[Music]
hello everybody I am really humbled to
be here very inspiring speakers Thank
You TEDx BITS Pilani I’m snobbish car
and I am an undergraduate here at RIT
spurred on I am 20 years old I am one of
the audience I am one of you guys and
what I am going to be talking about is
finding the contrarian truth and my talk
is not going to be in a manual or a
record of knowledge that I am going to
dump on everybody but it’s going to
actually be an exercise and I want
everyone to play along and exercise is
starting from scratch and doing new
things now what does doing new things
mean now in a book called zero to one by
Peter Thiel Peter Thiel sort of
describes the future of progress in two
steps
it’s either horizontal or extensive
progress which means going from 1 to N
or being things that work the other sort
of progress is much more difficult
vertical or intensive progress which
means starting from scratch and doing
new things going from 0 to 1 now if you
take a horse and you say ok let me make
hundred horses that’s going from 1 to n
if you say take a horse and say oh this
is pretty useless and you invent an
automobile that’s going from 0 to 1 now
Who am I to be talking about this so a
year back I was in Texas and I the
privilege of being invited to the SpaceX
Hyperloop or design weekend and this is
the collection of everyone in the world
academic students professionals working
on something called the Hyperloop which
is a fifth mode of transport after cars
planes trains and ships proposed first
by SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and
since the valedictory ceremony it’s
coming to an end but the atmosphere is
sort of electric with anticipation
everyone’s going to waiting oh what’s
going to happen next and suddenly out of
nowhere
Elon Musk top steps up on stage and I’m
standing in the front row and everyone
sort of collectively blows their minds
and something that musk said so if I
stuck to me stuck with me since and he
said it’s clear that the world and the
public and he reference the Hyperloop
they want something new and then he
refers to the students in the crowd
clear the world in public want something
new and you guys are going to deliver it
them so first of all before exploring
this further I want to briefly describe
what the Hyperloop is now how the
Hyperloop is sort of the blank canvas
for transportation it’s a fifth in a new
mode of transportation and this was just
way too exciting for me so I decided to
found
team bring the Hyperloop to India the
Hyperloop is sort of quickly described
with the Hyperloop is it’s sort of a
combination of the speed of a airplane
and the capacity of a train and the
convenience of a car which is achieved
to a maglev system based and with tubes
how many sort of Futurama fans out here
quick show of hands right
so the fire-type might remind you of the
sort of cube transport system of in
future armor where people just Vince
pass here and there at the touch of a
button but the difference between
Futurama and Hyperloop is that Hyperloop
is actually happening this this thing
you see behind me are the cubes which
are actually being developed the space
this is a company called SpaceX is
building a scale down one mile track but
the inviting student teams like ours to
build a Hyperloop pod vehicle to test on
this track and that’s what our sort of
vehicle looks like now when he started
off we should have started off just with
the engineering part the manufacturing
the magnetic levitation the electronics
the control systems when we discovered
when we went and talked to governance we
discovered that that’s just making
technology isn’t enough to make sell
something so we then we started to
develop the business case the government
and policy power the transport planning
part so he roped in teens from ILM the
bargain his School of Business to help
us do that and now we sort of this
unique multidisciplinary multi-campus
team which is had with first of its sort
which is working on all aspects of the
Hyperloop and we completely made up of
students right now we had recruitments
in IIT Madras and we had 170
applications from students an IT Madras
sort of a student movement of sorts and
but I am NOT here to talk about the
Hyperloop that’s a different TEDx talk
what I’m going to talk about is sort of
what I’ve learnt while building a
student team which is never been built
before while make students deal with
something has never been dealt with by
students before while dealing with the
Hyperloop it’s sort of a new mode of
transport never been tested before
there’s taught me the value of sort of
starting from scratch and doing new
things and especially is a member of
Generation Y or undergraduate in India
and most of us when we start off doing
new things he also has a lot of
questions and this takes me to my
favorite book
a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the galaxy and
in this book human beings will this
large supercomputer called deep thought
and they ask it okay so what is the
answer to the ultimate question of the
life the universe and everything and
this computer takes 7.5 million years
and then it sort of spits out an answer
it says 42 and human beings are
gobsmacked like it’s a complicated
question and he has a simple answer 42
and what deep thought says is the answer
is pretty simple but what you have to
figure out is the right question when
most of us figure out the most questions
I get is oh is this that this has the
right scope will this good look on my
resume is this right time to do it and
these are all good questions but it is
not the right question the right
question when you sort of want to start
off and do new things sort of looks like
this it’s called the contrarian question
and I want everybody in the audience to
sort of look at this very very carefully
what important truth do very few people
agree with you on now quick show of
hands how many people have a good answer
to this question just raise your hand if
you have ever had an unpopular opinion
which you have thought was important
quick show of hands yeah
so this question actually looks very
very simple and straightforward but it’s
actually very very difficult to answer
you think about it it’s intellectually
difficult because most of the stuff that
we are taught is by definition agreed
upon and it’s psychologically different
because you have to voice an opinion
which is by definition Impala now the
future is sort of the sum of all the
events which are yet to come if you can
sort of ignore what is agreed upon in
the past and the present and formulate a
good answer that is the closest you can
come to looking at the future the most
bad answers are sort of different ways
of looking at the present the first two
answers you see on the slide are sort of
something which is a sort of universally
agreed upon I mean everyone thinks that
they’re true and it’s not something
unique to you the second two are take a
familiar side you know take a side in a
very familiar debate all good answers as
can be sort of formed in the way most
people believe in X but the egg but the
truth is of often the opposite of X now
not just believe from a blind faith
standpoint but critically analyze
something now what contrarian ISM why
it’s so useful is because it’s the
habituated form of critical thinking
oriented towards falsification whenever
a contrarian comes across anything any
new thing of an idea of fact a thesis or
observation his first instinct cognitive
instinct is to flip it on its head now
what what why this is the efficient
first step with it it’s essentially the
low-hanging fruit of falsification I
mean you only need research and analysis
to flip something on it said or invert
or variate the other reason it’s useful
is because it’s automatic now you do not
really need any it quickly varies an
argument and shows how easily it can be
proved to be not what not it is and
hence it questions its legitimacy as
conventional wisdom now what does this
exactly mean now what this means is
every single one of you who raised their
hands has and has an unpopular opinion
which other people don’t agree with you
on has this presidential seed of an idea
that can go on to become something that
the world hasn’t seen it and if I do a
good job today then probably most of you
at the end would have some sort of idea
as to the contrarian truth it’s going to
be really exciting ok let us begin with
giving this some sort of context ok the
first sort of way to contextualize this
question is to say what contrarian
question business what valuable company
is nobody building now not all of us are
here to build companies I mean you can
do anything you can start a new project
you can measure a new skill set a new
perspective a new relationship you can
even start from scratch have no previous
experience whatsoever
ignore all tenets of conventional wisdom
and become president of the USA and now
you guys may laugh but Trump is sort of
the ultimate contrarian I mean he
ignored all conventional wisdom and
still ended up grabbing America by the
ballots now
[Applause]
now the contrarian question for
individuals sort of looks something like
this I mean what you guys should be
asking yourself is what problem does no
one see what valuable skill is nobody
developing what opportunity does no one
see and what unique individual is nobody
becoming so when I started off this TED
talk how i started is what that talk is
no one giving well so so yeah so the
secret to a good contrarian truth a good
contrarian answer is always rooted in a
good secret
now what is the secret a secret is
something which is known only to you not
not to the guy sitting next to you not
to me not to the audience not to your
friends not dear parents it’s something
which is important yet unknown which is
hard but doable now a secret now if
everyone was if thickets are so easy to
find everybody would be doing new things
but everybody’s not so why is it so
difficult to look for secrets why it’s
so difficult is because whenever you
want to look for secrets our brain sort
of goes through this this algorithm okay
so if something has been done only then
it’s possible if something has not been
done then it’s impossible and something
is a good idea and it’s possible then
it’s probably been done well what a
brain goes through this algorithm and
then it shuts down oh this is too much
processing power let me quickly go –
imitating stuff let me copy stuff now
the way to sort of think about to get
around this way of thinking is what I
call thinking like physicists now I had
thought at first I was fortunate enough
to study physics for the first two years
of my college in bits I also did physics
under dr. Stephen Wolfram and at MIT and
this what this taught me is the
importance of thinking like a physicist
and this is how normal people get ideas
this is this by the way the best talk
image that you can get when you search
for light bulb on head but this is how
normal people think of ideas how a
physicist should look at this say okay
this is an interesting light bulb let me
zoom in oh there is a tungsten filament
that’s glowing interesting let me zoom
in further oh there is a layer of
tungsten atoms let me zoom in further oh
there is a there is a set of electrons
getting excited and D excited when you
apply
– energy and this is leading to Liddy’s
of photons in a visible wavelength okay
this is how a physicist thinks of it a
physicist looks at the world for what it
is in terms of atoms and molecules and
that is what sort of allows physicists
to come up with crazy contrarian ideas
like quantum mechanics and how most of
us think is we reason by analogy we say
okay something has been done before
so I’ll do it that way or someone said
that this was how it’s done before so I
will do it that way what a physicist
does is he plays something called the
why question and if you want to reach
the contrarian truth you have to also
play the why question first what you
have to do is Co to take all
conventional wisdom and you should chuck
it into a dustbin and if you have any of
it left then you attack it with the
series of wise you say okay why this why
that why this why that and if you and
then you reach a floor and if the floor
is a fundamental truth if it if it’s in
fact a data of a figure or a
undisputable truth then that’s a good
place to start that’s the first
principles way of thinking now if that
if that floor sounds like oh because –
said so because my parents said so my
friend said so because society says so
because religion says so because this
guy standing on the TEDx stage said so
then then you are setting yourself up
for copying oh you can’t do new things
the next thing that you sort of realize
as Generation Y our students is that you
really have nothing to lose now most of
us don’t take risks most of oh don’t
look for secrets because we fear if here
we are we make decisions based on fear
this guy’s does practicality now last
year when I was in America I was in the
shoestring budget and I decided Ryan run
an experiment so I lived on a food
budget of $60 which around 4000 rupees
which is pretty expensive in America
cousin and I decided live on a food
budget of that much for a month and I
survived I didn’t starve to death
and this taught me two things first
thing is that you can have instant
noodles with anything you can anything
it is taste it’s taste really bad but
you can have it with anything this is
the first thing it taught me the second
thing you taught me is that I this
bare minimum $60.00 between the bare
minimum I would need not staff to death
and this one gave me the confidence that
I could do anything I didn’t have to
worry about things like money I mean
money would come but I could do whatever
I wanted without I could start whatever
I wanted without having to worry about
fear and it quickly and so you’re not
going to starve to death you’re not
going to die of exposure so don’t have
to ask yourself what’s the worst could
go wrong so this is another scary fact
which I want to put it in front of you
people look at this table this is a list
of all countries by the higher GDP and
you have first for China European Union
USA in India in India is a sort of loss
to the most important India is the
world’s fastest-growing economy our
growth rate is seven point six percent
and our current median ages are lowest
it’s 27 which which is a scary fact is
that 50% of our 1.25 billion population
is below the age of 25 which is the age
of you and me this is scary because this
is like having a very fast rocket which
is hurtling into oblivion and it’s being
completely controlled by a bunch of
kindergartners
now if the kindergartners don’t stop
sucking their thumbs and actually do
something in control the rocket the
rocket is going to crash this sort of
underscores our responsibility as
Generation Y as students to take risks
to venture out where others haven’t to
rethink conventional career paths and do
things and do new things which haven’t
been done before the last thing that I
want to point out is ok so when you have
something unique a secret how do you
sustain it here conventional wisdom
fails us again you have to avoid
competition like the plague now
conventional wisdom tells us that
competition is a good thing
truth is the opposite of that comp the
actually the movie compete the less we
gain if you imagine value as a cake and
everyone’s competing for the same cake
then everyone gets a smaller slice but
competition has been so ingrained into
ideology from the very beginning it
distorts our way of thinking
IIT je ten standard ten twelve standard
everything sort of puts a mark or a
grade on our competitiveness and people
who are good at
get status and credentials and their
face on the side of a bus right so yeah
so if you want to do new things the
first step is to escape competition and
the way to escape competition is to
become a monopolist now the difference
is very very subtle so I want two things
from the audience I want a name and I
want a unique hobby and in any name
rajesh okay a unique hobby any unique
hobby that not a lot of people do dog
farming okay brilliant so we have Rajesh
and Rajesh does dog farming now Rajesh
thinks of himself as his unique
individual so Rajesh has a 9c GPA he has
a 1.4 career package from an IT company
not going to name the company he is the
leader of a club and as a hobby he’s
does dog farming right now Rajesh if he
was a non monopolist what he would say
is he would describe all his skill sets
as an intersection he would look around
himself and say oh there’s no one like
me so what he would do is he would
define his skill set as a intersection
of all these larger Hill says a narrow
intersection so he’d say oh I’m in a
league of my own I am unique but I am
unique by definition so he what Rajesh
does it draws a small pond around
himself it says oh I am the biggest fish
in this pond and the problem with this
is that once you are the biggest fish in
the pond you are opening yourself up to
competition no one likes the biggest
fish in the pond so everyone wants to
compete with the biggest fish not only
that you’re also opening yourself up to
stagnation once you feel you are the
biggest fish in the pond you never try
to expand you never try to grow a
monopoly a non monopolist always get
crushed what what Rajesh would do if it
was a monopolist what he would say okay
I have a nine cgpa but so do the hundred
thousand people in the ten thousand
colleges of this country I have a 1.4
crore package but so does everyone who
joined that same IT company at my pay
scale I had two dog farming but Souter
the thousand people in
the countries all over the world so
Rajat Rajesh as once he has a monopolist
world view what he does is he defines
his pond as the Union not an
intersection a union of various bigger
points and he defines himself as a
smaller fish in that pond he portrays
himself as that the two advantages this
is it allows him to escape competition
no one wants to compete with the small
fish in the pond so he can assist he can
sustain his monopoly forever and not
only that it also gives him a broader
world view so he knows exactly how to
expand his monopoly now the lesson from
the book sanzu is that there is no
instance of a nation benefiting from
prolonged warfare and competition
between individuals is essentially like
warfare it’s apparently necessary its
allegedly valiant but ultimately its
destructive
which tall waves aim to become a
monopolist and get the whole cake every
time now if anyone still has a drought
water contrarian to that I hope
everyone’s thinking along with me this
one last guy who might be able to help
you on that sky is Socrates and what
certainly says is how how to think about
comments and statements the conventional
wisdom is first thing you do is you
identify a statement that seems like
common sense the best jobs are highly
paid or being successful needs a good C
GPA then you try to find an exception to
the statement oh can I be in a highly
paid job and still be miserable ok or is
there anyone who is successful and with
a bad C GPA and once you have you find
an exception that means your original
statement has an imprecision now you try
to nuance your original statement taking
this exception into account can I have a
can I have a low-paying job and still be
happy or do I want to what I want to be
successful at does it require a good C
GPA then you continue this process for
as long as possible continuing to find
exceptions for your original
common-sense statement and then you will
find the contrarian truth the truth for
us and for anyone who is trying to reach
the truth lies in that statement which
is impossible this proof now I am
working on the Hyperloop but
transportation is just one of our
problems
we have poverty education health care
women empowerment space exploration
climate change there’s so many problems
and we’ll need thousands of people like
you and me working on thousands of
contrarian answers and contrarian truths
to find innovative solutions to all
these problems where conventional wisdom
has failed us and hopefully by the end
of this talk you either have a
contrarian truth to start off with or
you know how to go about exploring one
so in the words of my favorite
characters Calvin Hobbs let’s go
exploring thank you
[Applause]
hello everybody I am really humbled to
be here very inspiring speakers Thank
You TEDx BITS Pilani I’m snobbish car
and I am an undergraduate here at RIT
spurred on I am 20 years old I am one of
the audience I am one of you guys and
what I am going to be talking about is
finding the contrarian truth and my talk
is not going to be in a manual or a
record of knowledge that I am going to
dump on everybody but it’s going to
actually be an exercise and I want
everyone to play along and exercise is
starting from scratch and doing new
things now what does doing new things
mean now in a book called zero to one by
Peter Thiel Peter Thiel sort of
describes the future of progress in two
steps
it’s either horizontal or extensive
progress which means going from 1 to N
or being things that work the other sort
of progress is much more difficult
vertical or intensive progress which
means starting from scratch and doing
new things going from 0 to 1 now if you
take a horse and you say ok let me make
hundred horses that’s going from 1 to n
if you say take a horse and say oh this
is pretty useless and you invent an
automobile that’s going from 0 to 1 now
Who am I to be talking about this so a
year back I was in Texas and I the
privilege of being invited to the SpaceX
Hyperloop or design weekend and this is
the collection of everyone in the world
academic students professionals working
on something called the Hyperloop which
is a fifth mode of transport after cars
planes trains and ships proposed first
by SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and
since the valedictory ceremony it’s
coming to an end but the atmosphere is
sort of electric with anticipation
everyone’s going to waiting oh what’s
going to happen next and suddenly out of
nowhere
Elon Musk top steps up on stage and I’m
standing in the front row and everyone
sort of collectively blows their minds
and something that musk said so if I
stuck to me stuck with me since and he
said it’s clear that the world and the
public and he reference the Hyperloop
they want something new and then he
refers to the students in the crowd
clear the world in public want something
new and you guys are going to deliver it
them so first of all before exploring
this further I want to briefly describe
what the Hyperloop is now how the
Hyperloop is sort of the blank canvas
for transportation it’s a fifth in a new
mode of transportation and this was just
way too exciting for me so I decided to
found
team bring the Hyperloop to India the
Hyperloop is sort of quickly described
with the Hyperloop is it’s sort of a
combination of the speed of a airplane
and the capacity of a train and the
convenience of a car which is achieved
to a maglev system based and with tubes
how many sort of Futurama fans out here
quick show of hands right
so the fire-type might remind you of the
sort of cube transport system of in
future armor where people just Vince
pass here and there at the touch of a
button but the difference between
Futurama and Hyperloop is that Hyperloop
is actually happening this this thing
you see behind me are the cubes which
are actually being developed the space
this is a company called SpaceX is
building a scale down one mile track but
the inviting student teams like ours to
build a Hyperloop pod vehicle to test on
this track and that’s what our sort of
vehicle looks like now when he started
off we should have started off just with
the engineering part the manufacturing
the magnetic levitation the electronics
the control systems when we discovered
when we went and talked to governance we
discovered that that’s just making
technology isn’t enough to make sell
something so we then we started to
develop the business case the government
and policy power the transport planning
part so he roped in teens from ILM the
bargain his School of Business to help
us do that and now we sort of this
unique multidisciplinary multi-campus
team which is had with first of its sort
which is working on all aspects of the
Hyperloop and we completely made up of
students right now we had recruitments
in IIT Madras and we had 170
applications from students an IT Madras
sort of a student movement of sorts and
but I am NOT here to talk about the
Hyperloop that’s a different TEDx talk
what I’m going to talk about is sort of
what I’ve learnt while building a
student team which is never been built
before while make students deal with
something has never been dealt with by
students before while dealing with the
Hyperloop it’s sort of a new mode of
transport never been tested before
there’s taught me the value of sort of
starting from scratch and doing new
things and especially is a member of
Generation Y or undergraduate in India
and most of us when we start off doing
new things he also has a lot of
questions and this takes me to my
favorite book
a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the galaxy and
in this book human beings will this
large supercomputer called deep thought
and they ask it okay so what is the
answer to the ultimate question of the
life the universe and everything and
this computer takes 7.5 million years
and then it sort of spits out an answer
it says 42 and human beings are
gobsmacked like it’s a complicated
question and he has a simple answer 42
and what deep thought says is the answer
is pretty simple but what you have to
figure out is the right question when
most of us figure out the most questions
I get is oh is this that this has the
right scope will this good look on my
resume is this right time to do it and
these are all good questions but it is
not the right question the right
question when you sort of want to start
off and do new things sort of looks like
this it’s called the contrarian question
and I want everybody in the audience to
sort of look at this very very carefully
what important truth do very few people
agree with you on now quick show of
hands how many people have a good answer
to this question just raise your hand if
you have ever had an unpopular opinion
which you have thought was important
quick show of hands yeah
so this question actually looks very
very simple and straightforward but it’s
actually very very difficult to answer
you think about it it’s intellectually
difficult because most of the stuff that
we are taught is by definition agreed
upon and it’s psychologically different
because you have to voice an opinion
which is by definition Impala now the
future is sort of the sum of all the
events which are yet to come if you can
sort of ignore what is agreed upon in
the past and the present and formulate a
good answer that is the closest you can
come to looking at the future the most
bad answers are sort of different ways
of looking at the present the first two
answers you see on the slide are sort of
something which is a sort of universally
agreed upon I mean everyone thinks that
they’re true and it’s not something
unique to you the second two are take a
familiar side you know take a side in a
very familiar debate all good answers as
can be sort of formed in the way most
people believe in X but the egg but the
truth is of often the opposite of X now
not just believe from a blind faith
standpoint but critically analyze
something now what contrarian ISM why
it’s so useful is because it’s the
habituated form of critical thinking
oriented towards falsification whenever
a contrarian comes across anything any
new thing of an idea of fact a thesis or
observation his first instinct cognitive
instinct is to flip it on its head now
what what why this is the efficient
first step with it it’s essentially the
low-hanging fruit of falsification I
mean you only need research and analysis
to flip something on it said or invert
or variate the other reason it’s useful
is because it’s automatic now you do not
really need any it quickly varies an
argument and shows how easily it can be
proved to be not what not it is and
hence it questions its legitimacy as
conventional wisdom now what does this
exactly mean now what this means is
every single one of you who raised their
hands has and has an unpopular opinion
which other people don’t agree with you
on has this presidential seed of an idea
that can go on to become something that
the world hasn’t seen it and if I do a
good job today then probably most of you
at the end would have some sort of idea
as to the contrarian truth it’s going to
be really exciting ok let us begin with
giving this some sort of context ok the
first sort of way to contextualize this
question is to say what contrarian
question business what valuable company
is nobody building now not all of us are
here to build companies I mean you can
do anything you can start a new project
you can measure a new skill set a new
perspective a new relationship you can
even start from scratch have no previous
experience whatsoever
ignore all tenets of conventional wisdom
and become president of the USA and now
you guys may laugh but Trump is sort of
the ultimate contrarian I mean he
ignored all conventional wisdom and
still ended up grabbing America by the
ballots now
[Applause]
now the contrarian question for
individuals sort of looks something like
this I mean what you guys should be
asking yourself is what problem does no
one see what valuable skill is nobody
developing what opportunity does no one
see and what unique individual is nobody
becoming so when I started off this TED
talk how i started is what that talk is
no one giving well so so yeah so the
secret to a good contrarian truth a good
contrarian answer is always rooted in a
good secret
now what is the secret a secret is
something which is known only to you not
not to the guy sitting next to you not
to me not to the audience not to your
friends not dear parents it’s something
which is important yet unknown which is
hard but doable now a secret now if
everyone was if thickets are so easy to
find everybody would be doing new things
but everybody’s not so why is it so
difficult to look for secrets why it’s
so difficult is because whenever you
want to look for secrets our brain sort
of goes through this this algorithm okay
so if something has been done only then
it’s possible if something has not been
done then it’s impossible and something
is a good idea and it’s possible then
it’s probably been done well what a
brain goes through this algorithm and
then it shuts down oh this is too much
processing power let me quickly go –
imitating stuff let me copy stuff now
the way to sort of think about to get
around this way of thinking is what I
call thinking like physicists now I had
thought at first I was fortunate enough
to study physics for the first two years
of my college in bits I also did physics
under dr. Stephen Wolfram and at MIT and
this what this taught me is the
importance of thinking like a physicist
and this is how normal people get ideas
this is this by the way the best talk
image that you can get when you search
for light bulb on head but this is how
normal people think of ideas how a
physicist should look at this say okay
this is an interesting light bulb let me
zoom in oh there is a tungsten filament
that’s glowing interesting let me zoom
in further oh there is a layer of
tungsten atoms let me zoom in further oh
there is a there is a set of electrons
getting excited and D excited when you
apply
– energy and this is leading to Liddy’s
of photons in a visible wavelength okay
this is how a physicist thinks of it a
physicist looks at the world for what it
is in terms of atoms and molecules and
that is what sort of allows physicists
to come up with crazy contrarian ideas
like quantum mechanics and how most of
us think is we reason by analogy we say
okay something has been done before
so I’ll do it that way or someone said
that this was how it’s done before so I
will do it that way what a physicist
does is he plays something called the
why question and if you want to reach
the contrarian truth you have to also
play the why question first what you
have to do is Co to take all
conventional wisdom and you should chuck
it into a dustbin and if you have any of
it left then you attack it with the
series of wise you say okay why this why
that why this why that and if you and
then you reach a floor and if the floor
is a fundamental truth if it if it’s in
fact a data of a figure or a
undisputable truth then that’s a good
place to start that’s the first
principles way of thinking now if that
if that floor sounds like oh because –
said so because my parents said so my
friend said so because society says so
because religion says so because this
guy standing on the TEDx stage said so
then then you are setting yourself up
for copying oh you can’t do new things
the next thing that you sort of realize
as Generation Y our students is that you
really have nothing to lose now most of
us don’t take risks most of oh don’t
look for secrets because we fear if here
we are we make decisions based on fear
this guy’s does practicality now last
year when I was in America I was in the
shoestring budget and I decided Ryan run
an experiment so I lived on a food
budget of $60 which around 4000 rupees
which is pretty expensive in America
cousin and I decided live on a food
budget of that much for a month and I
survived I didn’t starve to death
and this taught me two things first
thing is that you can have instant
noodles with anything you can anything
it is taste it’s taste really bad but
you can have it with anything this is
the first thing it taught me the second
thing you taught me is that I this
bare minimum $60.00 between the bare
minimum I would need not staff to death
and this one gave me the confidence that
I could do anything I didn’t have to
worry about things like money I mean
money would come but I could do whatever
I wanted without I could start whatever
I wanted without having to worry about
fear and it quickly and so you’re not
going to starve to death you’re not
going to die of exposure so don’t have
to ask yourself what’s the worst could
go wrong so this is another scary fact
which I want to put it in front of you
people look at this table this is a list
of all countries by the higher GDP and
you have first for China European Union
USA in India in India is a sort of loss
to the most important India is the
world’s fastest-growing economy our
growth rate is seven point six percent
and our current median ages are lowest
it’s 27 which which is a scary fact is
that 50% of our 1.25 billion population
is below the age of 25 which is the age
of you and me this is scary because this
is like having a very fast rocket which
is hurtling into oblivion and it’s being
completely controlled by a bunch of
kindergartners
now if the kindergartners don’t stop
sucking their thumbs and actually do
something in control the rocket the
rocket is going to crash this sort of
underscores our responsibility as
Generation Y as students to take risks
to venture out where others haven’t to
rethink conventional career paths and do
things and do new things which haven’t
been done before the last thing that I
want to point out is ok so when you have
something unique a secret how do you
sustain it here conventional wisdom
fails us again you have to avoid
competition like the plague now
conventional wisdom tells us that
competition is a good thing
truth is the opposite of that comp the
actually the movie compete the less we
gain if you imagine value as a cake and
everyone’s competing for the same cake
then everyone gets a smaller slice but
competition has been so ingrained into
ideology from the very beginning it
distorts our way of thinking
IIT je ten standard ten twelve standard
everything sort of puts a mark or a
grade on our competitiveness and people
who are good at
get status and credentials and their
face on the side of a bus right so yeah
so if you want to do new things the
first step is to escape competition and
the way to escape competition is to
become a monopolist now the difference
is very very subtle so I want two things
from the audience I want a name and I
want a unique hobby and in any name
rajesh okay a unique hobby any unique
hobby that not a lot of people do dog
farming okay brilliant so we have Rajesh
and Rajesh does dog farming now Rajesh
thinks of himself as his unique
individual so Rajesh has a 9c GPA he has
a 1.4 career package from an IT company
not going to name the company he is the
leader of a club and as a hobby he’s
does dog farming right now Rajesh if he
was a non monopolist what he would say
is he would describe all his skill sets
as an intersection he would look around
himself and say oh there’s no one like
me so what he would do is he would
define his skill set as a intersection
of all these larger Hill says a narrow
intersection so he’d say oh I’m in a
league of my own I am unique but I am
unique by definition so he what Rajesh
does it draws a small pond around
himself it says oh I am the biggest fish
in this pond and the problem with this
is that once you are the biggest fish in
the pond you are opening yourself up to
competition no one likes the biggest
fish in the pond so everyone wants to
compete with the biggest fish not only
that you’re also opening yourself up to
stagnation once you feel you are the
biggest fish in the pond you never try
to expand you never try to grow a
monopoly a non monopolist always get
crushed what what Rajesh would do if it
was a monopolist what he would say okay
I have a nine cgpa but so do the hundred
thousand people in the ten thousand
colleges of this country I have a 1.4
crore package but so does everyone who
joined that same IT company at my pay
scale I had two dog farming but Souter
the thousand people in
the countries all over the world so
Rajat Rajesh as once he has a monopolist
world view what he does is he defines
his pond as the Union not an
intersection a union of various bigger
points and he defines himself as a
smaller fish in that pond he portrays
himself as that the two advantages this
is it allows him to escape competition
no one wants to compete with the small
fish in the pond so he can assist he can
sustain his monopoly forever and not
only that it also gives him a broader
world view so he knows exactly how to
expand his monopoly now the lesson from
the book sanzu is that there is no
instance of a nation benefiting from
prolonged warfare and competition
between individuals is essentially like
warfare it’s apparently necessary its
allegedly valiant but ultimately its
destructive
which tall waves aim to become a
monopolist and get the whole cake every
time now if anyone still has a drought
water contrarian to that I hope
everyone’s thinking along with me this
one last guy who might be able to help
you on that sky is Socrates and what
certainly says is how how to think about
comments and statements the conventional
wisdom is first thing you do is you
identify a statement that seems like
common sense the best jobs are highly
paid or being successful needs a good C
GPA then you try to find an exception to
the statement oh can I be in a highly
paid job and still be miserable ok or is
there anyone who is successful and with
a bad C GPA and once you have you find
an exception that means your original
statement has an imprecision now you try
to nuance your original statement taking
this exception into account can I have a
can I have a low-paying job and still be
happy or do I want to what I want to be
successful at does it require a good C
GPA then you continue this process for
as long as possible continuing to find
exceptions for your original
common-sense statement and then you will
find the contrarian truth the truth for
us and for anyone who is trying to reach
the truth lies in that statement which
is impossible this proof now I am
working on the Hyperloop but
transportation is just one of our
problems
we have poverty education health care
women empowerment space exploration
climate change there’s so many problems
and we’ll need thousands of people like
you and me working on thousands of
contrarian answers and contrarian truths
to find innovative solutions to all
these problems where conventional wisdom
has failed us and hopefully by the end
of this talk you either have a
contrarian truth to start off with or
you know how to go about exploring one
so in the words of my favorite
characters Calvin Hobbs let’s go
exploring thank you
[Applause]
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