This is the population-theoretic form of: if you open your mind too wide your brain falls out.
People who are au fait with machine learning or statistics will recognise this class of error as ‘overfitting’ to the training sample.
"The pattern is clear: the Midwest is punching above its weight, with places like Indianapolis & Columbus seeing strong inflows" [Bank of America Institute] https://t.co/I72T5U8KBO
I grew up in a small town and studied in a Tier 2 college. When I came to Bengaluru, it was honestly quite scary. Every day, I carried this feeling that maybe I did not belong here. Maybe people would make fun of my accent, my English, my appearance, or something else. There was always an underlying anxiety about meeting new people and stepping out of my comfort zone.
I remember one particular incident when I was looking for a job. I attended an interview that included a group discussion round. The interviewers divided us into two teams and asked us to debate whether Coke was better than Pepsi.
I was completely confused.
In my mind, both were just sugary soft drinks. What exactly was there to debate?
So I decided to sit back, listen, and understand what everyone else was saying before I spoke.
Soon, all these Bangalore convent educated boys and girls started passionately arguing. One side was explaining why Coke was better. The other side was defending Pepsi. Everyone seemed so confident, so articulate, and so comfortable expressing their opinions.
Meanwhile, I just sat there nodding.
"Yeah, that makes sense."
"Yes, that's a good point."
I remained an observer throughout the discussion.
The truth is, I never felt confident enough to collect my thoughts and speak. I was always worried that I would say something foolish and become the subject of jokes.
Naturally, I did not get selected. They thanked me for attending and asked me to leave.
While talking to @ponnappa on @mundhebanni podcast, I was immediately reminded of experiences like these. When he spoke about breaking stereotypes and challenging the invisible rules we create for ourselves, I could deeply relate to it.
Many of these limitations are not imposed by others. They exist inside our own minds. We subconsciously convince ourselves that we are not good enough, not smart enough, not fluent enough, or simply not meant to be in certain rooms.
What Sidu talks about is the importance of breaking those internal barriers and becoming someone who is willing to take on new challenges, explore new possibilities, and reinvent themselves.
For me, this was a very special episode because Sidu was able to articulate something that is deeply internal.
The journey of an entrepreneur is ultimately an internal journey. It is about understanding yourself, confronting your fears, questioning your assumptions, and constantly evolving as a person.
What is actually needed to unlock that potential is something Sidu explains with remarkable clarity in this episode.
This is a must watch episode, and I highly recommend it to everyone.
Go ahead and watch it. Link in the first reply.
"electrons are monogamous"
"what do you mean?"
"you can only have two of them in a given orbital"
"why does that happen?"
"because of the poly exclusion principle"
Whether one ends up with Deng or Pol Pot is a pure luck. What democracy offers is a corrective mechanism to mitigate against the excesses. Unfortunately, post-war democratic states have found it very difficult to accumulate sufficient state capacity needed for rapid socio-economic transformation because of structural constraints. Ultimately, this is a the difference between the India and China stories is a difference of state capacity. A Narendra Modi might be more successful in China than a Deng Xiaoping in India.
@praveenswami is right. China spent decades under Mao with a lower PCI than India. Leadership and state capacity both matter.