Author Archives: Rakesh Agrawal

About Rakesh Agrawal

Rakesh Agrawal is Senior Director of product at Amazon (Audible). Previously, he launched local and mobile products for Microsoft and AOL. He tweets at @rakeshlobster.

Favorite things, day 4: TiVo

Posted on December 19, 2019

For the days leading up to Christmas, I’m counting down a few of my favorite things. These are not in priority order. The closest thing there is to an order is least surprising to most surprising. TiVo has a special on their … Continue reading →

Posted in favorite things, television, tivo, Uncategorized, video

Favorite things, day 5: Alaska Airlines

Posted on December 18, 2019

What’s not to like about an airline that more or less runs like the good old days of air travel? Courteous staff, clean planes, great terminal facilities at San Francisco and Seattle, where I travel the most. Their social media … Continue reading →

Posted in favorite things, travel, Uncategorized

Favorite things, day 6: First Republic

Posted on December 16, 2019

I had somehow left my card in Hong Kong and was on my way to Zimbabwe. ATMs are common, but few businesses take credit cards. So I needed cash. I emailed by banker and she offered a couple of options. … Continue reading →

Posted in banks, favorite things, personal finance, Uncategorized

Favorite hotels from around the world

Posted on December 6, 2019

Here’s a list of my favorites. St Regis Vommuli Resort This is in a class by itself. St Regis New York St Regis Princeville, Kauai (now the Princeville Resort) St Regis Dubai (now the LXR Habtoor Palace) St Regis Deer … Continue reading →

Posted in travel

Let’s not call Goldman Sachs evil (yet, and for this potential infraction)

Posted on November 12, 2019

Goldman Sachs is the company everyone loves to hate. I’m among them. They perpetuated the financial crisis by creating financial instruments no one understood; they bet against their own customers; they benefited enormously from a government bailout; they will continue … Continue reading →

Posted in evil, Uncategorized

5 things Andrew Yang must do for the next debate

Posted on October 7, 2019

As a lifetime product guy, I pay attention to substance, style and marketing. Yang has the first one nailed. He’s talking about two issues that will make or break the country and the world in the next decade: income inequality … Continue reading →

Posted in politics, strategy, Uncategorized

My personal environmental footprint

Posted on August 22, 2018

It’s a trend in corporations (at least those outside the extraction industries) to do a self analysis on your environmental effects. I wanted to think deeply about mine. I recently mailed a mercury thermometer to a friend where she has … Continue reading →

Posted in environment, personal, Uncategorized