Data breach at Quora!

Earlier today an email from Quora landed in my inbox informing about a data breach.

The mail says:

The following information of yours may have been compromised:

  • Account and user information, e.g. name, email, IP, user ID, encrypted password, user account settings, personalization data
  • Public actions and content including drafts, e.g. questions, answers, comments, blog posts, upvotes
  • Data imported from linked networks when authorized by you, e.g. contacts, demographic information, interests, access tokens (now invalidated)
  • Non-public actions, e.g. answer requests, downvotes, thanks
  • Non-public content, e.g. direct messages, suggested edits
  • Account and user information, e.g. name, email, IP, user ID, encrypted password, user account settings, personalization dataPublic actions and content including drafts, e.g. questions, answers, comments, blog posts, upvotesData imported from linked networks when authorized by you, e.g. contacts, demographic information, interests, access tokens (now invalidated)Non-public actions, e.g. answer requests, downvotes, thanksNon-public content, e.g. direct messages, suggested edits

  • Public actions and content including drafts, e.g. questions, answers, comments, blog posts, upvotesData imported from linked networks when authorized by you, e.g. contacts, demographic information, interests, access tokens (now invalidated)Non-public actions, e.g. answer requests, downvotes, thanksNon-public content, e.g. direct messages, suggested edits

Had high expectations from Quora but this shows almost nobody is taking security seriously probably because there seems to be no real incentive. Security breaches now seem to be the new normal !

Personal information of 500 Million customers leaked !

“Marriott Hack 2nd Biggest of All-Time” by Michael K. Spencer https://link.medium.com/DsrO5Wn5hS

From “Data is Oil” to “AI is Electricity” : A decade of evolution

Data is Oil, AI is new electricity
A decade of evolution.

This one slide sums up a decade (2006-2016) of evolution in the areas of data processing, analysis, computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Clive Humby, UK Mathematician and architect of Tesco’s Clubcard, said in 2006 (widely credited as the first to coin the phrase): “Data is the new oil. It’s valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used. It has to be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc to create a valuable entity that drives profitable activity; so must data be broken down, analyzed for it to have value.”

Andrew Ng gave the phrase “AI is the new Electricity” in 2016. “Electricity changed how the world operated. It upended transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, health care. AI is poised to have a similar impact” he said. Information technology, web search, and advertising are already being powered by artificial intelligence. It decides whether we’re approved for a bank loan. It helps us order a pizza and estimate our wait time, and even tells the driver where to deliver it. Other areas ripe for AI impact: fintech, logistics, health care, security, and transportation.

“Just as electricity transformed almost everything 100 years ago, today I actually have a hard time thinking of an industry that I don’t think AI will transform in the next several years,” Ng says.

Capturing sunset

These pictures are from the terrace of our Innoplexus office building Midas Tower.

Doesn’t matter how many times I go there and look at the open sky and the amazing view, it always looks new to me. For quite some time I have been thinking about capturing the sun set – had to wait for the perfect day with clear visibility, without any fog or haze to get these shots.

Looking at the world’s best restaurants for Innovation

I came across this article on HBR today which looks at the world’s best restaurants to find out how they balance Innovation and Consistency.

Here’s the summary :

Despite being able to charge hundreds of dollars for a meal and being fully booked months in advance, top restaurants often still have a hard time turning a profit. And they face an added challenge of maintaining flawless consistency, while simultaneously being innovative and cutting-edge. This requires dedicated time and space for research and experimentation, as well as a thorough process for both iterating on and standardizing new inventions. Examples of restaurants that have made  both the Michelin Guide and 50 Best Restaurants of the World list show how they encourage creativity and learning beyond the leadership or lab teams, and generate, refine, and standardize ideas.

The original article is here – https://hbr.org/2018/01/how-the-best-restaurants-in-the-world-balance-innovation-and-consistency

All the projects follow a specific development process, alternating between collective ideation or feedback and focused work by a small team. For restaurant dishes, the development team will quickly prototype and iterate through numerous versions of the dish and its components, either in the lab or if a lab is not available, in the main kitchen during slow hours. The trials can go over for months as numerous variations are tested in a race against seasonal ingredients.

This just goes on to prove that Consistency and Creativity are not mutually exclusive – restaurants need to be both at the same time. Innovation which is not a result of a set process will  soon become unsustainable – one may be able to innovate even without process at times but no one can repeat the feat a number of times. That consistency is possible only with a process.

 

Entrepreneur vs Manager

What differentiates an Entrepreneur from a Manager ? While I still do not have a definite answer to it, I do have an anecdote, shared by one of my mentors few years back.

A group of lumberjacks entered a forest with their manager to carry out a survey on how much wood log will they be able to generate from there. Few of them gave the feedback to manager that most of the trees they found till that time did not have good quality and the trunks were not all straight. The manager asked them to extend the area of survey.

They went back and carried on. Two days passed by but the results were not encouraging. Third day, manager’s boss, the owner of the small company (the entrepreneur) reached there and asked about the progress. The manager presented the report with number of trees his team had surveyed, how many trees were of good quality, how many hours did his team spend in surveying etc. along with explaining that he has now extended the survey area to find more trees with better quality. He listened intently and asked his manager if he already has an idea of the tallest tree his team has found in the surveyed area. Manager, beaming with a sense of achievement, said yes and offered to take him to the tree.

Once the boss reached there, he surprised everybody by saying he wants to climb the tree. Manager said that it is a bit risky, that he should reconsider it and maybe ask one of the team members to climb instead. He refused and started climbing. Atop, he spent about five minutes looking around in all directions, came down and asked the manager “Call everybody back, we are leaving”. The manager was dumbfounded, saying we have invested so many days already, maybe we should wait till we find better trees, that the forest is so big. Owner simply replied “Wrong forest!”.

Originally published my me on Linkedin