[20th October 2024] Interesting Things I Learnt This Week

1. Why Founders Need to Focus More on Sales and Marketing - Harvard Business School senior lecturer Mark Roberge argues that every aspect of being an early-stage founder involves sales. But many founders lack an understanding of how to incorporates sales into their ventures. This talks about how to hire for early sales roles, design compensation, and lay a strong foundation for a growing sales team. Hiring the right salesperson is crucial, as they should be skilled in both product knowledge and customer interaction. Scaling sales requires a strategic approach, considering factors like product-market fit and customer retention. The sales compensation plan can be a powerful tool for aligning sales behavior with business goals. While AI is making strides in automating certain sales tasks, the human element of building relationships and understanding customer needs remains indispensable.

My Take: IMHO a startup is like an elephant from the story of blind men and an elephant. There are different parts of startup and each of the different parts contribute greatly to the success of your company. You need to ensure all work well together to make the impact you seek. Often non-sales founder will not focus on sales and marketing because its not their comfort zone. The basic rule of being a founder is getting out of your comfort zone and breaking those barriers, without which you cannot make the impact you desire. One thing that really resonated with me is that sales and marketing has to be strategically and thought through as whole, hence the reference of the story of blind men and an elephant.

 

2. How Your Brain Detects Patterns without Conscious Thought - The study shows that the brain can pick up patterns in events without conscious thought. Neurons in key brain regions combine information on what occurs and when, allowing the brain to predict coming events. The team studied 17 people with epilepsy who had electrodes implanted in their brains. They found that neurons in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex gradually began to respond not only to the face being presented but also to faces directly connected to it on the triangle. The authors found that the neurons could also anticipate what images would appear next, suggesting that the brain can learn to predict future events on the basis of learnt patterns. Understanding how the brain organizes information about sequences of events could have important clinical applications.

My Take: This is an amazing study which bring into focus something we often call intuition. While intuition might manifest in different ways, often its called something which comes from within without much thinking. This study presents a very interesting aspect of the brain where it actually catches on the patterns even without a conscious effort. May be this is what intuition is all about. I dont think but this might even pave the way for tricking the brain into ensure the body heals and fights diseases better.

3. Crypto Astrology: Eclipses, Hacks, and Blood Baths - This is an article about crypto astrology. It discusses the correlation between eclipses and cryptocurrency crashes. The author argues that there have been a number of significant crashes that have coincided with eclipses. However, the author acknowledges that this could be a coincidence.

My Take: I triple checked this post for #satire or #humor but only found #spurious-correlations for this. Its funny that how many people will believe it blindly and miss reading this hash tag. Correlation found here are just cherry picked. What actually happens is that crypto faces hacks, blood baths and scams almost every week if not day. So I match it to literally anything. I wonder if someone can cherry pick based on the times some politician gave a speech at their parliament and that too might make it. But if you really believe in this, please let me know. I have something interesting to discuss with you.

4. The Most Detailed Brain Map Ever - Now there is a new, incredibly detailed map of the fruit fly brain. Scientists have spent years compiling this map, which offers the most intricate view of an animal brain ever created. The map details how sensory signals prompt flies to take action. This research has the potential to provide valuable insights into how the human brain works 

My Take: I tried going through the original journal article at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07558-y but it proved too much for me to digest in one go, but it was very interesting. They have put all the data online and its just 10s of GBs. The details are interesting as well. I am sure we will learn a lot with 140,000 neurons from the fruit fly brains and will form the basis for ultimately learning more about our 86 billion neurons. With all the research being put online, I am hopeful of amazing discoveries and medical improvements in the next decades.