Sriram Narayan

The executives seem to be asking: what kind of output does this human produce? The elders seem to be asking: what kind of person does using this tool produce? timrequarth.substack.com/p/silicon-vall…

(2/2) ...you might soon find your COO or CFO asking you (or your boss) to cut spend because they don’t see the business impact from all the extra output. The time is now to bridge the gap between features shipped and dollars earned. Here's how: impactintel.net/impact-intel-f… #prodmgmt

(1/2) Product Leaders now have the opportunity to close gaps in measurement alongside creating new functionality. AI-assisted engineering has increased velocity. If you use all the extra velocity for even more functionality, without the means to verify downstream impact, ...

@PEJ1952 @alvinfoo "But when you have an actual life to live, everybody blurs out all the distractions— good as well as bad— to get on with it." That is sad. In the words of W.H. Davies, "What is this life, if full of care, We have no time to stand and stare."

“The experiment proved that the extraordinary in an ordinary environment does not shine and is so often overlooked and undervalued.” It “proved“ nothing of the kind. If you’re in the subway, it’s because you have places to go, or places you’re returning to. Which means you have actual business to attend to. Maybe if this guy was in a park and people were just sitting there doing nothing other than enjoying the scenery, they might take further notice. But when you have an actual life to live, everybody blurs out all the distractions— good as well as bad— to get on with it.

A violinist played for 45 minutes in the Washington D.C. subway. Of the 1,097 people who passed by, seven stopped to listen to him, and one recognized him. He collected $32.17 in tips from 27 passersby (excluding $20 from the one who recognized him). Only one person knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. In that subway, Joshua played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Two days before he played in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out a Boston theatre, and the seats averaged about $100. The experiment proved that the extraordinary in an ordinary environment does not shine and is so often overlooked and undervalued. There are brilliantly talented people everywhere who aren’t receiving the recognition and reward they deserve. But once they arm themselves with value and confidence and remove themselves from an environment that isn’t serving them, they thrive and grow. Your gut is telling you something. Listen to it if it’s telling you where you are isn’t enough! Go where you are appreciated and valued. Know Your Worth. Credit : @foundconsciousness via IG

@seetharamankc @manujosephsan simBly

@manujosephsan It froze “Simply” without the temperature reaching “seero” ?

On behalf of all Malayalees in North India, I declare the start of Winter 2025. The coconut oil has frozen.

@timoreilly AI's neither a tool nor a worker. It's a general purpose tech like computing. But it is likely to have a net negative impact on jobs. Otherwise, there's little ROI for the likes of Perplexity. AI might even help with new useful science but that ROI will accrue to Pharma, etc.

In a recent newsletter, Ben Thompson called a portion of Jensen Huang’s keynote at NVidia’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in DC “an excellent articulation of the thesis that the AI market is orders of magnitude bigger than the software market.” While I’m loath to contradict as astute an observer as Thompson, I’m not sure I agree. Huang’s argument ran as follows: “Software of the past, and this is a profound understanding, a profound observation of artificial intelligence, that the software industry of the past was about creating tools. Excel is a tool. Word is a tool. A web browser is a tool. The reason why I know these are tools is because you use them. The tools industry, just as screwdrivers and hammers, the tools industry is only so large. In the case of IT tools, they could be database tools, [the market for] these IT tools is about a trillion dollars or so. But AI is not a tool. AI is work. That is the profound difference. AI is, in fact, workers that can actually use tools. One of the things I’m really excited about is the work that Aravind’s doing at Perplexity. Perplexity, using web browsers to book vacations or do shopping. Basically, an AI using tools. Cursor is an AI, an agentic AI system that we use at Nvidia. Every single software engineer at Nvidia uses Cursor. That’s improved our productivity tremendously. It’s basically a partner for every one of our software engineers to generate code, and it uses a tool, and the tool it uses is called VS Code. So Cursor is an AI, agentic AI system. that uses VS Code.” At first this seems like an important observation, and one that justifies the sky high valuation of AI companies. But it really doesn’t hold up to closer examination. “AI is not a tool. AI is work. That is the profound difference. AI is, in fact, workers that can use tools.” Really? Any complex software system is a worker that can use tools! Think about the Amazon website. It is definitely a worker that can use tools. Here is some of the work it does, and the tools that it invokes: * Helps the user search a product catalog containing millions of items using not just data retrieval tools but indices that take into account hundreds of factors; * Compares those items with other similar items, considering product reviews and price; * Calls a tool that calculates taxes based on the location of the purchaser; * Calls a tool that takes payment and another that sends it to the bank, possibly via one or more intermediaries; * Collects (or stores and retrieves) shipping information; * Dispatches instructions to a mix of robots and human warehouse workers; * Dispatches instructions to a fleet of delivery drivers; * Follows up by text and/or email and asks the customer how the delivery was handled; And far more. Every web application of any complexity is a worker that uses tools and does work that humans used to do. And often does it better and far faster. Amazon is a particularly telling example, but far from unique. Even the analogy to hammers and screwdrivers is overblown. An old fashioned screwdriver or hammer may just be a tool, but an electric screwdriver or nail driver also actually does work. A plow is a tool, but a tractor does work. A horse drawn wagon is a tool, but an auto with an engine does work. Ships used to take hundreds or even thousands of sailors to manage, but now they can run with a small crew, because the machines do so much of the work.  And so on. Self driving cars are closer to the mark, and to some extent, the kind of agentic AI shown in powerful AI software development systems. But come on. Today’s AI systems are still tools. Just very powerful ones. The boundaries are far blurrier than the hype machine would have us believe. stratechery.com/2025/nvidia-gt…

Source: strongerbyscience.com/research-spotl…

@Karpathy predicts, "Education will play out in the same way. You'll go to school like you go to the gym." But only 17% of the adult population exercises to the recommended extent. So the future will be full of couch potatoes and airheads?

@ActusDei @parth_karia21 However, this report on passbook.epfindia.gov.in shows it as non-taxable for me (the last col is all zero) even though I quit in 2021 and did not take up another job. Isn't this contradictory?

@sriramnarayan @parth_karia21 No. That is the source of the confusion. They only deduct TDS if service < 5 yrs or if employee contribution > 2.5 lakh. Unfortunately TDS & tax are different. One can have tax liability without TDS

FAQs on EPF interest after leaving your job. Note: 1) Interest continues till age 58 2) Interest is fully taxable If you need help with merging EPF accounts or EPF withdrawal, go to thefynprint.com/assist

@ActusDei @parth_karia21 Interest earned after leaving on both, employee and employer contribution balance, is taxable? No concession there I suppose.

@ActusDei @parth_karia21 If one withdraws 3yrs after leaving, would the taxable interest portion be subject to TDS by EPFO?

@parth_karia21 Accrued before leaving is not taxable (assuming > 5 yrs service). Only accrued after leaving is taxable. Company has to contribute regardless of tax regime chosen if employees > 20

@pattufreefincal So much trouble and follow-up to get insurers to pay up. Who pays for the customer's time and anxiety through all this? Knowing only a small fraction will persist, the insurer treats it as a cost of doing business. We need severe penalties for deficiency in service.

How I used Bima Lokpal to contest my health insurance claim rejection and won rviv.ly/DBtN73

Excellence ends when eminence eclipses evidence.

FINAL § Sriram Narayan concludes his article in impact intelligence by addressing five common objections to this activity, including slowing down, lack of agility and collaboration, and the unpredictability of innovation. #objections" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">martinfowler.com/articles/impac…

"The Reformist CTO’s Guide to Impact Intelligence". The productivity of knowledge workers is hard to quantify and often decoupled from direct business outcomes. by @sriramnarayan martinfowler.com/articles/impac…

NEW § Sriram Narayan continues his article on impact intelligence by outlining five actions that can be done to improve impact intelligence including: demand management, impact validation, and an alternative to ROI. #ActionsToImproveImpactIntelligence" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">martinfowler.com/articles/impac…

CTOs have been saying that the demand for new functionality far exceeds delivery capacity and tech budgets. A.I. has further increased delivery expectations. What's a CTO to do? Here's part one of my three-part guidance published by Martin Fowler. martinfowler.com/articles/impac…

@NIKHILLJHA What a low penalty! It is by design I guess. The insurers will happily accept it as an occasional cost of doing business.

The court ruled:- The insurer company will have to pay the entire bill with 8% interest and also fined the insurer by 25,000 for the mental agony and legal expenses Sanjeev had insurred

🚨Health Insurance Claims Stories Sum Insured=5L Claim Amount=90,000 for dehydration Insurer Rejected Claim:- "Hospitalization not needed." Court Slammed the insurer and Ruled:- "All kinds of sweet talk is done while selling policies But the insurers find excuses when it comes to paying claims" Why did the court fine the insurer? Let's find out in this very important claims stories 👇

Silly. No force needed. Gentle persuasion is enough. It's called Marketing and Ed Bernays pioneered its dark patterns. The world followed suit and is facing the consequences.