The Branded and Gilded Life
The Branded and Gilded Life
The Game of Salaries
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The Game of Salaries

Photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash

Winning is everything. Can you double your salary in two years? Fantastic.

If you're playing for the short term, match time is now.

Then the pyramid narrows. 

The politics gets intense. Delivering on narrowly defined targets becomes the priority.

And stress overtakes satisfaction.

If you like that game, by all means, go ahead. 

It's what you were made for and you won't change your mind.

But there is another game.

The knowledge and skills game.

It won't make you lots of money in the beginning.

But over a period of let's say ten years, it ages beautifully. Like Scotch.

And then, you won't have to exchange satisfaction for stress.

Or worry that you're just one step short of irrelevance.

It's a hard game to play. No one sees the effort.

No one gives you rewards and certificates on the way.

It's like the seed breaking out of a rock.

Looks impossible and suddenly one day, it's achieved the impossible.

And you're on a firm footing because you've built depth, not copy and paste wisdom.

Salaries are a hot button topic on LinkedIn. One upmanship.

It's not your employers you need to impress. But yourself.

Play like your life depends on it


Is India too poor to build a Fab?

Should India make its own semiconductor chips? Two fascinating points of view.

PVG Menon. Electronics and Semiconductor Leader

... Semiconductor Fabs are "National Technology Infrastructure Assets" because they help to leapfrog the country in terms of not just technology capability (making our own chips) but also in enabling the larger ecosystem.

Think of a series of concentric circles, with the Fab at the centre and ecosystem players like PCB, components, systems etc at each of the outer rings.

Countries like Taiwan, S.Korea and USA have long ago realized this, and moved to support their companies in that manner. So has China.

Srinivasa Moorthy , Director - D4X Technologies Pvt Ltd

...I was part of a state government effort for a fab. Look at the economics from a state's perspective. 

* A decent size fab needs 800 Acres of land out of this, the plant will be just 200 acres and rest is for growing trees from the 0pH water discharged from the fab. 

* Second, you need about 1 million litres of pure/drinking water per day. 

* Third close to 1.2 Billion USD investment. 

* Final nail in the coffin the employment potential is just about 600-800. 

And demand in India should match capacity. All complex issues

Here’s the post that started the debate


We are butterflies

Have we forgotten immersion? There's an endless set of delights - visual and aural and we flit from one to the other.

Or was it always this way even before we got hooked to mobile phones?

Did we have obsessive behavior earlier? Of course. Waiting for a train, we check our watches every minute. 

With phones, its far more noticeable

Something more delightful, enjoyable or exciting is just a swipe away

And before we've even experienced it fully, we're up and away mentally.

We may be sitting in our chairs or taking a walk.

But our minds are in constant flight.

Lightly landing on one shiny object. And seeking the next one.

The phantom mobile phone vibration syndrome is acknowledged as real.

But  Robert Rosenberger, an assistant professor says that this is nothing new.

He gives an example. If you wear spectacles regularly, you forget at times that they are on your nose. 

The phone is so close to you all the time, that you forget it's there.

A vibration close by is interpreted as a message.

Happens all the time. Even a bar of music on TV can sound like the phone ringing.

Have we changed? Or were we always like this?

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