Et tu, Machine Learning?

The rationale behind the rapid rise of Machine Learning can be summarized in a simple analogy. Imagine you have just invented the Wheel. At first, the idea was to have a rolling mechanism to take your boulder from one place to another (lever!). Then, you realized you could put two of these things together and make a cart. Much farther downstream, came the use of potter's wheel, roller skates and a million uses in-between. Likewise, Machine Learning started off as an esoteric way for academicians to find meaningful patterns in scientific data. But soon, it turned into ML for housing, for language, for breaking down every problem into one that can be (if not now, then soon enough) solved by a computer - you just had to provide sufficient input data to 'train' the models. Like the now ubiquitous wheel before it, Machine Learning is all things to every thing. That's remarkable but also significantly broad that no one would complain about the lack of ambiguity.

I am working on my own series of articles that will take use cases engendered by ML and in doing so, enable a clear understanding of what problems ML can solve and what remain projects of the not too distant future.

A few briefs on corporate strategy

During the summer of 2012, I had written several pieces on corporate strategy as briefs. Putting these up for public consumption & review. I hope to do a lot more of these in the coming months with financial analysis (proof of pudding and all that...)

• Intel - ASML investment
• Epilog: TSMC recently sold its stake, netting a cool $660M in the process. Ratio analysis will show an improved financial leverage (FLEV) for TSMC.)
• Roku Brief
• Future of traditional Broadcast networks
• Brief on NBC

The design intention

I often come across discussions on tech topics spanning finance, strategy, and more lately, Design. Yes, that D-word. My first understanding of design, surprisingly, came from a Microsoft example. Before you wince, consider how Outlook started off as being so different from the rest of Microsoft products. All the data simply resided in the program, having created its own ecosystem of files/folders without the user having to save to the underlying operating system.

I was reminded of this intentional design choice today while thinking about the philosophy of the WhatsApp founders. Jan Kaum blogged about his intention to not sell ads on the platform, asking a simple question: "Have you considered the alternative?"

A staggering 70% of WhatsApps 450M users (100M in the last 4 months) use the application daily. Imagine the impact of a single design decision that sets your firm apart from a plethora of others offering similar services, in a sea of apps that drown any new comer to the 1M+ app market on any major platform. I love writing code in Matlab, R, Python - but I cannot imagine a block of code having this level of impact in the success of any of our creations.

The cardiology department of a hospital in India uses the service to share EKGs of at-risk patients with a group of doctors for immediate response. While Facebook, with close to 1B users, may have less than 25% active users in a month, the impact of WhatsApp is staggering. I'm inclined to think it's more than the code - it's the design intention.  

Comcast - TWC merger -- Winning a losing bet or last 'man' standing?

There will be a lot written about the Comcast - TimeWarner Cable merger. For those who are interested, read the excellent WSJ piece

Value chain of the media-telecom industry:

Does the merger give Comcast better market power? A $45B bet.

UC Berkeley Haas: Innovation at the core

The Mid-Program Academic Retreat (MPAR) held annually by Haas for their MBA students was eye-opening in terms of the quality of presentations. A group of over 240 EWMBAs and a smattering of full-time students gathered in the picturesque Silvarado Resort in Napa. The concept was brilliant and simple. It starts with the Haas curriculum that focuses strong on BILD. This flagship curriculum gives students the necessary tools to be innovative leaders in the outside world. When I was an exec MBA student there, this program was not a focus of our curriculum but I chose it as an elective and it turned into one of the most exciting and pragmatic classes I had taken at Haas. My own journey continued beyond the MBA but I loved the opportunities to support the school.

At Napa, the students were put in teams of 5-6 to work on developing products that emphasize growth opportunities not for one but two sponsors. These sponsors were: SAP, Citi, Ford, Kaiser, Panasonic, Verizon, and Nike. Each sponsoring company had provided their vision of how they wanted to shape the world and the teams were given the freedom to explore what would be the ideal product they should launch in 2-3 years.

Problem Finding Problem Solving (PFPS) is a framework most graduates of this prestigious programs would know quite well. During the winter break, the students had already done a bulk of the work: talking to the customers of each of these companies and, in an ethnographic study kind of way, developed insights into the problems that needed solving. Then, in the early and late hours of the weekend at Napa, they got to work as a team. Formulating conceptual storylines of products, running versions through the clients representing the sponsor companies, and eventually making their 10 minute pitch. I got to work with the SAP teams. From a group of 7 high quality finalists, the winning votes eventually selected SAP-Panasonic team's visionary idea of integrating data analytics into home appliances.  

"Einstein-Rosen Bridge" what?!

Science continues to blow the mind. According to a new theory, every black hole contains a smaller alternate universe. Instead of forming singularities, matter inside black holes pops out into a different universe through wormholes.

That's cool, you say. But this is the kicker: Our universe might just exist inside another, much larger universe. How? Short answer: Gamma rays. "These high energy bursts occur at the fringes of the known universe. They appear to be associated with supernovae, or star explosions, in faraway galaxies, but their exact sources are a mystery."

According to a publication in Physics Letter B, Indiana professor, Poplawski proposes that the bursts may be discharges of matter from alternate universes. The matter, he says, might be escaping into our universe through supermassive black holes—wormholes—at the hearts of those galaxies, though it's not clear how that would be possible. According to the article, it seems that we can probably test this theory by determining if our universe actually has a preferred rotational direction.

Details here: http://goo.gl/4u82

Fleeting ideas

minutes, hours, days

weeks, months, years

thoughts, lights, significance

memories, ideas, inspirations

time, space, everlasting change

nothing remains ever the same

it is in the spirit of Oneness

that we collect here and now

rest is a fleeting game

Ram-Rahim Roti

I was given a simple directive. At half-past 6, show up at kalpatru fruit market, near the Hanuman mandir. Joined by a US resident fellow on the trail of digging below the "surface" of India, I asked the rickshaw-wallah to take us there. It is located in the old part of Ahmedabad, beyond the lal-darwaja (that's the gate Maharaja Ahmed used to enter the then tiny city of Karnavati-nagari nearly 600 years ago), through the cacophonous maze of teeny-tiny gullies and jam-packed streets. 

Here is where the pujari of the temple, for over two decades, has been providing free food to all who come to his door. The concept is simple. You show up, you get food. No questions asked but love and smile offered unconditionally. We reached there to find a few people still getting their evening meal, sitting by the side of the road. The pujari lives in the temple itself, in one small room that has nothing but a 15" TV and a couple of mattresses on the side. The rest is a kitchen and a large backyard that's used to wash dishes. 

There are about dozen of us, many from local NGOs who have come to learn about this amazing man and his story. This story goes back to 1987 when riots between the two communities of Hindus and Muslims were frequent. At times like these cops usually leave it to the mauraders from both sides to sort it out, mostly ensuring that it does not get too out of hand. A bit passive but there was one inspector who went beyond his call of duty to engage with folks from both sides to ensure peace. 

He was murdered and the chilling effect was felt on both sides of the rift. In his memory, since that despicable event, this mandir has been serving out Ram-Rahim roti for all who come to the door for an evening meal. 

When we asked what was his motivation, he looked back with curious inquisitive eyes, almost as if talking to a child, "do we need one?"

Praan

From NY Times' David Pogue discussing perils of modern HD cameras in micro-gravity (induced in free-fall flights), I discovered a raging sensation of You-Tube, "Where the Hell is Matt" video, which made me curious about the song playing in the background, which led me to Rabindranath Tagore, which made me even more curious to discover the lyrics given below. Absolutely amazing stuff. 

(thanks to the anonymous poster who put this together)

Stream of Life

by Rabindranath Tagore

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day

runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

 

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth

and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

 

UPDATE:  Here are the words in Bengali from the composer’s blog

Praan Lyrics - Transliteration Some people have asked for this. So here you go. Bhulbona ar shohojete  Shei praan e mon uthbe mete Mrittu majhe dhaka ache je ontohin praan Bojre tomar baje bashi She ki shohoj gaan Shei shurete jagbo ami  (Repeat 3X) Shei jhor jeno shoi anonde Chittobinar taare Shotto-shundu dosh digonto Nachao je jhonkare! Bojre tomar baje bashi She ki shohoj gaan Shei shurete jagbo ami

Death and dying

I am not sure exactly what to feel. Sadness, anger, frustration - it's all welled up inside. One positive aspect of news reporting of the Mumbai killings is that the media is continually referring to the offenders as terrorists. I have been following this "terrorism" for such a long time that militant/freedom fighters are the only euphemistic monikers that I expect. This is a welcome change. 

Even so, for posteriy, I want to document an AP report:

"A police officer points out the spot where alleged terrorists are hiding to National Security Guard commandos outside a building housing a Jewish prayer hall which has been taken over by alleged terrorists at Colaba in Mumbai, India, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008. Teams of gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, a crowded train station and a Jewish center, killing people and holding Westerners hostage in coordinated attacks on India's commercial center that were blamed on Muslim militants.

(AP Photo/Saurabh Das)"

(italics emphasis mine)

Some things will never change.