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1988 Started with the stock marked still depressed, but off the bottoms it had hit in the year before.

For Excelan, the year started with an internal scandal. Our CEO was going through a rough patch in his marriage and was in the process of divorcing his wife. He got involved with one of the female directors of sales. The company was riven with rumors, but he privately assured me that there was nothing to those rumors. I received some pretty explicit photos in the mail, to this day I don’t know who sent them.

TiE delegation had a visit with President Mukherjee on the 15th evening.

Pranab Mukherjee had been a part of Mrs. Gandhi’s cabinet almost from start and was the finance minister for most of that time. He was the chief architect of her anti-market agenda. He was responsible for single handedly destroying the confidence of international investors in India when he changed law retroactively to override supreme court’s decision against the government in the Vodafone case in 2012. This resulted in the collapse of Rupee in 2013 and probably contributed to the defeat of Congress in 2014 elections.

President was contrite for his mistakes and admitted that they had backed losing policies and had doubled down when they did not work. He probably had not read Hayak’s “Road to Serfdom”. He said he would do it differently if he had a chance to do it again. He talked about entrepreneurship and market efficiencies. He talked about investing in people and betting on their aspirations.

Reminded me of a Hindi saying; ” Nau sau Chuhe kha ke billy Haj to challi” ( having eaten 9 hundred mice, cat is finally going to Mecca for a Haj). I guess the english equivalent would be “a death-bed conversion”.

I was nevertheless taken aback with his candidness and sincerity. Almost felt sorry for him.

Here is a link to YouTube Video taken by them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRvMCaSqlMg

RA4_1893 RA4_1895 GR4_9697 RA4_1965 RA4_1976 RA4_1981 Rashtrapati Bhavan Group Photo 1

Rashtrapati Bhavan Group Photo

RPB

1995 was a watershed year for me. I seamlessly transitioned from the corporate life, to the life of a free spirited angel investor. Also, 1995 was the year of the Internet. Netscape went public that year.

1987 started with a bang. The stock market had been surging. Dow crossed 2000 for the first time. Microsoft and Sun MicroSystems had gone public in 1986.