I really don’t get my mentor. First, he highly recommends a book which essentially says most success in the markets is caused by randomness in the garb of specious mathematical models produced by MBAs who see invisible patterns where there are none. After I excitedly rush to Liberty to grab Fooled by Randomness for a whopping 2000 rupees, he hands me Pakistan Risk Review, which in his own words is: “…a dedicated periodical that quantifies the risk associated with Pakistani securities using a consistent, objective benchmark. ”

Consistent and objective? BENCHMARK!!!! Excuse me?

Is Jawwad losing it. The terrible loss of not having Nando’s close to his new office is perhaps too heavy for him to bear. That he is  deprived of the dripping seduction of the chocolate fudge cake might be causing this uncharacteristic lapse of reason. “Consistent and objective!!!” I panicked again. What should I do? Call the board? Talk to Fawzia?

I, of course, did none of the above. To drown the mounting concern over the well-being of my mentor, I picked up The Great War for Civilization to lift my mood. Not a good choice. Then, after a moment of deliberation, I picked up Pakistan Risk Review, hoping it would hold the soporfic magic of Business Recorder. SURPRISE!

It is actually an interesting and accessible read. While I’m inherently wary of “consistent and objective benchmarks”, I’ll leave that debate to Taleb and Jawwad. What PRR does provide is a rigorous analysis of Pakistani securities in language that any decent 10-grader can understand. Which ofcourse means that most bankers will struggle with it. For those of us with an interest in finance and the mind-bending volatility of Pakistani markets, Pakistan Risk Review is an interesting read.

If you write a polite email to Jawwad (jawwad -at- alchemya.com) expressing your undying interest in everything Risky (pun intended),  he will send you an executive summary of the inaugural issue of PRR.

-Adnan

My review for Confessions of an Economic Hitman.

This book was published in 2004. The housing bubble was 3 years away, and the credit crisis was unfathomable. The first couple of pages predict that the global financial system, based on greed and consumerism, is not sustainable. Like many other self-reflecting, informed individuals, Perkins saw it coming.

The book doesn’t state anything new or groundbreaking. The vagaries of US foreign policy, its blatant support for tyrants in Central America and the Middle East have been public knowledge for decades. What this book does offer, is a refreshing personal perspective. It’s a painfully honest, seemingly heartfelt confession. It recounts Perkins interactions with democratically elected leaders, who were vilified and/or assassinated by the US, when they had outlived their utility. He then puts this into the context of US corporate interest and some of the pieces of the puzzle start to fit together.

While this book has excellent substance, I do feel Perkins resorts to a bit of self-aggrandizement. Its unlikely NSA especially profiled him to become an “EHM” and that they would send a liaison deep in the rain forests of Ecuador to recruit a 24 year old Peace Corp volunteer. In some other cases, Perkins alludes to a secret hand helping things fall into place to keep him from singing, like getting the funding for his company, or landing that generous retainership. These claims seems a bit too fantastical to me, but then, he did operate in a strange, deceptive world.

Bottom-line:  Overall, it’s a 4-star book (knocked one down from my earlier rating). It was compelling enough for me to write my first Amazon book review. It’s engaging, honest and most importantly, takes solid aim at the US imperialism that has made the world increasingly polluted and unsafe. The reason it doesn’t deserve a 5 is grade inflation. I’ll keep my 5s for the likes of Robert Fisk, Malcolm Gladwell and Reza Aslan.

The new normal - The McKinsey Quarterly - The new normal - Strategy - Strategic Thinking

Through it all, technological innovation will continue, and the value of increasing human knowledge will remain undiminished. For talented contrarians and technologists, the next few years may prove especially fruitful as investors looking for high-risk, high-reward opportunities shift their attention from financial engineering to genetic engineering, software, and clean energy.

This is quite remarkable. Controlling the behavoir of living things by sending impluses to their brains. I wouln’t want to be at the receiving end of those eletrical pulses, but the concept is radical and disruptive.

MIT Technology Review: Biological Machines

A giant flower beetle flies about, veering up and down, left and right. But the insect isn’t a pest, and it isn’t steering its own path. An implanted receiver, microcontroller, microbattery, and six carefully placed electrodes–a payload smaller than a dime and weighing less than a stick of gum–allow an engineer to control the bug wirelessly. By remotely delivering jolts of electricity to its brain and wing muscles, the engineer can make the cyborg beetle take off, turn, or stop midflight.

URL: http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=specialsections&sc=tr10&id=22111

Search is the gateway to the Internet for most people; for many of us, it has become second nature to distill a task into a set of keywords that will lead to the required tools and information. But Adam Cheyer, cofounder of Silicon Valley startup Siri, envisions a new way for people to interact with the services available on the Internet: a “do engine” rather than a search engine. Siri is working on virtual personal-assistant software, which would help users complete tasks rather than just collect information.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=specialsections&sc=tr10&id=22117

From the founder of TED: http://www.192021.org/

Karach is on the list.

-Adnan

On the subject of radical innovation, this is quite bloody remarkable. Usability is the next frontier!

Where is the internet when we need it ? « blog maverick

The best way to sum up how I feel about the excitement and opportunities on the net compared to the many other personal and corporate technology options out there is to use a Yogi Berra quote.

“Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded”

When everyone is looking for gold in the same river, the best opportunities are somewhere else.

Mark Cuban, of Broadcast.com fame, has this to say about the internet. Under the cover of his typically sensationalist title, what he appears to be saying is that the next wave of game-changing, productivity boosting innovation will not come from the internet. What does that mean though?

The internet is a platform, and yes, I agree with Mark that its now a stable platform. A utility more dependable than water and electricity supply in many parts of the world. But why is it dead and boring? Yes, Companies providing internet access (ISPs) are boring utility provider, but the youtubes, facebooks and googles of the world are fundamentally changing how the world interacts. How is that boring?

Agreed, the stability of the internet has made application development a bit too easy. Granted that the barrier to entry is too low for durable competitive advantage, but that applies more to the sea of stupid “killer apps” (e.g. social network for dogs), than to real busienss which solve real problems, utilizing the internet as a fundemantal channel.

This K@W article represents the mainstream view about the GCC economy. Read the second paragraph though, I think it provides the glimmer of hope not otherwise found in most Western publications writing about the region these days.

A ‘Downward Spiral’: Gulf Region Real Estate in the Era of Cheap Oil - Knowledge@Wharton

In January 2008, the projects planned or underway totaled $1.6 trillion. This had increased to $2.54 trillion by January of 2009, with Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E making up 70% of the projects, mostly in the real estate, leisure and infrastructure sectors.

However, as the global credit crunch froze the international financial markets, the hot money evaporated. The drastic $100 slide in crude oil prices eroded investor confidence in the region. The tourist arrivals slowed to a trickle during the peak winter season as a recession engulfed major economies. In a spectacular swing, abundance of liquidity in the beginning of 2008 had vanished before the year end.

<snip>

Still, some investors are cautiously optimistic. “Dubai is a model for the region; as Dubai goes, so goes the perception of commerce and trust in commerce in the region,” says Verma. “Dubai is built on entrepreneurship and innovation. These may sound like buzzwords, but it’s actually true. They just had the world — and investors — build them a first-class city and infrastructure. So they will use this as a base to recreate themselves.”

I knew Twitter was big, but these numbers are ridiculously high. Back when Twitter was featured on TechCrunch, I recall disregarding it as yet another wannabe “killer-app”. I guess I stand corrected.

Twitter: What is it good for?: Scientific American Blog

Some 11 percent of U.S. adults who use the Internet also send status updates on Twitter, a three-year-old “communications protocol” that allows users to blast small bursts of info to their followers and friends, according to new data by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Status updating is most common among young adults: 20 percent of 25-to-34-year-olds use Twitter, as do slightly fewer 18-to-24-year-olds. The results are based on a telephone survey of 2,253 adults.