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Monkeys on Wall Street

 Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and announced to the  villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each. The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He next announced that he would now buy monkeys at $20 each. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50 each! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would buy on his behalf.  In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: 'Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has already collected. I...

Global X Interview

Global X interviews Rahul Barkataky, founder of the Community Friendly Movement in New Delhi. CFM creates a global market for handmade ... http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/global-x/archive/2008/01/15/rahul-bartaky

Welfare over Wages

An article on Mint featuring my first start up- MITRA Technology Foundation IRMA graduates Nainwal, Shalabh Sahai and Rahul Barkataky set up iVolunteer—a skill exchange for voluntary work http://www.livemint.com/2008/07/18235343/Welfare-over-wages.html

God and me

For some strange reason we as a nation tends to forget this great philosopher When I Asked God for Strength, He Gave Me Difficult Situations to Face When I Asked God for Brain & Brown, He Gave Me Puzzles in life to Solve When I Asked God for Happiness, He Showed Me Some Unhappy People When I Asked God for Wealth, He Showed Me How to Work Hard When I Asked God for Favors, He Showed Me opportunities to Work Hard When I Asked God for Peace, He Showed Me How to Help Others God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted, He Gave Me Everything I Needed - Swami Vivekananda

Steve Jobs Convocation Speech

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005. I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a ...

Jeff Skoll Convocation Speech

Convocation Speech Delivered at University of TorontoBy Jeff Skoll, 06.18.03 Thank you, Dr Dellandrea, for the wonderful introduction and thank you to Chancellor Jackman, President Birgeneau, Dean Martin, Dean Venetsanopoulos and the University for conferring upon me this honorary doctorate. Finally, my mother can say "my son, the doctor." Better still, since this is a doctorate of Laws, my mother can also say "my son, the lawyer." Since I'm already an Engineer, I think that completes the proud mother trifecta. Speaking of proud mothers, this day truly belongs to those of you who are graduating today and to your families. You have come to the fruition of many years of hard work and you should be proud of what you have accomplished. But keep in mind that none of us made it here entirely on our own. We had the support of this university, a society and culture that values education and, in particular, we had the help and encouragement of our parents and families. S...

Upgrade yourself from the world of coding-An interesting article on Career Building

How does one build a successful technical career? SUBROTO BAGCHI gives you the nine key factors. THE other day, I met a bright young engineer in MindTree and asked him what his ambition was. He was very clear. "I want to be an architect". My next question to him was, what does he read? He looked surprised and then replied that he does not read much outside what appears on a computer screen. My next question to him was whom all does he admire in MindTree among the three best architects? He named the predictable three. Then I told him what the fundamental gap was between him and the best three. It was about the ability to make intelligent conversation about any subject under the sun - a capability borne out of serious reading habits. The next thing I asked him to do was to poll these three on what were the six books they had read last. The result was amazing. The three named eighteen books in all - of which at least six were common. Ninety percent of the books had nothing to do...