In his book Zero to One, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Peter Thiel addresses the distinction between globalization and technology. Globalization constitutes “horizontal progress”, he writes, or “taking things that work somewhere and making them work everywhere”; and China is the “paradigmatic…
In my op-ed for Mint, I write about the potential applications bitcoin could have specifically for emerging markets like India: India’s banking and financial services industry has incumbents that are inert, sloth-like and highly risk-averse. The banking industry in particular…
In his new book Zero To One, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel writes: At the macro level, the single word for horizontal progress is globalization – taking things that work somewhere and making them work everywhere. China is the…
In which industry does the US enjoy a globally dominant, almost unassailable position? No, it is not technology, pharmaceuticals, defence or aerospace. The one sector in which US dominance is near-absolute is higher education. Every year, some 80% of the…
The economic liberalisation of 1991 was the second independence in Indian history. It represented a tectonic shift in policies, the start of the end of ‘licence raj’, and unshackled the growth of the country. Time has come for the third…
Energy and clean technology investing has proven to be disastrous for venture capitalists. Capital allocated to clean tech fell to less than half in 2013 from the $3.7 billion invested in 2012, and new clean tech-focused funds were able to…
For several decades, Silicon Valley has had a near-monopoly on innovation. The Valley emerged out of America’s deep commitment to higher education and scientific research, combined with the American will to maintain leadership in defence technology. Through the second half…
In this piece, Harsh and I write about the importance of economic strength in the foreign policy arena: Military strength, despite its great importance, offers diminishing marginal returns. Possibilities of asymmetric power projections preclude any simplistic linear comparison of military…
Harsh and I have co-authored a piece on using financial derivatives for replacing the minimum support price (MSP) system for farmer welfare: With reduced risk thanks to commodity options, there will also be less of a need to keep crop…