Rahul Gandhi is like Microsoft

Ever since Satya Nadella took over Microsoft, the company’s changed course. Because Nadella accepted the (obvious) reality that “mobile is replacing the PC as the dominant computing platform”, as Ben Evans put it. So Nadella ditched his predecessor’s approach of trying to use the weight/power of Windows and Office in the PC world to gain a hold of the mobile world. Instead, he started making all of Microsoft’s applications (Office etc) work on the mobile OS’s that rule the world: iOS and Android.

But here’s the billion dollar question: given that most apps on the phone/tablet are free (include Office), how does Microsoft hope to make money? Nobody seems to know the answer to that…

Rahul Gandhi, after the 2014 election slaughter, went to reflect/meditate/hide in Myanmar for 57 days. After he returned, he is a different politician. He wants to interact with people on issues that bother them: the land acquisition bill, construction laws that favour builders…basically, any group of people who are unhappy about something.

Ok, but does he offer solutions for anything? No, he doesn’t.

In that sense, Rahul Gandhi is like Microsoft: both have finally accepted defeat; stopped doing what they used to do; are trying a different approach; but neither seems to know how to turn things around!

Albert Einstein is supposed to have said that the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. So full marks to Gandhi and Microsoft for not being insane. But guys, Einstein didn’t mean that anything different from what you’ve been doing is the way to succeed!

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