FTOTW ending Jan 20, 2007 – $MM, Yahoo, Martin Luther King Jr., Mukesh Ambani…

1. I have always believed that if a critical mass of owners of  under-leveraged properties get together and do a collective sell-out, a lot of money could be made. Here is a story of a town full of trailer homes (mobile homes) who sold their town to a real estate developer and are going to make a 1MM$ each. I wonder if all the road side clunky-old tea shops and other poorly leveraged property owners in India occupying premium localities could band together and do a similar sell-out and make a lot of money. <trailer home story spotted by Priya Raju>. 2. How Yahoo got clusterf***ed? lots of change management lessons in this story of how Yahoo blew its leadership. 3. Did you know that Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech was an impromptu one!  It is in my mind the best speech ever delivered on this planet and the  fact that it was delivered extemporaneously makes it even more amazing. Every time I hear it, it wells up my eyes and fills me with hope. Follow the link for the story as well the text of the entire speech. <Via Scott Berkun/Zugbot> Flashback: I had linked to the audio version of MLK’s speech a while ago. 4. Contrary to popular belief that India invented zero, it appears Sumerians invented zero 5000 years ago. Anyone has any thoughts on this? Looks like India’s major contribution to the world has been stripped of its glory. 5. Mukesh Ambani’s brilliant speech – Rediff.com carried this 3-part interview. I have never seen an Indian businessman speak with such passion and brilliant insights. Specifically look at the part where he is talking about increasing the Indian farmer’s income by 900%.  It is these types of business ideas that can bring India’s 500 million people mired in abject poverty out of it. I have always believed that Mukesh and Anil were simply riding their brilliant father Dhirubhai Ambani‘s coattails. But this interview shows that Mukesh is a brilliant businessman in his own right. <Via Sridhar Iyer>

Comments

  1. Anonymous said January 28, 2007, 7:19 am:

    I thought the decimal system with base 10 itself was invented by Indians. Does this mean this system was invented by Sumerians?

  2. Anonymous said January 29, 2007, 11:25 am:

    Archana,

    Good question. from what i know the decimal system was invented in India. This article is talking about the invention of zero alone.

  3. Anonymous said January 29, 2007, 8:45 pm:

    We cannot have a decimal system without 0, right?

  4. Anonymous said January 30, 2007, 2:47 pm:

    A recent ACM cover story on services science had this line….If ‘The Graduate’ were shot today, the line would have been,’there is great future in services’.
    Thats almost exactly what Mukesh is doing with agriculture.

  5. Anonymous said January 31, 2007, 1:09 am:

    Archana,

    You are right. But this Sciam article is questioning the invention of zero. If this article is correct, zero was invented atleast 1000 years before it was used in India. The decimal system, as far as I know did originate in India but it is dated around 6th century AD. I need to some research on this.

    Kesava,

    interesting analogy. I think Mukesh’s idea of first enhancing the purchasing power of the farmers and then selling them stuff is brilliant.