Outside Agile, Strategy is probably the most (ab)used word in the modern corporation. I used to have a very basic definition of what a strategy encapsulates, which has four components: an analysis of the current state and how we got to where we are; a statement of the end goal we want to achieve; a … More Strategy: The Art of Creating Power
I have always intuitively believe in the virtue of sleep. I have never pulled an all-nighter. I (over-)prepare for stressful events (e.g. exams, major presentations) way in advance and then ease into a more restful state as the date approaches, including doing very little and sleeping a lot the day before. I enjoy a good … More Why I am Big on Sleep
Apparently, everything that has the word Blockchain attached to it is now news-worthy. Or at least that’s how I think this relatively small R&D collaboration between AUSTRAC and Swinburne University of Technology got a mention a couple of days ago in ZDNet, a pretty respectable technology site that has been around forever. https://www.zdnet.com/article/austrac-trialling-blockchain-to-automate-funds-transfer-instructions/ Coding the … More Legislation as Code
I have gone through quite a few articles over the last 12 months in my attempt to get a proper understanding of fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) schemes. The process was somewhat frustrating because most of the articles are either too basic, giving just very high-level intuitions, or too deep, assuming too much background on the … More Useful Technical Tutorials on Fully Homomorphic Encryption
The Peter Principle states that in most hierarchical organisations, there is a natural tendency for employees to rise in the management hierarchy through promotion until they reach the levels of their respective incompetence. This is a statistical statement about people in an organisation, and there are cultural and management practices that can be put in place to … More An Email Test for the Peter Principle
We have all read about network effects and how they underlie the business models of fast-growing and high-margin companies like Facebook, Google, Netflix, and Apple. The book Platform Revolution by Parker, Van Alstyne and Choudary seeks to distill the key characteristics of these so-called Platform Businesses, whose overarching purpose is “to consummate matches among users … More Financial Intelligence as a Platform Business
The best investments I have made over the years tend to be the ones where the investment case is really simple and obvious, requiring only basic common sense and at best secondary-school arithmetic. In almost every case, the opportunity presented itself in a wider market downturn and the main thing I had to overcome to profit … More Opportunities of a Life Time?
Combating terrorist financing
My Irrational Life
Updates on my research and expository papers, discussion of open problems, and other maths-related topics. By Terence Tao
