Ryan Mascarenhas

Live, Learn, Teach - credo of a Learning Enabler, Doting Dad, Lovestruck Husband, History & Politics Junkie and student for life.

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

@EurekaforbesIN CM-041026-79599317

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

Very disappointed with @EurekaforbesIN service. Technician came 3 days late, tried to upsell another machine instead of fixing current one and left the tap broken and machine non functional. Promised to return and didn't. Call center not returning calls either.

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

@NateSilver538 This cycle on average the polls maybe fine but would still miss in states with large percentage of such voters (eg.Kansas could still see a miss)

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

@NateSilver538 It basically looks like polls have a tough time reaching republican leaning low propensity voters. Years where they turn out disproportionately (which would include an anti Obama 2014 surge) polls are likely to be off.

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

@AliceFromQueens I think she takes her shot at the White House. Obama at this point in 2006 did not have a much bigger profile than she does now. And like him, she got to figure that democrats will win the WH which means she won't be able to run till 2036. She'd be young enough but why not try 28

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

@admcrlsn Kansas and Kentucky are still possibilities right?

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

@riiuclas8 @lxeagle17 WI, MN, MI and VA have split control. NJ hasn't much scope to increase dem seats anyway.

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

@lxeagle17 +Hundred million dollars in targeted advertising may actually be good for something?

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

@lxeagle17 @ClickBait6969 Can confirm its viewable with a free account

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

@lxeagle17 On pure competence, whether in winning elections or running governments, one side is the clear winner today. Its not saying much ....... given the competition, but there it is.

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

@lxeagle17 Not right wing, right of center. Thats why the squad scares them more than the freedom causus.... They are further away on the ideology line from most people despite both being equally far fom the center.

[Ankur Warikoo @warikoo]

The only investing principles you need to ever know.

1/ Not investing means you are destroying the value of your money. Because inflation every year makes things expensive!

[David Senra @FoundersPodcast]

Lessons Steve Jobs wanted to pass on.

Written right before he died.

In his own words:

1. ON BUILDING A REAL COMPANY:

I hate it when people call themselves “entrepreneurs” when what they’re really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on.

They’re unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business.

That’s how you really make a contribution and add to the legacy of those who went before.

You build a company that will still stand for something a generation or two from now.

That’s what Walt Disney did, and Hewlett and Packard, and the people who built Intel.

They created a company to last, not just to make money.

That’s what I want Apple to be.

2. ON TASTE OVER MARKET RESEARCH:

Some people say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that’s not my approach.

Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do.

Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!'"

People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.

That’s why I never rely on market research.

Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.

3. ON COMBINING IDEAS FROM DIFFERENT FIELDS:

Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science.

I like that intersection.

There’s something magical about that place.

There are a lot of people innovating, and that’s not the main distinction of my career.

The reason Apple resonates with people is that there’s a deep current of humanity in our innovation.

I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a desire to express themselves.

In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side.

In the seventies computers became a way for people to express their creativity.

Great artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were also great at science.

Michelangelo knew a lot about how to quarry stone, not just how to be a sculptor.

4. ON KNOWING WHY YOUR CUSTOMERS PAY YOU:

People pay us to integrate things for them, because they don’t have the time to think about this stuff 24/7.

If you have an extreme passion for producing great products, it pushes you to be integrated, to connect your hardware and your software and content management.

You want to break new ground, so you have to do it yourself.

5. ON WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SHIFT THE FOCUS FROM GREAT PRODUCTS TO MORE SALES:

I have my own theory about why decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft.

The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important.

The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and designers.

So the salespeople end up running the company.

John Akers at IBM was a smart, eloquent, fantastic salesperson, but he didn’t know anything about product.

The same thing happened at Xerox.

When the sales guys run the company, the product guys don’t matter so much, and a lot of them just turn off.

6. ON GREAT PRODUCTS BEING THE FOUNDATION OF AN ENDURING COMPANY:

My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products.

Everything else was secondary.

Sure, it was great to make a profit, because that was what allowed you to make great products.

But the products, not the profits, were the motivation.

Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money.

It’s a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything: the people you hire, who gets promoted, what you discuss in meetings.

7. ON BEING HONEST AND DIRECT WITH YOUR TEAM:

I don’t think I run roughshod over people, but if something sucks, I tell people to their face.

It’s my job to be honest.

I know what I’m talking about, and I usually turn out to be right.

That’s the culture I tried to create.

We are brutally honest with each other, and anyone can tell me they think I am full of shit and I can tell them the same.

And we’ve had some rip-roaring arguments, where we are yelling at each other, and it’s some of the best times I’ve ever had.

I feel totally comfortable saying “Ron, that store looks like shit” in front of everyone else.

Or I might say “God, we really fucked up the engineering on this” in front of the person that’s responsible.

That’s the ante for being in the room: You’ve got to be able to be super honest.

8. ON KEEPING THE TEAM EXCELLENT

I was hard on people sometimes, probably harder than I needed to be.

I remember the time when Reed (his son) was six years old, coming home, and I had just fired somebody that day, and I imagined what it was like for that person to tell his family and his young son that he had lost his job.

It was hard.

But somebody’s got to do it.

I figured that it was always my job to make sure that the team was excellent, and if I didn’t do it, nobody was going to do it.

9. ON TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE GREAT WORK THAT WAS CREATED BEFORE YOU:

What drove me?

I think most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the work that’s been done by others before us.

I didn’t invent the language or mathematics I use.

I make little of my own food, none of my own clothes.

Everything I do depends on other members of our species and the shoulders that we stand on.

And a lot of us want to contribute something back to our species and to add something to the flow.

It’s about trying to express something in the only way that most of us know how.

We try to use the talents we do have to express our deep feelings, to show our appreciation of all the contributions that came before us, and to add something to that flow.

That’s what has driven me.

10. ON CONSTANT REFINEMENT AND PERPETUAL MOTION:

You always have to keep pushing to innovate.

Dylan could have sung protest songs forever and probably made a lot of money, but he didn’t.

He had to move on, and when he did, by going electric in 1965, he alienated a lot of people.

His 1966 Europe tour was his greatest. He would come on and do a set of acoustic guitar, and the audiences loved him.

Then he brought out what became The Band, and they would all do an electric set, and the audience sometimes booed.

There was one point where he was about to sing “Like a Rolling Stone” and someone from the audience yells “Judas!”

And Dylan then says, “Play it fucking loud!”

And they did. The Beatles were the same way.

They kept evolving, moving, refining their art.

That’s what I’ve always tried to do—keep moving. Otherwise, as Dylan says, if you’re not busy being born, you’re busy dying.

[JM Alvarez-Pallete @jmalvpal]

#sinpalabras / vía @ValaAfshar

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

@mattyglesias @PoliticalKiwi Critique his underlying point please. He would be able to pass a law only with the House and a 60 vote pro choice Supermajority in the senate. There is no scenario under which that is possible.

[DBS Bank India @DBSBankIndia]

Cheers to the dreamers and doers on #NationalStartupDay! 🚀

Did you know? As of 3rd October 2023, India proudly boasts 111 unicorns, each a shining testament to innovation and perseverance. Here's to fostering more ground-breaking success stories!

#DBSBankIndia #DBSMoment

[Fascinating @fasc1nate]

"When I told my father I was going to marry Jake he said, ‘If you marry that man you will never set foot in this house again.’⁣
⁣
He was horrified that I could contemplate marrying a black man, and I soon learned that most people felt the same way. The first years of our marriage living in Birmingham were hell — I cried every day, and barely ate. No one would speak to us, we couldn’t find anywhere to live because no one would rent to a black man, and we had no money.⁣
⁣
People would point at us in the street. Then I gave birth to a stillborn son at eight months. It wasn’t related to the stress I was under but it broke my heart, and we never had any more children.⁣
⁣
We were at the same technical college. I was having typing and shorthand lessons and he’d been sent there for training by the Air Force. He was with a group of black friends and they called my friend and me over to talk. We didn’t even know they spoke English, but Jake and I got chatting. He quoted Shakespeare to me, which I loved.⁣
⁣
Jake returned to Trinidad, but we carried on writing to each other, and a few years later he returned to the UK to get better paid work.⁣
⁣
He asked me to marry him, quite out of the blue, when I was only 19. My father threw me out, and I left with only one small suitcase to my name. No family came to our register office wedding in 1948.⁣
⁣
But gradually life became easier. I got teaching jobs, ending up as a deputy head teacher. First Jake worked in a factory, then for the Post Office.⁣
Slowly we made friends together, but it was so hard. I used to say to new friends: ‘Look, I have to tell you this before I invite you to my home — my husband is black.’⁣
⁣
My father died when I was 30 and although we were reconciled by then, he never did approve of Jake.⁣
⁣
Today we have been married for 63 years, and are still very much in love. I do not regret marrying him for an instant, despite all the pain we have suffered."

[Susan 💙,🧱 @flames_250]

@fasc1nate Social Media Vs Real life

[Harry Stebbings @HarryStebbings]

This is one of the best speeches you will hear.

Spend the 6 minutes to watch it, you will not regret it. 👇

[Ryan Mascarenhas @ryanmasc]

@ShekharGupta @MainaBismee One unfortunate side effect - as it is people filter out information they disagree with like whether their favorite candidate said something racist. Now even if evidence is presented, people can dismiss it as a deepfake. While choosing to believe actual deepfakes that they like.