A lot has been written about Bangalore's water crisis, so here's a story.

In January 2018, I found myself in Cape Town, and while waiting for my bags at the conveyor belt, this sign stared back at me. After a 15-hour journey from Bengaluru, I’m exhausted, and cranky. No internet, so nothing to distract myself with.

I give up and head to the restroom.

There's no running water, but I see signs everywhere.

"Who buys clothes online?"

It’s 2011.

I’ve just joined Myntra as a Product Manager.

Neither of us have any idea what I’m doing here. As I’d tell people later, I suspected that Myntra had hired me 20 minutes after getting funded. The money had just hit the bank account and once the senior leaders had high-fived and congratulated each other, someone asked, “Now what?”

Someone else said, “Not sure. Maybe we should hire some Product Managers? All the cool companies are doing it.”

And so they did.

"Where do we watch Succession now?"

First the IPL and now HBO, it's clear that Disney is going to going to lose Hotstar subscribers in India.

This is intentional.

It's a story about activist investors, a new-old CEO, how Hotstar is essentially cable TV and a myth of bundling. First, you need to understand what Disney the company is going through right now.

On the left is Bob Iger, who served as Disney CEO from 2005 to 2020, widely considered as one of the company's most successful leaders.

On the right is his namesake, Bob Chapek, who succeeded him.

Billionaires like Elon Musk, Sam Bankman-Fried and others want to use their wealth to change the world.

And yet, the world is unchanged.

If we trace our way back, we'll end at an unlikely source.

The 1971 Bangladesh war of liberation.

Not kidding.

I'll explain. It's November 1971.
 
For 6 months, a brutal civil war had been going on in East Pakistan.

The previous year, a deadly cyclone had struck from which the population hadn’t recovered.

And thousands were dead and millions were refugees, without food, shelter, or any belongings.

Back in June 2015, Chris Sacca, while doing an interview with Emily Chang at Bloomberg, made an off-hand comment about one of Google's executives.

I don't think he realised it then, but it's one of the truths about Product Management that many know but few talk about. You probably know Chris Sacca. He’s an investor, entrepreneur and lawyer. Early investor in Uber and Twitter.

Also appeared on Shark Tank several times.

And for a while, he worked at Google as Head of Special Initiatives leading the alternative access and wireless divisions.

During the Bangalore floods, an area that was badly affected was Outer Ring Road i.e ground zero of tech companies.

In all the footage, you'll notice a red skywalk appear again and again.

There's a story behind this skywalk.

And it's a metaphor for the city's urban governance. Around 5 years back, ask anyone worked at ORR, and they'd tell you that the biggest problem wasn't floods or traffic jams.

It was something much more life-threatening.

There was no way to cross the road.

No skywalk. No pedestrian crossing. No police.

Nothing.

Zepto website

From one month ago (left) to today (right).

It's official.

The 10-minute grocery category is finally dead in India. Today, there are no companies in the 10-minute grocery delivery category anymore.

Blinkit sold to Zomato.

Ola killed Ola Dash.

And now, finally, Zepto has stopped promising 10-minute groceries.

India is quietly building an Amazon and Flipkart killer. It’s called the ONDC, and it’s purpose is to shift power away from all the incumbents.

At least that’s the plan.

In reality, the ones who are the most interested in joining it, are…the incumbents.

But why? First, a bit about the ONDC. It's been called many things.

Like Amazon slayer.

Or a way to democratise e-commerce in India.

Or the UPI moment for e-commerce.

The core premise is —take what’s closed and proprietary, and make it open and standard.

How do you create, build and scale your podcast? 🎙️

This is how @TheKenWeb's first podcast, Unofficial Sources:

- Got 100,000 listens in less than 4 months
- Became one of the top-ranked podcasts on Apple Podcasts

...with a small team that had zero experience in audio.

👇 A little backstory.

The Ken is a subscription-based publication that publishes deep stories on business, technology and healthcare in India and Southeast Asia.

We've been around since 2016, and ever since we can remember, our subscribers have been telling us to do a podcast.