Pico Iyer is a well-known author and essayist. In 2008 during a hectic book tour schedule Iyer graciously made time for an hour-long interview to talk about his book The Open Road: The Global Journey of the 14th Dalai Lama. He first met the Dalai Lama through his father Prof. Raghavan N. Iyer, who taught at Oxford and University of… Continue Reading
This interview was recorded in 2009, when Padmasree Warrior was Cisco’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Her role has expanded since then and she is currently a Chief Technology & Strategy Officer at Cisco. She joined Cisco in 2007 after having spent over 20 years at Motorola in Chicago. At Motorola she was an Executive Vice President and Chief… Continue Reading
London-based journalist and author Jules Stewart’s second book titled, Spying For The Raj: The Pundits And The Mapping of the Himalayas was released in 2006. Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who is listed as the world’s greatest living explorer by the Guinness Book of Records, has written the forward for the book. I caught up with Stewart in London in 2006 just… Continue Reading
Before CK-12 Neeru’s attention revolved around her on her family, children and their education. During this time she got busy volunteering for her children’s school. She also went back to school and got a second master’s degree in education from Stanford University. Inspired to do something in the area of education Neeru’s husband Vinod Khosla suggested looking into textbooks… Continue Reading
The splendors of an Indian Maharaja’s court is the stuff of legend that you may have heard or read in books. Ever wondered how they lead their lives? What jewels or clothes they bought? Or, who designed their clothes and jewels? Or, what artwork they collected? There is a book that takes you behind the… Continue Reading
In 2006 I did a series of interviews with technologists and entrepreneurs in India to understand the booming telecom (mobile) boom in India. One of the people I spoke to was the late Atul Chitnis, who described himself as a disruptive technologist. He is the person to talk in Bangalore was a common refrain I… Continue Reading
We continue our series on the Indian Telecom boom. This interview was recorded in 2006. In Part-II of our conversation with the late Atul Chitnis talks about the two competing technologies in India: CDMA and GSM, and how they are duking it out and finding their own levels in the Indian market. It was only four years… Continue Reading
Academy Award Winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald’s “Black Sea” releases today in San Francisco bay area. We spoke to Macdonald about the making of “Black Sea,” and what drew him to this particular story about a group of ragged submariners, who want to salvage gold from a sunken World War Two submarine. What was the real life… Continue Reading
When Gurcharan Das took an early retirement from his corporate job he decided to pursue a “full-time career as a writer.” And that change in direction from a corporate life to a scholarly pursuit was greeted with a fair amount of surprise. How could this be? He was a “box-wallah“ or a corporate executive. Mr.Das was the CEO of Proctor and… Continue Reading
This interview was recorded in late 2008 at LinkedIn’s Mountain View office. Reid Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn in his living room in Silicon Valley in 2002. The company went IPO in 2011. This was the first time an American social network company is going public to raise money. Hoffman owned about 20 percent of LinkedIn shares before it… Continue Reading
This interview was recorded in 2008 at LinkedIn’s office in Mountain View. LinkedIn was co-founded by Reid Hoffman in 2002 and was officially launced in 2003. Hoffman is often described as the most connected person in Silicon Valley. He is the executive chairman of LinkedIn and a partner at Greylock Partners, a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. In… Continue Reading
In 2006 I met with Kittu Kolluri at NEA’s Sand Hill Road Office in Menlo Park. He had just joined the VC firm and I wanted to find out how he made this transition from being an engineer to an investor. Around the time of the interview one of Kolluri’s portfolio company Teracent was acquired by Google… Continue Reading
Prof. Greg Booth is a musician, author and teacher at University of Auckland, New Zealand. In 2008 Prof. Booth’s book “Behind The curtain: Making Music in Mumbai’s Film Studios,” was published. It highlights the contributions of individual musicians, who were part of a larger Hindi or Bollywood music orchestra. The musicians came from different background spanning British military… Continue Reading
Prof. Greg Booth is a teacher, author & musician. In his book Brass Baja: Stories From The World of Indian Wedding Bands he takes us behind the scene into the world of the Indian brass band musicians, whose rich musical traditions and history has been largely ignored. It was way back back in the 17th century that the first wedding brass band made… Continue Reading
“Calvary” is written and directed by John Michael McDonagh. This is his second film in a trilogy that he is making. “The Guard” was the first, and “Calvary” is the second and his third film is ” The Lame Shall Enter First.” Brendan Gleeson, the Irish actor is the star of this trilogy. “Calvary” is about… Continue Reading
The Kamla Show 