Appreciating creativity and not getting in its way — Now that R is starting to talk, we’re getting reminders of the boundless creativity of children. One of the ways that shows up is how he loves butterflies and starts screaming “titli”, the urdu word for butterflies where ever he sees them. Well, it started off with what can be…

What I believe an interviewer should look for and how to conduct interviews — I recently read this article on Medium and realized that Elon Musk and I have a very similar interview strategy. I believe I settled on this in 2016 and have been running with it for, well, a fairly large number of interviews. At least in the 100s. And thought I’d…

Ways governments can impact nascent businesses focussing on Pakistan — Recently I’ve seen an increasing amount of startup activity in Pakistan including interest by the government in promoting startups in Pakistan. I am very happy to see that growth in the country where I was raised, and I have a lot of my roots in. And as I see the…

Resetting and rebuilding yourself after failure — In Part 1 I talked about the factors that led to me not being able to perform at work. But after ARM I was able to do well in my career. There were many factors that went into my struggling at work, and I feel there were many things that…

When I reconciled the dreams of my former self with reality — This post is going to be more vulnerable than other things I’ve written. And to be honest a part of the reason I can have this vulnerability is because I am now in a position of strength, where I am immune to the negative judgements having this conversation would entail…

The person that taught me the power of questions in learning — This post is in remembrance of one of my professors in college Margarida Jacome. She passed away too early in 2007. I had two classes with her, circuits and algorithms. She was one of my favorite teachers at UT. But here’s the funny thing about me saying that, I learned…

A few days ago was the birthday of Pakistan’s national poet Allama Iqbal. And I found myself reading some of his poems, That got me thinking about my relationship with Urdu in school. And not just Urdu but other subjects like history. I used to excel at the hard sciences…

Please don’t make me review another 5 pages of nothing — Our team is growing rapidly and so we have to review a lot of resumes. One thing I’ve noticed is that most people skipped the class in which they were taught how to write a resume. …

Whether we want them to learn it or not — Yesterday I was with family, watching the Pakistan vs India cricket match. This was the first Cricket match that R has watched. One of the things that amazed me was how he celebrated the outs and sixers with us. He saw us scream in excitement and joined us in screaming…