One segment I have been absolutely upbeat is IT/Tech. Tech has always been the hidden moat for many companies - AP/BFL to name a few. Tech is no longer a vertical in market. It has become horizontal that cuts across every single vertical.

Be it Pharma/API, Finance, Insurance, Manufacturing, Retail, CD, or any other segment, Tech is going to give you edge over peers.
The spend on IT/Tech is going to increase stupendously in coming 4/5 years to levels we haven't even imagined. The investment in tech is going to help big get even bigger and put very hard survival barriers to new entrants.
BFL/HDFC Life from Fin/Insurance segment have one of the best tech platforms. IndiaMart relies on customer data monetization, Dmart has a very small but extremely strong team of data scientists
Even Nestle has very strong data scientist pool, Asian Paints story is well knows to everyone now. Not investing in IT/Tech is going to be your biggest mistake in investing journey.
If you think API/Pharma is in structural bull-run, Tech is on the next level. Pick right companies and just sit back!
Platform based companies know how best to monetize customer data. Retail companies like Dmart know how to slice customer segments are draw build demand & advance planning for days/months/years to come.
Nestle knowns which flavor in which segment (city/rural) in which area/locality would sell best. HDFC Life knows which profile, at what age is more prone to buy & continue paying premiums for the lifetime of the policy
To conclude: Do not take IT/Tech lightly. The IT spends going to go up. DeFi, FinTech are only going to intensify the spends.
Time to reach 50mn users is reducing at rapid pace. It took 68yrs for Airlines to have their first 50mn customers, 18 yrs for ATMs, 4 yrs for YouTube, and Pokemon Go took 19 days. Ref: HDFC Life Tech Insights
Only the payments segment is decently penetrated by PhonePe, Gpay, Amazon etc. Marketplace lending, Fintech Enablers, P2P lending, Insurance are still in early phase of tech revolution
The slice & consume approach is going to bring a lot many opportunities for tech startups. Unbundling of services will give rise to many companies, and even increased money flow in Fin/Tech/IT space
This will enrich digital/tech value chain across different segments such as consumer/insurance/pharma/services/retail/Auto etc.
The role of underwriter will go eventually once adoption of tech gets commoditized. The role of DP/Validator must go eventually as well.
The consumer experience will lead the way. People would want seamless experiences across different situations - be it work/leisure/personal. Whoever enables seamless consumer experience will have sticky customer base
The revolution that rocked enterprise software i.e. move from inside to outside (product to customer) also rock many companies including likes of HDFC Life/Dmart/Relaxo and many more. Names are not reco. Just for example
Digital assets will be on rise for all companies eventually as they continue to invest into core systems, enables, and consumption front.
With this, a lot of products will undergo on the fly transformations. Products will be made to suit individual customer and one product fit all time is now gone. Be it custom pricing algos or custom insurance products, cognitive platforms/algos will witness humongous rise
We are staring at scenario where we go from days to hours, and hours to minutes before a product is put together and consumed.
The next phase of growth will come from channels that were not existent earlier, enabled by technologies that were not used earlier. Hence, spend on tech is only way to accelerate growth & lead on.
For e.g. Swiggy integrating into OLA is one example of new channels based growth. Or purchasing a smartphone and bundling an insurance along. Platforms will provide some amazing integration capabilities to whoever is ready to grab such opportunities.
Embedded Finance/Insurance is already present in India & have integrated at platforms level quiet well. See those add insurance while you buy air ticket or a smartphone? That is embedded insurance
Taking example of insurance & how tech can being in growth: Automation in claim settlements can bring in as high as 30% reduction in costs - You don't need underwriter/claim validation officers
Companies will look to avoid risks rather than fighting to mitigate risks. Reason? - Tech will enable insights/analytics to such finer levels that you can actually know how to avoid risk. Earlier, such insights were unknown
Insurance companies are only spending 2% of their innovation efforts on claims automation, while distribution remains highest at 9%. Imagine the growth lined up ahead.
New data will give rise to new insights which will in turn give rise to new products and new business models, companies will transform from traditional insurance to InsureTech, Financials to FinTech
Even companies that haven't digitized their core yet can double their profits in 5 yrs only by digitizing existing business (even if we say now new business growth comes in)
We are at a tipping point in digital revolution where big becomes bigger, and laggards/late adopters will eventually die. So go back to your PF and see where does your company fits in.
As Tom king says - “It doesn’t matter how much business you sell today, it’s whether or not you can identify where [future] profits and losses lie, and what you need to jettison.”
And when we look back at companies now with this context, how on earth businesses such as Dmart/Bajaj/HDFC Life/Relaxo are expensive? Not at all. Change your perspective else you will forever remain at sidelines

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A common misunderstanding about Agile and “Big Design Up Front”:

There’s nothing in the Agile Manifesto or Principles that states you should never have any idea what you’re trying to build.

You’re allowed to think about a desired outcome from the beginning.

It’s not Big Design Up Front if you do in-depth research to understand the user’s problem.

It’s not BDUF if you spend detailed time learning who needs this thing and why they need it.

It’s not BDUF if you help every team member know what success looks like.

Agile is about reducing risk.

It’s not Agile if you increase risk by starting your sprints with complete ignorance.

It’s not Agile if you don’t research.

Don’t make the mistake of shutting down critical understanding by labeling it Bg Design Up Front.

It would be a mistake to assume this research should only be done by designers and researchers.

Product management and developers also need to be out with the team, conducting the research.

Shared Understanding is the key objective


Big Design Up Front is a thing to avoid.

Defining all the functionality before coding is BDUF.

Drawing every screen and every pixel is BDUF.

Promising functionality (or delivery dates) to customers before development starts is BDUF.

These things shouldn’t happen in Agile.

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This is a pretty valiant attempt to defend the "Feminist Glaciology" article, which says conventional wisdom is wrong, and this is a solid piece of scholarship. I'll beg to differ, because I think Jeffery, here, is confusing scholarship with "saying things that seem right".


The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?
Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇

It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details):
https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha

I've read it so you needn't!

Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.

The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.

Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.
I'm going to do two history threads on Ethiopia, one on its ancient history, one on its modern story (1800 to today). 🇪🇹

I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):


The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹


Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹


References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹
1. Project 1742 (EcoHealth/DTRA)
Risks of bat-borne zoonotic diseases in Western Asia

Duration: 24/10/2018-23 /10/2019

Funding: $71,500
@dgaytandzhieva
https://t.co/680CdD8uug


2. Bat Virus Database
Access to the database is limited only to those scientists participating in our ‘Bats and Coronaviruses’ project
Our intention is to eventually open up this database to the larger scientific community
https://t.co/mPn7b9HM48


3. EcoHealth Alliance & DTRA Asking for Trouble
One Health research project focused on characterizing bat diversity, bat coronavirus diversity and the risk of bat-borne zoonotic disease emergence in the region.
https://t.co/u6aUeWBGEN


4. Phelps, Olival, Epstein, Karesh - EcoHealth/DTRA


5, Methods and Expected Outcomes
(Unexpected Outcome = New Coronavirus Pandemic)