I spend most of my time these days
traveling from industry events to
colleges talking to people speaking at
events like this is something that I do
almost several times a month and I’ve
been doing this for several years today
standing here I’m actually feeling
terribly inadequate for the kind of
people who’ve come before me and shared
their experiences and for the kind of
people are going to follow me I’m
feeling inadequate and incompetent
standing here in the galaxy of people so
my request to all of you is to please
bear with me when I was asked to speak
on this topic of the butterfly effect I
spend a lot of time doing some research
trying to find out what is it about the
topic that I can speak which can engage
all of you and I’m not going to spend
time talking about the butterfly effect
I’m not going to tell you about the
small big change or the big small change
but I’m going to tie this up with a
common thread that I think
differentiates all this big small change
or the small big change a common thread
that I’ve observed in the most impactful
and I’ve tried and what I’m going to do
is I’m going to narrate you three
different stories one of them bring mine
and try and tie them up as to how there
is a uniqueness to the truly impactful
small big changes it’s not a common
thread that runs through all of them but
in the truly most impactful one it is
this common thread that I have
personally noticed and I’m going to
share that experience with you
in recent time that I’m going to share
my first the first example that I’m
going to use here is all of you’ve heard
of uber it’s a company that essentially
you pick up a phone and you call a cab
people have been doing this for hundreds
of years
in jest that they’re doing it in a very
smart manner but if you go back to how
it started
he just two people the founders of the
company in trying to get a cab catch a
cab I’m told on a winter night in Paris
they didn’t find if somebody said
imagine if we press the button at the
cab came I think when they did that when
they went back to San Francisco and
create an app to get a cab they did not
know the kind of change that they were
unleashing and to me that’s the most
important in fact phul part of the small
big change it is not that the small
events the small incidents lead to large
impacts it is that for the truly
visionary people when they make that
small change they have absolutely no
idea of the change that they are causing
and that is the beauty of this butterfly
effect
if you go to Wikipedia and read about
the tornado the butterfly effect a
butterfly flaps its wings in one part of
the world there’s a tornado in other
part you should go and ask the butterfly
whether it knows about the tornado and
the butterfly will say no because the
butterfly does not know of the impact
that it is creating and that is the
truly big small change the fact that
when you unleash it you have no idea
what you’re going to do here are three
stories I’m going to pick the story
first because for any of you who have
been following the news politics in
Tamil Nadu is right now in the news
including yesterday everybody is talking
about it here’s an event that happened
in 1965 it happened first in 1940 it
happened again in 1965 and the
background to this is that after
independence the Indian government
largely run from Delhi tried to impose
Hindi as a common language all over the
country it would have led to uniformity
but it perhaps would have destroyed the
uniqueness of this nation 3/4 of the
country had no problem because they all
knew Hindi but certainly the southern
states didn’t know and Tamil Nadu took
the lead and launched a very violent
agitation called the anti-hindi
agitation it happened in 1940 then it
died down and narrow at that time said
ok no problem we’ll continue this we’re
not going to impose Hindi till 1965 the
problem was 25 years away so everybody
gave up till 25th January 1964 one day
before the rule was about to change and
Hindi would became common again they
launched into the agitation
and Unleashed violence all over the
space into the state every single the
people getting burned fighting killing
each other and thereby the government
said okay no problem don’t worry we’re
not going to impose Hindi and since then
they agreed that English will continue
to be a common language connecting India
I’m of the view that if that agitation
had not taken place India would not have
been the software power that it is today
India would not lead in the BPOs of the
business it wouldn’t be the back-office
of the net country simply because the
reason people have over the last 20
years used Indians to write great
software and build the BPO business was
because of the proficiency of English if
that agitation had not taken place there
would be no BPO industry in in India and
this is one lovely story of the small
big change
they were impacting unleashing a big
change but they had no idea what the
impact was going to be and the reason I
picked the story is because I wanted
there most people don’t know that this
this completely unrelated series of
violence unleashed in Tamil Nadu would
actually lead to the BPO industry
actually most people don’t even connect
it let me talk to you about my story
here’s what happened in 1999 a group of
friends and I came together they said
let’s launch the first e-commerce
company India online shopping three
million people were using the Internet
they were less than 10,000 people who
used to shop online less than 10,000
people and all of them used to shop on
amazon.com
simply because there was no e-commerce
site in India there was no payment
gateway nobody knew how to put up a
catalog online
but we a bunch of absolutely stupid
people said let’s go put together an
e-commerce company in June 99 we left
our jobs we’re all doing very well I
used to work for the probe I think I had
a reasonably good successful carrier was
enjoying myself recently been allocated
stock options but we threw up all of
that and said let’s go build an
e-commerce company and we had no idea
what ecommerce was about if we didn’t
know how to build a software we didn’t
know how to write code we went to
software engineers who didn’t know how
to build a platform so we spent all our
time during the day spending time on
this website called amazon.com and
trying to figure out how can we make
this happen in India it took us months
and months and months before we put
together a site and we started selling
music cassettes and it was so primitive
in those days that on day one when we
launched you could only buy one cassette
at a time so if you had to buy two
cassette you have to play two different
orders but that when we made that even
today when I look back what is it that
fascinated me and people ask me what is
it that you do made you go into that
like somebody said uncharted territory
was it the excitement of building a
large industry no and we’re talking of a
small big change where the person who
unleashes the change has no idea so we
had no idea what’s going to happen in
2017 and you can see those numbers you
had absolutely no idea for me the
fascination was every time I would go to
a shop and anybody else in this country
at that time whenever they would go to a
shop and buy something they would
physically meet the shopkeeper
in our generation all of us have been
brought up with a very healthy suspicion
of shopkeepers we all believe that the
shopkeeper is out to cheat the shopper
and thereby you would never buy from a
shop but you would never beat the shop
key but no customer would buy and that’s
what really fascinated me it was not
about building payment gateways it was
not about doing a electronic shopping it
was not about online transactions it is
not about what people talk about saying
digital Banega India nothing it is the
fact that can I put together a shop
where we will be able to sell stuff to a
shopper without ever meeting that person
to me that of the biggest challenge
imagine putting together a shop where I
will sell stuff to a customer and never
meet him or her to me that was a
challenge at the end of our first year
we did business of about 6 lakh rupees
6 lakh rupees was the size of the entire
industry because we were the industry
this year 275 million smartphones there
were no smartphones in those days 400
million users 50 million online shoppers
and according to the goldman sachs
report the electronic commerce be to see
market india this year would be seven
hundred thousand crore rupees
[Applause]
and we had no idea which is what I was
telling you that the real true impactful
big changes are when when you unleash it
you have absolutely no idea what you’re
doing so if anybody stands and said when
I did this I was able to visualize 20
years later this would happen I think
most of them are lying because they have
no idea the last story all of us I
picked the story which will fascinate
all of you cricket everybody loves it
every four years we follow the World Cup
we want our team to win now every two
years because there’s a 50 / World Cup
there’s a 20 / World Cup and we always
want our team the country goes crazy but
the first 50 over game limited overs
game happen in January 5th 1971 at the
Melbourne Cricket Ground and who does
not a one-day game as such for those of
you who don’t know the story it was
actually a Test match being played
between England and Australia the first
three days of the test had been washed
out by rain on day four they walked out
it was sunny and they realized that they
could now start the game except that
irrespective of what happened there’s no
way the game would have a result so
somebody came up with the bright idea
saying instead of starting a five-day
game for two days and starting and
knowing it’s a draw why don’t we just
play one day and you take 40 overs I’ll
take 40 overs in those days in Australia
I don’t know how many of you know and
over had eight balls so one team will
play 40 hours of 8 balls each the other
team would pay 40 overs of another 8
balls eh and whoever won would be
declared the winner it was for fun
[Applause]
today it’s led to the largest
globalization of the game and billions
of people in just this one country every
two years wear blue t-shirts and said we
have to win that’s the other butterfly
effect so three different stories
completely unrelated one in electronic
commerce one in a political social
education we’re leading to the BPO
industry and third is a fun between two
countries leading to a very large part
three completely different thing all
tied by the common effect that I told
about which is that whenever a large big
change is about to be unleashed the
people who do that actually have no idea
and that’s the beauty of the butterfly
effect like I told you I will start it
with something or end with something
every time a butterfly flaps at wings at
one part in one part of the world in
another part there is a tornado but the
butterfly does not know that the tornado
is being unleashed that’s why it’s
called the butterfly effect
I started by saying that I’m feeling
very inadequate I actually do this for a
living I go up on stage and talk I
continue to feel inadequate
today create galaxy of experiences and
speakers before bigger galaxies to
follow I am feeling very incompetent
I’m feeling very inadequate every time I
finish a speech I hope people will stand
up and give me a standing ovation I’m
going to request that today but this
time I think the ovation is for all of
you that despite the beauty that you are
going to see today you have managed to
see through my talk thank you so much
[Applause]
traveling from industry events to
colleges talking to people speaking at
events like this is something that I do
almost several times a month and I’ve
been doing this for several years today
standing here I’m actually feeling
terribly inadequate for the kind of
people who’ve come before me and shared
their experiences and for the kind of
people are going to follow me I’m
feeling inadequate and incompetent
standing here in the galaxy of people so
my request to all of you is to please
bear with me when I was asked to speak
on this topic of the butterfly effect I
spend a lot of time doing some research
trying to find out what is it about the
topic that I can speak which can engage
all of you and I’m not going to spend
time talking about the butterfly effect
I’m not going to tell you about the
small big change or the big small change
but I’m going to tie this up with a
common thread that I think
differentiates all this big small change
or the small big change a common thread
that I’ve observed in the most impactful
and I’ve tried and what I’m going to do
is I’m going to narrate you three
different stories one of them bring mine
and try and tie them up as to how there
is a uniqueness to the truly impactful
small big changes it’s not a common
thread that runs through all of them but
in the truly most impactful one it is
this common thread that I have
personally noticed and I’m going to
share that experience with you
in recent time that I’m going to share
my first the first example that I’m
going to use here is all of you’ve heard
of uber it’s a company that essentially
you pick up a phone and you call a cab
people have been doing this for hundreds
of years
in jest that they’re doing it in a very
smart manner but if you go back to how
it started
he just two people the founders of the
company in trying to get a cab catch a
cab I’m told on a winter night in Paris
they didn’t find if somebody said
imagine if we press the button at the
cab came I think when they did that when
they went back to San Francisco and
create an app to get a cab they did not
know the kind of change that they were
unleashing and to me that’s the most
important in fact phul part of the small
big change it is not that the small
events the small incidents lead to large
impacts it is that for the truly
visionary people when they make that
small change they have absolutely no
idea of the change that they are causing
and that is the beauty of this butterfly
effect
if you go to Wikipedia and read about
the tornado the butterfly effect a
butterfly flaps its wings in one part of
the world there’s a tornado in other
part you should go and ask the butterfly
whether it knows about the tornado and
the butterfly will say no because the
butterfly does not know of the impact
that it is creating and that is the
truly big small change the fact that
when you unleash it you have no idea
what you’re going to do here are three
stories I’m going to pick the story
first because for any of you who have
been following the news politics in
Tamil Nadu is right now in the news
including yesterday everybody is talking
about it here’s an event that happened
in 1965 it happened first in 1940 it
happened again in 1965 and the
background to this is that after
independence the Indian government
largely run from Delhi tried to impose
Hindi as a common language all over the
country it would have led to uniformity
but it perhaps would have destroyed the
uniqueness of this nation 3/4 of the
country had no problem because they all
knew Hindi but certainly the southern
states didn’t know and Tamil Nadu took
the lead and launched a very violent
agitation called the anti-hindi
agitation it happened in 1940 then it
died down and narrow at that time said
ok no problem we’ll continue this we’re
not going to impose Hindi till 1965 the
problem was 25 years away so everybody
gave up till 25th January 1964 one day
before the rule was about to change and
Hindi would became common again they
launched into the agitation
and Unleashed violence all over the
space into the state every single the
people getting burned fighting killing
each other and thereby the government
said okay no problem don’t worry we’re
not going to impose Hindi and since then
they agreed that English will continue
to be a common language connecting India
I’m of the view that if that agitation
had not taken place India would not have
been the software power that it is today
India would not lead in the BPOs of the
business it wouldn’t be the back-office
of the net country simply because the
reason people have over the last 20
years used Indians to write great
software and build the BPO business was
because of the proficiency of English if
that agitation had not taken place there
would be no BPO industry in in India and
this is one lovely story of the small
big change
they were impacting unleashing a big
change but they had no idea what the
impact was going to be and the reason I
picked the story is because I wanted
there most people don’t know that this
this completely unrelated series of
violence unleashed in Tamil Nadu would
actually lead to the BPO industry
actually most people don’t even connect
it let me talk to you about my story
here’s what happened in 1999 a group of
friends and I came together they said
let’s launch the first e-commerce
company India online shopping three
million people were using the Internet
they were less than 10,000 people who
used to shop online less than 10,000
people and all of them used to shop on
amazon.com
simply because there was no e-commerce
site in India there was no payment
gateway nobody knew how to put up a
catalog online
but we a bunch of absolutely stupid
people said let’s go put together an
e-commerce company in June 99 we left
our jobs we’re all doing very well I
used to work for the probe I think I had
a reasonably good successful carrier was
enjoying myself recently been allocated
stock options but we threw up all of
that and said let’s go build an
e-commerce company and we had no idea
what ecommerce was about if we didn’t
know how to build a software we didn’t
know how to write code we went to
software engineers who didn’t know how
to build a platform so we spent all our
time during the day spending time on
this website called amazon.com and
trying to figure out how can we make
this happen in India it took us months
and months and months before we put
together a site and we started selling
music cassettes and it was so primitive
in those days that on day one when we
launched you could only buy one cassette
at a time so if you had to buy two
cassette you have to play two different
orders but that when we made that even
today when I look back what is it that
fascinated me and people ask me what is
it that you do made you go into that
like somebody said uncharted territory
was it the excitement of building a
large industry no and we’re talking of a
small big change where the person who
unleashes the change has no idea so we
had no idea what’s going to happen in
2017 and you can see those numbers you
had absolutely no idea for me the
fascination was every time I would go to
a shop and anybody else in this country
at that time whenever they would go to a
shop and buy something they would
physically meet the shopkeeper
in our generation all of us have been
brought up with a very healthy suspicion
of shopkeepers we all believe that the
shopkeeper is out to cheat the shopper
and thereby you would never buy from a
shop but you would never beat the shop
key but no customer would buy and that’s
what really fascinated me it was not
about building payment gateways it was
not about doing a electronic shopping it
was not about online transactions it is
not about what people talk about saying
digital Banega India nothing it is the
fact that can I put together a shop
where we will be able to sell stuff to a
shopper without ever meeting that person
to me that of the biggest challenge
imagine putting together a shop where I
will sell stuff to a customer and never
meet him or her to me that was a
challenge at the end of our first year
we did business of about 6 lakh rupees
6 lakh rupees was the size of the entire
industry because we were the industry
this year 275 million smartphones there
were no smartphones in those days 400
million users 50 million online shoppers
and according to the goldman sachs
report the electronic commerce be to see
market india this year would be seven
hundred thousand crore rupees
[Applause]
and we had no idea which is what I was
telling you that the real true impactful
big changes are when when you unleash it
you have absolutely no idea what you’re
doing so if anybody stands and said when
I did this I was able to visualize 20
years later this would happen I think
most of them are lying because they have
no idea the last story all of us I
picked the story which will fascinate
all of you cricket everybody loves it
every four years we follow the World Cup
we want our team to win now every two
years because there’s a 50 / World Cup
there’s a 20 / World Cup and we always
want our team the country goes crazy but
the first 50 over game limited overs
game happen in January 5th 1971 at the
Melbourne Cricket Ground and who does
not a one-day game as such for those of
you who don’t know the story it was
actually a Test match being played
between England and Australia the first
three days of the test had been washed
out by rain on day four they walked out
it was sunny and they realized that they
could now start the game except that
irrespective of what happened there’s no
way the game would have a result so
somebody came up with the bright idea
saying instead of starting a five-day
game for two days and starting and
knowing it’s a draw why don’t we just
play one day and you take 40 overs I’ll
take 40 overs in those days in Australia
I don’t know how many of you know and
over had eight balls so one team will
play 40 hours of 8 balls each the other
team would pay 40 overs of another 8
balls eh and whoever won would be
declared the winner it was for fun
[Applause]
today it’s led to the largest
globalization of the game and billions
of people in just this one country every
two years wear blue t-shirts and said we
have to win that’s the other butterfly
effect so three different stories
completely unrelated one in electronic
commerce one in a political social
education we’re leading to the BPO
industry and third is a fun between two
countries leading to a very large part
three completely different thing all
tied by the common effect that I told
about which is that whenever a large big
change is about to be unleashed the
people who do that actually have no idea
and that’s the beauty of the butterfly
effect like I told you I will start it
with something or end with something
every time a butterfly flaps at wings at
one part in one part of the world in
another part there is a tornado but the
butterfly does not know that the tornado
is being unleashed that’s why it’s
called the butterfly effect
I started by saying that I’m feeling
very inadequate I actually do this for a
living I go up on stage and talk I
continue to feel inadequate
today create galaxy of experiences and
speakers before bigger galaxies to
follow I am feeling very incompetent
I’m feeling very inadequate every time I
finish a speech I hope people will stand
up and give me a standing ovation I’m
going to request that today but this
time I think the ovation is for all of
you that despite the beauty that you are
going to see today you have managed to
see through my talk thank you so much
[Applause]
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