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Showing posts with the label media

Why Does India Celebrate Rahul Yadav?

The reason, according to Sumanth Raghavendra - in his post titled " Why a prize idiot like Rahul Yadav is precisely the kind of startup hero India deserves…and exactly the opposite of the one it needs " - is our "obsession with funding". First a quick extract from Sumanth's post : Despite all the buzz around India having arrived as a hot startup destination, there have been precious few aspirational startup exemplars since the halcyon days of  Sabeer Bhatia and Narayan Murthy. A false dawn if ever there was one… Equally tragic is the fact that folks who could potentially be startup heroes—a Sachin Bansal or a Vijay Shekhar Sharma—seem to be idols with feet of clay…either backing the likes of Rahul Yadav with angel investment to continue this cringe-worthy charade of faux startup-ism or needing him to fill seats at their own events. How I wish the media highlighted the story of a Santosh Panda who has diligently persevered to build Explara over sever...

Sun keeps media in the dark on the Ranbaxy deal

"Sun Pharma bought Ranbaxy for $4 Billion? Holy Shit!" It was clear that this Private Equity fund manager hadn't heard of the deal as of 9.30 am on Monday, April 7. "It's indeed the top story in the Venture Intelligence Deal Digest Daily Newsletter that is just being sent out," said yours truly. No journalist had managed to squeeze in anything about the deal as of Monday morning. Thankfully, a colleague noticed the BSE release filed by Sun Pharma before we went to press. And it was clear that our newsletter was the first instance that a lot of subscribers were hearing about the mega transaction. Given that both the buyer and seller are publicly traded, this is exactly how it should be - ie, the stock exchanges should be the first to hear about the deal. Contrast this with the number of times another transaction involving a listed company - the buyout of hydel assets of Jaypee Group's by Abu Dhabi's Taqa - got reported in the media before the offic...