Monday, July 15, 2013

Professional Bias: The most damning kind of 'Modern Prejudice'?

Thanks to Mahzarin Banaji & Anthony Greenwald, authors of the recently published book "Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People", I now have a term to use when I crib about that intangible, all pervasive, frustrating, subtle but highly damaging prejudice one has to face in the corporate life.

Below is my comment* posted against the transcript of a rather surprisingly** unbiased interview of Banaji by Shankar Vedantam on NPR Code-switch
*one among the 214 highly engrossing comments as on today
**or may be not-so-surprising considering the topic is of 'bias' & avoiding that makes definite sense :-) & also because Shankar himself authored a book that establishes the existence of unconscious biases (The Hidden Brain: How our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives)
Let me admit upfront that the comment i made about the book in the penultimate paragraph below is hardly unbiased as 1) I haven't (still) read the book & 2) I was prejudiced by the choice of examples Banaji made.

My comment:
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Ouch! that hit a raw nerve…

Considering the many instances I encountered and still experiencing, it’s apparent to me that I unfortunately am on the wrong viz., receiving side of this bias - No wonder, I am not really able to smirk in tacit understanding of this form of subtle prejudice like Banaji & Greenwald can!

I probably faced this first as a kid transitioning from vernacular education to an 'English medium' school wherein I joined this phantom club of under-dog vern-pretenders. Even as I overcame this initial bias over a few precious school years, I have had an extended rendezvous with this intangible discrimination that followed me most places & most worryingly, into my career – an aspect to an extent demonstrated by the number of times I riled against ageism, rankism & even heightism on twitter in the past few years.

Hands-down, the title of the most damning kind of subtle prejudice goes to professional discrimination that manifests itself in multiple forms in multiple contexts right from Existence of highly exclusive informal academic/ alumni groups; Caste (in Indian context), region triggered favoritism to Inherent bias of domain-Gods prejudiced against wannabes that are trying to break-in into their sacred bastion – most of which I am experiencing right now with my own seemingly self-defeating penchant for periodical disruptive re-invention of self by making/ attempting a lateral career move with no pedigree, justification other than my own belief.

If it sounds like I’m demonizing these ‘quaint’ prejudices as if they were a bigger evil than the regular discrimination types like age, color, disability, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation etc., I have a reason for being so. Unlike these more visible & blatant discrimination wherein the discriminator most times cannot morally or at least legally justify the bias & hence the biased can seek refuge in the regulation & the brotherhood of communities that are similarly affected., the victim, if I may say that, of a subtle prejudice/ bias/ discrimination is without any recourse of fighting this anomaly & hence is perpetually screwed.

No one is above a little-bias in their lives - My own biases & how they impacted the under favored is something which now I’ll keep mulling on, so as to avoid. I however like to believe my fleeting prejudices never trampled on any career aspiration nor on real merit, but aware I am pretty much of any bias I have & when I do, it’s intentional. Given this, I’d argue most of these prejudices aren't unintentional but very consciously employed – while I haven’t read the book, the tone, tenor and the case-studies used by the authors make this book come across as a guide to these subtle perpetrators on “how not to feel guilty while favoring your own kind” – It’s a great service nonetheless by authors to highlight this aspect so very bravely.

The biases may be quaint, but the impact is real and it hurts real bad.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Static & Staticy

10th July 2013

When the search is of existential angst, trust the search engine to fill your bucket of woes.











Why really? 

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

My question, merely rephrased, is still open - IRR v/s Impact Investing: Do financial institutions necessarily go through this dilemma?

So I now can save some breath by saying 'Impact investing' whenever I have something to say about social impact of investments - that still doesn't mean I get the whole picture now! 

Below is my comment on a recent article on Forbes titled "Pierre Omidyar, Steve Case And Mike Milken On The BusinessCase For Impact Investing"

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Comment:

Earlier in Jan 2013 I posted a poser on my blog titled "IRR v/s Social Impact: Do financial institutions necessarily go throughthis dilemma?"

Even as I am still unclear how social-impact can coexist with bang-for-the-buck at the macro level (~LPs), I see a definite hope in the approach being pursued by Omidyar Network, which made a great start just by terming itself as "a philanthropic investment firm' – The document “From the Field: Lessons Learned in Impact Investing” goes on to showcase how ON takes this moniker seriously – Bravo!!

From all I could see, ON is still an investment firm that’s funded (largely) by its philanthropic founders & there is no ‘raising of fund from LPs’ involved in this unlike most VC/ PE firms that dabble in similar volumes of investments/ portfolio.

That brings me back this intriguing question of how the likes of JPM measure their social impact? – I am sure I am missing something here.


Monday, July 8, 2013

I'm dumb with cool apps 'cos my phone ain't smart when I'm travelling overseas!

Ever heard an international traveler bitch about how cruel the data roaming tariffs can be - well, here i go...

My comment on a recent post on the HBR Group on LI;

Link to the LI discussion:










My comment:


Never heard of any till now……. checked them out & loved 'em all.

AirBNB: Sure sounds like something i'll try when i'm travelling and looking for an overnight accommodation next time.

Uber: I am guessing I may not need a chauffeured sedan anytime soon, but am sure excited by the opportunity it provides to make a rather grand exit from a sad rendezvous :-)

Hailo: Hello... this is something I could use when i'm in London or NYC next - my only issues are; a) When in the near future would the corporations of London & NY enable city wide Wifi?.... enabling data on my international roaming plan can be pretty killing. AND b) What if I don't actually know where to stand while 'Hailo'ing the cab? .... just kidding :-)

Getting serious, the bottom-line is that till the time WiFi is all prevailing and FREE in all cities (are you listening Google??..), an international traveler like me will not be able to use many of these cool apps for want of connectivity....

Plan B anyone?

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Understanding the consumer's perspective on the future of healthcare is the key to envisioning the future of pharma itself!

While there occurs a lot of ideation & speculation within the industry domain on the future of healthcare & an outlook on pharma variously from 2020 through to 2050, I always still felt there is a crying need for pharmaceutical industry to understand the consumer's perspective on what healthcare scenario should be like in future - This is critical considering the hitherto quintessential 'practitioner-dependent' healthcare consumer is changing rapidly & is looking at an 'iterative' role for himself rather than wanting to being 'prescribed' health literally & figuratively.

While not exactly an average consumer, the pharmaceutical professionals themselves represent a sample population of aware individual consumers whose opinion I believe will give me a much valuable insight into what an increasingly knowledgeable healthcare consumer is looking forward to with respect to health & wellness in 2025 & hence I have decided to reach out to them primarily, to start with & pick some brain.

Through the various forums I have access to, I have already sent out multiple requests to multitudes of individuals to spare a a few minutes of their precious time to fill in the HEALTH 2025 survey as a consumer. I of course will be greatly pleased to have an outlook from the 'non-pharma' aware consumers too & invite the same to provide their valuable input.

The outcome of my small effort looks promising with the total initial responses already reaching 100 across the globe even as I type this post - Not bad at all, considering the survey's been open for only 20 hours now. 

Very soon I will be back to share the results of the above survey & postulate, however minimal, on a few useful trends & indicators.

Wish me good luck folks!

Monday, July 1, 2013

Cipla Ventures - What's the real story Gen-3?

Greed for quality & comprehension makes one less effective & less productive.........
........... Stash away those cudgels people, this is NOT about pharmaceutical manufacturing, this IS about my realization after a month of sub-par blogging that resulted in my number of posts going low (just one article to be precise in June 2013!) and the number of views I get per a month hitting the nadir! - A promise to myself... will try to type out a few "casually turned out" articles every now n then, instead of generating it through my oft employed time-consuming approach of Mull-it-over-for-a-week-Type-it-on-Word-Edit-it-as-though-HBR-were-publishing-it-and-finally-Paste-it-on-the-blog....... Spontaneity ain't dead yet!

Now the REAL topic...

The recent news of Cipla charting new course to achieve a $5 billion revenue in next ten years caught my attention & got me thinking.... Not because a 10 year objective as this is anything novel, but the simultaneous creation of a dedicated investing arm Cipla Ventures, towards this vision, is what interests me. 

Now again, what's so novel about corporate venture capital? its's been around for some time and the trend is bound to catch-on with whichever company that's sitting on surplus cash reserves jumping into the fray if not anything else, as someone said (Super LP??) for the blood & gore and the adrenalin rush that venture investing & enterprise incubation gives.


What interests me is.... 
........ the brief agenda of this arm of Cipla, as reported by Economic times, that says will "weigh the prospect of investing in companies from start-up hubs like Boston and London among other places, in areas such as biotechnology, medical devices and new chemical entity

What interests me is.... 
....... the expansive & prophetic way in which the new CEO Subhanu Saxena says "Out of the five or six bets I place, only two or three need to pay off"

What interests me is.... 
....... what is this "pay off" for which Cipla is ready to take "sensible risk", a novel term for a generic Indian company that has taken the traditionally low risk option of staying close to the home turf?

What interests me is.... 
...... what key takeaway Saxena is walking away with from Novartis & bringing to Cipla?

Let me be clear, I am not insinuating anything unethical here nor I am attaching ulterior motives to a darn-clear writing-on-the-wall business opportunity, all I am doing is trying to get to the heart of matter as to what will Cipla gain eventually through these investments..

Two theories that strike me right away are as follows;

i) TOOL FOR NEGOTIATION:  

The multiple niche stakes & thereby the 'possible' control on the licensing /sale of the pipeline candidates & technologies of the portfolio companies in the NCE, Biotechnology & Diagnostic space will potentially help Cipla negotiate/ barter generic deals with the big pharma companies whose drugs Cipla is/ will/ would aggressively pursue to market in the US & European markets

Will this fly...? despite the generous window of hit-miss offered by Saxena, this is an opportunity completely out in the ether & my guess is as good as Cipla's :-)

ii) EXIT PREPPING OF FOUNDER PROMOTERS: 

Before I am clobbered for suggesting India's most nationalistic  private pharmaceutical company would sell-out, let me remind that no one's above liquidity & no company is unattainable in this corporate game. Let's also remember that the new leadership of Cipla is, surprise, surprise.... of all places, from Novartis, the bête noire of Cipla in many a litigation?? - Let's also remember that the new leadership of Cipla in US & EU is Ex-Teva... the generic behemoth that can make big-ticket acquisitions every now and then (read: $6.5 billion Cephalon; $7.5 billion Barr et al..)

Will this fly...? Of course it'll - the lure is the access to a 1.24 billion strong Indian market.

Anymore theories? 

Friday, June 28, 2013

A start-up messed up at its foundation OUGHT TO be fixed!

The celebrated venture investment guru Peter Thiel postulated a law that says "a start-up messed up at its foundation cannot be fixed" - Bruce Booth attempted a commentary of this law in the context of Biotech ventures through his blog post titled 'Foundings Matter: Thiel’s Law Applied To Biotech' - While Bruce's application of Thiel's law is based on a tacit agreement of the postulation, I believe this can be argued differently, as indicated by some campus talk here...

Below is my comment against the article by Bruce Booth, wherein I agreed and disagreed with the author in two independent contexts....

My comment:
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It bugs me no end just how little the VC & PE literati out there ever attempts to explain all those lurid, smart theories in the context of biotech enterprises instead of solely building case-studies out of super-achieving IT start-ups that brought-in bags of cash to the VCs very early into its life cycle. This peculiar penchant among the authors for avoidance of anything called biotech enterprise I feel is owing to a general investor impatience for acknowledging the veracity of any investment that can’t be cashed out profitably within 3-5 years & thereby not showcased as a text-book case of intelligent investing. While otherwise is a decently thought-provoking & stimulating book, “Venture Capitalists at Work: How VCs identify and build billion dollar successes” by Tarang Shah is one such recent addition to my list of disappointing treatise.

Peter Thiel too probably isn’t greatly different after all, since a lot of the wisdom he’s been postulating is validated only within the narrow context of IT start-ups - Your effort Bruce, at ‘pharmifying’ the ‘Thiel’s law’ is thus a very welcome diversion.

None of the mess-ups you listed right from ‘un-reproducible science’ to ‘inappropriate capitalization’ can be contested as inconsequential in any which way & together these six make a great check-list for the entrepreneur on how not to go wrong initially & for a full-fledged due diligence by the VC either at the initial funding or an informal, abbreviated review prior to subsequent funding rounds. I however am struggling a little bit to accept that the DNA can’t ever be repaired once messed up – isn't disruptive innovation, which inherently amounts to re-coding the DNA of the enterprise /or enterprise's innovation/ business model, an accepted strategy now?

In the June 2013 issue of HBR, Rita Gunther McGrath (Author of “The End of Competitive Advantage”) talks on how the current day enterprise scenario is all about moving away from the conventional ‘Sustainable competitive advantage’ model and instead moving towards “Transient competitive advantage’ – Biotechs' that operate within an ever evolving, dynamic clinical scenario I believe can’t really base their strategy on sustainable competitive advantage & have to necessarily adapt, quickly & efficiently to the transient competitive advantage model & this may necessitate periodic re-coding of the enterprise DNA - What I quote here is what pretty much you and others said earlier regarding the need of emergence of ‘lean-start-ups’.

So instead of trying overtly to ensure all loose ends are tied-up upfront (…including the phantom scenarios!) & showcase a supposedly fine-tuned enterprise DNA to the VCs, the start-up would do good to expand the scope of the business plan to incorporate a well thought through set of situation-appropriate pivots & an alternate disruptive innovation model or two.

My two Rappen*


*on a business trip in Switzerland at the time of posting this article