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"Trust the hoodie, ditch the suit" and Why "Brahmin's Coffe Bar" aces "Chez Nous"

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If you are an entrepreneur who would not have the patience for snooty waiters and difficult to translate/interpret menu cards, you might have some interesting takeaways from this article by Paddy Padmanabhan in Swarajya based on an analysis of the ratings of Bangalore restaurants. Extracts:
Peter Thiel, billionaire founder of PayPal and the first ever outside investor in Facebook, talks about this in his new book Zero to One, and offers some interesting theories. He talks specifically about the spectacular boom-bust of the alternative energy industry in the US, especially solar, which was decimated in the 2009-2010 period by cheap Chinese products that were subsidized heavily by the Chinese government.

He proposes that the solar industry’s woes were brought on by CEOs who were sales guys in suits who had no idea about the technology and even less about the hard questions that needed answering for the business to be viable over the long term. He clinches his point with an interesting visual contrast between Brian Harrison , the urbane, grey-haired and immaculately suited CEO of the now defunct Solyndra on the one hand , and a jeans-and T-shirt clad Elon Musk, head of luxury electric car-maker Tesla.

...Whether we like it or not, there is inbuilt bias that most of us carry when it comes to highly subjective qualifications like reliability, prestige, and quality. Beware of these biases the next time you pick a restaurant to take your family out for dinner.


Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competition, Learn from Experienced Entrepreneurs and Interact with Peers. Includes the Free Deal Digest Weekly Newsletter: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

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