Walk the Talk
Saturday, 31st January 2009, marked an important day in the life of the Open-Silicon cricket team. The team was to debut in a friendly 20-20 leather ball cricket match against Philips/NXP team, which was organized to co-incide with the visit of our CEO, who is a big fan of cricket.
Yes, we won the match by 8 wickets.....but this blog is not about the match. Infact, I just wanted to note down a few interesting excerpts from my conversation with our CEO to and from the cricket ground.
A little bit about our Boss, before I begin - He hails from Pakistan and moved onto the US to finish his studies. He holds a PhD and was a professor for quite a while in the University of Nebraska. He worked with Intel for over a decade before co-founding Open-Silicon in 2003.
Unfortunately, my knowledge about my boss was only limited to things that I had heard about him and from his corporate profile on Linkedin.com. The ocassion mentioned above gave me a unique oppurtunity to know him a little better.
I guess it was just my luck, that I was asked to travel from the office to the ground in the Toyota Innova that was booked for him. The passengers included our VP of Engineering and a few other colleagues. Just before boarding, I had initiated the conversation by asking him when was the last time he played a cricket match?
I got my answer when the SUV pulled out of our office premises:
N: "Well, if your asking about just cricket. We play that every now and than in our parking lot in US office, but my last professional game was on June 9th, 1995. It was for my University....and I clearly remember that match cause we lost it!!"
He went on to talk about cricket in the US. He told us about 64 universities that played professional cricket and every year had a knock-out tournament. His university had entered the final in '94 and '95 and lost on both ocassions. He recollected the strategy that they had adopted to play the matches which unfortunately for them, didn't work in the finals. He also told us about a place in Chicago, where we can easily find 10 - 12 matched being played every weekend.
The discussion on cricket were followed by his thoughts on how the credit culture of the US had slowly trickled into India, which he felt was "slowly killing the people"....He recollected his time in Pakistan, where he was taught to spend only as much as you earn. "We had no credit cards or loans in those times" is what he said.
He even told us about the first car he ever purchased in Pakistan. It only had a motor and a steering. He and his friends paid some garage owner to fix wooden seats into it and put up a transparent plastic sheet which was used as the windscreen. "Beleive it or not....it saved my life one day..", he said and went to explain the incident that forced him to sell his first car.
We were headed to Yelahanka in the Innova and as we took a right turn on the Old Madras road, the discussion shifted to the topic of IPL. One of the guys felt that KP was being paid too high, but is still lesser than what footballers get. But Our boss explained why football was far superior a business sport as compared to cricket and he said "cricket has a long way to go to acheive the same world-wide popularity that football has received"
As we got onto the outer ring road, he saw a large borad which read "KK LIVE IN IIM-Bangalore". After reading it, he recollected the time that he had gone for a concert with his graduate students. This are some of the things he said:
"When you go for a concert and find that there are more motorcycles in the parking lot as compared to cars....you should know that you made a worng decision!!....It was only than that I realized my students had brought me to a Mettallica concert!!"
"I asked my students, where are our seats and I was told....Sir..we are standing in the Pit!!, which I later discoverd was a small area surrounding the stage."
"After a while, the drummer enters and there is a roar. He gets onto his seat and just touches the drum with his stick to make the following noise - disshhh....Oh my god...I hadn't heard a louder shriek from the crowd ever in my life!!....."
We reached the stadium at around 9am. I had enjoyed talking to him so far and was looking forward to hear some more of his thoughts on our way back....
On our way back he received an sms from his sister who had just completed her PhD in the US. I asked him, what subject did she study. Thats when he told me about his sister's thesis - Molecular DNA. Apparently, it took his sister 15 years to complete her PhD and her findings showed that a rare and unknown contaminant in the water - Talladium, caused an increased rate of babies being born dead in poor countries including ours.
It was early afternoon as we returned and the match had ensured that we were all tired. We were caught in the usual traffic on the outer ring road when he said something that actually appealed to me the most:
N: "You know...people feel that the internet is the invention of the century....but not according to me. 'The Container'....that is the invention of the century. Internet enables you to do whatever you want. But if you can't move goods around, its just no good."
"All I have to say is....if it wasn't for 'The Container' we wouldn't have had a China today!!!!"
Having worked around containers myself in Australia, I couldn't agree more with him.
As I had mentioned before....these arejust a few excerpts I felt like jotting down. The whole conversation is still fresh in my mind. The joy of spending time with an Industry bigwig was only over-shadowed by the victory that Open-Silicon scored over Philips that day.
Yes, we won the match by 8 wickets.....but this blog is not about the match. Infact, I just wanted to note down a few interesting excerpts from my conversation with our CEO to and from the cricket ground.
A little bit about our Boss, before I begin - He hails from Pakistan and moved onto the US to finish his studies. He holds a PhD and was a professor for quite a while in the University of Nebraska. He worked with Intel for over a decade before co-founding Open-Silicon in 2003.
Unfortunately, my knowledge about my boss was only limited to things that I had heard about him and from his corporate profile on Linkedin.com. The ocassion mentioned above gave me a unique oppurtunity to know him a little better.
I guess it was just my luck, that I was asked to travel from the office to the ground in the Toyota Innova that was booked for him. The passengers included our VP of Engineering and a few other colleagues. Just before boarding, I had initiated the conversation by asking him when was the last time he played a cricket match?
I got my answer when the SUV pulled out of our office premises:
N: "Well, if your asking about just cricket. We play that every now and than in our parking lot in US office, but my last professional game was on June 9th, 1995. It was for my University....and I clearly remember that match cause we lost it!!"
He went on to talk about cricket in the US. He told us about 64 universities that played professional cricket and every year had a knock-out tournament. His university had entered the final in '94 and '95 and lost on both ocassions. He recollected the strategy that they had adopted to play the matches which unfortunately for them, didn't work in the finals. He also told us about a place in Chicago, where we can easily find 10 - 12 matched being played every weekend.
The discussion on cricket were followed by his thoughts on how the credit culture of the US had slowly trickled into India, which he felt was "slowly killing the people"....He recollected his time in Pakistan, where he was taught to spend only as much as you earn. "We had no credit cards or loans in those times" is what he said.
He even told us about the first car he ever purchased in Pakistan. It only had a motor and a steering. He and his friends paid some garage owner to fix wooden seats into it and put up a transparent plastic sheet which was used as the windscreen. "Beleive it or not....it saved my life one day..", he said and went to explain the incident that forced him to sell his first car.
We were headed to Yelahanka in the Innova and as we took a right turn on the Old Madras road, the discussion shifted to the topic of IPL. One of the guys felt that KP was being paid too high, but is still lesser than what footballers get. But Our boss explained why football was far superior a business sport as compared to cricket and he said "cricket has a long way to go to acheive the same world-wide popularity that football has received"
As we got onto the outer ring road, he saw a large borad which read "KK LIVE IN IIM-Bangalore". After reading it, he recollected the time that he had gone for a concert with his graduate students. This are some of the things he said:
"When you go for a concert and find that there are more motorcycles in the parking lot as compared to cars....you should know that you made a worng decision!!....It was only than that I realized my students had brought me to a Mettallica concert!!"
"I asked my students, where are our seats and I was told....Sir..we are standing in the Pit!!, which I later discoverd was a small area surrounding the stage."
"After a while, the drummer enters and there is a roar. He gets onto his seat and just touches the drum with his stick to make the following noise - disshhh....Oh my god...I hadn't heard a louder shriek from the crowd ever in my life!!....."
We reached the stadium at around 9am. I had enjoyed talking to him so far and was looking forward to hear some more of his thoughts on our way back....
On our way back he received an sms from his sister who had just completed her PhD in the US. I asked him, what subject did she study. Thats when he told me about his sister's thesis - Molecular DNA. Apparently, it took his sister 15 years to complete her PhD and her findings showed that a rare and unknown contaminant in the water - Talladium, caused an increased rate of babies being born dead in poor countries including ours.
It was early afternoon as we returned and the match had ensured that we were all tired. We were caught in the usual traffic on the outer ring road when he said something that actually appealed to me the most:
N: "You know...people feel that the internet is the invention of the century....but not according to me. 'The Container'....that is the invention of the century. Internet enables you to do whatever you want. But if you can't move goods around, its just no good."
"All I have to say is....if it wasn't for 'The Container' we wouldn't have had a China today!!!!"
Having worked around containers myself in Australia, I couldn't agree more with him.
As I had mentioned before....these arejust a few excerpts I felt like jotting down. The whole conversation is still fresh in my mind. The joy of spending time with an Industry bigwig was only over-shadowed by the victory that Open-Silicon scored over Philips that day.
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