meek-investor

Readers of the blog are perhaps too young to have read George Orwell's 1984. Its a fictional novel about a totalitarian future state where every individual is completely monitored and controlled. In fact the term Big Brother, originated in this novel. Well, here's news for you. Big Brother has indeed arrived - just 27 years late. If you hadn't heard, both Apple and Google are accused of recording and monitoring cellphone locations. Since none of us would move 4 inches from our cellphone henceforth in our lives, surely BB knows where we are and what we are doing. Privacy advocates are up in arms. I come from a different point of view. Is Google and Apple mad enough to want to be tracking my colourful life. That I leave for office exactly at 8.04 in the morning. That I spend the whole day like an idiot in the office. And that I come straight back home. And then go nowhere else. Leading a totally colourless life.  Earth shattering information. Take Gils for instance. We don...

Why does a Chinese internet company wish to get listed in the US ? I can't fathom the logic. Hence this post. The Chinese internet landscape is a strange one. Almost every one of the global majors is blocked. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Blogger, you name it and it is blocked. Instead there is a carbon copy of each one of them locally in Chinese. For Google, read Baidu . For Facebook, read Renren , for YouTube read Youku or Tudou , for Twitter read Sina Weibo or the dozens of similar clones. These are the ones that are wildly popular, having millions of users, only in Chinese and therefore almost exclusively used by Chinese. Never mind that these  are all censored , watched, bullied, etc etc by the jīndùn gōngchéng (The Great Firewall). This post is not about that cursed censorship. These sites are all by entrepreneur led start up companies , similar to the American originals.  And they all want to list and make huge money. Fair enough. But they seem to want to list in the U...

The season for tax returns is just over in the US. Its just beginning in India. Appropriate time to rave and rant on the nonsensically complex process of making out a tax return. No, I am not a tea party activist (I drink coffee and in any case, I wouldn't be seen dead with that rabble). I am just venting steam ahead of having to sit down and do the damned thing. Thankfully I only have to do an Indian tax return, but that is torture enough. Everybody knows that the famed Ramamritham absolutely loves Income Tax. Great opportunity for framing fiendish rules and impossibly complicated forms to fill. Just consider the following evidence. The first problem is to decide what form to fill. There are no less than 8 different forms you can fill. It all depends on whether you are a HUF or a BOI or a AOP. What if you can't figure out what those are and if you figure you are just a human being ??? Not sure - In Ramamritham's lexicon, normal human beings don't exist.  With delicious...

Ignore that other, number-based occasion going on this Wednesday and roll to The Dark Room to help us celebrate our huge deuce! The Business turns two this week and we couldn't be prouder of our little trainwreck. In honor of this new leaf, we've got a roster that’s packed hella fat. We’ve imported three strains of kind buds from LA to perform for you, as well as the dank home-grown shit you know and love. From the finest clubs ... in Los Angeles: Jake Weisman is a comedian and storyteller. He loves cats and podcasts, and he has two of each. One of his podcasts, The Morning After…Podcast, is about pornography, and it recently won Punchline Magazine’s 2010 Best New Comedy Podcast of the Year award. Just to remind you, he loves cats. Dave Ross is a stand-up comedian and the creator of the wildly successful Holy F*ck comedy show. He performs regularly at renowned shows and clubs across California, including What's Up Tiger Lily? and the Hollywood Improv. H...

This post is about a movie !  It takes some gall for a blogger who knows zilch about movies and doesn't see them, to do a post on something his readers are masters of. But that's the beauty of this medium - you can fearlessly propound  on things you don't have a clue about. I am told actors are key to movies ! This one stars a legend as a hero. Across continents, this man is reputed to be with the midas touch - anything he touches turns into gold. There are assorted villains, but the beauty of the movie is that you often don't know who the real villain is. There is a faceless foreign government, who everybody loves to bash these days (not America - in movies, America is all mom and apple pie). The only slight trouble is that there isn't a very pretty heroine. There is a lady actress who comes roaring to defend the hero , but alas, she will not set Zeno's heart go flutter flutter and her role casts her as a Minister. She does manage to be exotic though, speaking...

The Church of England has taken a line on executive pay. You may ask what has that body got to do with the world of business. Well , there is the small matter that the Church manages a £ 5.3 bn portfolio and is a shareholder in many companies. And, of course, it is a voice of morality, however much you may agree or disagree with it. The Church of England has said that it will not vote in favour of executive pay proposals that have bonuses more than 4 times the salary. While its influence as a shareholder might be somewhat limited, its voice has the benefit of a moral argument. Just a little while ago shareholders in HSBC voted to limit bonuses to a maximum of 10 times annual pay. Readers may pause here to consider the obvious question. Who on earth earns bonuses many times his salary ? This blogger has seen a lot in business. Outside of the financial services industry,  there is virtually no place where an employee can earn 10 times his salary as a bonus. So what's so special ab...

The proposed international treaty on the protection of broadcasters is inching forward after nearly 10 years of consideration and member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization and other stakeholders are moving toward consensus on the central elements of what it is to do and what is the object of the protection. Much of the rhetoric of stakeholders—particularly pay TV channels and sports rights organisations—has led many to believe it is about protecting their business models and revenue. They have done the proposed treaty a disservice. It is about protecting the value creating activities of broadcasters in content selection, packaging and distribution—something that is not protected by copyrights, but can be protected with a neighboring right. What the treaty is intent on doing is protecting the broadcast—in a signal and derivative of the signal—which embodies the broadcasters value creation activities and is the object of the proposed protection. The result may assist ...