Since "at 22" is trending and I coincidentally changed my profile picture to this on facebook yesterday, here I am at 22 back in 1984 and in my final year at university. 1/14

1/ new essay: What's next for marketplace startups? Reinventing the $10 trillion service economy, that's what. Co-authored with @ljin18 https://t.co/fgKbrHTnH5. A short thread 👇

2/ Marketplace startups have done incredibly well over the first few decades of the internet, reinventing the way we shop for goods, but have been less successful services. It's bc services are complex, subjective, fragmented, and often in real life. Makes it hard

3/ There's been 4 major eras at making the service economy work online. The Listings Era, the unbundled Craiglist era, the Uber for X era, and the Managed Marketplace era

4/ Each era has added more value than the last, and utilized technology innovations, from internet to social / "read/write web" to mobile. The "Unbundling Craigslist" era was particularly epic at generating startup ideas

5/ The problem is, all the low-hanging fruit has been picked off. The techniques that got us to here won't get us to the next phase. So we have to do some pretty different things. That's why "Managed Marketplaces" have been a big deal - hire folks as W-2s, certify quality, etc.

You want to buy a house.

You take a loan from the bank.

The bank asks you, “what if you don’t pay back?”

You say, “take my home and sell it”.

(Thread)

That makes sense. The bank gives you a loan and in case you don’t pay, the bank will take over your house and sell it and recover its money.

That’s collateral.

Banks also lend money to big corporations. With them, banks don’t always have collateral.

So a loan where the bank has collateral is considered safer for the bank.

In the early 2000s, the banks in the USA were giving out loans to people for buying houses.

The economy had just recovered from the tech bubble in 2000 where many banks had given out loans to businesses that had shut down.

In that backdrop, the banks found giving home loans safer.

ADI SHANKAR AND SRI TOTAKACHARYA

Adi Shankaracharya chose his disciple Totakacharya to be the first head of the Math at Joshimath.
The Narsingh Mandir (Mandir of Sri Narasimha) in Joshimath is one of the 108 Divyadesams and also the home of Badrinath during the winter months.

Totakacharya was earlier a boy named ‘Giri’ and a devout disciple of Adi Shankaracharya. Unlike others, he was not known to be an expert in Shastras but his dedication to his Guru was complete and he used to listen to His discourses with utmost faith and devotion.
@SriRamya21

One morning as Adi Shankara and his disciples were getting ready for the discourse, Giri was delayed. The other disciples urged their Guru to commence the lesson on Bramhsutra Bhashya telling him that Giri would anyway not be able to comprehend its deep meaning.
@RajeAiyer

Adi Shankar responded “नायमात्मा प्रवचनेन लभ्यो न मेधया” – Atman cannot be attained through discourses or mere intellect.
He,then, awakened the supreme knowledge in Giri.
Giri spontaneously composed: श्री शङ्करदेशिकाष्टकम् extolling his Guru’s grace.

Adi Shankaracharya granted sanyasa to Giri and gave him the name Totakacharya.
The story of how Giri became Totakacharya is a great example of the importance of faith and devotion in your Guru and not the mere knowledge of the Shastras.
@DetheEsha

Okay look - I didn’t grow up with comic books. But I read stacks of science fiction digests and I kit-bashed model cars into fantasy rods, and just tried to maintain a low profile until I could get out of the house. So you could say I’m a distant cousin of the comic book fan. /1

And sometimes one’s childhood passion follows them into adulthood, sometimes not, sometimes as an adult one finds a passion they never had as a child and embraces it. For me, that must include getting involved with a puppet show at the age of thirty. /2

So who’s to say whose passion’s legitimate and whose is bogus? Nobody. Someone might indict your passion but they have no ground to stand on and should be dismissed out of hand. /3

Maybe they’re envious that you have a passion, maybe they think that their passion is cooler than yours, or maybe they’re just insecure, who knows. Doesn’t matter. /4

What matters is that if something gives you joy, and in the process doesn’t hurt others, then by all means follow it. It’s how we explore our secret hopes, our shadow sides, our inner character. /5