Saturday, August 1, 2020

Why is delegation important

Target Audience 

M1s(Line Manager 1s), TLMs(Tech Lead Managers), PM(Product Managers)


Inability to delegate properly can be a big bottleneck for scaling for first line managers / TLMs. Also it may be an under-appreciated skill until it is needed during crunch time. Delegation is an art and in order to be able to delegate properly managers need to build a bench around them.

The above is the picture of a Mount Arat in Armenia. As you scale your career, imagine that you are climbing that mountain. When you are at the bottom, you had the closest view, details and granularity of problems at hand. As you climb up the mountain, you lose some of the details but you gain perspective from the height. You can see some nearby peaks, understand some of the problems they are solving and relay that information to the troops who are below you.

Now often times you will need to get information about your peak from the bottom. If you can delegate appropriately, you can get the information in the most efficient way while growing the people reporting to you. If you cannot delegate appropriately, you will have to run up and down the top of the mountain everytime you need more details. This way you will lose your view of the surrounding mountains(your collaboration commitments will drop). You will also get tired and burnt out if you have to run up and down the mountains too many times.


Sunday, July 26, 2020

India Covid Estimates

On the day of this writing, July 26th, India has 14lakh covid cases


Goal

There are several people stuck in foreign countries who are making tradeoffs about flights, timing, travel, medicines. The goal of this post is to help people plan their lives by laying out how the future is looking like from here. 

I made one of the earliest predictions of first hundred cases in bay area which helped some people realize what is coming : https://siliconvalleystories.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-in-bay-area.html


Projections

july - 16 lakhs
aug - 40 lakhs
sept - 1crore
oct - 2-2.5 crore
nov - 4-5 crore
dec - 8-10 crore

Assumptions

  • Doubling rate is 20 days
  • Testing rate continues to support CFR around 2.5-3%, so India will scale testing as the cases grow 
  • They dont do renewed country wide lockdowns

How to hold compounders


  1. Think of stock ownership as a percentage partnership in the business
  2. Good businesses with strong revenue growth and high profit margins will seldom come cheap at a discount, you will get them expensive
  3. Focus on moats 
  4. Keep time on your side, a great business with >20% revenue growth may start to look like a bargain after holding for 2 years
  5. Dont sell the stock if it reaches a certain price
  6. Keep re-evaluating the moat erosion or new moat creation and not the stock price
  7. Double down on future discounts
  8. Remember that you are always in the eight innings of a never ending game, as look as you can maintain that perspective, you will do well in the long term
  9. Remember the price can go higher than you can imagine when there is irrational exuberance. 

Funny Template Jokes

Software Engineers

  1. I have a joke on selection sort, but it will take a lot of time to tell it
  2. I have a joke on Djkstra's algorithm, but I am finding the shortest path to tell it
  3. I have a joke on Dynamic Programming, but I forgot to memorize it
Society
  1. I have a joke on universal healthcare, but not everyone will get it
  2. I have a joke on Covid, but I dont want anyone to get it
  3. I have a joke on trickle down economics, but 99% of you will never get it


Design interview questions - FAANG

Interview Questions

  1. How would you design Instagram
  2. How would you design Messenger
  3. How would you design a Microsoft Word/Microsoft Excel
  4. How would you design Youtube
  5. How would you build the backend of Google Search
  6. How would you design Uber's Marketplace
  7. How would you build a News Feed
  8. How would you design and distributed key value store / Cassandra ? 
  9. How would you build a load balancer ? 
Reading Material

Preparation References

Saturday, July 25, 2020

The 5 biggest forces in the financial markets

These 5 forces are logarithmically decreasing from top to bottom. 
    • Federal Reserve
    Here is the Federal reserve balance sheet from 2008. S&P500 indexed over the FED balance sheet is at 2010. So we are in a recession, we have lost a decade. The market does reflect the economy adjusted by Fed balance sheet.

    The mother of all asset bubbles is coming. 

    • US Congress
    • Big Tech (FAANGs)
    • US Dollar
    • Vanguard (Buy and hold, buy the dip investors)

    Collection of Investment Letters during Covid


    1. 2020 Q2 Bronte Capital letter
    2. Warren Buffet on the stock market in 1999
    3. Which way now - Howard Marks
    4. Ballie Gifford's letter
    5. Blog on kelly criterion
    6. Timing the bottom
    7. The market indexed to the Fed balance sheet
    8. vltvafund june 2020

    Life in Quotes

    Here is my list of favorites. Please comment with your favorite quote below and I will add the top ones to this page.


    1. Never let a good crisis go to waste


    A tale of two halves - Big Tech Earnings 2020 Q1

    How not to do layoffs

    Books I am reading