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There are two major ways to make money on consumer Internet - subscription or ads. Also, unlike enterprise-world, usage-based subscription is hard and confusing for consumers. So, we end up with 10$ a month all-you-can-consume buffet or we end up with ads. Now, like it or not, not all users are created equal. Some are more valuable than others. And these valuable users indirectly pay more than the users with less spending power. In other words, these users subsidize the product for the less fortunate fellows. In fact, in some ways, ads are a transfer of wealth from rich to poor users of the same service. So, next time wonder when people complain about ads, they will always be rich and powerful. These rich users would prefer a minuscule 10-a-month price instead of being worth thousands, if not millions, for the advertisers. And if the product has network effects, like social media, then it is unavoidable for these richer folks. ...

I crawled through the 2 by 2 feet hole. I checked the map again. If the map is right then in about 30 ft, this passage should open into a big enough chamber for me to walk out of this aptly named Labyrinth cave. My elbows were bruised. So were my knees. And then a small stalactite scratched my forehead. That’s when time stopped for me. I decided to lie down. 100s of small thorny stones were pinching me. I was calm. I looked around. A video feed of this would have been claustrophobic for the viewers but I felt nothing. At least not till my forehead got scratched.

Why does Punjab produce so many singers? Even from the nearby Haryana, New Delhi, or Uttar Pradesh, the best singers usually sing in Punjabi. So, why are so many good singers Punjabi speaking? Well, there is an answer. A perfect pitch is the ability to discern sounds that are close (within 6%) in frequencies. Having a more perfect pitch makes you better at singing. Learning a tonal language makes you better at perfect pitch. And Punjabi is the only tonal language of India! ...

Mt. Fuji is a tough but gorgeous hike. It is much shorter than Grand Canyon or Mt. Whitney and can be done on a day trip.

Bengaluru-based Postman, a API management product, has raised a total of $433 million valuing it at ~$5.6B. Its revenue was $171M in 2023. As a comparison, Rubrik with ~$850M ARR is valued at $6B or about 7 times its revenue. The same metric would put Postman’s valuation at $1.2B. I would argue further that Postman has much lower stickiness and will face higher churn and hence, the revenue multiple would be lower for Postman. ...

This is a story of a messaging app used by billions of users. The app followed an extremely strong model of privacy. The app never persisted the user’s data on the servers. All the communication is end-to-end encrypted. A lot of users of this app, especially, on Android would regularly uninstall and reinstall the app. Now, to prevent these users from losing messages, the messages were backed up to the user’s SD card. In the Android security model, an SD card is a public storage space, accessible to all apps. So, to keep messages private, the backups were encrypted. ...

One up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch is an impressive book about fundamental analysis for stock picking. Following is my terse summary of the same. Emphasis on Fundamental Analysis Look around for companies that are performing well and invest in them before Wall Street institutional investors pick them In the long run, common stocks give the best rate of returns Only basic math is needed to analyze and pick stocks “Don’t gamble, invest your savings to buy good stocks and hold them till they go up and then sell them. If it doesn’t go up, don’t buy it” Investing directly in common stocks is a seven-card stud-poker hand Rules of investing in the market Buy a home (≠ house) before stocks Only invest what you can afford to lose (without impacting your daily life) Patience, Common sense, and willingness to do independent research Ignore short-term fluctuations There is nothing called a good or bad market Predictions are futile ...

Google Domains A year back, I had to migrate my domain after Google decided to shut down Google Domains. I had to, not only, painfully setup multiple side-projects sub-domain mappings again on a new domain registrar but also re-verify my domain and re-create those mappings on Google Cloud Run. Google Container Registry Google Container Registry is shutting down in 2025. It has been replaced with a new project called Artifact Registry. So, why is Container Registry being shut down? Probably because it 10X cheaper than Artifact Registry. ...

On my way from the Prague airport to the city of Prague, I sat on a bus next to a man wearing a suit and tie. “Here for business?”, I asked. “European Space Agency meeting”, he replied. Those were the days of Brexit, so, I had to ask, “What’s the language of ESA now?”.

Unlike Tokyo, Kyoto is a nice and cozy city. We started the day with a walking tour that gave us an intense view of this city of shrines. There is a lot to do in this city. However, I would recommend focusing on a few of the best specific shrines. Inari Shrine - do the full mountain hike to the top and check the small waterfalls on the backside Kinkaku-ji Shrine Ninna-ji temple - a 1200-year-old temple with several statues of Hindu gods sculpted in 800 AD. ...