I love trying to understand why people behave the way they do—at the micro and macro levels.
From the incentive structure of a factory worker to the lifecycle of civilisations, I'm drawn to patterns that repeat across individuals, cultures, and centuries.
My first job out of engineering college was at a Tata Motors plant in Pune. I was handed a dying project: an RFID system meant to track engine assembly data. More than 35% of the data was getting lost. Technical experts had tried everything. The company was about to write off the $2 million investment.
I did one thing no one else had done. I talked to the line workers.
The system required engines to rest for 10 seconds at each station while data was transmitted. But workers were paid for throughput, and not accuracy. So they pushed the engines forward, skipping the pause. No one had explained to them why it mattered.
Once I understood the incentive mismatch, the fix was simple. And I learned something that shaped my career:
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Communication and behavioural design can impact business outcomes more than most strategies on paper.
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I've lived and worked across continents—reporting to Americans, mentoring Germans, and collaborating with Malaysians and Australians. That exposure taught me early that culture shapes thinking, perspective, and risk tolerance in ways that aren’t always obvious. I've been hooked ever since.
In high school, my history teacher posed a question: "If the conspiracy about Churchill having known about Pearl Harbour and not warning Roosevelt in time was true, why would he have done that?"
I was the only one in class who got the answer right. The answer is trivial, but the question changed my perspective on history. It’s not about memorizing forgotten events and dates, which is what the current curriculum teaches us. Human existence is a cycle of behavioural repetitions. History shows us how things have worked out before, and how they'll likely work out again.
Capitalism is flawed. But it remains the only proven mechanism to lift vast populations out of poverty through deployed capital and education. I'm interested in the nuances of businesses that operate at scale and create social impact.
As a kid, I was obsessed with the He-Man cartoon show. Years later, I learned that the cartoons were made to sell the toys, and not the other way around. My first exposure to content marketing.
Then came the Undertaker. WWE built a character from scratch—an undead man who channelled hell’s powers to wrestle his opponents into submission week after week. All of us boys were hooked. We truly believed he had some mystical powers. This was my first understanding of storytelling's power to create meaning from nothing.