TOP 10 FASTEST CARS 2015

THE TOP 10 FASTEST CARS IN THE WORLD

“How fast can it go?”

There are many ways to measure automotive excellence, but top speed is the one everybody secretly cares about the most. Aldous Huxley was right about speed being the only truly modern sensation. He left out the part about how much fun it is.

These 10 cars are more than just fun, though, they’re the fastest production cars in the world. The emphasis here is on “production;” racers and one-off custom jobs need not apply. We also tried to limit the selections to cars whose claimed top speeds have been generally recognized as legitimate by the automotive media and sanctioning groups.

There are also some cars on the horizon that appear ready to knock some names off this list. SSC still hopes to reclaim the title of world’s fastest car with its 1,350-horsepower Tuatara, and Koenigsegg claims a top speed of over 270 mph for its One:1.

For now, though, these are the fastest cars that can legally sport a license plate.

10. Ferrari Enzo (217 mph)

That the current LaFerrari isn’t any faster than the Enzo that appeared a decade before it could be viewed as proof of lack of progress. Or maybe it’s just an indication of how good the Enzo really was.

The Enzo looks positively ancient next to the LaFerrari, but it was state of the supercar art a decade ago. It was the first of Ferrari’s flagship hypercars to incorporate Formula 1-style tech, and when it launched it was also the fastest and most powerful production Ferrari to date.

Named after Ferrari’s founder, the Enzo’s mechanicals and styling set the tone for a generation of Ferrari road cars, and may also represent an important point in supercar development.

With relatively few electronic aids, the Enzo was tricky to drive. A string of crash photos and Youtube videos attested to that. Subsequent Ferraris have included more driver aids, making the Enzo among the last of the analog cars from Maranello.

9. Ferrari LaFerrari (217 mph)

Along withe P1 and the Porsche 918 Spyder, the Ferrari LaFerrari is part of a trio of hybrid supercars that showed the world that performance cars don’t have to be (too) inefficient.

The Ferrari matches the McLaren for top speed and cleverness. Its 6.3-liter V12 is joined to a hybrid system modeled on the Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) used in Ferrari’s Formula One cars. Not only does the LaFerrari give its driver 950 hp to play with, it also provides the instantaneous response of electric motors to get things going.

8. McLaren P1 (217 mph)

McLaren’s successor to the F1 isn’t as fast, but it’s much more high tech. Its 903-hp hybrid powertrain seamlessly blends electric and turbocharged V8 power, making the P1 one of the most capable performance cars ever made.

During the car’s press junket, McLaren said it emphasized the driving experience over outright top speed. Maybe the company didn’t think it could compete with Bugatti, or maybe it just thought organ-shredding lateral grip was a better way to torture customers than stratospheric speeds.

With a claimed lap time of around six minutes, the P1 also excels at a performance metric that’s almost become more important than top speed: the Nürburgring.

7. Jaguar XJ220 (217 mph)

The XJ220 lost six cylinders and two driven wheels on the way to production, but it still managed to claim the title of fastest production car in 1992.

The original concept version featured a V12 engine and all-wheel drive, but the production model had to make due with a twin-turbocharged V6, and rear-wheel drive. Still, that was enough to get the XJ220 to 217 mph at Nardo, once engineers removed the rev limiter.

However, it wasn’t enough to solidify in the car’s place in history. Buyers weren’t as impressed by the production version as they were with the concept, and a weak early ‘90s economy tanked sales. Sometimes being the fastest just isn’t enough.

6. Aston Martin One-77 (220 mph)

The One-77 is the most extreme road-going Aston ever, and the fastest. It may share a front-engined layout with “regular” Astons, but the One-77 is a completely different animal.

Only 77 examples were made, and each sports a 7.30-liter V12 producing 750 hp. Like the chassis, it’s based on an engine used in lesser Aston production models, but it’s both lighter and more ferocious.

Aside from its performance and jaw-dropping good looks, the most remarkable thing about the One-77 may be that Aston was able to create a hypercar without making many compromises.

While it matches race-inspired mid-engined designs for performance, the One-77 still has the look and feel of something much more luxurious and well-rounded. It is, after all, the only front-engined car on this list.

The One-77 proves that incredibly fast cars don’t have to focus solely on performance. Its character is almost as special as its 220 mph top speed and limited production run.

5. McLaren F1 (241 mph)

The F1 is more than just a former world’s-fastest car. With its carbon-fiber body, gold-lined engine bay, 6.1-liter BMW M V12, and center driver’s seat, it just might be the coolest car ever made.

Years before it attempted to take on Ferrari and Porsche with the MP4-12C, McLaren was known only as a successful race team in Formula 1 and the defunct Can-Am series. Yet its first road car wasn’t exactly an amateur effort.

McLaren intended to make the F1 the ultimate road-going supercar, but its design was informed by the company’s racing experience. The F1 even went on to a fairly successful racing career in its own right, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995.

4. Koenigsegg CCR (242 mph)

Swedish supercar builder Koenigsegg briefly held the “world’s fastest” title before being bested by the original Bugatti Veyron. Its CCR reached 242 mph at Italy’s Nardo Ring in 2005.

The CCR was essentially an earlier generation of the cars Koenigsegg is building today. It featured a 4.7-liter V8 of the company’s own design, a carbon-fiber body, and not much in the way of electronic aids.

Despite its impressive stats, the CCR’s moment in the spotlight was as brief as its claim on the world. It was soon supplanted by the CCX, and then by the current Agera. Koenigsegg says the Agera-based One:1 will top out at over 270 mph, but no one has tried it yet.

3. SSC Ultimate Aero (256 mph)

Briefly, the might of the Volkswagen Group and the prestige of the Bugatti name were bested by a car company no one had ever heard of.

Shelby SuperCars (SSC) has nothing to do with Carroll Shelby of Cobra fame, but for a moment its Ultimate Aero was the fastest production car in the world. It hit 256 mph in 2007, beating the non-Super Sport version of the Veyron.

Helping it achieve that velocity is a 6.3-liter twin-turbocharged V8 with 1,287 hp. There are no electronic driver aids to help control that power either, creating a purer driving experience for those with talent, and a scenario for certain death for those without it.

2. Bugatti Veyron Super Sport (268 mph)

When Volkswagen purchased the Bugatti brand, it had one goal: build the fastest production car in the world. The original Veyron achieved that goal, and with a price tag of $1.7 million and a quad-turbocharged W16 engine producing 1,000 hp, it also boasted the most superlatives of any production car.

Yet the Veyron was soon dethroned by the SSC Ultimate Aero, so Bugatti came back with the Veyron Super Sport. This Veyron-plus has 1,200 hp, and numerous aerodynamic changes meant to help gain a few extra miles per hour.

With a top speed of 268 mph recorded at Volkswagen’s Ehra-Lessein test track, the Veyron Super Sport is still recognized as the world’s fastest production car by Guinness. The related Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse is also the world’s fastest open-topped car, with a top speed of 254 mph.

1. Hennessey Venom GT (270 mph)

This combination of a Lotus Elise chassis and 1,244-hp 7.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8, and you have the fastest production car in the world. Depending on your definition of “fastest” and “production car,” that is.

Hennessey recorded a 270.4-mph run at the Kennedy Space Center last year, but only in one direction. To be considered legitimate, record attempts usually require one run in each direction. An average is then taken to account for wind conditions.

Because of its hand-built nature, there’s also some debate about whether the Venom GT qualifies as a production car. While it can claim the highest recorded speed, Hennessey’s monster isn’t recognized as the world’s fastest car by the Guinness Book of World Records.

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“We are all failures – at least the best of us are.”

Startup investing: The problem with ‘traction’

“We are all failures – at least the best of us are.” – J.M. Barrie

I had argued that for various reasons we may see a bust in the startup investing market. A controversial part of this argument centers around “traction” and its validity as a metric to value and fund startup companies, which, along with other indicators unrelated to profit such as revenues (or GMV), has become easy rule of thumb to determine which companies get capital and on what terms. Where does this all lead to?

Taking a step back:

While this may be true for some businesses (we will come to that later), startup investors have increasingly started believing that creating an expansive or dominant position in terms of consumer acquisition is sufficient to build enduring businesses, while everything else could be figured out later. To this end, investors and entrepreneurs have measured ‘top-lines’ and marketing milestones as a measure of success. This also means that in most cases, startups and growing companies are not focusing so much on reducing cost as much as spending on the exigencies of rapid ‘scaling’ by way of ‘customer acquisition’ – very fashionable phrases in the investing world.

Traditionally, this sort of model would have run into early trouble, with investors asking how this could be a healthy way of attaining profitability in a competitive market and given that profits in the long run have little to do with revenues or initial spurt in customers. Businesses take years, sometimes decades, to innovate, build brand recall, trust, respect and reliability that not only is successful in capturing markets but also in sustaining them.

A question of innovation:

Innovation, in simple terms, is an investment in technology, skills, processes and know-how that reduces costs, while increasing quality and access to products. Most ‘technology’ startups today (and we aren’t talking of Google) are not as innovative as we would like to think. In most cases, little research and development is required to adapt new goods and services to a new platform (mobile or web). Such technologies do not usually contain a sufficient amount of novelty required to make them patentable under law. That is to say in layman’s terms – the law believes anyone can come up with it and hence it isn’t first movers advantage that is worthy of legal protection.

In the absence of innovation and therefore, protected intellectual property, there is little by way of assets that large amounts of capital can bring to these new technology businesses except marketing and sales spend justified by an imagined “stickiness” of consumers that flows from a deep-rooted, misplaced and unwavering urge to scale.

Are customers actually sticky? Conventional economics says that this would depend a lot on how elastic or inelastic the prices of the goods can be upon adoption and on the quality of innovation and protected intellectual property. Brands come and go, unless they are built and maintained profitably. Cigarettes, accountants, software applications and restaurants may not follow this rule; they can be “sticky” and prices can be inelastic, i.e., customers will not or cannot move from one good or service to another quite easily and are therefore unwilling to switch over unless prices change drastically, and not without pain. Even applications that involve externalities such as social media have seen quick growth and quick downfall as user preferences have evolved.

So if there is no competitive advantage conferred by (a) innovation or (b) inelasticity of pricing and ‘stickiness’ of services, then how does acquisition of customers constitute a viable asset?

The distortions:

Ignoring this and assuming everyone is in the race for a monopoly in sectors that do not necessarily lend themselves to one, millions of dollars are being invested competitively by venture funds. The rising pile of investments is used to sell goods and services below cost (which, in most cases, in not reduced substantially due to the new business model) and acquire customers (who have no incentive to stick except for temporary low pricing).

This is how much a lot of money that has been invested privately has found its way into technology companies which have never turned a profit. This has also resulted in considerable disruption to the competitiveness of markets in which these businesses operate. Profitable businesses that raised capital in a conservative manner, cut costs and built innovative products are being disrupted by loss making behemoths who are merely heavily capitalised and marketed aggressively.

There is indeed a lack of regulation of the world of private investing and the law does not require a company to turn a profit to raise large amounts of private capital. There isn’t anything wrong with this – this is useful and necessary for the growth of business. However, regulation is also intended to aid in the development of markets, and restrict and prohibit practices that are stifling of innovation, disruptive to competition, free trade and equal opportunity.

In this regard and at least in the Indian context, there are several new technology companies (e-commerce businesses and cab services, to name a few) that present a clear case of abuse of dominant position. The Competition Commission of India has been fairly ineffective in interpreting and implementing the provisions of the (Indian) Competition Act, 2002 in a manner that prevents companies from serving customers below cost and disrupting profitable businesses.

It appears that by the time we have conclusive determination on complaints filed against certain companies, the competition would already have been wiped out. This wouldn’t be so tragic and indeed may have been truly disruptive if these profitable businesses were replaced by more efficient models instead of inefficient ones that are preserved by excessive capital infusion.

Scaling for failure:

Investors are funding businesses under the assumption that they are (a) technology businesses (b) in a market that favors monopolies and (c) ‘sticky’ in terms of customer preferences.

These assumptions have caused private investors to assume that the game involves pushing entrepreneurs to scale rapidly so as to provide returns in multiples, multiples that are ostensibly earned by businesses built on wiping out competition, acquiring consumers and by expanding rapidly. Growth on steroids that few entrepreneurs would undertake in the manner contemplated unless the cash was flowing only for that purpose.

This not only has affected the healthy growth of businesses that have raised these investments but also entrepreneurship in general, where bootstrapping/lightly capitalised innovators are often confronted with predatory pricing and unfair trade practices fueled by a deluge of inefficient capital.

Meanwhile in the public markets:

Popular chain of local pubs in Bangalore Pecos has decided to raise a small amount of money from the public, yes from the public. Pecos has turned away private equity and believes the venture funded approach to business does not suit its style of growth. It is ostensibly a cash cow that has been running profitably for 25 years and has not needed expansion to survive – it has outlets numbering in the single digits and a loyal base of customers.

Private equity, venture funds and angel investors, today, pretend not to understand Pecos’ kind of business, which does not involve quick expansion into a number of outlets capturing a large number of customers and burning money in the process. The returns apparently will not be superlative to compensate for the rest of a fund’s failed investments.

The others have failed because their competitors got “funded” because they had more “traction”, and this has created a whole bunch of luckless entrepreneurs who have failed in a race to nowhere. Things may soon look up, once investors and entrepreneurs are wiser for the experience and a little less heavy in the pocket.  And after all perhaps all is fair in love, war and business.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal.”- Winston Churchill

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Top ten most expensive cars 2015

The top ten most expensive cars in the

world

The most expensive cars in the world are so much more than transportation. These rolling art pieces encapsulate the priorities of the one percent, and in that universe, flamboyance and swagger take precedence over practicality and efficiency. Lifestyle criticisms aside, these are truly mind-boggling machines, and we’d like to count down our favorites for you here.

For the sake of clarity, we’re categorizing recently made, road-legal production vehicles only — limited runs notwithstanding — and we’re leaving out classic cars sold at auction. We’re also limiting the list to one entrant per nameplate, so don’t expect 10 different iterations of the same Bugatti Veyron.

So whether your name is Buffet, Gates, Stark, or McDuck, these rides are for you — the most exorbitant people-carriers on the planet. They say money can’t buy happiness, but after viewing this list, you just might beg to differ.

10.) Zenvo ST1 ($1.2M)

Kicking off our list is less of a car and more of an unchained animal in the ST1. Assembled in Zealand, Denmark, the Zenvo creates an absolutely obscene amount of power by combining a 6.8-liter V8 with both a supercharger and a turbocharger. Just how much is obscene exactly? How about 1,104 horsepower and 1,054 pound-feet of torque, all channeled to the car’s rear wheels.

Unfortunately for the Danish outfit, the mostly hand-built ST1 has been surrounded with controversy since its debut. During Top Gear’s 21st season, the program tested the supercar around its famous track, only to be met with constant breakdowns, slower than expected lap times, and a good old-fashioned engine fire.

Zenvo disputed Top Gear’s claims, stating the show only published the vehicle’s sluggish laps and that the fire was caused by hours of extreme driving. Nevertheless, the vehicle’s murderous looks and monstrous grunt are nothing to shake a stick at. We certainly wouldn’t kick it out of the garage.

9.) Ferrari LaFerrari ($1.4M

This 950-hp hypercar is so prestigious that its name literally translates to “The Ferrari” in Italian. The automaker’s first mild hybrid, LaFerrari equips a 6.3-liter V12 alongside an electric motor and trick Kinetic Energy Recovery System, which results in a shade less than 1,000 ponies and 664 pavement-crushing torques.

Few cars on the road are more striking, and even fewer accelerate faster. With a dry weight of less than 2,800 pounds, this dragon-like performance car accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in less than 3.0 seconds, and it’ll prance to 124 mph in under 7. Flat out, it’ll top 217 mph.

The only thing quicker than the car itself is how fast it sold, as all 499 units were snatched up faster than you can say “bank loan.” Ferrari also produced a hardcore, FXX K version specifically for the track, which we’ll delve into later.

8.) Pagani Huayra ($1.4M)

The Huayra is equally as famous for its odd-sounding name as it is for its face-melting performance. Named after the Incan God of Winds, the Huayra (pronounced why-rah) boasts an AMG-sourced 6.0-liter V12 with two turbochargers, resulting in 620 hp and and a massive 740 lb-ft.

Just how swift is it? Around the Top Gear test track, it set a time of 1:13.8, some 3.0 seconds quicker than the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. It even bested the Ariel Atom 500, which is essentially a go-kart with a 500-hp V8 strapped on the back. It still holds the show’s track record to this day, and that’s just the beginning. With incredible gullwing doors and one of the most intricate interiors ever designed, the Huayra is like nothing else on the road.

7.) Aston Martin One-77 ($1.4M)

1.4 million sure is a popular number in the supercar world, because that’s what it took to get your hands on this limited-edition Aston. We say “took” because all 77 units have been spoken for, so if you were hoping to channel your inner Bond with this car, your luck has unfortunately run out.

Arguably the most classically handsome car on this list, the One-77 is built around a carbon fibre monocoque chassis, with a handcrafted aluminum body giving it its sophisticated, aggressive look.

Under the vented hood lurks a naturally aspirated V12 that displaces 7.3 liters, which is a lot. It produces 750 hp and 553 lb-ft, which is also a lot. Those numbers make the One-77 the fastest Aston Martin ever made, as this spy chaser will top 220 mph in the right conditions. From a stop, it’ll do 0 to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds.

6.) Koenigsegg One:1 ($2.0M)

You can buy a lot with $2 million — a really nice house, about 80 Mazda MX-5’s, or the Swedish “megacar” shown above. A logical thinker could probably think of a better way to spend your life savings, but megacars don’t give a damn about logic. Because they’re mega. And after reading what the car is capable of, $2 million might actually be a steal.

The limited-edition One:1 is based on the Agera R, and it earned its poetic moniker by employing a 1:1 kilogram-to-horsepower ratio. The figure on each side of the colon? 1,340. That’s right, this car has 1,340 hp, and can theoretically top 273 mph because of it. Simply put, this is one of the fastest automobiles ever made, and with its F1-style honeycomb core, carbon fiber intake manifold, and ventilated ceramic brakes, it’s one of the most advanced as well.

Just six examples of the speedy Swede were built, and each one was sold quite quickly. Keep an eye out on Craigslist though, you never know.

5.) Ferrari F60 America ($2.5M)

To celebrate Ferrari’s 60-year tenure in North America, the Italian brand built 10 examples of this stunning bombshell. Based on the F12 Berlinetta, the F60 is undeniably patriotic as it wears a Stars and Stripes color scheme, American flag seat inserts, and classic racing livery all around. Better yet, you can experience the glory with the top down, as the F60 equips a lightweight fabric top that can be operated at speeds up to 75 mph.

The supercar is mechanically identical to the F12, but the Berlinetta isn’t exactly a Fiat Panda to begin with. Its 6.2-liter V12 churns out 740 glorious hp, enough to propel the car to 60 mph in only 3.1 seconds. The ultra-rare flag-waver harkens back to Ferrari’s bespoke past, as the company built several region-specific sports cars in the 1950s and 1960s.

4.) Mansory Vivere Bugatti Veyron ($3.4M)

This list wouldn’t be complete without some version of the mighty Bugatti Veyron. We’re shining our spotlight on the the Mansory Vivere edition here, because not only is it one of the fastest cars in the world, it’s one of the most expensive.

Augmented by German witch doctors Mansory, the 1,200-hp Veyron starts out as a Grand Sport Vitesse Roadster, only to be adorned with a gorgeous carbon fiber body, a new spoiler package,    upgraded LED lights, a rebuffed cabin, and a redesigned front grill. Further classifying the Veyron as a work of art, maps of historic race events like the Targa Florio are laser etched into the exterior and interior. Oh, and it can do 254 mph.

3.) W Motors Lykan Hypersport ($3.4M)

You may recall the Lykan Hyper-sport from its starring role in the blockbuster Furious 7, where the Lebanese super car crashed through not one, not two, but three skyscrapers in Dubai. In a franchise filled with high-end exotics and one-off custom creations, the fact that the Hyper-sport got so much focus is a testament to its magnetism.

Let’s start with the styling, which includes jewel-encrusted headlights, scissor doors, and an interior ripped straight from science fiction. It looks like a pissed off armored car from the future, and its performance is right on par with its image. The Hyper-sport boasts a 3.7-liter, twin-turbo flat-six that yields 770 hp and 708 lb-ft.

It’s not just Dominic Toretto who benefits from this level of performance though, as the Abu Dhabi police force has drafted the Hyper-sport into patrol duty. Although it’s mainly used for marketing and public relations purposes, the high-flying stunner assures that the authorities can keep up with any baddie that tries to get cute on the freeway. Pedal to the floor, 0 to 62 mph is accomplished in just 2.8 seconds, and top speed is a downright scary 240 mph.

2.) Lamborghini Veneno ($4.5M)

Poison. That’s the name Lamborghini chose for the modified Aventador you see above — translated from Italian of course — built to celebrate the automaker’s 50th birthday. We can’t speak for the company’s motivations, but the name is fitting for a vehicle that looks so positively deadly, so undeniably venomous.

The car is absolutely stunning from every angle, and to this day, we’re not convinced it isn’t an alien spacecraft surveying our planet for eventual takeover. It just doesn’t seem real. The only thing more remarkable than the look is the price — a whopping $4.5 million.

The Veneno is fast, and that should come as no surprise. Its 6.5-liter V12 spins all the way up to 8,400 rpm to deliver 740 hp and 507 lb-ft, surging the car to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds.

1.) Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita ($4.8M)

Koenigsegg makes its sophomore appearance on our list with the CCXR Trevita, and it does so as the most expensive street-legal production car in the world. Why so much coin? With no exaggeration, the car is literally coated in diamonds … and diamonds aren’t cheap.

For the Trevita, the Swedish manufacturer developed a new exterior finish called the Koenigsegg Proprietary Diamond Weave, which involves coating carbon fibers with a diamond dust-impregnated resin. We can’t even fathom how much the touch up paint costs.

Underneath the lustrous finish lies a 4.8-liter, dual-supercharged V8 with a total output of 1,004 hp and 797 lb-ft, which means it should have little to no trouble overtaking semis on the freeway.  The car’s specifications — in both performance and price — are nearly comical at this point, and just three were ever made.

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Haryana making education job-oriented

Haryana working towards making education job-oriented

Haryana government is working towards making education in the state employment-oriented and is considering bringing in necessary changes in the system for the purpose, education minister Ram Bilas Sharma has said. Speaking on the occasion of Independence Day yesterday, the Haryana minister said changes in the system starting from the primary level to the senior secondary level are being considered for the purpose.

“Monthly tests for students have also been introduced to improve the level of education in schools”, he said. Regarding changes in curriculum, Sharma said Bhagwad Gita, Yoga, moral education, cleanliness, road safety and traffic rules are being added to the curriculum to help children become responsible citizens. On promoting sports in schools, he said the government has drafted ‘Haryana Physical Activity and Sports Policy 2015′ in order to ensure the future generation is healthy. The education minister also hailed freedom fighter V D Savarkar on the occasion.

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Winners do different things

Winners don’t do things differently. They do different things

No, I haven’t made a mistake in the title. The age-old saying, ‘Winners don’t do different things. They do things differently,’ made famous by Shiv Khera in his book You Can Win, is, in my opinion, wrong.

I remember it was quoted a lot when the book came out. Every individual can be great. All you need to do is work hard, and ‘work smart’. And every one would nod knowingly at the last clause. So that’s what I did – studied hard, went to a good B-school, got a great job and worked hard (and smart) there.

Unfortunately, that saying doesnt always apply. And it’s becoming antiquated as ‘technology eats the world’ (to co-opt Marc Andreessen’s pet phrase).

This mentality of doing things smarter now pervades all aspects of our life. But it suffers from one fallacy, which I call ‘focusing on the numerator’.

It’s like a company that focuses only on improving its profit margin. It brings in cutting-edge efficient machines and implements just-in-time production techniques. But with all these productivity improvements, how much could the profit margin increase? From 15 to 20 per cent? To 40 per cent? Is 100 per cent possible?

Even in the best (and quite impossible) scenario, the upside is capped at 100 per cent of revenue. But, what if you focused, instead, on the denominator? What if you looked for ways to achieve a step jump in revenue? Suddenly, there’s far more value to capture, even if you are inefficient.

What you work on matters, and matters far, far more than how hard you work. This is an example of a Power Law, which I’ve written about before.  In the early 1900s in England, there were some people who were called ‘knocker-uppers’. Their task was to wake people up every morning. They would walk the streets with a long stick, and tap on windows till people woke up. Many of them worked hard. I’m sure they worked smart too, with well-balanced, aerodynamic and sonorous sticks. Still, they lost their livelihoods in a jiffy when alarm clocks came into the market.

Moral of the story: Do more valuable tasks, instead of doing less valuable tasks efficiently or smartly. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.

This is how the world is today – it’s the new normal. The companies that win are the ones that innovate 10 times more than their competition and ‘change the game’ and not the ones who innovate incrementally. As Peter Thiel says in his book, don’t move an industry to greater efficiencies (i.e., from 1 to 1.1). Focus instead on moving something from zero to one.

Look at the biggest companies around us – Google (search advertising), Apple (iPhone), Amazon (e-commerce, e-books, etc.). They didn’t just improve search algorithms, build a better phone, or sell books through a simpler distribution chain. They revolutionised their respective industries, not by doing things differently or more efficiently, but by doing different things.

And it’s not just companies: it’s visible in every aspect of life. No longer can you say, “Karm kar, phal ki chinta na kar” (“Work hard, don’t worry about the result”), in all honesty. If the recipe is bad, it doesn’t matter how good a cook you are.

This may be bad news. But it’s good news as well. Once you start looking for this ‘focus on the numerator’ behavior everywhere, you can make more valuable decisions on your company, your products, and with your time.

A few examples of the implications, off the top of my head:

1. Product Management: Instead of A/B testing and optimising your nth new feature, focus on getting more people to use your product. Andrew Chen puts this well in a recent article.
2. HR: Instead of trying to getting the best out of your team, learn how to build a better team. [This is more important in technology businesses, and less so in traditional brick-and-mortar companies.]
3. Health: You can try to manage your cholesterol by eating French fries cooked in refined oil or unsaturated oil or whatever the flavor of the season is. Or, you can just stop eating French fries!
4. Personal Finance: Focus on earning more, not spending less. A direct corollary of the revenue-profit point I made earlier. It’s ironic, but I’m the prime target for this lesson. I started expense budgeting almost before I could walk. I’ve spent countless hours balancing my expenses, tracking my receipts, and strategising lower spends, when I could have instead focused on doing more valuable things. Which means anything else, basically.
5. Personal Productivity: Be effective, not efficient, as Tim Ferriss says in The Four Hour Work Week. Do two important things, instead of 10 unimportant ones. A lesson for me as well, as I was firmly in the ‘get more out of your day‘ brigade.

TL:DR: In work as in life, we should strive hard by all means. But we must think hard first: is what I’m doing the most valuable thing I could do? Let’s build more important things, instead of optimising our lives away.

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