This is probably the most engaging LinkedIn profile I have read! :) Most people update their LinkedIn profile once, and then tend to it piecemeal: add the relevant details of the last job when they move, tweak a line here, add something there, and move on. Of course, there's no 'right' or 'wrong' way - it's whatever works for you. This one feels very different, though. It feels like Chandan sat down one fine day, looked at his entire career holistically, and decided to tell a larger story rather than document a series of jobs. How do I guess that? Look at the note under his Marketing & Training role at Futures First: "Hired one person during this stint who I will be working for in a few years". Then go to his Classplus role: "The guy I hired in 2012 now hires me and gives me my first CXO role". That's not how you normally write a LinkedIn profile. That's someone connecting dots across a career. And the whole thing reads like Chandan is having a conversation with a reader who cares enough to go through it all. There is humor, vulnerability, luck, failure, ambition and coincidence. The less glamorous stretches (the 10-month career break, the Global Sales Head–Dining role at Zomato that he describes as a "dull period", etc.) are almost as interesting as the highs: working with Hrithik, Katrina and others, getting the Zomato role, building new businesses, becoming a CXO. That's what makes the profile really interesting. It isn't really a résumé. It's a career narrative. This is the kind of profile that rewards exploration. On a normal LinkedIn profile, reading older roles is mostly archaeology. Here, reading about older roles gives you new context for newer ones. The reader discovers the callback between Futures First and Classplus. That's almost a narrative device. I genuinely don't think I've seen another LinkedIn profile quite like this. #linkedin# #creativity#

In Japan, returning something to a store is like asking for a divorce. You need a reason. You need the receipt. You need the original box, the tags, and a face that shows you have suffered. My coworker Sugiyama has done it once in his life. In 2011. He still thinks about it. Last month, our company sent him to Delaware for two weeks. On his first day, he learned Delaware has no sales tax. He assumed every store was having a sale, out of kindness, because he was new. On his second day, he bought a dress shirt. It did not fit. He did not sleep for two nights. On the third day, he prepared. Receipt. Box. Tags. The shirt, refolded along its original lines. A written explanation in English, which he practiced in the hotel mirror. He wore a suit. To return a shirt. The sign above the counter said RETURNS. Behind it stood a woman named Tameka. Around fifty. Reading glasses on a beaded chain. Sugiyama bowed and began. "I am deeply sorry. This shirt did not fit. The fault is entirely mine. I misjudged my own body. I have caused your store great inconvenience, and I—" "Sure thing, hon," Tameka said. She was already scanning it. "Any reason?" He started his speech over from the beginning. Tameka took off her glasses. "Baby. Ten minutes ago, a man returned a lawnmower with the grass still in it." Sugiyama turned around and looked at the line behind him. What he saw there, he says, changed his understanding of mankind. A woman returning a candle. Half burned. "It smells different at home." A man returning a garden hose because it was too long. An old man returning one sock. "The other one's fine." A woman returning a houseplant. Not wilted. Dead. Brown. Crispy. She said, "It didn't work out." They gave her a new one. She said thank you. The plant said nothing. Nobody apologized. Nobody bowed. Nobody brought a box. And every single one of them walked away forgiven. Inside Sugiyama, the entire Japanese economy fainted. In Japan, a sale is a marriage. In America, it's a first date. And somewhere in the back of every big store in this country, there is a desk whose only job is forgiveness. It's next to the restrooms. It's open until ten. Tameka handed him the next size up. And a coupon. And a mint from a little bowl he hadn't noticed. Sugiyama bowed again. "Thank you for forgiving me." Tameka looked at him over her glasses for a long time. "Honey. There's nothing to forgive. It's a medium." Then, without thinking, she bowed back. He came home to Tokyo last week. He kept the receipt. It's in his wallet now, behind the photo of his kids. He says it's the only document he has ever owned that says he's allowed to change his mind. The new shirt doesn't fit either. He wears it anyway. He says he couldn't do that to Tameka twice.

My dentist, Dr. Ishikawa, mailed a library book back to Arkansas last month. It was 44 years overdue. In 1980, when he was ten, his father's company moved the family to Arkansas for two years. A town of 4,000. Masaki spoke no English. At school, he ate lunch alone. At recess, he stood by the fence. After school, he went to the town library, because it was the only place in America where nobody expected him to talk. The librarian was Miss Lorene. Thirty. Big hair. Bigger laugh. She learned to say his name right on the first try. Nobody else in town ever did. Every afternoon, she kept the corner chair free for him. She left picture books on it. Then easy books. Then a real one. A thick book about a boy and a horse. He read it slowly. A dictionary on one knee. One page a day. In the spring of 1982, his grandmother got sick in Japan. The family left in five days. He never said goodbye to Miss Lorene. When he unpacked in Tokyo, the horse book was in his backpack. In Japan, something you borrow and don't return is a weight you carry. And the longer you carry it, the heavier it gets. At first, mailing it felt too embarrassing. Then it felt too shameful. Then forty years went by, and it was simply impossible. It sat on his shelf through medical school. Through his wedding. Through two kids. This year he turned 56. He decided he could not turn 57 with it. So he wrapped the book. He wrote a two-page apology, very formally, the Japanese way. And he calculated the late fees. Ten cents a day. 44 years. He wrote a check for $1,606. He didn't expect an answer. He just wanted to put the weight down. Three weeks later, an envelope came from Arkansas. Inside was his check, torn in half. And a letter. In big, loopy handwriting. "Dear Masaki, You don't owe this library one red cent. That book was never late. I renewed it every two weeks. Since April 1982. When we went to computers in 1998, the system wouldn't let me. Said nobody could have a book that long. I called the company and argued with a young man in Ohio for forty-five minutes. He let me. You left before you finished it. You were on page 43. I know because you folded the corner down, which I asked you nicely not to do. I figured a boy who read that slow and that careful was going to want to finish someday. So I kept it out for you. I'm 76 now. Retired. I still come in Tuesdays to renew it. Libraries are patient, honey. So am I. Love, Miss Lorene" Dr. Ishikawa read it at work, in the ten minutes between a filling and a cleaning. He had to cancel his two o'clock. He says that for 44 years, he thought he had taken something from America. It turns out America had been lending it to him the whole time. He is flying to Arkansas in the spring. He's bringing the book. He wants to put it in her hands himself. He wrote and told her. She wrote back one line. "Fine. But it's due back in two weeks."

One flow alert all day today. That was $RKT 11/13 $15.5C. 0.24 → 0.28 +17% Nothing crazy, but a solid base hit to end the week. And honestly, that is fine with me. The tape was quiet today, so I was not going to force alerts just to make the room look busy. When this one came in, IV was rising and fills were hitting the ask. I also kept updating the notes as more volume came through and called out that I would be cautious carrying it with the weekend coming up. That is how I want Stock Hub run. If there is one setup worth posting, I will post one. If there are none, I am not going to spam random contracts just to say we had alerts. $19/month

After one of the best days of the year, 10 sectors are currently up more than -0.5%. Nothing wrong with that, some give back after broad gains is fine. Stop me of you've heard this before, because then there's tech

.@McDonalds is launching its first-ever reservation-only fine dining experience in New York City on October 29.⁠ ⁠ The company is teaming up with ‘Top Chef’ winner and former McDonald’s employee Tristen Epps-Long for a one-day chef’s table built around elevated takes on some of its most iconic menu items, including the Quarter Pounder, Egg McMuffin, McNuggets and fries.⁠ ⁠ The experience is free, with limited seating available. Reservations open today.

A few days back, Atlas Shrugged. I was at this place, which many in Singapore will recognize. When I stepped out, I had to take this picture with Atlas. It brought back a conversation from over two decades ago. During my MBA, I applied for the Tata Administrative Service, then one of the most coveted jobs on campus. After being selected, I went through two days of regional interviews at the then rather grand Tollygunge Club in Kolkata. At the final feedback session, Nowroze J. Cama, who led TAS and chaired the selection committee, remarked to me: “You seem like Atlas. Shrug it off sometimes?” Cama was a distinguished personality and an old-school gentleman, so the observation carried weight. I got selected, which suggests the Atlas part counted for more than the shrugging question. At least I convinced myself that was the case! But the question stayed, and I reflect on it now and then. In Greek mythology, Atlas was, of course, condemned to carry the heavens. And for those of us who read and admired Ayn Rand, the reference had another layer: what happens when Atlas chooses to shrug? Atlas Shrugged remains, for me, her best alongside The Fountainhead. The capacity and ambition to carry something large is a strength. But so is knowing when to put something down, change course, or let others carry it with you. I am still not particularly good at shrugging, I think. Have a good weekend. Perhaps shrug off whichever world you are carrying and have a great gin at Atlas, or wherever your haunt may be. Things will be fine!

Episode 2: laundry day Prompt: "Comedic multi-shot sketch. Bouncy accordion comedy music throughout, natural sound and dialogue. All eight stylized 3D clay-render characters from the reference sheets appear together in every shot. SHOT 1 [00:00-00:07]: All eight at a laundromat, staring at one washing machine that is violently shaking. Beanie beard man: 'Did anyone read the label?' Hoodie beanie man slowly hides a bottle of soap behind his back. SHOT 2 [00:07-00:14]: Cut to the room filling with foam up to their chests. Leather cap man wades through, deadpan: 'This is fine.' Bucket hat dreads man is doing backstroke. Handheld, low angle. SHOT 3 [00:14-00:20]: Cut to all eight sitting outside on the sidewalk covered in foam, wearing each other's shrunken clothes. Beige cowboy hat man: 'Mine fits better now.' Wide shot, slow pull out. Stylized 3D animation, warm poster-like color grading, cinematic lighting, expressive comedic timing."

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