Suresh Shanmugam

Ajay Shah makes a great point in the context of family run businesses that effective management is one of the best reasons for thriving PE industry in India.

To quote him:

This evidence encourages a style of private equity investing: where the investor takes a controlling stake in the firm and brings in the necessary knowledge and human resources to achieve business transformation. This is a lot of work when compared with an investor who only puts in capital. But if the core impediment to progress is the stasis of a family-run company, then this could be of essence.

Read the entire article here.

What does your job entail?

I am an analyst for a long short equity hedge fund. My main responsibility is to advise my portfolio manager on investment decisions. This involves forecasting earnings and valuing companies based on my primary research.

Do you have any specific areas of focus?

My sector focus is industrials (Capital Goods), which is extremely broad. Within industrials, I am currently focused on aerospace, defense and diversified engineering companies. On my personal interest, I also track technology sector especially internet companies.

Did anything draw you specifically to industrials/tech as a sector?

Being an analyst requires you to stay on your toes and achieve a very comprehensive understanding of industry players and sector dynamics. It is often learning about these companies’ products and the science behind them, not just their financial statements.

What skills are emphasized in the work that you do?

I think it’s very important to be a patient listener and a fast learner when you are picking up new concepts. You have to be methodical as well - sometimes you will spend quite some time learning the ins and outs of a sector or the particulars of a company before you can really get an edge.  Diligence is probably the most important attribute for any analyst. It is very easy to lose the trust of your superior by messing up some minor detail, and once you have lost that trust, it can be hard to move back into a position where you have had the same responsibilities as you had before.

I got a new phone - Samsung i7500 Galaxy. Looks like it is going to be more fun than my older phones.

1. Samsung i7500 Galaxy runs the Android 1.5 platform. So I downloaded the sdk tools from google and then followed their readme to get started with getting the 1.5 platform specific downloads on my mac.

2. I got the Galaxy skin from rexxar, for better looks. Got eclipse and ran couple of examples on the phone.

Now I need to implement couple of ideas for the phone, first the indian real time stock market app in similar lines to google finance app and notes app which is simple enough and syncs with my dropbox account.

Quieting the lizard brain

How can I explain the never ending irrationality of human behavior?

We say we want one thing, then we do another. We say we want to be successful but we sabotage the job interview. We say we want a product to come to market, but we sandbag the shipping schedule. We say we want to be thin but we eat too much. We say we want to be smart but we skip class or don’t read the book the boss lent us.

The contradictions never end. When someone shows up and acts without contradictions, we are amazed. When an athlete just does the sport, or when a writer just writes the words, we can’t help but watch, astonished at the purity of their actions. Why is it so difficult to do what we say we are going to do?

The lizard brain. Or as Steven Pressfield describes it, the resistance. The resistance is the voice in the back of our head telling us to back off, be careful, go slow, compromise. The resistance is writer’s block and putting jitters and every project that ever shipped late because people couldn’t stay on the same page long enough to get something out the door.

The resistance grows in strength as we get closer to shipping, as we get closer to an insight, as we get closer to the truth of what we really want. That is because the lizard hates change and achievement and risk.

The lizard is a physical part of your brain, the pre-historic lump near the brain stem that is responsible for fear and rage and reproductive drive. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because her lizard brain told her to.

Want to know why so many companies can’t keep with Apple? It’s because they compromise, have meetings, work to fit in, fear the critics and generally work to appease the lizard. Meetings are just one symptom of an organization run by the lizard brain. Late launches, middle of the road products and the rationalization that goes with them are others.

The amygdala isn’t going away. Your lizard brain is here to stay, and your job is to figure out how to quiet it and ignore it. This is so important, I wanted to put it on the cover of my new book. We realized though, that the lizard brain is freaked out by a picture of itself, and if you want to sell books to someone struggling with the resistance (that would be all of us) best to keep it a little more on the down low.

Now you have seen the icon and you know its name. What are you going to do about it?

Seek truth with open eyes. Courageously accept your discoveries and their consequences. Rid your life of falsehood, denial, and fear of what is. Make truth your ally, not your enemy. This isn’t easy, but it is correct.

Share your love openly. Connect with yourself and others by tuning in to the connection that already exists. The risk of rejection is overshadowed by the rewards of loving connections. Whenever you feel disconnected, reach out and connect with another human being. Remember that you’re always loved.

Fully develop your human abilities, and use your power in honorable service for the highest good of all. False power corrupts, but true power elevates. The more you resonate with truth and love, the greater your ability to wield power wisely. No one is served by your refusal to shine.

Embrace your unique path of growth. Use your intellect and emotions to guide you in the conscious pursuit of truth, love, and power. Invest in creative self-expression, service, and contribution, and you will suffer no scarcity. Your greatest gift to the world is to share who you really are.

Enjoy your incredible human journey. Accept the highs and the lows as equally valuable. Recognize that your deepest sorrows reveal your greatest joys. Share your stories with others, and know that you’re not alone. Be grateful for your time on earth.