The Best 'CEO Wanted' Ad Ever

Even more ironic: Jindal Aluminum's site has a dead 'careers' link!

A Princely Sum

Yup, a pirated edition of the banned book seems to be doing the rounds of Mumbai all of a sudden. Although the book has been listed for quite some time (though currently unavailable), not many people order from Amazon in India, thanks to the high shipping charges. I thought 400 bucks was quite a steal till GE's post made me realise I'd overpaid. Interestingly, I got the contact details of the peddler from a comment/spam ad, that he left on K's blog. Very good targeted advertising - K deserves a cut! I'll probably put up a detailed review on Amazon sometime, but so far it seems that the Ambanis may just have done Hamish McDonald a favour by getting it banned. It's not as excitingly defamatory as contraband is expected to be. First five pages can be read free of cost :-)

The BCCI's Inbox

The Answer Is Blowing In The Video...

Now this is what I call a cool viral...

Subprime Poker!

What would the "father of the Mortgage Backed Security" have to say on the current subprime crisis in the US? Thats something that struck me the other day, when I saw someone reading the Wall Street cult novel Liar's Poker.

Lewis Ranieri was one of the many "Big Swinging D**ks" at Salomon Brothers where he started the mortgage trading desk and thus shot the firm to its heady heights in the mid 1980s. I hadn't seen him on the US edition of CNBC yet, so I ran a search and found this 'rough transcript' of his thoughts on the issue. Spoiler: The system's broke!

"We're restructuring a loan around a borrower; he can't afford the loan and now we're going to take the NPV of the change and send him a tax bill so the IRS can chase him . . .?" Read more (courtesy: Calculated Risk blog)

Scoop 2.0: We’re Hiring!

One of the interesting ways for technology watchers to speculate on a company's future plan is to regularly scan its online jobs page. It may not always be accurate, but if the job description is specific enough it can often lead to a scoop!

One of the best examples is this piece from CNET.com about 2.5 years ago which suggested that Google was looking at buying up "Dark Fiber" based on this vacancy:

"Google is looking for Strategic Negotiator candidates with experience in... (i)dentification, selection, and negotiation of dark fiber contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network,"

Before you knew it, Google was WiFi-ing up entire cities free of cost and now could soon become a full fledged telecom giant if the secret "gPhone" project indeed bears fruit. The latest scoop is on Facebook's "we're hiring" page which suggests that the Social Networking poster boy could be looking at an IPO as a"very serious option" in the near future. {Link courtsey Paul Kedrosky}

Gimme A Break, Mr. Prime Minister.

I don't believe our Hon. PM, Dr. Singh could have said this with a straight face: Coming to Patil's rescue, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rubbished the charges as "mudslinging" saying there was no evidence that Pratibha Patil herself was involved in any of the irregularities.

(Pic Courtsey: IBNLive.com)

Sure, its the BJP that's very openly behind the campaign to discredit the leading presidential candidate and they're pretty open about it. But to say that there's no evidence that Mrs. Patil herself was involved in any of the irregularities is laughable. Either she's dishonest or she's incredibly clueless - both qualities that the average citizen does not want the next President of India to possess. Webster defines "mudslinger" as one who uses offensive epithets and invective especially against a political opponent. In this case, the harshest invective from the BJP is nothing but verbatim quoting of the report from the Reserve Bank of India - the institution that the PM himself headed more than two decades ago!