Anand Giridharadas
Author of The True American & India Calling. NYTimes columnist & Ted talker.
Discussion
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
Dear Product Hunters, I'm Anand Giridharadas, a name that allowed me to cruise effortlessly through middle school. I am a writer -- or, for those of you in Silicon Valley, a content aggregator of my own content. I write a column for The New York Times, which is a newspaper, which is an entity that sends actual people out to discover actual information and publishes that information in articles, which are like one-item listicles. I have written two books, India Calling and The True American. Books are like tweets, but super-long. The combined TL;DR of my two books: "The American Dream is live and well -- but only in India." I am excited to answer your questions about being a writer, my hair, the cluster-mating American election, and anything else you want.
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Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
How often do you get your hair cut? 😜
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@ems_hodge My hair cutter cuts in Harlem. I live in Brooklyn. She is a busy, world-traveling artist. I catch her when I can. Usually once a month or even two months.
Ben Tossell
@bentossell · Community Lead, Product Hunt
What does the rest of the world not know about the Indian startup scene?
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@bentossell I don't know much about it anymore. I wrote this a long time ago. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/3...
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@bentossell I think it's an interesting part of the origin story. All that American tech and global tech that made India its back office inevitably groomed a bunch of kids who, after a time, asked: Why can't I do this for myself? And, far more consequentially, why can't I use what I've learned to solve India's problems?
One thing I will say about the startup scenes in the developing world -- which I know only in a cursory way through my travels -- is that they tend to be a little better than the American one at focusing on, you know, actual societal problems that actual people have.
Ben Tossell
@bentossell · Community Lead, Product Hunt
@anandwrites do you think its more beneficial than detrimental being outside of the SV ecosystem?
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@bentossell Anytime I personally am in an arena with a lot of people who think what I think, talk in the same lingo as I do and think I'm as great as I think they are, it's time to find a new arena. I think that may be true of the startup scene.
Harry Stebbings
@harrystebbings · Podcast Host @ The Twenty Minute VC
@anandwrites thanks so much for joining us today and massive fan of The True American, my question to you is how much of a role has social media played in this US election do you think and to what extent has it helped or hindered the campaign of Mr Trump?!
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@harrystebbings Thanks, Harry! That means a lot.
I think social media is an enormous factor, but in a particular way. I think it has created a space for Donald Trump, above all, to go around the people who gatekeep -- and who, by gatekeeping, provide some kind of filter of decency. He doesn't need what so many other candidates have needed: columnists, donors, endorsers, ads to make his case. He tweets and FB-posts. And he dials directly into old media and kind of uses it in a social-media-ish way, as a personal platform.
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@harrystebbings And I think, more than anything, he has exploited certain VALUES of social media and of the Internet age more generally. The value of surprise. Of short, punchy pokes into the culture. And if there's anything benign to learn from him, it may be this. I firmly believe that good people could learn to be surprising, too. But right now, no one else tries. Everyone else is boring, predictable, focus-grouped, dull. And he is exploiting that.
Ben Tossell
@bentossell · Community Lead, Product Hunt
What are some of your all-time favourite TED talks?
Which is the one that has impacted you the most?
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@bentossell I'm just going to give you one spectacular, and very recent, one: https://www.ted.com/talks/casey_...
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@bentossell It is an amazingly delivered -- but, more importantly, amazingly incisive -- talk. A lot of the winners of our age have come up to Casey and told him they absolutely love his talk. It is a hint of the fact that they may not properly understand it.
priya joseph
@ayirpelle · Entrepreneur
@bentossell critical expense for #color ed folks! Shout out to #Bevel
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
What are 3 things that every new writer should try and remember, or focus on when they first set out?
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@ems_hodge A few things.
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@ems_hodge No. 1, This is a craft. You can get good at this craft in the absence of other people's approval. Most people I know move too quickly to seeking opportunities for disseminating the craft. There is time. I had a friend who had in a treehouse and typed out Toni Morrison's novels verbatim, just to see what it felt like. This is the pursuit of craft.
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@ems_hodge No. 2. A mantra I share with young writers I mentor is that almost everyone overvalues her own ideas and undervalues her own experiences. People don't want to know your opinions. They want to know the smell of rooms you got to be in that they didn't get to be in, but now can be in for $25.
Jake Crump
@jakecrump · Community Team with Product Hunt
What does a typical work day look like for you?
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@jakecrump It depends if I'm in the on-season of the off-season. By that I mean in the midst of a book or between books. Right now, I'm in the midst of a book. So my workday, most days, is waking up early (which a one-year-old child assists with). I get coffee, and I try to start writing as soon as possible. I work until 2 pm most days. Play with my son for two hours. Then work again, doing more admin-type things, for two hours. And then enjoy the evening -- reading, time with friends. I almost never work during the evenings or weekends.
Jake Crump
@jakecrump · Community Team with Product Hunt
Who are some of your favorite writers?
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@jakecrump Thanks, Jake! V. S. Naipaul. Katherine Boo. Adrian Nicole Leblanc. Isaiah Berlin. Tom Wolfe. Theodore Zeldin. Ralph Ellison. These are but a few.
Corley
@corleyh · COO @ Product Hunt
Let me start by saying your intro is the best ever! :-)
My question for you - I'd love to hear your thoughts on the election and what you predict the outcome to be.
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@corleyh I think it will be Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Neither will reach the nomination without a little more drama, but I would think they will each secure it. And then I think Hillary probably has the edge -- but less of an edge, in my view, than the polls give her. I don't think we've seen, or know how to process, a Donald Trump general-election campaign. He will renounce stuff from the primaries and no one will have any idea how to pin him down. He's going to bring back every bit of mud from the 1990s. Hillary Clinton is a tough and resilient candidate, but we are entering choppy, uncharted, faintly toxic waters.
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
During your career to date, what are you a) most proud of, b) has most surprised you, and c) made you reflect the most - or even changed you?
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Anand Giridharadas
@anandwrites · Author and New York Times columnist
@ems_hodge
A: My books. And finding the voice for them.
B. The fact that my industry chose to die right as I was getting started. Thanks, History!
C. Traveling. Talking to people constantly. Always trying to take what I'm sure of and scramble it like the egg it is.