"I got the blues" look from couturious

A Catalog of Nature

American Museum of Natural History in NYC
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13964815@N00/3312907424/sizes/l/

Tahoe - I am here

Nishant and I were in South Lake Tahoe this weekend and what a great trip it was. Its a beautiful place, serene, refreshing - I feel so rejuvenated after this trip, very much needed after my Vegas hangover from last weekend.

This being my first visit to Tahoe, I was looking fwd to it but I was surprised by its sheer beauty. After visiting Maldives, I was thinking - "How beautiful can a Lake get, right?". We got to bask in the Tahoe beauty on a sunny Saturday morning when the lake was showing off its ultramarine and turquoise blue colors. Clear, not so salty and not so chilly water looked very inviting and we decided to book ourselves some water sports for Sunday morning. Saturday was a 2mile hike to the Eagle Lake which is right next to the Emerald Lake. Its a short but steep hike, the heat and the hike both sapped a ton of my energy. But it was completely worth it. The Eagle Lake nestled amongst the mountains was so enchanting. OF course, my hike last year in Melakwa Lake (Seattle) was much much more beautiful, but this had its own charm. The weather was warm enought to dip your feet in the lake water.

Next day, the not so cheap parasailing and jet skiing was on the agenda. We were in the same boat as 4 other young girls for Parasailing...I felt old!!! It was a fabulous experience as we flew in tandem in the air. Breathtaking views of Tahoe along with the quiet - great combination, one of the best moments in the entire trip. The staff at the Timber Cove Marina were also excellent. This was followed by jet skis. Unfortunately while riding, the jet ski toppled, we fell into the lake and we were not strong enough to overturn it, thats when one of the other jet ski riders came along as an angel and helped us straighten the boat....although a cold and a little scary experience it was FUN!!!!

Now back home, to work and training I do miss my lovely Tahoe weekend. More Pictures coming soon

Training Stats

This week has been very slow since my friend Kinjal was visiting me from Mumbai, India. However I had the biggest achievement this week, I could finish running the Stanford track in 3min 30 seconds, thats kudos to me since I am such a poor poor runner and I have never been able to finish running the 400 mtr track without run-walking the whole thing.

Dynamic Drills

Not sure, if you know but I intend to participate in the Nike Women's Half Marathon this summer in San Francisco. I have setup a separate webpage with TNT behind my motivation for doing this, please do check it out.

Today, was the first session of Dynamic Drills with TNT at the Stanford track. I wish I knew training for a marathon included all this. It started off with the regular stretching on your own routine and a warm up followed by the Dynamic Drills. Dynamic drill consists of doing high knees, high skip, low skip, heels to toes walking, lunges, sidewalking, grapevine and RUNNING on the track routine after routine. I must have easily logged 2 miles of running on the track today. Its been a long time since my body fell like its pumped so much. I LOVE it!!!

Training is getting demanding week after week but I also see the changes in my body and my will power week after week. With each passing week, I am getting better with my aerobic intervals of training and trying to be more careful with my eating. I am also meeting such high spirited, friendly people through the program that keeps my motviation really high.

If I am in good luck, I should be able to geta video of the Dynamic Drills sometime next week and put it up here...Probably irrelevant to this post but the attached pic was clicked this weekend at Shoreline PArk, it captures the colors of the sunset in the lake there

Recipe for a Successful Startup

I was talking to a startup veteran this weekend in the Silicon Valley about the success factors that make a start up. Here are his pearls of wisdom:
1. Good Enough Technology (Need not be super-duper)
2. Great Leadership & Management
3. Good bookkeeping and accounting
4. LUCK (MUST Requirement)

My 2 cents:
1. Good Enough Technology : This is hitting the nail at its head as Engineers too often spend much of their time on developing and optimizing technology vs spending time marketing and making it more usable. Having something that is good enough that maintains a competitive advantage should be a good starter.

2. Great Leadership: The lack of this ingredient leads to the downfall of so many startups. Startups always find them at a stage where the VC's have a power play with the founders and may get incompetent people to accept the throne OR very often the founders are not experienced enough to handle management/leadership issues.
Good leadership ensures product roadmap, employee stickiness, good use of money and vision (company strategy and exit criteria) and the most importantly good team spirit.

3.Bookkeeping and Accounting: Ever heard of well funded startups that fly their Executive Management in private chartered flights? This is what happens when one does not have a stingy book-keeper or rather I would rephrase and say an accountant who is not ensuring that money is spent on the right things.

4. LUCK: I can't even stress the importance of this factor....Luck in genral is important in everything that one undertakes in life.

The one important ingredient which he specifically did not call was "Really Smart & Talented People". Its really important to have a great team of people to maketh a successful startup and a great management ensures that they ensure the stickiness of the employees.

At this point I have just started experimentally interviewing with startups, hopefully I will hit a home run with a successful recipe :)

Spectrum Innovation

Seriously the mobile phone consumer in USA is far from the abstraction "Consumer is King". The reasons - a tightly controlled industry by the big four wireless carriers - Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. However with the upcoming auction of the 700MHz spectrum, there are proposals to spur innovation as suggested by Columbia Law School Professor Tim Wu. The proposal is to follow the steps of the Cellular Carterphone Rule to allow a safe device to attach to the wireless carrier's network to enable scenarios like "allowing the refrigerator to contact Safeway for groceries" seems a little far fetched as the big four have a history of controlling the auction results and maybe even the laws that govern them. This auction is going to be very interesting as it will see participation from Satellite TV and cable players. Wonder if Google may wanna bid for this? Low probability but one never knows looking at the rate which it is expanding today.