Once the company has “jumped the shark” so to speak, the vicious cycle of toxic culture, management’s knee-jerk reaction and declining industry dominance kicks in comprehensively. History shows that only a total reboot of the company breaks this cycle …

Undoubtedly, America was the greatest startup ever … but I have to wonder if the US Government has jumped the shark and has now become the startup that has gone stale (Pardon my mixed metaphors – a bad habit from the “Yes, Minister” series). Here are my thoughts -

1. An utterly archaic system of electing and legislating (and worse – the same archaic system makes it impossible to change the archaic system)

Electoral college made sense 200 years ago – absolutely no reason why it should not be replaced by a more logical direct voting system. Also, a 4 year term is too short for the President – everyone is in perpetual election mode.

Checks-and-balances system has gone berserk – Structure of Senate (equal representation) and filibuster essentially skews democracy and stymies any bold changes.

Primaries are inherently gamed towards the fringes of the parties and hence there is never a possibility of moderate candidates emerging in a general election. Unless there are open primaries or instant run-offs, the system is set up to create total polarization.

2. A meritocracy that is being replaced by “SuperPAC”ocracy. Reasoned debate about relevant issues is being completely torpedoed (or swiftboated) by strident rhetoric and degenerate soundbites.

3. Proceses, regulations and risk-aversion : As any hot startup matures into a successful big company, it slowly but surely gets burdened with extra layers of processes and regulations – many start out as reasonable checks and balances to enable streamlined operations and to avoid big “oops”. However, over time, these get calcified, often irrelevant and  outdated and they become the fig leaf for risk aversion.

So, is there is a “Reboot” button for America? Just like many startups that have gone stale that revamp their management suite and the board, we do our political spring cleaning every 2 or 4 years – but really, it is the same DNA with the same constraints.

So far, we have been able to remain dominant because of the simple fact that other countries’ political systems suck even more and may continue to suck for a long time for pretty much the same reasons outlined above. So, that might be the good news and judging from the lines at the US consulates worldwide, we probably don’t need to worry for  a while at least about attracting top talent and remaining the top dog … but, as we know from the high-tech startup scene, market dominance is fleeting and the next threat is just a swipe away.

RA.ONE has generated a lot of buzz for being the most expensive Bollywood movie ever made (I am resisting a comparison to Kevin Costner’s Waterworld which also got a lot buzz then for the same reason). The previews and reviews gave ample indication of what to expect – A Tron inspired sci-fi flick infused with a liberal helping of desi elements – catchy tunes, energetic dances, only-in-India type PJs, mild family sentiment and Shah Rukh Khan. (And to add another bizarre dimension to this movie, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited the sets of the movie to see Shah Rukh Khan at work !!)

(Shah Rukh Khan is like oil. While scientists have been predicting for years that the world’s oil reserves will deplete due to overuse, somehow we seem to always find ways to extract more and chug along fine. Similarly, Shah Rukh Khan is constantly overutilized (by his own insistence) and incessantly mined for entertainment value, but even after all these years, he shows no sign of peaking and seems set for a few more decades of over-emoting while we try to carefully nurture our scarce alternative but sustainable entertainment resources).

No one has accused Shah Rukh Khan movies of subtelety (or having a script) .. and this movie was certainly no exception. In the grand tradition of summer pop-corn flicks like Transformers and Terminator, RA.ONE is all about the packaging and not the content…. by the time you realize that you have worked your way through the visually dazzling packaging, it has been 2 hours:43 minutes and you are all “wrapped” up …

In fact, in the case of RA.ONE, I strongly suspect that they shot some really cool dance sequences, a sizzling item number, two amazing cameos, Matrix++ style fights, Bourne Identity type car chases and some absolutely world-class digital effects and then called in a bunch of writers and asked them to string a story together around that stuff … (It is called “Shoot first … Ask questions later” approach).

Anyway – the story goes something like this … A geeky Tamil video game designer called Shekar in London (Shah Rukh khan) has a cool wife of unknown desiness (Sonia, played by Kareena Kapoor). (And nothing prepared me for this… Sonia is working on a thesis on the history of profanity and hoping to introduce new profanities that are more gender balanced … I am still hoping that this interpretation of what Sonia does is just a horrible mixup due to my limited Hindi skills). Shekar and Sonia have a kid (aged somewhere between 9 and 16) who is into video game villains, long hair, an Anglo-Asian girl (also aged somewhere between 9 and 16), high-school pranks and serious issues with his dad regarding his dad’s “coolness”. (Note to self : Do not eat noodles mixed with yogurt like Shekar does.. at least not in the presence of my seven-year old).

In an attempt to spiff up his image in his son’s eyes, Shekar (along with two colleagues) creates a video game and endows the villian (RA.ONE for Ravan) with powers normally reserved for the hero (G.one or Good One or Jivan for life in Hindi). The same media company (owned by Mr. Barron, played by Dalip Tahil, desperately trying to behave like what everyone thinks Vijay Mallya behaves like)  that creates the video game also owns another technology (which is conveniently located in the adjacent lab) whereby a tangible avatar materializes out of nothing. (Don’t ask … the label sci-fi gives the movie writers a free hand in leaps of logic).

Shekar’s son (Prateek) kicks RA.ONE’s ass in the very first game that he plays, and this really pisses RA.ONE off. He decides that simply looking like a 21 st century Desi Vader is not enough and he channels his inner digital angst to become a tangible avatar (with all the shape shifting properties grandfathered in from the Terminator movies). Under normal operating conditions (i.e., when not shape shifted), RA.ONE looks either like a really pissed off Darth Vader who has just eaten an Andhra spicy pickle or like a seriously body toned Arjun Rampal (actually, looks like Arjun Rampal’s face but with a body digitally lifted from the movie 300). The plot thickens (just kidding… it doesn’t) with RA.ONE trying to find Prateek to take revenge for his defeat. The scene suddenly shifts from London to India for no ostensible reason other than to contrive a scenario for Akon’s song. The rest of the movie has a few predictable twists and turns, all carefully designed to ensure that Shah Rukh Khan does not stray an inch from the spot light.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie thoroughly – it was over the top, way over the top … and that was what made it fun. A movie that had no pretense of an ambition to greater cinematic achievement … A movie that (intentionally or inadvertantly) did not take itself seriously … A movie that had two amazing cameos that by themselves redeemed the movie … A movie with a really catchy dance number to a song by Akon  …….  A movie that felt like a 2:43 hr long movie trailer (dazzling effects, disconnected story, constant climaxes and groovy dances)… (Go see it … but your smileage may vary).

Of course, our perspective on vacations changed dramatically after the arrival of the kids – now, any vacation spot that has the right brand of diapers and a well stocked section of cheesesticks (not a typo – it is cheesesticks and not cheesesteaks) gets an automatic 5 stars from us.

The trip itself was a last minute trip and was motivated by our friends who made their Hawaii plans and we managed our trip with a partial overlap with theirs. Here is the Hawaii travel(b)log… and the photos linked here

Day one: Getting there

Unlike our last air travel with kids, when almost missed our flight, this time around, it was smooth sailing all around. The kids were unbelievably good on the flight (.. and we only had to use the iPad and iPhones 75% of time . A somewhat unscientific analysis of gadgets in the flight reminded me of how dramatically iPad has come on to the scene in the last few months. The last time I flew, the gadgets of choice were still the Kindles, laptops, net books and the occasional portable DVD player. But on this flight, I noticed that among the non-phone gadgets, the vast majority were iPads with only an occasional Kindle.

We flew into Kona International Airport and I was immediately struck by how different the airport is. It is not often that I get surprised or intrigued by an airport – the extent of surprise or intrigue is usually extremely minor and is something like a papier-mâché T-Rex sculpture or a Wolfgang Puck Express – but this one was definitely different – the airport was a fully open-air airport (gives true meaning to the word “air port”). One simply came out of the plane and everything was pretty much open – no aerobridges, no waiting enclosures, nothing.. Just a few scattered buildings but otherwise everything was open.

We stayed at the Sheraton Keauhou ( I struggled mightily to spell and say this and many other Hawaiian words. With a total of only thirteen letters in Hawaiian, the five vowels have a disproportionate rate of occurrence relative to English and this necessitated a serious reset of my verbal machinery but with poor results. It reminded me of the classic Onion satire on Clinton deploying vowels to Bosnia (http://ifaq.wap.org/society/voweldeployment.html). The hotel was a little away from the hustle and bustle of the Kona town but offered a nice secluded retreat, beautiful grounds and stunning views of the oceanfront. The rooms were sparse and functional but comfortable.

Day Two: Breakfast and Beach

I now have a sneaking suspicion that the the primary reason my wife goes on a vacation is for the breakfasts. I think it is one of those cathartic and strangely fulfilling rituals for her to sit down for a leisurely all-you-can-eat breakfast regardless of how good or bad the food is. With the breakfast buffet out of the way and the battle with the younger kid’s feeding partially won, we set out to explore the Western coast of the Big Island from the South to the North. It was truly amazing to see such diversity of landscape and vegetation in such a short distance span. It was great to pull over and see a vast stretch of deep blue ocean with a tropical backdrop of palm and coconut trees on one side and a stark, rocky expanse with mountains in the background. And the fact that is was mostly in the 80s with a gentle sea breeze didn’t hurt either…

We stumbled upon the A-beach (in Waikoloa) (I still cannot pronounce what the A-beach stands for. Given that it is popularly called A-beach, I am guessing others are in the same boat) which was very nice – not crowded at all but very clean and scenic. We spent most of the afternoon there till the kids got totally exhausted.

Day Three: Luau

Since no first trip to Hawaii is complete without the obligatory Luau experience, we looked into the whole Luau scene… Like most activity flyers in touristy spots, the Luau glossy flyer advertised it as …” an impeccable beach side dinner experience with traditional Polynesian dance and culture set in a location steeped in Hawaiian royal history…. and an unlimited dinner buffet with traditional Hawaiian fare and specialty Mai Tais and open bar…” … Before I could finish reading the sentence, my wife already signed us up for the event. The buzzword overload of beach, history, unlimited and MaiTai breaks down the stoutest of souls, I guess. We then had to sell the event to the kids – it wasn’t very difficult – we replaced history with fire dance and Mai Tai with Sprite and got the six year old totally on-board. The two year old was happy as long as she did not have to eat any broccoli.

The actual event itself seemed very commercialized and was run on an industrial scale. More Vegas than Hawaii. However, the beach setting was very scenic, the weather was great and people were genuinely nice (I think the Hawaiian shirt makes all the difference. One is almost embarrassed to be grumpy when wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I should keep one in my car when driving on US101 during rush hour). The MaiTai’s turned out to be nothing more than sugar water as they decided to ration the rum (must be some old Hawaiian pirate tradition which in turn led to
DisneyWorld-esque lines at the open bar where one could get some real (bought in bulk at Costco) alcohol. The food was native and somewhat interesting, but the “unlimited” part was of little consequence as the quality of the food pretty much took care of a desire to go for seconds.

The culture and dance program showcasing the Hawaiian kings and dances from various Polynesian islands was tacky in some parts but quite captivating and entertaining overall. It started out with the Parade of the Kings which recreated a royal scene from a couple of hundred years ago. The air of royal decorum was partly deflated when I noticed that the The Royal Highness was actually the drunk bartender whom I asked for some extra rum a few minutes earlier.

The Polynesian dance showcase was varied and vigorous and definitely enjoyable. As the evening wound down, everyone (especially the kids) got restless to see the main attraction of the fire dance, which was spectacular (no snarky comments – it was very well done).

Day Four : Snorkeling

Given that the fear of depths is one of my many irrational phobias, I was only halfheartedly looking forward to the snorkeling trip, but it turned out to be a very enjoyable ride out and time in the water. The boat crew were remarkably helpful and snorkeling location and atmosphere were really nice. It was an added bonus to see a pod of dolphins happily frolicking about. Even the minor bout of kid’s motion sickness on the way back did not detract from the general feeling of  “above average pleasantness”. It was funny to note how my older daughter was initially all gung-ho about snorkeling alongside me and no sooner did she realize that my residual depth phobia made me less-than-adventurous, she immediately gravitated towards her mom and left me and my phobias alone.

Day Five : Volcano

I should admit that I have near zero prior experience with any volcanoes. All that I know about volcanoes probably came from Dante’s Peak (I am given to understand that Hollywood summer disaster flicks are not necessarily the most authoritative sources of scientific information). Given that backdrop, we were definitely very excited to see an active volcano. It turned out to be a very nice and novel experience. We spent a few hours in the Volcano National Park and took the beaten path (the park rangers make it easy by mapping the time that you can spend to a stack ranked list of attractions – methinks a lucrative career awaits them as McKinsey management consultants in the corporate world).

We went to the main volcano caldera first .. We saw what Mark Twain said when he went up there.. “It was like gazing at the sun all noonday, except that the glare was not quite so white. At unequal distances all around the shores of the lake were nearly chimneys or hollow drums of lava, four or feet high, and up through them were bursting gorgeous sprays of and gem spangles, some white, some red and some golden- ceaseless bombardment, and one that fascinated the eye with its unapproachable splendor. The more distant jets – sparkling up through an intervening gossamer veil of vapor, seemed miles away; and the further the curving ranks of fiery fountains receded, the more fairy-like and beautiful they appeared..”

Yeah… what the man said… (except that we did not see any lava or anything remotely approaching gossamer)

We went to the steam vents and the lava tubes next – both of which were great fun for the kids. We then drove down to the shore to see the lava plume where the lava flow meets the ocean… we did not quite see any lava plume as it was too far away but it was a great drive down and nice hike near the shore. Well worth it overall for great panoramas and stunning contrast of lava rocks, craggy hillside and the expanse of the ocean.

Day Six: Chilling out

After the kids had a blast on the water slide in the hotel, we headed over to our friends condo for a great mix of wine, food, conversation and poolside relaxation. A nice way to top off a nice vacation. The much dreaded red-eye back on Sunday night and work the next day turned out to be a lot smoother than we feared. I realized that there are no red-eye residuals that cannot be fixed by copious amounts of caffeine. Pity the kids, though !!

Also, the purpose of my (sparse) blogging is to leave a few digital paw marks for the kids and let the kids to have a small glimpse into our lives and thoughts when they grow up (and if they have an iota of interest in what their previous generations did).

(… And it turned out that I did not get around to completing this for two months since I saw the movie…however, since Avatar is likely to be the best grossing movie and be in the public imagination for a long time to come, I will go ahead and jot down my thoughts of my residual memories of Avatar….)

Having gotten so used to pros / cons / takeaways / next steps type analysis for most situations, I feel reflexively compelled to do the same (partly because I have partly lost the capacity to digest a lengthy dissertation and I end up with a bulletized mental summary anyway).

In any case, here is the lowdown on the Blu-Ray Avatar

Pros:

1. Visual splendor – Impressionism for our era.

2. Gobs of money used to achieve visual stimulus actually worked – unlike the gobs of money thrown at the “other” stimulus

3. Made 3D cool again. I saw that Samsung is now peddling $200 3D glasses

Cons:

1. Gives science fiction a bad name

2. Does every science fiction movie or TV series have to be a metaphor for contemporary human follies ? I almost stopped watching Star Trek : TNG when the metaphor part became obvious and things got boring. C’mon folks – science fiction can be kick ass by itself – relatability is not the primary attribute of a great movie.

3. While visually gripping, I found the whole nature thing and those flying beasts and the living forests rather boring and OTT.

Net-net : Once I have seen it, I can confidently say “Nothing to see here folks …” but it is worthwhile for everyone to see it so they can all say “Nothing to see here folks” ….

Next steps and recommendations: Do not watch Avatar2

The first thing that struck me about modern American economy  (and more broadly Western and possibly any world economy today) is that to maintain a high standard of living, we need to maintain a high standard of living. Paradoxical as it may seem, it appears that the solution to any problem is to keep spending as the alternatives to sustained spending can easily tip us into a negative spiral of economic contraction.

This situation seems weird at first glance (and additional glances as well). Let’s look at things – we get attacked by idiotic terrorists and our response (correctly) is to spend normally so we defeat the terrorists… we are gripped by a wrenching recession, and the only way out (again correctly) is to continue spending. Forget the banks and other institutions that are too big to fail .. it is the entire economy that is too big to fail.. and we need the consumer to bail it out.

Looking back at history of the previous periods in US history  (or more tellingly in other countries), times of crisis needed belt-tightening and personal sacrifice, a sense of purpose and a spirit of commitment to the country. Now, things have changed so dramatically that it is absolutely imperative that no personal sacrifice is made so ensure that the economy is on an even keel and everyone’s standard of living and prosperity keeps going up.

Something just doesn’t seem right… or I am getting too old to embrace a new economic world order. (The last two times I believed the “You don’t understand – it is different this time” (first during the tech bubble and the second during the financial bubble), I lost half my retirement nest-egg… So, I think I am entitled to a healthy dose of bewildered skepticism.

I also reflected on how emails have essentially become business-like information dissemination vehicles and were often an inferior substitute for the letters that had personal depth and richness to them. And of course, an email is subconsciously associated with less physical and emotional investment on the part of the writer compared to a letter.

I think we have now come to the next stage of evolution of the communication medium and I think email as a means of personal communication is in serious jeopardy of losing its dominant position. Funny that TIME magazine recently carried an article on the demise of “cursive” handwriting…. “cursive” …?!!?!..really? Really? …. we are on the verge of the third inflection point after cursive – cursive is dead and fertilized… writing in any form is dead… email is doddering…

With the rise of Facebook, Twitter and whatever the heck social networks the teens are using, I see a strong decline in the need and inclination to write long, well-thought out, stirring emails. The change in media from email to social nets is, of course, fundamentally different from the evolution from paper letters to email. Our personal communication seems to be moving from a one-one pairwise conversation to a more efficient and less personal one-few or one-many model with the social nets and one-all with the blogging model. The concept of right-sharing with one person is being replaced by undersharing with some and oversharing with others – a very interesting and rapid evolution.

Having experienced this first-hand only last week, these are rather fresh thoughts. The first thing that struck me was the unbelievable crush of people at every single attraction (most of them can be called “attractions” only by a liberal stretch of the defintion of attraction). Disneyland could have put a bunch of treadmills there and there would be a 60 minute line to get on the treadmill. Or there could be showing a C-Span show on the Senate Finance Committee deliberations and people would jostle to get in line and also probably buy a bobble head toy of Chris Dodd at the souvenir shop.

The lines for most rides were more than 60 minutes on a weekday in the middle of a deep global recession – completely shocking… How does Disney do it? The admission prices are sky high.. the attractions are mediocre.. the food is horrible and overpriced… the characters are rude and testy…the parades are garish and plasticky…

How is that a free market is not working efficiently to enable a parallel attraction for kids? In a perverse way, the enduring draw of Disneyland is a remarkable testament to Disney’s corporate marketing machine.

… and coming to the intended audience – the kids themselves.. my general observations indicated that a vast fraction of the kids were tired, dazed and overwhelmed by the lines and crowds. Despite the best intentions and forced enthusiasm, it was very difficult to sustain the “magic” after waiting in line in sweltering heat for more than 60 minutes. I get the feeling that the parents have conditioned the kids to think that they had a great time (Yes, we keep asking them “Are you having a great time?.. “wow.. that was fun, wasn’t it?… ” ….”That was the best vacation ever, ain’t it?”.. I don’t beleive we say … “the wait in the line sucked, didn’t it? that was a total waste of time”…)

Of course, after spending a good fraction of the family’s annual savings on the Disney vacation, the last thing you want to do is to tell yourself is that it was a rip-off. The feel-good factor from the vacation and the post-vacation re-interpretation of the vacation is actually more important than the vacation itself.

Getting past the immediate absurdity of the idea, I seriously believe celebrities already outsource their Facebooking and Tweeting to others. After all, who wants to follow a boring and unfunny celebrity, and more importantly, you don’t want your online persona to be blander than the carefully cultivated real-life personality.