I hope you and your loved ones are doing ok in these troubled times. Praying for the victims of the horrific Pahalgam terror attack. Take care.

On Thursday, I attended the annual SVP Fast Pitch Event at a watch party in Pune. It was a superbly organised virtual event, with 10 inspiring non-profits sharing their stories. (I had mentored them on the pitch story narrative).

The pitches were really well produced. You can view the entire recording on YouTube here.

You can still donate to the non-profits at the donation link mentioned in the video.

And now, on to the newsletter.

Welcome to the one hundred and thirteenth edition of '3-2-1 by Story Rules'.

A newsletter recommending good examples of storytelling across:

3 tweets
2 articles, and
1 long-form content piece

Let's dive in.

𝕏 3 Tweets of the week

Fascinating stat.

Great analogy of AI with energy.

(The theme comes back later in the newsletter!)

Vietnam is doing some seriously impressive stuff.

And can I say this? The Indian state's biggest crime is its massive error of omission in completely missing the export-manufacturing vehicle that has transported millions of people out of poverty in China and East Asia.

📄 2 Articles of the week

a. 'Prodigy, Champion, Content' by Sarthak Dev

Sarthak is one of the most astute and thoughtful sports writers we have (dare I say he gives me Rohit Brijnath feels)? If you haven't yet, do subscribe to his excellent Substack.

In this piece, he writes about how some sports icons are social media stars with their fans hanging on to their every post:

When books go for print, authors and publishers are gripped by the anxiety of, “Will anyone read this?” Alcaraz’s generation of celebrities don’t have to worry about reception. He could share a casual sunset photo from some coastal retreat and within moments have his comment section buzzing with heart and fire emojis.

Sarthak reflects on how the internet rewards fame over expertise:

On the internet, you don’t need grey hair or a fat CV to be given studio-quality gear to beam your thoughts to the world; you just need to be famous. If you’re successful, even better.

He then talks about footballer Mbappe's strong social media presence and commercial nous, and compares him with a legend of the 2000s, David Beckam:

Mbappé is running on a track laid nearly thirty years back by another Real Madrid galactico, David Beckham. Remember that guy? The man who would attend Milan Fashion Week, touch down at Heathrow the following evening, board another flight to Manchester, and then curl home a breathtaking free-kick to deliver England’s most storied club a derby victory. He was let go from Manchester United because his manager, Sir Alex Ferguson - more father figure than boss, actually - couldn’t reconcile athletic pursuit with multiple interests. Ferguson wanted his players to uphold football as their only purpose in life.

Sarthak leaves the reader with a tantalising question - can an elite sportsperson straddle athletic excellence with other interests?

In our minds, the world of Netflix and New York lies beyond the electric fence marked with a metal signboard with “Danger” written on it in bold white font. When GQ asked if one could simultaneously enjoy life and pursue greatness, Alcaraz replied with: “Probably not. We’ll see.”

b. Yishan on the Chinese Mindset (on X)

Yishan (ex-Reddit CEO) wrote an insightful post on the mindset in China about their 'special status'. Even kids are made to realise that:

Every kid in China grows up knowing that they're part of a 5000-year-old civilization. You hear this a lot but it's not obvious the effect it has on you.

It makes them see bad periods as temporary blips:

It's like knowing your family has been rich for generations and you're just in one of the down periods. That's different from having been poor and primitive from the beginning of time. It means that Chinese people internalize a default notion of "yeah, we have a civilization, it's just a down period right now, but eventually another strong leader will come about, we'll all work hard, and our civilization will rise again as it has dozens and dozens of times throughout history."

And they are ok with playing the long game:

These days, people often say, "it'll take 20 years to get manufacturing started again in the US."

And the inherent unspoken response to that is, "oh man, that's too long, I guess we're sunk."

But the Chinese response is, "Okay, better start working on it then and we'll have it in 20 years."

Because every Chinese person has internalized the idea that that's just how it goes!

...

And this is why, in the 1980s, China's leaders said, "Oh, I guess we're going to need a modern navy if we're to keep other nations from bullying us, so I guess we're going to have to learn to build modern ships, and that's going to take decades, so I guess we'll have to start the first step and learn to make steel."

🎧 1 long-form listen of the week

a. 'Sajith Pai on India's Digital Divides' - interview with Shruti Rajagopalan on the Ideas of India podcast

In this thought-provoking conversation, Shruti speaks with Sajith about the findings from the (now) iconic Indus Valley Annual Report, 2025.

Sajith reflects on how this year's Indus Valley report has become especially popular, especially their India 1-2-3 framework (credited to Kishore Biyani):

PAI: I was talking to a VC from a large fund, and he was saying that, “Hey, people pitch me and say, ‘We are looking at India 1, India 2,’” and, “‘Do you invest in India 1? Do you invest in India 2?.’” He says, “I don’t know what this means, but then I had to read up on it, and it’s you.”

I just wanted to clarify that I didn’t invent India 1, India 2, actually. All credit to Mr. Kishore Biyani, whose book It Happened in India had it. We’ve certainly taken that construct, put data around it, had this metaphor of India 1 as Mexico, et cetera. We’ve certainly done a lot of popularizing it and given it these mental frameworks.

Shruti expresses her admiration on the storytelling skills employed (emphasis mine):

You’ve just made it legible. As an economist, I’m almost envious. I’m like, “We didn’t manage to quite do this.” We’ve been writing these dense reports and very dense op-ed columns, which people don’t quite understand. I think what you’ve done very nicely is created a very cool metaphor around it, and surrounded it with examples of things we use daily and trends we see daily. Then people, even without any knowledge about finance or economics, they’re able to grasp what it is you’re telling them. I still think it’s quite amazing, what you’ve done.

The above is a great advertisement for technically adept folks to learn the craft of storytelling. It's not enough to know. You have to be able to explain what you know in a clear, engaging and memorable way.

I loved this formulation of India-1 as the 51st state of the US:

PAI: ... there are folks saying, “I’ll focus on India 1,” and instead of trickling down, they’re saying, “We will use India 1 as a springboard to see if we can launch it in the US or into the Western market.” That playbook is something that’s becoming more and more clear now, and we are beginning to see brands which are successfully doing that. For instance, there’s a company called Skillmatics in the toys business, there’s PocketFM. They’re not necessarily selling only to the Indian diaspora. They’re selling to Americans, regular American Joe’s and Jane’s.

RAJAGOPALAN: They sell to an income group, basically. That income group largely resides in the Western world, and a small fraction of it resides in India.

PAI: Correct. This is what we call the India is the 51st state of the US.

Building for India 2 needs a different mindset, not a copy-and-paste Western models approach. Sajith gives the example of Rapido, which has become the no. 2 mobility player in India, edging out Ola, driven by cost:

PAI: Rapido is now actually the number two mobility player.

RAJAGOPALAN: Wow.

PAI: Close number two, after Uber. Historically, India mobility used to be a duopoly between Uber and Ola. Rapido has come in and become the number two. Rapido’s cost base is very different. It’s much lower than, for instance, Ola. I think it comes down to the following that Ola fundamentally said, “Hey, this works in the West, let me just try and replicate it.” They tried to build a lot of things, which are probably not required. Maybe they had more product managers; the way they thought was very different. Whereas today, for instance, there’s a lot of custom code you can build. There’s a way in which they’ve architected the company and the product to really serve what maybe more and more India 2 needs.

Sajith gives an analogy of AI being like electricity:

PAI: AI at one level is going to be like electricity. In the 1920s, you had General Electric, so you’ll have OpenAI. In a few years, it will be down to who takes advantage of electricity better, and who takes advantage of AI for solving a real issue.

Someone will say, “I use electricity to manufacture something like maybe Pepsi and my factory is run on electricity.” I like that metaphor, and increasingly, I find myself trying to read a little bit about how electricity evolved, the early days of electricity. You’re going to see parallels there.

Interestingly, Jeff Bezos had used the same electricity metaphor for the dawn of the internet in this 2003 TED talk.

That's all from this week's edition.

Ravi

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Ravishankar Iyer

Why the Indus Valley Report is so Popular (3-2-1 by Story Rules #113)

𝕏 3 Tweets of the week

📄 2 Articles of the week

🎧 1 long-form listen of the week

What Bali can Teach the World (3-2-1 by Story Rules #112)

Extracts from an Acclaimed Novel (3-2-1 by Story Rules #111)

How Different Countries Communicate (3-2-1 by Story Rules #110)