Category: Book Review Actions

3. SHELF it · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Skills

BR 158: Decide To Play Great Poker by Annie Duke

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Category: 3 – SHELF it (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)

Comments: A really good poker book. I was introduced to poker by a wiser friend and got very interested in the game as a way of thinking about decision making. As a result, I zoomed through some of the detailed case-situations. My goal was to understand the key principles that a beginner should know. I definitely got that from the book.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. Poker is about 2 things – decisions and information. The information you collect feeds into your decision making. In the long run, the better the decisions, the better you will do at poker.

2. The best way to avoid making mistakes in contentious situations is to avoid getting to them altogether. You do that by making decisions easy for yourself. So, at every moment, think of second and third-order consequences -e.g., if I choose to play this hand, will it make my future decisions earlier? If not, fold.

3. Understand WHY you make every decision. Great players fold 80% of the time but, when they decide to play, they play decisively. Really understand why you’re making a decision

(No wonder every life situation has an equivalent poker analogy)

Book notes here.

3. SHELF it · Bio/Autobiographies · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Leadership

BR 157: Mandela’s Way by Richard Stengel

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Category: 3 – SHELF it (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)

Comments: A nice read on Nelson Mandela’s life. I took away a few nice stories and the quote – “courage is not the absence of fear but the realization that there are things more important than fear.” Mandela really lived that quote.

I was hoping for more depth, however..

Top 3 Learnings: 

1. Mandela really had to change with the times. He was a revolutionary of sorts at first and, as he grew, he became the peacemaker. His 26 years in prison were fundamental to that change..

2. He repeatedly demonstrates the power of choice. He even alienated those who supported him by adopting a peaceful political stance following his release (which was negotiated in fairly contentious circumstances). He chose not to lead with anger.. and what a great choice that turned out to be.

3. Mandela always was a charismatic change maker. He had his way even in prison – that leadership streak never left him. As he matured, he just chose to channel it differently. Once he’d made that decision, however, he put in extraordinary effort to make it happen. For example, he learnt Afrikaans to understand his then-enemy and made friends with the guards. In doing so, he expanded his capacity to understand people differently. He no longer saw his captors as the enemy. Instead, he realized they were men just like him and understood where they came from. He went on to embrace their sport – Rugby – and used the world cup to unite the country in 1995 (Cue: The movie Invictus).

Book notes here.

3. SHELF it · Book Review Actions · Self Improvement

BR 156: How to Become a Straight A Student by Cal Newport

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Category: 3 – SHELF it (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)

Comments: I enjoyed reading this book. It had been a while since I had actually thought about academics and I love Cal Newport’s writing. If you’re going to school and if you’re generally geeky, I’d definitely recommend it. 1 line summary of the book is – be organized and disciplined. :-)

Of course, the principles don’t just apply to school.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. Make sure your schedule is very well organized. Block out times for future assignments and study in advance.

2. Compile your own summary of all lectures as a pre-exam study guide

3. Take control of your own calendar. Schedule meeting such that they don’t interfere with your productive time.

Book notes here.

3. SHELF it · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Career

BR 155: Case Studies and Cocktails by Carrie Shuchart and Chris Ryan

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Category: 3 – SHELF it (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)

Comments: Useful collection of pre-MBA resources. Sets expectations around the many priorities you will have to juggle while at school.

Looking back at the book now, I feel the priority and planning for MBA life section could be done much better. But, it was a good pre-school read.

Top Learning: Expect to be overwhelmed by multiple priorities like career, academics, extra-curricular, social commitments, etc.

Add on Mar 16, 2016: I have since blogged about the MBA experience in great detail.

3. SHELF it · Career

BR 154: More than Money by Mark Albion

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Category: 3 – SHELF it (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)

Comments: This is one of 3 books that I read before starting out on my MBA. This is a good book and written with all the right intentions.

However, it failed to make an impact on me just because I’d read “How will you measure your life?” by Clayton Christensen  – which, I found more more comprehensive in terms of thinking about your impact on the world.

Top Learning: Think long term when thinking about your post-MBA career

3. SHELF it · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Money

BR 153: Flash Boys by Michael Lewis

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Category: 3 – SHELF it (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)

Comments:  If you have any interest whatsoever on the financial markets, this book is a must read. If not, well, put it on your shelf. Michael Lewis’ books are like art – you’ll never tire of flipping the pages. He makes  a heavy financial book feel like a fascinating novel.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. Every time a new regulation is put in place, it creates an unforeseen set if market conditions that inevitably results in arbitrage by those looking to game the financial system. This sort of quick money scheme repeats itself – the housing bubble in the 80s, the credit default swaps in early 2000s and then high frequency trading in the late 2000s and perhaps now.

2. Such arbitrage causes billions of dollars to move from the pockets of investors to middlemen.

3. The behavior of the big Wall Streets bank is shocking. That’s not to say the people in these banks are bad. Somehow, the incentives and existing cultures result in horrible short term decision making. (I can’t help but wonder if the system of reporting earnings every quarter does more harm than good. It seems to drive short term thinking everywhere!

1. Read ASAP! · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Business · Entrepreneurship · Leadership · Management · Technology

BR 152: The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

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Category: 1 – Read ASAP! (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)

Comments: If you are, even in the slightest, interested in running a company of your own someday, this book is an absolute must read. This is probably the closest any book will come to being a “CEO how-to” manual.

It is a book I will revisit from time to time.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. Leadership is about 3 things – the ability to articulate an idea so people follow you (The Steve Jobs attribute), the ability to be ambitious for the team and not for yourself /to have the right kind of ambition (the Bill Campbell attribute) and the ability to achieve the results you articulate (the Andy Grove attribute) – I’ve never heard leadership spelt out as clearly.

2. The purpose of an organization chart is to facilitate communication. The closer people are on an organization chart, the more they will communicate. (Such a simple idea but one I’d never understood.)]

3. A few money quotes –

‘The amount of communication required in a relationship is inversely proportional to the amount of trust there is.’
‘Managing by numbers is like painting by numbers. It is only for amateurs.’
‘The hero and the coward feel the same. They just do different things. People who watch you judge you on what you do not what you feel.’
‘Hire for strength, not for lack of weakness’
‘Embrace the struggle and remember – the hard things will always be hard things.’

Book notes here.

3. SHELF it · Bio/Autobiographies · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Creativity · Entrepreneurship · Technology

BR 151: Things a Little Bird Told Me by Biz Stone

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Category: 3 – SHELF it (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)

Comments: This book is another one of those really good books I’d recommend to anyone interested in technology. This is Biz Stone’s story and thus, in large part, his narration of important parts of the Twitter story.

It feels sincere and heartfelt and, that is, from what I’ve heard, what Biz Stone is all about.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. Opportunity is manufactured. As Biz Stone did not train in the traditional sports, he was well behind sporting level in his high school. As he really wanted to play sports, he started a high school lacrosse team. Since everyone who signed up was a beginner, he was on a level playing field and  had a great time.

2. Constraints are great. When Steven Spielberg was shooting jaws, he wanted to create a realistic model of a shark so they could film it attacking people for all the scary scenes. However, this was going to be very expensive and beyond their budget. Faced with this constraint, Spielberg had a new low budget idea – shoot it from the point of view of the shark under water.  And guess what? Way scarier!

Twitter did well with constraints as well, of course. :)

3. Pick opportunities based on what inspires you. Biz Stone lives this idea. He left university because he got an inspiring opportunity to apprentice in a creative agency. He then left Google even though he had millions of dollars worth of stock options to vest because he wanted to continue working with his former boss and friend, Evan Williams. It’s a great story and it obviously works out for him. But, the thing to note is his incessant positivity and his habit of zeroing on the things that really matter.

Book notes here.

2. BUY it! · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Money

BR 150: How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes by Peter D Schiff and Andrew J Schiff

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Category: 2 – BUY it! (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)

Comments: First, let me get the obvious out of the way – yes, this book isn’t perfect. It can be very simplistic at times and the writer does have a clear political agenda against the US government’s financial policy.

But it makes for a fascinating read. I say everyone because we all deserve to understand how an economy works. The authors lay out the principles of economics and call bullshit on the idea that micro economics is essentially different from macro economics. They do it by taking us through the growth and crash of an island’s economy (and do this with lots of digs at the US-China relationship. The islands are called Usonia and Sinopia :))

Fantastic book. It points to a scary conclusion – the whole idea of a paper currency anchored in nothing but trust is a massive experiment and one that could result in mass default and failure.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. Why should a country be treated differently from a household? Why should a country be allowed to spend more than it makes (via taxes)?

The reason governments take on so much debt is because the economic policy is driven by political agenda. As a result, instead of taking the hard decisions and cutting public spending, the government always attempts to take the easy way out by printing more money.

2. Deflation is not a bad thing. Deflation means productivity is increasing and things are getting cheaper. This means it is time to allocate resources to new investments – the technology industry is a good example of this. The American economy was deflationary until the 1930s when Keynesian economists came along and said inflation is the way to go. This has resulted in economists insisting that inflation needs to be maintained. When you hear that, ask why.

3. American consumption has been lauded as a strength. Well, it is not. Production is a strength. Consumption is not. An economy’s strength is built on savings. It is because of savings that interest rates fall and allow for cheaper credit and cheaper investments. America is surviving on the fact that China is hugely invested in it and the fact that it’s currency is global reserve currency. Things could fall very quickly (ominous, I know)

 My summary of the full book is on The Bookbytes Project.

2. BUY it! · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Novel Concepts and Interesting Research · Sports

BR 149: Moneyball by Michael Lewis

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Category: 2 – BUY it! (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)

Comments: Another Michael Lewis masterpiece. I saw the movie before I read the book. The book was really interesting. Many of the baseball terms and statistics went a bit over the head as I’ve never watched baseball. However, the story and insight were fantastic.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. Value is created when you understand market inefficiencies and exploit them. In the case of baseball, the whole player measurement system was flawed and based on the look of a player rather than statistics that actually contributed to the team. Billy Beane simply went ahead and used these inefficiencies to cause a revolution in the way players were scouted.

2. If you HAVE to do a deal, you are doing to pay too much for it.

3. My favorite insight was Beane’s approach of building a baseball team rather than a collection of players. For example, Beane and his team identified that a play off team needed to score 900 runs to qualify for the play offs (if I remember right). So, they went about building a team that would score the runs together building on each other’s strengths. Focus on the whole, not on the parts. Don’t replace players.. Replace their statistics with one or more players. Top draw insight!

Book notes here.