BackSteve Jobs: mistakes and successes
Steve Jobs: mistakes and successes
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Steve Jobs: Mistakes and Successes
Steve Jobs, some major flip-flops stand out, all wildly successful: Jobs making nice with Microsoft, in 1997; Jobs making nice with Intel, in 2006; and... Jobs allowing the iPod to work with Windows in 2001, only months after being adamant that such a thing would never happen... When the iPod was launched, Jobs saw it as a tool to help sell Macs. But... he took another look at the electronics universe and saw that the iPod could be much bigger than the Mac. Underneath Jobs’s arrogance is always the ability to admit that he was wrong. And that is one key to his company’s recent success.
—Felix Salmon
Bangalore: India’s future? https://bankerinindia.typepad.com
While I think Thomas Friedman crops out a lot of the rough edges when he paints glowing pictures of India in his books and columns, I can see why one trip to Bangalore convinced him the World was Flat.
Bangalore is a city that seems to defy the derogatory Indian stereotypes: too crowded, too dirty, too slow... Bangalore is none of these; it is in fact the fastest growing city in South Asia. And yet Bangalore’s current five million people make it only a third the size of India’s two major metros, Delhi and Bombay. It also seems a tad cleaner, a touch greener, and five to 10 years ahead of the rest of the country.
Here, perched up on the Mysore Plateau, is one of India’s possible futures, packaged into shiny glass-encased, green palm tree-lined IT parks, with saris and suits mingling about on their lunch breaks.
Even the city’s slums (two of which I visited on a microfinance mission) are a cut above those I’ve seen in Northern India. It doesn’t hurt that the weather is 10 degrees cooler here than in... Delhi, where temperatures touched 48 degrees Celsius.
But if Bangalore is India’s version of Silicon Valley, replete with software firms (such as) Infosys and Wipro, call centres, swanky new stores and restaurants and yuppie Indians eager to fill those gleaming corporate offices, the town has not totally escaped the sting of poverty. (About 10%) of the city’s population still lives in slums, though this pales in comparison to the 54% of Bombay that suffers such conditions. Bangalore also boasts a literacy rate (84%) above India’s other metros.
But the real treat of Bangalore (and South India in general in my opinion) is the food. If you make it here, you’ve got to head to one of the traditional South Indian restaurants in Koramangala and ask for the big banana leaf plate. After heaps upon heaps of rice and vegetables, sit back and order yourself a cold coffee at a Java City outlet on Lavelle street. Enjoy the warm breeze and think back to the future of India.Could this be it?
—Mark Straub
Happiness in schools https://neweconomist.blogs .com
Should schools teach happiness? Richard Layard certainly thinks so. In a new article... the happiness guru argues that a major purpose of schools must be to help develop good and happy people—especially at a time when growing numbers of children are suffering from emotional disturbance. He calls for “educational revolution in which a central purpose of our schools is to teach young people about the main secrets of happiness for which we have empirical evidence". But (a) Financial Times leader is sceptical: “The first problem is that happiness is not a teachable subject. It is famously elusive and may be unattainable. Pursuing it as an aim is difficult since it is more readily gained as a side-product of some other achievement or condition.
“Happiness is also, too, varied to teach: a single set of tools will not work for everyone. One pupil may derive great pleasure from being kind to others, another from being the person on the receiving end of that kindness. Where one child may be happily fulfilled taking on a tough challenge, another may find more happiness with a less driven approach." Can we really teach happiness? And should we?
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