Private Equity Jobs

No, you wont find any of those here. But here's an interesting take on the PE phenomenon by Slate.

Dear Diary:

Whatever possessed me to go into private equity? I was so naive. I thought it was just about financial engineering. That certainly is the impression they give you in the media. But turns out that it's actually about hard work! Who'd a thunk it? Here we are in the last week of summer, and everybody is in the Hamptons or in some villa in Tuscany. Everyone, that is, except for me, Private-Equity Man.

More here

Bonus Link: How to make a powerpoint chart, by Seth Godin, easily the best marketing focussed blogger out there.

Pursuit of happiness

Studies by economists show that money is directly related to happiness until it leads people out of abject poverty. Beyond that point, the marginal utility of money (towards increasing happiness) keeps decreasing. The happiness level of someone making $1 million versus $5million is not too different. This however does not stop people from mistakenly viewing money as a source of happiness, and wasting their lives in it's pursuit, but as Will Smith speculated in the film 'The pursuit of happyness', maybe the whole point of that phrase is that happiness is something to be pursued and never attained?

More on leaderless groups

Forrest Christian has an interesting response to my earlier post on leaderless groups. Do check it out here.

I particularly agree with his views on the 'Big man' school of management that involves people bowing to ONE supreme leader in whom we place our faith to lead us. Such structures may have worked well in colonial times, but certainly have no place in the modern workplace, and indeed society. In this context it is interesting that elections in the US tend to surround the 'Big Man' i.e the presidential candidate, whereas elections in India tend to focus more on political parties and their ideologies. I remember reading somewhere that on 'Individualism', Americans score much higher than Indians. I suspect that the Big Man school of management has it's foundations in individualism.