or broken, or why actions are taken, not just the action itself. When the parties stop being frightened and expand their gaze, they move towards mutual growth and ethical conduct.

Alright, this is all that I had to share. Would really like to know your take / opinion / views - if you can drop them in the comment. See you later. Let me quickly order some veg-pakoda now. :D

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Let me use the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model to explain the problem - as brought out in the linked research.

• Stimulus (S): An external trigger. In this case, the stimuli would be some specific features of health / fitness app / wearable device (like say some notification)

• Organism (O): Our internal state, or in other words our psychological and cognitive reactions to the stimulus. Basically, what happens inside our minds when we encounter a stimulus / trigger / notification.

• Response (R): Our resulting behaviour - the action we take because of our internal reaction to the stimulus.

Alright, so let’s first look at how these apps / devices stimulate us.

Stimulus

1. Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs): The research concluded that while features like goal-setting and feedback are meant to build healthy habits, what also happens is, when you don’t meet a goal, then there are -ve consequences. For example, your app’s negative feedback - be it notifications about failure or poor performance reports - can trigger feelings of guilt, pressure, anxiety, disappointment, and even shame.

2. “Fitspiration” Information: Most apps promote an idealised, often unrealistic, “thin-and-muscular” body type through images and encouraging messages. This constant exposure can make you compare yourself to an impossible standard, creating a psychological burden and anxiety (especially when you perceive a gap between your own body and the “ideal”).

3. Gamified and Social Design: Leaderboards, rewards, and online communities are designed to make fitness fun and competitive. But if for any reason, you consistently underperform compared to peers (do you?), these features can cause stress, frustration, and anxiety. Negative comments from others can also fuel these emotions.

Organism - our reaction to the stimulus

• Negative Emotions: The research concluded that users exposed to any of the negative stimulus listed above, frequently report feeling guilt, pressure, stress, and frustration. Constant tracking can easily diminish the enjoyment that should otherwise come from being active!

• Maladaptive Thoughts: Beyond emotions, your thought patterns can become unhealthy too.

  • Body Image Concerns: Constant self-monitoring and exposure to “ideal” bodies can worsen body dissatisfaction.

  • Rumination: You can get stuck in a repetitive loop of negative thoughts about unmet goals or poor performance, which is harmful to well-being.

  • Obsession with the “Quantified Self”: Some of you may develop an unhealthy obsession with data, allowing numbers to replace your own body’s internal signals and intuition. Happened, already?

Response - what you could end up doing as a result

• Disordered Eating: To cope with the guilt or body dissatisfaction triggered by an app, you might engage in extreme dieting, purging, or binge eating. The promotion of ideal body images can make users obsessed with weight loss, increasing the risk of developing serious eating disorders like anorexia nervosa.

• Compulsive Exercise: To avoid the negative feelings of failing to meet a goal or losing in a social competition, you could also engage in extreme or compulsive exercise.

• Social Isolation: The obsession with tracking calories or exercise can consume time and energy, damaging relationships with family and friends. Some of you may even avoid social events where you feel your diet would be compromised.

Alright, let me not scare you anymore. I read a research. I thought of sharing the findings. There is nothing more here. And of course I understand that not everyone who uses these devices / apps will experience these negative outcomes. Even the researchers have noted that a lot depends on things like - personality, age, motivation to use the app etc. If you are doing good, well, good for you!

Nevertheless, I this research definitely highlights something important: while health and fitness trackers can be valuable tools, they are NOT universally benign.

So I just hope that this blog helped you at least consider the potential “dark side” of tracking everything that you do. Use them more mindfully, if you can - tracking progress is OK, but what you don’t want is for it to start controlling your life.

Now go take a walk. With or without the tracker! :P

Interesting - so this thing had trended around 2 years ago and then hit a new peak recently. Hmm.

Dirty soda is basically when a restaurant / cafe - combines soft drinks with coffee creamers and flavored syrups, creating customized options for consumers.

The same article that I’ve linked above says that the recent peak (for dirty soda demand) was partly thanks to a particular show.

The trend took off recently due to the reality TV show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” and fast-growing Utah-based beverage chain Swig featuring the drinks. The rise comes as more consumers look for alcohol alternatives that still offer unique experiences.

But here’s the most interesting ‘recent development’ around this trend…

For the first time, an actual soda brand (Mountain Dew) has decided to directly launch a ‘dirty’ version!

(source: same as the link earlier)

This reminds me of a blog post from last year where I had mentioned how…

It took Coca-Cola nearly a century (96 years, to be precise) to introduce its first product extension, Diet Coke.

It’s an interesting blog if you want to check it out where I share the concept of product line augmentation by ‘addition’ vs ‘multiplication’. Though, I will be honest - I cannot conclude where to place this dirty soda launch by Mountain Dew in that framework. If you can guess, let me know?

Since I am a storyteller and a marketer, I can’t resist the urge to guess whether this negative association strategy will work for Mountain Dew or not. Liquid Death made it work. But many others didn’t.

Here’s what I think.

There definitely are some reasons why it could work (at least in the short-term)

• Memory/attention: There’s decent amount of research (like this) that has concluded that negative/taboo words (“dirty”) are usually more memorable than bland descriptors (“cream soda”).

• Cultural timing: Gen Z and young millennials love ironic, playful, “gross but fun” branding (like Liquid Death). “Dirty” has that ironic edge without being truly offensive.

• Category fit (sort of): Soda is already associated with indulgence, sugar, “not healthy.” “Dirty” is almost an authentic acknowledgment of that, which can feel refreshing.

• Mainstreaming a niche trend: Since Dirty soda shops are already doing fine, may be there is not much risk here?

But, there also are many other reasons why the negative association strategy might not work out for Mountain Dew

• Cultural mismatch: Dirty soda’s quirky Utah origin may not scale globally. In cultures where “dirty” is taken literally (unclean, contaminated), it could turn consumers off.

• Over-extension: Unlike Liquid Death, which built its whole brand DNA around “death,” Mountain Dew is simply borrowing “dirty” for a sub-line. If it feels like a gimmick, it could fade quickly.

• Parent-brand baggage: Mountain Dew already suffers from associations with extreme sugar and “junk” culture. “Dirty” may reinforce unhealthy stereotypes rather than subvert them?

• Backlash possibility: Parents, schools, or regulators may highlight the “dirty = unhealthy” link in public discourse — amplifying health criticism rather than brand fun.

Anyway, we will see. I am sure it is going to be a small scale experiment. Great if it works. Who cares, if it doesn’t.

I will see you soon, with something else to talk about.

This news reminded me to write about the findings of a paper from last year that had explored the correlation (and causation) of Starbucks on entrepreneurship (US).

Before that, let me quickly share some interesting stuff from another paper that tries to answer a protein related question:

Is 5gm of protein > Five grams of protein?

Yes.

Apparently, consumers perceive numerical information presented in digits (say ‘5’) as feeling more right and correct than the same information presented in number words (“five”).

There is a name for this phenomenon: “number format effect” (here’s the full paper published this year).

Participants were shown advertisements for various products, including a protein shake. Those who saw the advertisement with the digit (”5 Grams of Protein”) reported that the ad felt significantly more “right” compared to those who saw the ad with the number word (”Five Grams of Protein”).

What explains this?

Well, digits just happen to be the ‘norm’ when it comes to communicating numerical information - so when consumers see digits, they perceive it as the correct format, which creates a positive feeling. This positive “feeling of rightness” basically enhances their judgments and affects their behaviour.

Alright, now to the entrepreneurship study. It’s way more interesting than this digit gyan, I promise.

Starbucks → Entrepreneurship?

In the world of urban economics and sociology, there’s a long-held idea that places outside of home and work - cafés, pubs, and restaurants - are vital for community life. Three researchers, Jinkyong Choi, Jorge Guzman, and Mario L. Small, wanted to know if this idea stretched beyond social well-being into the realm of economic creation. And so, they decided to study Starbucks.

Since the 1980s, Starbucks had intentionally built its entire brand around the concept of the “third place” - a social setting for people to gather, relax, and talk, inspired by European cafés. This made it the perfect test case. The researchers’ plan was to look at data on all new business registrations across the United States from 1990 to 2022 and see if the number of startups went up in a neighbourhood after a Starbucks opened its doors for the first time.

But of course, a simple comparison would be misleading. Does a Starbucks cause a neighbourhood to thrive, or does Starbucks simply choose neighbourhoods that are already on the upswing?

The researchers came up with a clever way to isolate the “Starbucks Effect” from the company’s real estate strategy.

First, they hunted for a natural control group: neighbourhoods where Starbucks planned to open a café, but was ultimately rejected due to local issues like zoning board denials or community protests.

They found 13 such cases, in places like Missoula, Montana, and San Francisco, California. These “rejected” tracts were a perfect mirror image of the treated ones, because Starbucks itself had deemed them worthy of investment.

When they compared these rejected neighbourhoods to similar ones that did get a Starbucks, they found a clear signal…

The arrival of a physical Starbucks increased the number of new local businesses by anywhere between 9% to 18% over the next seven years.

In comparison, the mere plan to open one had no effect.

Their second approach brought in an unexpected hero: Earvin “Magic” Johnson. In 1998, the basketball legend had partnered with Starbucks to form “Urban Coffee Opportunities,” a venture designed to bring cafés to under-resourced, minority neighbourhoods like Harlem in New York City and Ladera Heights in Los Angeles. These were places Starbucks hadn’t previously considered, which helped reduce the bias of the company’s typical site selection. The stakes here were high, as Johnson argued these cafés would be an “anchor to attract other businesses”. Therefore, by analysing the 65 Magic Johnson locations they identified, the researchers discovered an even more dramatic result: these cafés boosted local startups by a massive 29.7% per year, or about 4.3 new firms annually. So basically the effect was largest where such community spaces were needed the most.

The researchers’ final plan was to zoom out and look at the big picture. They identified 3,970 census tracts across the U.S. that had no coffee shops at all before a Starbucks arrived between 1997 and 2021. Comparing these to neighbourhoods that remained coffee-shop-free, they again saw a clear pattern. The data confirmed their hypothesis on a massive scale…

Getting a Starbucks as a first-ever café led to a 5.5% to 13.6% increase in new startups, equivalent to about 1 to 3 additional firms each year for at least seven years.

But what explains these results?

Was Starbucks a “signal” to investors that a neighbourhood was a good bet, like a lighthouse guiding ships to a safe harbour? Or was it fostering “networks,” acting as a trellis upon which local entrepreneurs could grow their ideas through conversation and connection?

If it was about signalling, they’d expect to see a surge in real estate firms and other retail stores.

But they found no such evidence.

In fact, they also found that…

Chains like Dunkin’ Donuts, which focus on quick service rather than lingering, had no effect on entrepreneurship, whereas Caribou Coffee, which shares the “third place” model, did.

The effect also decayed rapidly with distance - it was a quarter of its original size just 1-2 kilometres away - which is exactly what you’d expect from face-to-face networking, not a broad economic signal.

Finally, they found that larger Starbucks cafés with more foot traffic had a much bigger impact.

All this pretty much points to the following explanation for how the ‘causation’ occurs: a Starbucks café, by creating a “third place,” helps local entrepreneurs form and mobilise the connections they need to brainstorm, find support, and turn an idea into a registered business.

The Struggle

It’s also in the news that the chain is having some issues. The total no. of stores in North America may go down by 1% this year (some major ‘restructuring’ unfolding).

I got curious and asked ChatGPT to find out the total store number (globally) over the last few years.

The line looks pretty linear TBH.

What about India though? I wondered. Same story - ChatGPT showed me. Stores have been growing in number, pretty much linearly.

By the way, if you notice the above two charts, you will see that India accounts for only like ~1% of total no of stores (~400 vs ~40,000).

Anyway, there is another cool graph that I saw in a newsletter that I think is very interesting to look at - so sharing below.

Ok now I am just throwing random data at you, without knowing what to do with it. Let me quickly wrap up this blog by bringing back some India numbers (thank you ChatGPT).

Not sure why ChatGPT chose to add .0 to year but that’s for another time. Time to end this now. I can only hope and wish that protein lattes help Starbucks see some good results - both globally and in India. And I hope you get to have some good coffee, with or without protein. See you soon!

Below is a chart that I asked ChatGPT to make.

I wonder if over the next few years (or at max a decade), some humanoid sports will make their way to the global top 10 sports (played completely by humans, today)?

I don’t know. But I don’t see why not. We, humans, will watch anything that’s entertaining. What’s happening today is already entertaining.

Though I may like to mention here that in this event - held in China - soccer and table tennis were the only two sports from the global top ten list. There was a lot of running, obstacle jump etc kind of thing that China had.

Another question that I am asking myself is - at some point in time…

Would the spectators also include humanoids?

Not very clear what for. But don’t want to overrule the possibility. What do you think?

Also, what about the coaches?

Today, the tactical coaches who work with engineers building and managing these humanoids, come from coaching / playing experience with human-teams. But over time, would the skill-set required to be a coach for humanoids become fundamentally different (compared to what’s needed when working with human sports)? In fact, at what point would the engineers just not need human coaches at all (for humanoid sports teams)? They could surely manage to train the humanoid team-members with only data-analytics?

One more thing - would there be any use-case where humans and humanoids can participate in some sports together, as a team? Which sport would that most likely be?

I think I have endless questions right now. So I will ask just one more and then move on. Feel free to add to these thoughts, in the comment section?

So here’ my last one (on this topic, for this post) - what new sports could emerge now that humanoids are playing in tournaments like these?

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Those who may have forgotten who I am, I am Amrit, building India’s most sought-after storytelling partner for tech / deep-tech and B2B companies - Story99. I am moderately active on Linkedin and Insta.

Alright, see you when I see you! Go play some sports, while you still can! :)

Within the first 15 sec, you go like WTF is happening here and then that just keeps happening, again and again and again. In a very creative artistic sort of way.

I am not sure I had ever felt a WTF stream of emotion at this high frequency.

That’s it. That’s the post. Just wanted to share this with you guys. What did this video to you? Do share!

Will be back, with more to talk about.

I think that’s incredible because such kind of sophisticated sensing and control in soft robots is typically possible only when you use complex embedded electronics and some kind of central processing system.

So how did the scientists at University of Bristol - who recently developed this octopus inspired suction robot, manage to make the robot figure out what it is touching, without using electronics? By using something called…

Suction Triggered Switches (STSs)

An STS is a purely mechanical system where a suction cup (see my video), just uses air-pressure difference to assess what surface it’s dealing with - a lot like how octopuses assess objects they grip.

And the main advantage of creating a robot like this (that can assess the surface that its lifting, without using electronics) is that it becomes a lot more cost-effective to make them. For example the main component used in this robot is just a 3-volt diaphragm pump - that you can easily find on Amazon for like 200 to 300 rupees. Super cool!

Where could robots like these be used? Well, anywhere from applications like picking delicate fruits to handling any kind of fragile factory goods, to even anchoring all kinds of delicate medical tools inside the human body. Advancement in technology, especially inspired by nature, always fascinates me! Hope you discovered something new! See you guys soon!

In the video here, I share how that’s actually going to be possible once Lithium ion batteries (that EVs and phones and laptops use today), get replaced by Lithium Sulfur ones.

By the way, if you have a hot take on EVs and their future, do let me know what you think, in the comment.

So theoretically it has been known for many decades now that Li-S batteries can hold 3-5 times higher energy than conventional lithium-ion batteries.

And the reason they are less expensive to make is because unlike Cobalt and Nickel needed for Lithium ion batteries, Sulfur is pretty inexpensive, readily available and also more environmentally friendly. This is almost like a dream situation. So why don’t we have these batteries yet? Well, lithium Sulfur batteries have two main problems.

1. they are slow to charge and

2. every time you use or charge them, something called polysulfides get generated which dissolve and then start breaking the battery itself.

But all of that is changing - I just read a research review paper that has summed up amazing tech developments happening which can make Lithium Sulfur batteries a reality sooner than you think.

For example, back in 2009, University of Waterloo already figured out way to "cage" Sulfur in a carbon framework which prevented the polysulfide from eating up the battery and building on this technology, DGIST in South Korea discovered that graphite scaffolding works best for this. They used a special material called ZIF-8 which was doped with nitrogen and using this, not only did they contain the polysulfides but also sped up charging – achieving a 12-minute charge time for 705 mAH/g of energy dense batteries (for contrast, Lithium ion batteries typically have a capacity of only 150-200 maH/g).

In fact, on the charging front, researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia tried an electrocatalyst approach and they could further bring down charging times to just 5 minutes. But the best thing with Lithium Sulfur is once you are able to take care of the polysulfide issue and then you throw in solid electrolytes to the mix, you can also increase the number of times the battery can be charged in its lifetime.

I saw this new study published in Nature where they presented a Li-S battery with 25,000-cycle lifespan while still retaining 80% of its capacity. That’s like if you had this battery in your EV, and even if you charged your EV 2 times a day - you could keep using the same battery for 35 years with the battery still retaining 80% capacity!!
Insane, right?

But how real are these batteries - do they exist outside of university labs? Yes - at least prototypes.

Lyten, a California-based company - is offering prototypes to test and has already built a Lithium Sulfur pilot plant with plans for a billion-dollar gigafactory in Nevada, that can produce up to 10 GWh of these lithium-Sulfur batteries annually by 2027.

Alright so now you know something new. Share this post with someone who may be interested in batteries and the future of EV. Will be in touch.

It’s been a long time since I wrote anything here on Substack. How have you been? How has the year been? For me an important thing that happened was…

I moved on from my own company that I started in 2021 with my IIT batchmate as a co-founder.

Why? I came to a clear conclusion: my co-founder was not the kind of person I wanted in my life as a co-founder. Some personalities are just not suitable to play certain roles. In contrast, every other role that we played in each other’s lives up until this point (for over a decade) was pretty nice and sweet. I guess the co-founder role just brings out a totally different aspect of one’s personality. And if a fit is not there, it’s not there.

I have been obsessed with storytelling & communication for a long time now. And that doesn’t change. But there is a lot of adaptation that I need to do. That I have been doing. It’s also been many months of greiving. Many months of persistent efforts at just holding myself together. For three years, I put so much of personal, emotional and social capital into building the earlier company that both the mind and the body took their own time to settle down to the new way of doing things. Though I think, I am finally settling down. Will come back later to share more on the work front and about the new storytelling & communications agency that I am building for tech companies.

This year, I also went for a short trip to Japan. Just some family time.

Anyway, so how have you been? How has the year been? And what did you think of the short-doc?

The participants identified either as left-leaning or right:

• left: socialist / liberal / conservative

• right: libertarian

They were tested for the change in their outlook towards criminal justice reform before and after watching the movie.

Finding - watching the movie Just Mercy significantly increased support for reform among all subgroups, despite pre-existing differences based on their political ideologies.

So no, a movie is not just a movie. Storytelling through movies can be used to change the way we think / our attitudes. In this particular case, the reason the attitude changed after watching the movie was because it increased something called “Empathic Accuracy” of the participants - ability to accurately infer the emotions of others (which the authors figured out how to measure, as you will find in the paper linked above).

Anyhow, now on to two more things. Will continue with another research finding to begin with…

Thing 1

Many economic growth models assume that - when no. of researchers remains the same, economic growth remains the same. But does it?

I came across a 2017 paper as per which, today it requires more researchers to achieve the same rate of economic growth than in the past. Which basically means, when no. of researchers remains the same, growth goes down. And that to even maintain the same level of growth as earlier, researcher-number need to keep going up!

Consider the following examples:

If we define “Research Productivity” (RP) as: output of ideas / inputs used to generate them, then what the authors of the study found out was - wherever one looks, RP in 2015 was less than say what it was in 2000.

But to sustain the same level of growth, if the number of researchers and research inputs needs to keep increasing, does it mean that we will eventually hit an upper limit to growth? What do you think?

Why has RP gone down to begin with? The authors postulate that one of the reasons behind it could be the gradual depletion of the "Low-Hanging Fruit": i.e. most straightforward ideas may have already been discovered, making it increasingly challenging to find new, impactful innovations.

Keep in mind that this is a 2017 paper when ChatGPT and GenAI were not as much of buzzwords as the are today. So I wonder if the authors would re-asses their take on declining RP today!

Anyway, let me carry on with this AI theme in the next thing too…

Thing 2

Art drawn by human like robot, likely to fetch over ~$100k

I recently learnt that a human-like robot - Ai-Da, has drawn a portrait of Alan Turning, which is going up for auction at Sotheby's and is estimated to sell for a whopping $120K to $180K!! Ai-Da basically uses cameras in her eyes, AI algorithms, and a robotic arm to create her art.

Alright, so now you have learnt that a movie is not just a movie + 2 more things. May you get to do more of what brings you joy and less of what sucks it away. Will see you soon, when I have more interesting things to share and write about! It’s a Sunday. Go watch a movie now, may be? :) Be picky, of course!