a byte of me

This long weekend, we went to Glen Canyon and Lake Powell. It was fun hiking along the beautiful canyons. The sun was out and it was hot. But we had the huge lake and its cool water to complement the sun.

We camped by the Colorado river one night and on the beach of the lake another night. For camping at the beach, when we were trying to find a spot to put up a tent we got our car stuck in the sand. It took a lot of revving and five muscular guys to get it out.

We hiked and swam in the water. We kayaked and the best of it all - went jet skiing. It was just beautiful.

I was traveling by bus number 8 to downtown today morning to work at UVF as usual. I got down at the State Street stop and just as I had bid the driver goodbye, a man asked me to show my ticket. I reached into my pockets and fished out the UTA pass and handed it to him immediately. UTA pass is the public transport pass that is given to University of Utah students that allows us to travel on the city buses and the light rail system (TRAX) for free.

No sooner have I handed it to him, that I realize what I was doing. Handing over my valuable pass to some stranger. Oh no! I consider snatching it back and running. Only then I look up to see the man wearing a blue shirt with the UTA logo and his name tag under that. Then I realize that he was the ticket checker from UTA. I relax. My pass is valid till September of this year and so I expect him to hand it back to me. Instead he squints and starts reading something thats apparently written in fine print on the back side. He then says "Sir, the card says 'Not valid for travel on bus routes'". I say, "What the heck? Let me take a look", and he hands over the card back for me to look. To my surprize, it indeed says that. Weird.

While I'm considering how that went unnoticed by me for so long and how could it have happened, he has begun adding up the fines on a device and says "Sir, your fine will be three dollars and ten cents." I am surprized that I have to pay a fine, but not so much so by the amount. $3.10. Measly three dollars and ten cents of fine. Never heard of that before. I think that normally, the fine would be $25 or even $50. I consider paying it off and walking away, but I couldnt comprehend the surprize of the "no bus routes" mystery completely yet. I keep looking at the card, turning it over and reading both sides again and again, questioning myself, almost ignoring him. How could I have missed that fine print until now? How do my friends travel to school using this card - we all have similar cards after all. How did I get by using this card on the bus until now - for almost two years. I make it a point to not let him know this detail, lest he fine me backdated for all these two years.

I'm still in my own world thinking all this, that the man reminds me again "Sir?". I put a hand in my front pocket again, grab a few dollar bills and am about to fish those out when I notice that the picture on the card is not mine. Now memory comes back and I figure out that card is not mine at all. In fact, all the differences between this card and my card are more apparent now. My card is horizontal and this one is vertical. I realize that this is someone else's card. In the excitement, I tell this to the ticket checker. Bad move. He points out that I have been using someone else's card to travel and tacks on another fine to it. Oh no! How stupid?

He mentions the new total "Its $13.65 with the additional fine, sir". I just find the amounts too ridiculous and am about to pay him when I decide all this feels just wrong. I decide this is unjust and am not going to hand over my money so easily. I will try to prove him wrong and find any excuse if that doesnt work. And if nothing works, just plain bargain. Yes, this whole affair feels so wrong, that it feels worth fighting for. So I try to explain my situation to him.

ME: "Sir, I am at University of Utah student. You must surely know that we all get a free fare pass. I obviously grabbed my roommate's card by mistake". I lie. I have no clue who the guy is in the picture. But why add another layer of complication. "Can't you excuse me this time, please?"

HIM: "I am sorry sir. I can't trust you on your word. Can you prove you are a University of Utah student?"

ME: "I sure can."

Then I think of how I'm going to do that. I instinctively start opening all the pockets of my backpack that I am carrying, hoping to find something. I cannot find anything that relates me to University of Utah in all the small pockets of the backpack. So I open the last and the largest pocket. It has my laptop. By this time, all my stuff from the backpack is out there lying around. It feels like I am wasting everyone's time and creating a big deal for no reason. But I decide to pursue this anyways now that I have started.

So, I take out my laptop and turn it on. As the desktop shows up, I see a folder called "Graduation pics". I am excited and show it to him. "Sir, you see this graduation pics folder? I just graduated this May and that will prove to you that I was a student and that'll prve that I do possess a card that is valid until September." I double click the folder icon to open it and look at him with pride of victory in my eyes. For some reason, he is getting madder. His eyes keep getting wider to the extent that his eye balls might pop out. I can't comprehend. So I look towards my screen. And I see that the Graduation Pics folder has opened up and all the pictures in there are not what I thought at all. In fact its filled with porn. My face grows pale. I'm embarassed to no extent. I have no idea how this happened. It seems like some sick joke someone's playing on me. The ticket checker seems angry. I seem to have offended him.

I decide to call quits and just pay him. I mutter "I'm sorry" slowly and I shut the computer and put it back in the backpack. I gather all the stuff lying around, dump it in my backpack too. I am still embarassed and can't look him in the eye anymore. I put the backpack on my back, pull out two ten dollar bills and hand it over to him. He hands me back my change. I feel lucky to have not been fined like a hundred dollars for traveling on a fake card that is not even valid for bus travel. I accept defeat. I begin to walk away and the man walks in the opposite direction. I look at my watch, its been half an hour. What a waste. I feel like a failure.

We are ten feet apart when lightening strikes my brain. Again. "Oh shit", I say to myself. How could I have been so stupid? "Wait!", I yell out to the man. He turns around, looks frustrated, but says nothing, almost wanting to ask "What now?" I fish out my wallet from my back pocket. I feel really stupid now. How could I have forgotten that I carry my own bus pass in my walet and I am indeed carrying it right now. So what, if I was carrying someone else's card? I am also carrying my own. I shouldn't be fined at all. With full confidence, I walk towards the man, open my wallet and show him my card, which is valid for travel on bus, train, everywhere. Heck even space. I feel confident. I feel victorious. He is mad. Almost furious. But he hands over my money back without saying anything. This feels so good. I am so happy. Victory at last.

And then, I hear something ringing. Its my cell phone. I find myself in bed, trying to find my cell phone on the side table with my hand. I wake up with a splitting headache. I can't comprehend. Was all this a dream? Its 10:30 am. The room is dark. Past fills my head. I decide that was a dream. I am in the reality now. Then I remember. I had woken up at 7:30, showered, gotten ready, had breakfast and decided to take a nap because that was way too early. All this had to be a dream. I wash my face and picked up my backpack to walk towards the bus stop to go the UVF. No ticket checker asks me for any thing when I get down. Was all that really a dream? Nightmare , really, if you ask me. But I never remember my dreams when I wake up. And not to this level of detail anyways? Could it be that that was the reality and this, what I was living right now a dream? This world is weird. I wonder how these fantastic dreams come about?


Tagged: Dreams, Personal

You have to check this out. NPR's show called Open Source had an hour-long discussion on private equity and the Daimler Chrysler-Cerberus deal in particular. Cerberus bought Chrysler (for $7.4Bn) in what is certainly not the largest private equity deal, but certainly going to be the most talked about deal.

There are many angles that people are exploring with regards to this deal. Some of these are: the deal structure and how in essence Daimler has actually paid about $145M to get rid of Chrysler, how if Chrysler gets revived under private hands it would be such a mega victory for private equity. Also how people are misconceived about private equity being just cut, slash and sell type of job where as in reality it is much more than that. Private equity is being compared to the leveraged buyouts of the 70s and the 80s and how people are misconceived that only financial types are running the show. Today's PE deals are mega-team works which involve not only the finance types, but also strategists, operations gurus and core engineers who have experience in the same field itself or a close enough field.

Even if you're not interested in private equity, but are interested in business, you have to check out and listen to this discussion online. It features Daniel Primack of PEHub who I have written about earlier, Josh Lerner, Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard Business School and Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.

Tagged: Private Equity, Chrysler, Cerberus

Today I pitched my first company to the investment committee at the venture fund. The investment committee is formed of three seasoned venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. These three, because of their experience, are so sharp that they tear apart even the most reasonable sounding business plans. To get past them, the investment has to be "really" good. Luckily, I was able to do a decent job (even though the rest of the team I had worked with wasn't there) and they are favorably inclined towards investing given I provide them with some data that I didn't include in the presentation.

After the presentation, I felt a huge relief and also felt quite good. But then came the bad news. My future employer with whom I start a job in August called to say that my H1-B visa petition was not selected in the random lottery. I hadn't received my master's degree by April 2nd, when they had to apply and hence my application was subject to the regular cap of 65,000 visas for which they had received over 130,000 applications within two days. :( :( :( Its very depressing. I have been in this country for six years now and contributed to the economy (spent) well over a hundred thousand dollars towards my education, living etc and yet it seems the country doesn't want me of my education. Its very depressing. As NPR said in one of their stories, its essentially a deportation order for US educated foreign graduates.

To the credit of my firm, they are committed on still hiring me and continuing for one year on OPT. When that runs out in May '08, who knows what will happen? They have said they will apply for H-1B again next year under the Master's cap, which they expect I should get without any problem. But there is a gap between May (when my OPT runs out) and October (when the visa is issued effectively) where I cannot work in the US legally. I can only hope that they will still keep me on the payroll and send me to work in the UK or India.

Although this year the Master's cap took a whole month to get filled, I am fairly certain that next year, even the Master's cap will be filled in one day (just like the regular cap did this year).
In the unlikely scenario that I have to leave the country and go home, its not too sad. I am fairly certain that with the experience in VC and an MS degree I will qualify for some great jobs in venture capital or microfinance in India or elsewhere around the world. That one thing is the only surety and helps me sleep soundly at night.

Nevertheless, from the point of view of a US educated foreigner, the whole H1-B fiasco is very frustrating. Its very disappointing to have this uncertainty looming over my head though.
Besides, I also dont like being called an "Alien" by the USCIS in all their press releases and materials. Are we really aliens? Foreigners - yes, but aliens? Its ridiculous! I really hope that this great country they called the United States of America, which itself is built on immigrants, thinks about this long and hard, brings about reform and learns to treat its foreign-born students and workers better.

After the disappointing H1-B news, I couldn't concentrate on work all day. There wasn't any work anyway. Everybody who was at the investment committee meeting today morning, felt the blues later on in the day after all the grilling in the morning. I ran into PacMan on iGoogle and played it for a bit. It brought back some happy memories of myself as a sixth grader glued to my green and black monochrome computer monitor for hours playing pacman. Decided to end the day early, came home and just tried to cope with the sad news by sleeping for two hours. Got up at 7 pm even more depressed and since it was still sunny and bright outside, I ran two miles at the liberty park. It was refreshing. Then I hit some tennis shots against a practice wall at the park, then came home and had dinner.

Thats pretty much for a lousy day that today was except for the successful investment pitch in the morning. That is the only thing that I really like about today.

Update: Isn't there any regulation that frees up h1-b multiple visa allocations wasted by people like this, who applied for and obtained more than one visa, possibly through consultants and dummy employers and are grabbing away opportunities from countless others? I'm beginning to get really disappointed with all this happening.

Tagged: Personal, H1-B

I am glad to announce that I have left the safe cocoon of academia behind (at least for a few years now) and plunged into the real world!


I have the summer ahead of me. I have talked to a few places for an internship, but am not sure what if anything is going to work out. If something does work out, great I'll get paid to live over the summer. If I don't, thats fine too for now. I can invest my time in working on a business idea. I will also continue working on deals at the Venture Fund. Yesterday and today, I sat at the fund trying to get the startup going, but accomplished very little. There is so much that needs to be planned and so much that needs to be done. I feel so shackled because I feel things move slowly. I need to be more patient and wait for a few months while I continuously work away on the idea to actually start doing business.

In the meanwhile, I just returned from Omaha, NE from Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting. Sadly, I am not rich enough to be a shareholder yet, but some day will definitely be. Its shares are currently trading at $108,500 for the BRK.A share and $3618 for the BRK.B share (which is 1/30th of the A stock). It was held at the Qwest Center and it was packed with 30,000 people, all there to hear pearls of wisdom from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. It was a great experience overall because I felt so motivated. I wish I can be like Buffett some day, own a large, successful company that is revered by so many around the world.

Tagged: Personal, Graduation, Warren Buffett