It occurs to me...
Perhaps I should tell you all what exactly has been going on in my life.
***NOTE: I heavily borrowed from emails I sent to many of you in order to make this. If it seems copied, well, it is! But it's my emails to you which have made this entry possible; and if I borrow from what I wrote to you be not offended- it just shows how much I admire all the things you can inspire.
That, and I can't re-write EVERYTHING. Good lord, too much has happened. Way too much.
Okay. So here we go.
Monterey was hell. In so many ways. One of the primary ways it was hell was that, essentially, I had made a mistake. It was not a good school. But that alone gave me motivation to get a business plan put together, write up a proposal, get some money, and get out here.
Which is to say... It worked! Over the first semester of B-school, I put together a proposal, went together with a team that'd helped me put it together, and we presented to the president of the school! Who gave us some seed money, and off we went to India! We stayed at my friend's family's house, and started making connections. Before I knew it we had a website, several business partners, a potential customer network, and a damn good reason for me to stay in India to keep this going. As for what exactly I'm doing...
Well, beginning with our business plan, the basic idea is this: The poor areas of the world that do not have grid access are using on-site solar power, usually combined with some development program or microfinance projects. However, what a lot of them *aren't* doing is claiming the resulting carbon credits, which could get them serious money. Now, take a look at this: if you securitize the carbon credits as a futures contract, you can get money right away, financing up to 50% of the cost of the SHS systems in the first place. And the futures contract is bought up by any brokerage firm trading in CERs- JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, etc. Meaning that the big evil American finance corporations are bankrolling solar power in the poorest parts of the world. So that's where we come in- Providing the NGOs and villages carbon credits, and most importantly securitizing the credits on the Chicago Commodities Exchange, as a CDM(Clean Development Mechanism) consulting firm.
Now here's where it gets crazy, and why I'm in India- this applies to practically everything. Any business that can reduce its carbon footprint is eligible. And India is the biggest market for CDM projects, all across the board. And everyone's interested; I spend my time bouncing between Mumbai, with all our investors, and Gujarat, with all our clients. Plus, the market is so new it's practically a virgin field- there are no experts, and half the time I have to explain what the hell a carbon credit even *is*. Which is where White Privilege comes in. Half the time my job/business consists of my blundering about India saying "Hello, I'm a White Person. Pay attention to me." I'll get into the ultra-crazy leftovers of the British Raj later. But anyway, what's awesome is that this is what my undergrad was all about. I majored in economics, with a focus in environmental economics and the emissions markets. And the even crazier thing is that it's starting to work. I'm meeting with the owners of factories and power plants, we're going to try to install solar refrigerators in the big dairy cooperative for this state, and it's possible that we can get a contract with the government of Congo. Branching out to multiple countries already. It's moving really fast. And it could still blow up in my face. Seriously, this could all come crashing down. But we're going full steam ahead; incorporating in San Francisco, writing up the business plan, aiming to shop around for serious investment capital by the summer. So yes. Matthew Iver Lindquist. CEO. There might be some Icarus in this... But I gotta rise high enough to make the fall interesting. At least.
Now for another question: Am I going back to business school? Well, no. On the one hand, I'm doing everything that going to business school would allow me to do. On the other hand, my partner has gone back to the school, so everything that business school would do for the company is already being done. On a more personal note... As soon as the novelty of being in an MBA program with the Yakuza wore off, I really had to get the hell out of Monterey. It was, as I said, hell. I was fucking suicidal. Haven't felt that bad since middle school. Besides, it was my discomfort with that situation which provided the impetus to start this project in the first place, so I'm not going to stop doing this in order to go back to what this allowed me to escape from! But I did get my professors to sign on to letters of recommendation, so if all this comes crashing down I can apply to a better business school. Or do something completely different.
But anyway: Culture Shock!! First of all, there are animals everywhere. There are sacred cows, sacred monkeys, sacred rats- hard to find anything that isn't sacred- and everywhere the religion and intense ritualism is disorienting, but more so when you realize that these are the same deities worshiped by the Mitannian Empire, the Hittites, and the ancestors of the Celts. In fact, much has been made of the similarities between Hinduism and Celtic theology as described by Strabo and Caesar. And bizarrely enough... That's the sense I get here- that a bunch of Celts came here 4000 years ago and got all Dark and Mystical. I love it! Throw in some peacocks and gurus and Victorian-Era architecture and you're about halfway towards an idea of what India is like.
The other half of understanding this experience is to picture a society undergoing extremely violent industrialization. The economic development of India proceeds at a pace so fast one get's a bit unhinged. There are skyscrapers next to slums surrounding an Ashram, peopled by naked monks and sacred monkeys, with gold-bedecked lawyers living in slums with flatscreen TVs, and street urchins sleeping on skyscraper rooftops... It's crazy. However, a parallel can be seen in the Gilded Age of 1880's America. Most of the corporations here are run by tycoons, same as Rockefeller or Carnegie. It has to do with being able to leverage capital to muscle your way into independent markets and increase profits by controlling the means of production, as opposed to economies of scale and lateral competition. If that sentence didn't make sense, then there's hope for you yet.
Basically, this is like living in a Kipling poem that's bursting at the seams with Dickensian Industrialism. Oh, and all this crazy Mumbai modernization? It's happening right next to a national park. Hence the peacocks and monkeys.
As for my personal life, it's hard to make connections with a group of people who primarily interact with their families. I have made some progress, a few friends here and there, maybe a poker game. If anything, this has gotten me in touch with my forgotten introverted side... But still. It's much the same as China- it will be less difficult for me to interact with other foreigners than the Indians themselves. And don't get me started on the romance; I've been fending off marriage proposals right and left. But always from the family members of the girls in question. "Would you like to marry my daughter?" "Are you married? No? Well, my niece Poornima is also unmarried..." After which (despite gentle refusals) I end up in the awkward situation of trying to explain to a sweet and innocent Indian girl all of the ten thousand reasons why a relationship wouldn't work, chief amongst which is "No, I'm sorry, I'm really just not interested unless you need to drown me in pain and shatter everything that I am. Or let me ravage you 'till you love me." Which brings me to the next plot-point in this adventure: I've made contact with the S&M scene here. She's a Domme here in Mumbai. messaged me on Collarme fucking .com of all things. Don't know if it's going anywhere, but to have made contact with the (way more secretive) scene here? Craziness. Even crazier? She gave me one of her contacts in the business world, one of her subs who's the strategic director at a chemical company that wants to green up their image. And they want to work with us. However, he doesn't know that I know he's a sub. Makes for some interesting conference calls. My company isn't even incorporated yet and it's already fucking Byzantine. But that, I am told, is India. I just don't want to break any hearts/get lynched for breaking hearts while I'm out here. Though to tell the truth, I'm more likely to get lynched by the Hijras than anybody else- I refuse to give them money and laugh at their curses.
Oh, and prostitution is way LESS fun out here than it was in China. First of all, it's all segregated in certain areas; Indians have a more developed sense of zoning than the Chinese. Second, you never interact directly with the prostitutes in the "advertising" phase of the transaction- it's all through their pimps. Who are unsettling, to say the least. And finally, there's way, way more judgement and "shamed woman" stigma attached to the girls than there ever was in East Asia. Which means, in diametric opposition to Thailand (ironically a Sanskrit-derived culture), the prostitutes derive zero empowerment from what they're doing. In fact, quite the opposite. Not to say that it's flowers & sunshine for working girls in the Land of Smiles, but it certainly feels like that. The weirdest thing about all this is that the most empowered female(ish) persona I've encountered are the Hijras. And they're not women, they're just every non-cis person shoved into the same outgroup so that the hyper-conservative, everything-and-everyone-in-their-place mainstream Hindus can deal with them. But they dress flamboyantly, walk saucily, and give me the Evil Eye when I don't give them all my money. But I've been drinking black magic since I was fourteen.
Right now, I'm up in Baroda, which is in Gujarat, and the capital of the Gaekwad "Princely State" of the British Raj. The Palace still stands, along with a huge palace grounds, a golf course, and a museum. Oh, the museum... But my inner unemployed historian aside, this is actually a place that still has a functioning royal family. They're even still involved in politics, to a certain degree; they can run for office like anyone else, and they were behind a lot of Gujarat's modernization in the 20th century. And I have to bounce around quite a bit; the chemical plant is in Anklesh, an hour and a half by train to the south of Baroda(aka Vadodara, if you wanna get your wikipedia on), and then I'm back to Mumbai to make sure the Jains don't railroad us. Who knew that a bunch of vegetarian pacifists would be such ruthless investment tycoons?
Sometimes, I read this, think of what I'm doing, and feel like the most pretentious fuckwad on Earth. But it's not pretentious if you're not pretending. And I'm really just doing my best.
There will be more later. I think this is a good way to keep in touch with people. And I have neglected you all too long.
***NOTE: I heavily borrowed from emails I sent to many of you in order to make this. If it seems copied, well, it is! But it's my emails to you which have made this entry possible; and if I borrow from what I wrote to you be not offended- it just shows how much I admire all the things you can inspire.
That, and I can't re-write EVERYTHING. Good lord, too much has happened. Way too much.
Okay. So here we go.
Monterey was hell. In so many ways. One of the primary ways it was hell was that, essentially, I had made a mistake. It was not a good school. But that alone gave me motivation to get a business plan put together, write up a proposal, get some money, and get out here.
Which is to say... It worked! Over the first semester of B-school, I put together a proposal, went together with a team that'd helped me put it together, and we presented to the president of the school! Who gave us some seed money, and off we went to India! We stayed at my friend's family's house, and started making connections. Before I knew it we had a website, several business partners, a potential customer network, and a damn good reason for me to stay in India to keep this going. As for what exactly I'm doing...
Well, beginning with our business plan, the basic idea is this: The poor areas of the world that do not have grid access are using on-site solar power, usually combined with some development program or microfinance projects. However, what a lot of them *aren't* doing is claiming the resulting carbon credits, which could get them serious money. Now, take a look at this: if you securitize the carbon credits as a futures contract, you can get money right away, financing up to 50% of the cost of the SHS systems in the first place. And the futures contract is bought up by any brokerage firm trading in CERs- JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, etc. Meaning that the big evil American finance corporations are bankrolling solar power in the poorest parts of the world. So that's where we come in- Providing the NGOs and villages carbon credits, and most importantly securitizing the credits on the Chicago Commodities Exchange, as a CDM(Clean Development Mechanism) consulting firm.
Now here's where it gets crazy, and why I'm in India- this applies to practically everything. Any business that can reduce its carbon footprint is eligible. And India is the biggest market for CDM projects, all across the board. And everyone's interested; I spend my time bouncing between Mumbai, with all our investors, and Gujarat, with all our clients. Plus, the market is so new it's practically a virgin field- there are no experts, and half the time I have to explain what the hell a carbon credit even *is*. Which is where White Privilege comes in. Half the time my job/business consists of my blundering about India saying "Hello, I'm a White Person. Pay attention to me." I'll get into the ultra-crazy leftovers of the British Raj later. But anyway, what's awesome is that this is what my undergrad was all about. I majored in economics, with a focus in environmental economics and the emissions markets. And the even crazier thing is that it's starting to work. I'm meeting with the owners of factories and power plants, we're going to try to install solar refrigerators in the big dairy cooperative for this state, and it's possible that we can get a contract with the government of Congo. Branching out to multiple countries already. It's moving really fast. And it could still blow up in my face. Seriously, this could all come crashing down. But we're going full steam ahead; incorporating in San Francisco, writing up the business plan, aiming to shop around for serious investment capital by the summer. So yes. Matthew Iver Lindquist. CEO. There might be some Icarus in this... But I gotta rise high enough to make the fall interesting. At least.
Now for another question: Am I going back to business school? Well, no. On the one hand, I'm doing everything that going to business school would allow me to do. On the other hand, my partner has gone back to the school, so everything that business school would do for the company is already being done. On a more personal note... As soon as the novelty of being in an MBA program with the Yakuza wore off, I really had to get the hell out of Monterey. It was, as I said, hell. I was fucking suicidal. Haven't felt that bad since middle school. Besides, it was my discomfort with that situation which provided the impetus to start this project in the first place, so I'm not going to stop doing this in order to go back to what this allowed me to escape from! But I did get my professors to sign on to letters of recommendation, so if all this comes crashing down I can apply to a better business school. Or do something completely different.
But anyway: Culture Shock!! First of all, there are animals everywhere. There are sacred cows, sacred monkeys, sacred rats- hard to find anything that isn't sacred- and everywhere the religion and intense ritualism is disorienting, but more so when you realize that these are the same deities worshiped by the Mitannian Empire, the Hittites, and the ancestors of the Celts. In fact, much has been made of the similarities between Hinduism and Celtic theology as described by Strabo and Caesar. And bizarrely enough... That's the sense I get here- that a bunch of Celts came here 4000 years ago and got all Dark and Mystical. I love it! Throw in some peacocks and gurus and Victorian-Era architecture and you're about halfway towards an idea of what India is like.
The other half of understanding this experience is to picture a society undergoing extremely violent industrialization. The economic development of India proceeds at a pace so fast one get's a bit unhinged. There are skyscrapers next to slums surrounding an Ashram, peopled by naked monks and sacred monkeys, with gold-bedecked lawyers living in slums with flatscreen TVs, and street urchins sleeping on skyscraper rooftops... It's crazy. However, a parallel can be seen in the Gilded Age of 1880's America. Most of the corporations here are run by tycoons, same as Rockefeller or Carnegie. It has to do with being able to leverage capital to muscle your way into independent markets and increase profits by controlling the means of production, as opposed to economies of scale and lateral competition. If that sentence didn't make sense, then there's hope for you yet.
Basically, this is like living in a Kipling poem that's bursting at the seams with Dickensian Industrialism. Oh, and all this crazy Mumbai modernization? It's happening right next to a national park. Hence the peacocks and monkeys.
As for my personal life, it's hard to make connections with a group of people who primarily interact with their families. I have made some progress, a few friends here and there, maybe a poker game. If anything, this has gotten me in touch with my forgotten introverted side... But still. It's much the same as China- it will be less difficult for me to interact with other foreigners than the Indians themselves. And don't get me started on the romance; I've been fending off marriage proposals right and left. But always from the family members of the girls in question. "Would you like to marry my daughter?" "Are you married? No? Well, my niece Poornima is also unmarried..." After which (despite gentle refusals) I end up in the awkward situation of trying to explain to a sweet and innocent Indian girl all of the ten thousand reasons why a relationship wouldn't work, chief amongst which is "No, I'm sorry, I'm really just not interested unless you need to drown me in pain and shatter everything that I am. Or let me ravage you 'till you love me." Which brings me to the next plot-point in this adventure: I've made contact with the S&M scene here. She's a Domme here in Mumbai. messaged me on Collarme fucking .com of all things. Don't know if it's going anywhere, but to have made contact with the (way more secretive) scene here? Craziness. Even crazier? She gave me one of her contacts in the business world, one of her subs who's the strategic director at a chemical company that wants to green up their image. And they want to work with us. However, he doesn't know that I know he's a sub. Makes for some interesting conference calls. My company isn't even incorporated yet and it's already fucking Byzantine. But that, I am told, is India. I just don't want to break any hearts/get lynched for breaking hearts while I'm out here. Though to tell the truth, I'm more likely to get lynched by the Hijras than anybody else- I refuse to give them money and laugh at their curses.
Oh, and prostitution is way LESS fun out here than it was in China. First of all, it's all segregated in certain areas; Indians have a more developed sense of zoning than the Chinese. Second, you never interact directly with the prostitutes in the "advertising" phase of the transaction- it's all through their pimps. Who are unsettling, to say the least. And finally, there's way, way more judgement and "shamed woman" stigma attached to the girls than there ever was in East Asia. Which means, in diametric opposition to Thailand (ironically a Sanskrit-derived culture), the prostitutes derive zero empowerment from what they're doing. In fact, quite the opposite. Not to say that it's flowers & sunshine for working girls in the Land of Smiles, but it certainly feels like that. The weirdest thing about all this is that the most empowered female(ish) persona I've encountered are the Hijras. And they're not women, they're just every non-cis person shoved into the same outgroup so that the hyper-conservative, everything-and-everyone-in-their-place mainstream Hindus can deal with them. But they dress flamboyantly, walk saucily, and give me the Evil Eye when I don't give them all my money. But I've been drinking black magic since I was fourteen.
Right now, I'm up in Baroda, which is in Gujarat, and the capital of the Gaekwad "Princely State" of the British Raj. The Palace still stands, along with a huge palace grounds, a golf course, and a museum. Oh, the museum... But my inner unemployed historian aside, this is actually a place that still has a functioning royal family. They're even still involved in politics, to a certain degree; they can run for office like anyone else, and they were behind a lot of Gujarat's modernization in the 20th century. And I have to bounce around quite a bit; the chemical plant is in Anklesh, an hour and a half by train to the south of Baroda(aka Vadodara, if you wanna get your wikipedia on), and then I'm back to Mumbai to make sure the Jains don't railroad us. Who knew that a bunch of vegetarian pacifists would be such ruthless investment tycoons?
Sometimes, I read this, think of what I'm doing, and feel like the most pretentious fuckwad on Earth. But it's not pretentious if you're not pretending. And I'm really just doing my best.
There will be more later. I think this is a good way to keep in touch with people. And I have neglected you all too long.