Description

Have you found yourself surprised when you were laid off from your company? Or have that nagging feeling you might lose your job when the economy takes a turn for the worse?

In this short episode, Vikram breaks down his 2-year framework for staying prepared, honing your skills, staying sharp and being ever prepared for your next gig or interview. With the proper mindset, you will notice when your job stops providing you value or realize how you can elevate yourself to the best version of you. Avoid walking in the footsteps of others and stay on the path of true success and personal fulfillment.

Chapters

00:00 Intro
00:57 Story of the Thanksgiving Turkey
01:57 Layoffs in tech companies
04:15 The near layoff experience
05:29 Average employment tenure
06:39 The 2-year employment framework 
08:53 Going beyond your job description
09:57 Read textbooks
10:51 Ask questions to learn
11:20 Keep a work journal
12:15 Outro

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Description

In part part of this two-part series on rebooting health, Subbu and Vikram talk about the importance of diet and nutrition for health, and share their methods for keeping calories under check, getting enough protein, foods to absolutely avoid, how to get back on track when our diets fall off the wagon, and how to deal with challenges and temptations that arise regarding foods in our day to day lives.

Links

Subbu's diet and nutrition spreadsheet
Open Food Facts 

Chapters

00:00 Intro
04:30 Setting diet and nutrition goals
10:10 Designing a practical diet you can follow
16:41 Learning intuitive eating
20:14 Protein, fat and fiber
34:50 Reasons to use a nutrition spreadsheet
39:00 Cutting sugar intake
41:15 Falling off the bandwagon
43:20 Enjoying cuisines
47:20 Supplementation
52:40 Outro

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Description

In part one of this two-part series on rebooting health, Vikram and Subu talk about the importance of consistent exercise as we age, describe tools and frameworks that they use to get started on exercise especially strength training, and ways to develop consistency. They talk about workout programs that work, and those that do not, and why, how different programs are suited to different people, and how to design a 21-day workout challenge for yourself.

Links

BowTiedOx - Your guide to baseline optimization
Peter Attia - Outlive
Fitbod.me - App for workouts

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
04:35 Getting started with exercise
09:56 Frameworks for being consistent
21:11 Designing a 21 day challenge
25:47 Walks are under appreciated as exercise
28:33 Why strength training is essential
31:57 Starting strength training: The buddy system
39:55 Starting strength training: Join a 1hr strength session
43:32 Starting strength training: Fitbod app
45:10 Starting strength: Other considerations
48:21 Conclusion

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Description

In this episode Subu and Vikram distill down ideas from the book Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. They discuss better ways to organize your productivity and time, and the importance of not getting distracted and spending your attention wisely.

Links
Amazon book link
Vik’s book notes
An interactive book summary
5 ways to create time

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
2:24 Productivity
13:45 Time
25:32 Attention
35:10 The Middle Path

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Description

Inspired by the Cortex Podcast, this episode is about why new year resolutions don’t work and a better approach to setting your intent for the new year. Subu and Vikram reflect on how 2022 was and talk about their yearly theme for 2023. 

Links
Last year’s yearly themes episode
Cortex Podcast - Our inspiration for Yearly Themes
Alan Watts Lecture on Taoism
Wu Wei
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
Fitbod App for Resistance Training

Chapters
0:00 The Concept of Yearly Themes
5:14 Subu's Yearly Theme
15:10 Vikram's Yearly Theme
22:51 Core Principle: Restrict
25:23 Core Principle: Focus
29:37 Core Principle: Minimize
30:45 Core Principle: Optimize

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In this episode Subu and Vikram talk to Priyanka Shetty, an actor, director and playwright who left her secure software engineering job to pursue a life of acting and theater performance. Her latest touring play is the Elephant in the Room, which was recently premiered in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, and is a solo performance, a one woman show, which is a tale of a search for identity with deeply embedded Indian roots, and finding context and common ground in America. We hear tales from Priyanka show on the road, the things that go wrong, and how the show must go on no matter what. We also go back in time to discuss how exactly Priyanka transition from software into a life she always dreamed about as an actor. We talk about how to deal with criticism constructively, and the power that words have in people's lives. And how inspiration takes many forms. It takes a lot of courage to pursue our dreams. And we are always in awe of people who do, especially when they do it for the love of art.

Links
Priyanka's website
Supporting Priyanka's work
Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Wacken Open Air Festival
Gojira Band
Raghu Dixit Project
Black Earth Band
Chokher Bali by Rabindranath Tagore

Chapters
0:00 Art, Music and Theater with Priyanka Shetty
1:33 The show must go on
10:49 Being in the moment
16:12 The Elephant in the Room, #Charlottesville and The Wall
29:33 Theater Trends, Heavy Metal Music and Society
37:32 Education for a Career in Theater
46:53 Appetite for Art in India
49:07 Priyanka's path to a Theater Career
55:48 Taking Criticism Constructively
1:02:50 Being inspirational to others
1:06:02 For the love of the craft
1:15:41 Ways to support Theater as an art form
1:23:50 Outro

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In this episode, Subu and Vikram talk to Dr. Harish Vedantham, a radio astronomer and professor at the University of Groningen, about the exciting world of research in exoplanets - or planets in solar systems other than our own, possibility of alien life, building radio telescopes on the moon, the James Webb space telescope and fast radio bursts from the universe. They discuss what it is like to be in an astronomers shoes, places they go, and what the teaching and research life feels like. While we are but a grain of sand in the vast universe, they ponder the meaning of life, and how it ultimately lies within.

Links

• Episode Transcript
• Fast Radio Bursts (Wikipedia)
• Discovery of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
• Mathematical Probability of Alien Life - The Drake equation
• Murchison Widefield Array in Western Australia
• Dr. Harish Vedantham's website

Chapters

0:00 Introduction
1:07 Importance of Good Teachers
8:33 The workings of Radio Astronomy
14:38 Mysteries of the Universe
20:33 Discovering Exoplanets and Alien Life
30:26 James Webb Space Telescope
36:23 We are all Stardust
41:16 The need for Fundamental Research
47:01 A Telescope on the Moon
56:01 Are we alone in the Universe?
59:46 Cool Tales from a Life in Astronomy
1:08:49 A Day in the Life of a Radio Astronomer 
1:14:29 Research styles across continents
1:20:33 Views on the education system
1:26:40 Advice to young people
1:37:18 Prof. Vedantham's Book Recommendations
1:43:58 The Meaning of Life

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Description

In this edition, Dr. Sidharth Mohan, a biophysicist and an expert in protein biochemistry, heavy metal drummer and indie music promoter,  talks about the fundamental building blocks of life, the wonders and secrets that Mother Nature won’t reveal to us, and the implications of learning those secrets on the future of humanity. He talks about drug discovery and how the entire scientific community came together as one to develop and deliver Covid-19 vaccines to the world. Subu and Vikram also talk about his personal journey, his inspirations and influences which got him to where he is today.

Dr. Sidharth Mohan is on Instagram at @sidmogram

Links

• Full episode transcript
• Levinthal's Paradox: Youtube, Blog
• Protein Folding at Home
• What's the Scene, India - Instagram, Facebook

Chapters

0:00 Discovering New Drugs with Dr. Sidharth Mohan

4:01 Protein folding and Levinthal's paradox

22:53 Experimenting with Protein Folding

31:00 How drugs work

34:46 Developing new drugs

46:02 A primer in molecular biology: DNA, RNA and Vaccines

56:49 Solving the COVID crisis

1:01:30 Tools used in drug discovery

1:07:25 PCR: Polymerase Chain Reaction

1:19:37 SidMo's personal jouney into science

1:32:36 Inspiring figures in SidMo's life

1:45:01 Music, Drumming and WTS

2:03:33 Outro

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Description

In this episode, Vikram and Subu explain the meaning of first principles, it's meaning in philosophy and science, and explore what it means to break things down into their basic constituent forms, and how that can accelerate learning. Drawing from a variety of examples from cooking, music and invention, they analyze how to think like the experts and how to become one in a field of one's choosing.

Links

• First principles and scientific theories
• Forty Second Boyd
• James Clear on First principles thinking
• The VARK questionnaire
• Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
• Invention of the wheeled suitcase
• 3blue1brown YouTube channel
• Neural networks
• Essence of calculus
• Wordle using Information Theory #1
• Wordle using Information Theory #2

Chapters

00:00 Intro
05:40 First Principles Defined
09:52 Ockham's Razor
14:07 Reasoning by Analogy
18:59 First Principles in Industry
21:42 Invention of the Wheeled Suitcase
24:00  Deconstruct, then reconstruct for deeper learning
34:10 Elon Musk and SpaceX
38:58 VARK Learning Model
43:31 Applying first principles learning

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In this episode, Subu and Vikram discuss what a successful career means, and what it takes to achieve it in various stages of one's career, with examples from Tech CEOs to Navy Admirals. They also discuss important career decisions such as: Should you job hop? How to negotiate salary? Is remote work good for career?

Links

So good, they can't ignore you - Cal Newport
True Learning is done with Agency
Admiral Hyman Rickover
Doing a Job: The Management Philosophy of Admiral Hyman Rickover

Chapters

00:00 The 3 Pillars of Career Success 
08:55 Timelines of Very Successful People 
17:45 Early Career Moves 
30:04 Mid Career Moves 
38:34 Late Career Moves 
43:18 Should you hop jobs? 
46:35 Should you negotiate pay? And How? 
51:33 Is Remote-Work good for your career long-term? 
55:13 Outro 

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