Derek Sivers

Kaushal Shah

Met 2023-02-18 13:00 at ITC Gardenia, 1 Residency Rd, Ashok Nagar, Bengaluru, Bangalore, India.

Ahmedabad has worse weather than Bangalore but better infrastructure: more reliable electricity, drainage, wiring.

People from Gujarat are known for their entrepreneurial business spirit.

One reason Bangalore became the startup city is that Gujarat is a dry state.

He splits his time between New York, Ahmedabad, and Bangalore.

People don’t say anything political even in private encrypted WhatsApp chats.

Meditation and comedians made him question his religious upbringing. Bill Burr’s great bit laughing at Scientology but is it really more ridiculous than what we’re taught growing up? We just don’t laugh at the things taught to us as kids.

In India we substitute academic excellence for character. He was a great student, so his teacher treated him like he could do no wrong. One day during cricket he hit another kid and didn’t get in trouble. Years later in vipassana meditation this all came back to haunt him.

We agree about Yuval Noah Harari, meditation credibility, and his three books.

Out of 500 non-fiction books he’s probably finished 3 of them. He gets the gist and moves to the next.

Kaushal Shah URLs