Life in Balance: Amit Chaudhary’s Blog
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Following are highlights from Survey and Study by Vivek Wadhwa & others: Anatomy of an Entrepreneur I: Family Background and Motivation

For this project, we surveyed 549 company founders in a variety of industries, including aerospace and defense, computer and electronics, health care, and
services.

Company founders tend to be middle-aged and well-educated, and did better in high school than in college

• The average and median age of company founders in our sample when they started their current companies was 40.

• 75 percent ranked their academic performance among the top 30 percent of the high school class, with a majority (52.4 percent) ranking their performance among the top 10 percent.

These entrepreneurs tend to come from middle-class or upper-lower-class backgrounds, and were better educated and more entrepreneurial than their parents 

• 71.5 percent of respondents came from middle-class backgrounds (34.6 percent upper-middle class and
36.9 percent lower-middle class). Additionally, 21.8 percent said they came from upper-lower-class families (blue-collar workers in some form of
manual labor).

Most entrepreneurs are married and have children 

• 69.9 percent of respondents indicated they were married when they launched their first business. An additional 5.2 percent were divorced, separated, or
widowed.

• 59.7 percent of respondents indicated they had at least one child when they launched their first business, and 43.5 percent had two or more
children.

• 52 percent of respondents had some interest in becoming an entrepreneur when they were in college, but 34.7 percent didn’t even think about it,
and 13.3 percent had little or no interest.

Motivations for becoming entrepreneurs: building wealth, owning a company, startup culture, and capitalizing on a business idea

Most had significant industry experience when starting their companies
• The majority of respondents (75.4 percent) had worked as employees at other companies for more than six years before launching their own companies. Nearly half (47.9 percent) launched their first companies with more than ten years of work experience.

Below are some Programming & Software Engineering Podcasts which I listen to during my commute

• Software Engineering Radio

This is one of my current favorites, topics tend to be general programming and at other times on Scalability, Architecture or New trends. Note: iTunes does not show all episodes due to an issue they are working on. Some episodes:

Episode 165: NoSQL and MongoDB with Dwight Merriman

Episode 162: Project Voldemort with Jay Kreps

Episode 160: AspectJ and Spring AOP with Ramnivas Laddad

• Pragmatic Podcasts
  

Covers a wide range of topics, many from their authors. Some episodes:

Jonathan Rasmusson Interview

Michael J Mangino on Facebook Applications

Michael Nygard Interview

• JavaWorld’s Java Technology Insider

Not updated for an year, but still good one, topics tend to be Java focused. Some episodes:

High scalability and Javawith Todd Hoff

Grails 1.1: A conversation with Graeme Rocher

• Java Posse

A Java focused podcast, more of panel discussion on current Java topics. Regularly updated.

• Stack OverFlow

The creators are from Windows background, the topics vary, the episodes are mix of discussion, news & interviews, and there are at times some good indepth interviews.

Podcast #59 had Damien Katz on CouchDB & Erlang.

More Podcasts:

• The Ruby on Rails Podcast. On Rails
  

• Herding Code. Windows Focus

• FLOSS. All about Free Libre Open Source Software

• Teach Me to Code (was RailsCoach)

A similar list, Accidental Technologist: My Updated Developer Podcast List.

Bright Eyes by Catherine Guthrie, Yoga Journal

The top tips

• Reduce burn, redness, irritation in eyes with milk-soaked cotton balls

If they burn or are bloodshot or light sensitive, an excess of pitta may be to blame. To counter it, lie down for 15 minutes with milk-soaked cotton balls on your closed lids. Cucumber slices will also do the trick.

My own experience, this works particularly well for me, making them feel much better. I have not tried the rest yet.

• Vitamin C, vitamin E, and lutein as the best antioxidants for eye health

To infuse your diet with these nutrients, dish up spinach, broccoli, corn, strawberries and nuts. The researchers suggest at least 250 milligrams (mg) of vitamin C, 90 mg of vitamin E, and 3 mg of lutein daily.# These levels are higher than the government’s recommended dietary intake; hedge your bets with a daily multivitamin.

An hour of Yoga 5 times a week should help those sitting in front of monitors

Essentially, we become zombies in front of a glowing screen, blinking only three times a minute instead of the normal 20. The result? Dry eyes.

The class included asana, pranayama, and guided relaxation. Those in the other group spent equal time in the company’s recreation center talking to friends, working out, and watching TV. By study’s end, the yogis reported a 30 percent decline in eye problems like dry eye; eye complaints increased in the other group.

More tips which might work better for others

• Refresh your eyes with water

No matter what your dominant dosha, you can refresh your eyes by splashing them gently with cool water, blinking seven times (once for each chakra, or energy center in the body), and rotating them in all directions.

• Rose water for tired or crusty eyes

If you awaken to eyes that feel tired or more crusty than usual, a kapha imbalance may be to blame, says Malhotra, the author of Inner Beauty: Discover Natural Beauty and Well-Being with the Traditions of Ayurveda. To quell kapha, she suggests sprinkling the eyes with rose water. You can look for rose water in health food stores or Middle Eastern markets, or make your own by soaking an organically grown rose in filtered water overnight

• Ghee (Clarified Butter) for Dry, itchy eyes

Dry, itchy eyes may signal that your vata is out of balance. To restore them, Malhotra recommends a home version of an Ayurvedic treatment called netra basti. To start, warm a quarter cup of ghee (clarified butter) over medium heat, cool it to room temperature, pour half the liquid into an eyecup (sold at drugstores), lean your head back, and bathe the eye for five to seven minutes. Repeat on the other eye using the remaining ghee. (This treatment can be messy, so do it in a bathroom, in clothes that can handle a few drops of ghee.)

What’s more, it’s a good idea to save this self-care routine until just before bedtime, because your vision will be clouded for a few minutes afterward.

Highlights from The Way I Work: Paul English, Co-founder Kayak

• Up everyday at 6:00, Email & then Yoga. Has a meditation room.

• We work really hard for 40 to 45 hours a week, but we believe in people having strong personal lives. Over the past six years, there have been maybe five times I’ve spoken with Steve before 8 a.m., after 5 p.m., or on the weekend.

• Always drives kid to school.

• We have offices in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and California. We started with the first two because my co-founder, Steve Hafner, lives in Connecticut, I live in Boston, and neither one of us wanted to move.

• We have an open office environment. our general philosophy is that an open environment facilitates intellectual intensity. Most engineers are introverted. Here, when people overhear a discussion, we encourage them to walk over and say, “There’s another way to do that.”

• The engineers and I handle customer support. If you make the engineers answer e-mails and phone calls from the customers, the second or third time they get the same question, they’ll actually stop what they’re doing and fix the code. Then we don’t have those questions anymore.

• Real time datamining and support information. We have four monitors in the office where you can see real-time streaming information about the site — how many visitors, how many click throughs. It also displays the last customer e-mail that came in and the photo of the employee who answered it. So you’re walking by and you see, “Oh, Dan just answered a question.” We developed our own customer support software. One of the things it does is randomly select an employee response to a customer and send that response out to the entire company and to all of our investors each day. It keeps us on our toes.

• I keep noon to 2 p.m. open, because I like going out to lunch. It’s also a time for me to socialize. We have a very active work force.

• I do all of the firing. At times, I’ve fired maybe one out of every three people I’ve hired. That might make people think I’m bad at hiring, but I think I’m quite good at hiring. The only way 100 people can ever build a larger company than one that has more than 8,000 people — that’s what Expedia has — is by hiring Olympic-quality, unbelievable all stars of technology.

• Every Tuesday night, I have an open dinner at my house. Anywhere between four and 15 of my relatives will show up for dinner. I’m not a great cook, but it’s fun to have people over.

• I read for an hour every night before going to bed. I love reading books by Indian authors. I’ll also read books about global health and Africa, as well as a murder mystery now and then. But I don’t like business books. There are so many things in life that are more interesting than business.

I heard the audio version of the Book: Career Warfare: 10 Rules for Building a Successful Personal Brand and Fighting to Keep It by David F. D’Alessandro recently. Following are notes from it.

Short Summary: It is a book on how to climb the career ladder while handling the hurdles and opportunities. The author covers anecdotes from his experience, making it even more interesting. For anyone in the work environment, I would rate it a 4/5.

Notes (They are from last chapter to first):

-Do not stop being a contender. Aka keep your edge from ages 30-60:
1. Don’t be a generic, be a Tylenol. Fear and sluggishness will settle in.
2. Get back on the horse. Go for the promotion.
3. Ask for a promotion. Never punch it at work.
4. Do not settle for cheap such as 5 percent rise, a better health plan. Field job with no raise, so they can come back. Latter you will make up more than this.
5. Moments of importance will happen, hard to control. Use the ones which are opportunities. Be ready and plan for them
6. Gamble shrewdly. Take risks, particularly department goals. No new job every 2-3 years.
7. Create a brain trust.
8. Tinker with success. Try to explain the reasons why.
9. Do not cross the lines of integrity.
10. Unexamined reputation is not worth it. Be conscious of what is your reputation.

-What do you want to be said at your retirement party?

-Do not let them see you sweat and you won’t sweat for long. HP CEO Carly fiorina and the proxy battle with Packard family.

-Keep an eye on when the standards have changed. At work, in public.

-Do something that reminds you there is a world outside work. Garden. Travel. Hike.

—-
Be gracious, but pick a fight if needed.
Be aware of your competitors.

It’s always showtime
Be on watch all day. There might be career altering opportunities.

Meetings are the stage where you build your brand. Or show your worst qualities. Use them well.

Work where you are learning and your brand is thriving. Do not get stuck. Note, he has worked at John Hancock for 20 years.

4. Use the pickle fork
-do not embarrass yourself. Toilet VP guy.
-dress well.
-do not judge another person by looks.
-about maintaining tact including at parties.

——
The idea is to learn from a boss, make contacts and grow.

If you stop learning and get lulled into mediocrity, you might end up on your 40s-50s working for someone 10 year younger and wonder what happened.

Types of bosses: patriarch, wimp, mentor, one way, paraiah.

Rule 3: Put your boss on the couch
—–
Rule 2: your mgr is your co-brand.
Your image with his peers is due to your boss.
Hierarchy and credit taken is often the way of corporate career. Get use to it.
Never criticize your boss. Ever.

3 types of employees. Sycophants, Contrarian, Balanced.
—–
Five attributes for success.
-bring company money
-tell the truth.
-keep your promise. Deliver on time.
-be discrete, use information, do not pass it along.
-have people want to work for you. People are your project. Use stick or just sweet talk.
———
-Promotions, decisions happen in a casual environment. Based on your brand and in minutes. What Is the first thing people think when they think of You?

-Rule 1: develop an external perspective to your actions.
Take humble tasks to be noticed by Execs.
Strive to put everyone in a good light.
-Get noticed.
Interesting example of exclusive restaurants. How by putting their reviews, he got access to seats there.
Finally

-Manage your brand. Like a Mercedes you are expensive and are expected a high performance.  

Toyota’s car plant in Fremont, CA (NUMMI) is closing or as per their website nummi.com, already closed.

What a shame. It had a great tour for everyone, where one saw the famed” Toyota Way(Link to Wikipedia)” at work including anyone stopping the assembly and a continuous line of trucks of South California every 30 minutes or so which included parts to be used in the next few hours, the JIT(Just In Time) assembly.

It had a right from Matrix kind of Robot section with machines welding and working on Car & Truck bodies at an amazing speed.

Here is a video from a very similar robot:

More information:

• Web Tour webpage from 2007 From Archive.org
• Edmunds.com story on the plant