Unhurried conversations and no-agenda friendships
First-principles thinking and the lattice work of mental models
You may enjoy this podcast with Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the economic advisory council to the Prime Minister of India.
The rest of this newsletter isn’t about policy, politics, or careers; it’s about a friend and mentor with whom I discuss and debate topics that pique my interest. I know him since my time as a Young India Fellow at Ashoka University, well before Oxford and INSEAD. His name is Sid Yog. Today happens to be his birthday so why not?
Sid is the founding partner of Xander Group, an emerging markets investment firm managing over $3 billion in assets. He served as a professor at Harvard Business School from 2014 to 2019, instructing courses on real estate, investing in emerging markets, and entrepreneurship. He also founded Virtuous Retail, Ashoka University and has been actively involved in various boards and councils, including Harvard University's President's Global Advisory Council. It goes without saying that he has done pretty well and given generously to causes he cares about.
We meet off and on in different parts of the world. All our conversations are about ideas - principles to be precise. We agree on a few things, disagree on others, and enjoy catching up life, work and everything in between.
A few years ago, after we caught up in the Bay Area, I shared a picture of us. Soon after, many of my friends from HBS sent me messages telling me how much they enjoyed his classes. Although I didn’t attend his lectures, I reckon what most students found interesting was his first-principles thinking or what Charlie Munger called the "latticework of mental models".
"You’ve got to have models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience—both vicarious and direct—on this latticework of models. You may have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life. You’ve got to hang experience on a latticework of models in your head."
Spending time with Sid means learning about new mental models, unlearning and relearning assumptions, and testing contrarian ideas. I have always enjoyed our dialectic, as it challenges my thinking and broadens my perspective. Rather than focusing on his conclusions, I concentrate on his analytical framework, which delights my debater self.
These days, there is a lot of focus on efficiency, output and return on invested time. While well-intentioned, such constructs miss the beauty of no-agenda associations that are nurtured over time. The joy of catching up without being hurried or rushed is a luxury we should all gift ourselves every once in a while. That’s the ultimate reward of a live well lived.
As someone wise once said, “Find your calm in the comfort of old friends, where time is spent without the need for purpose or pretense."
Happy birthday, Sid. Cheers to agreeing and disagreeing with first principles!
P.S. The podcast with Heidi Roizen will be out tomorrow.
P.P.S. Previous newsletter in case you missed it.