Monday, the 3rd May, 2021 was a day like no other - I awoke to the news of Bill Gates divorce; and also that a former schoolmate and friend - who happened to be co-founder of a small tech company had died of covid at 3 AM the same morning.
Thus the online space that day was abuzz with back-and-forth comments, messages and discussions - about life events; memories and origin stories. Anecdotes and messages talking about Bill Gates and Melinda Gates and Microsoft and the Gates Foundation were interspersed with discussions, comments and messages about my schoolmate Manu Bhalla and his company Gigasoft.
I too went online a bunch of times that day to hope into comment and message threads and to explain stories the way I remembered and knew them to be - rather than what a person posting, commenting or sending a message would make them out to be.
Each time I’d see a post that seemed even vaguely inaccurate, I would have a temptation to tell the full story - and share a broader view - which though from a human and human interest angle, could help a lot of readers understand the human side of technology better than the isolated paragraphs trying to comment and elucidate recent history without even perhaps the author of those pieces having dug too deep.
And that’s what this newsletter tries to do.
In each issue, we take an event; a person; a company or a product - and try to tell it’s story as deeply and as engagingly as we can - and that too from a human interest perspective.
While things like technology; stock prices; market details etc are relevant - a lot more relevant and important for anyone - whether a tech industry veteran or whether an interested layperson to really know and understand technology; the technology industry and the people involved.
With that in mind, here goes with our newsletter…. Tech Tales….. onwards!