[This was written in late ’20, and I had posted it as a Notion page. Now consolidating all of these reviews posted elsewhere into this site.]
Published 2020. 293 pages. Read Oct’20. If you see ‘SPW’, that stands for Sajith Pai’s Words, essentially my comments and marginalia.
The book describes the unique culture at Netflix, one that Reed Hastings (Netflix’s CEO and cofounder) says has been instrumental in its long-term …
[This was written in mid’22, and I had posted it as a Notion page. Now consolidating all of these reviews posted elsewhere into this site.]
Four Thousand Weeks is one of those self-help books that transcend its genre to become something more (Atomic Habits by James Clear is one another). In style and in spirit it reminded me of the writings of Alain de Botton, which occupy the intersection of …
[This was written a while back (late 2020 mostly), and I had posted it on a Notion page. Now consolidating all of these reviews posted elsewhere into this site.]
Book published 2015. 334 pages (main book is 218 pages; rest is bibliography and references). Read Nov’20. I purchased this book on the recommendation of Abhishek Rai about 2-3 years back but it lay unread a while.
Link to interview (paywalled). 3rd November 2022.
Sajith: Really interesting conversation covering Netflix, Twitter and their challenges, and working off that to cover a bunch of topics. Eugene Wei is a deep product thinker, especially on social networks (see this and this) and Ben Thompson is a sharp observer. Their conversation, and this is more of a conversation and less of an interview, is consistently interesting and insightful. A …
So, two new products launched last week. One was Airchat. But this isn’t about that. This post is the about the second one, First Round’s PMF Method! It is essentially a framework, and a program for founders. The framework helps B2B companies with a top-down motion systematically work towards product-market fit (PMF hereafter). They opened up the framework in a post (and in a Lenny’s podcast episode) but much …
Link to podcast. 19th November 2020.
Sajith: One of the best podcast episodes I ‘read’ this year. It is not new, but after it was referred in a Colossus annual wrap as one of their best episodes, i decided to give it a go. Any one who is a restaurateur (esp offering mid to high priced food) or in strategy will enjoy and learn from this podcast. One of …
Strategy is amongst the most ill-used terms in business. Its ill-use is, if anything, even more pronounced in the startup world. There are multiple reasons for that. This essay won’t cover those reasons; that is for another time. Instead, this essay will suggest a universal definition for strategy, and relate it to the startup landscape. I will also share how strategy interacts with the concept of culture, another ill-used term. …
Link to podcast. Link to transcript (organised by me). 1st November 2023.
Sajith: Mamoon Hamid covers the turnaround at Kleiner Perkins which drifted off course from the mid-2000s to the latter part of last decade, as it bloated into a multi-geography, multistage firm. He came in early 2018, and along with Ilya Fushman, reworked the firm into a smaller, focused firm, recalling its roots and origins, and its past …
March ‘24 | Link to the interview is here.
Sajith: Very interesting interview of Primary’s Ben Sun by Mario Gabriele. NYC has such a lot of interesting venture funds (Thrive, USV, Firstmark etc.) and clearly Primary is one of them. All of these evolved and developed their secret sauce to compete with Bay Area funds, and hence you see some interesting differentiators with each. With Primary, it is clearly …
Link to podcast. Link to transcript (organised by me). 27th September 2023
Sajith: Fascinating glimpse into an unusually-designed venture firm, structured like a company more than a fund, and one that is designed to look at sourcing and support not like the traditional venture fund, but more via analysing datasets and extracting signals from them, to both find (source), and then mind (support) these companies. Think Bridgewater but …