Category: 3. SHELF it

3. SHELF it · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Business · Leadership · Management · Technology

BR 172: How Google Works by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg

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How Google Works, Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg

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

Comments: Good book – especially if you are interested in technology. Lots of interesting points of view on why Google chose to operate the way they did. This is particularly applicable because many of the best known technology firms followed Google’s lead in terms of workplace environment.

I do think there’s an important causality issue in the book’s logic. Eric and Jonathan often make it sound that the way they built Google’s culture and norms resulted in Google’s success. I think it is the other way around – their extraordinary technical insight enabled them to build their unique culture and norms which, in turn, reinforced their technical superiority.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. Open plan officers are important for creative work as they result in “collisions” of people that result in ideas being passed around. They are also important as they keep cross functional teams working together. It is just vital that you find ways to have workspaces where introverts can go and focus/get alone time as necessary.

2. Why have perks? Make the office a place where people really want to come to work. The more people want to work from home in jobs that require teamwork and creativity, the more you have a problem.

3. Bill Campbell style 1:1s

Book notes here.

3. SHELF it · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Business · Management

BR 171: Reputation Rules by Daniel Diermeier

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reputation rules, trust radar

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Comments: Reputation rules was required reading for an interesting course on Crisis Management at school and is written by a former Professor. Good book with many interesting examples. However, if I played devil’s advocate, it did feel like one of those where a long blog post would have sufficed.

Top Learnings:

1. The trust radar was a valuable crisis tool and is one I think I will remember for a long time.  See this post for more.

2. It was very interesting to learn about corporate activist groups from a crisis management point of view.

Book notes here.

3. SHELF it · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Entrepreneurship · Technology

BR 169: Zero to One by Peter Thiel

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Comments: This book didn’t live up to the hype for me – likely because I’d read Thiel’s thinking around monopoly businesses on the internet before the book.

Top 2 Learnings:

1. Horizontal progress is when we take an idea that works in one place and copy it everywhere else. Vertical progress is true technological innovation (0 to 1).

2. Monopoly businesses are the best. Competition is for losers.

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

BR 167: The Innovators by Walter Isaacson

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Comments: If you have any interest in technology whatsoever, this book is a must read. Awesome awesome 140 odd year journey starting from when Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace conceptualized the modern computer.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. History favors writing about the individual but great innovations were always made by teams that worked incredibly well with each other.. and almost always built upon the good work done by many others.

2. A collection technology change makers have been at the intersection of the arts and sciences (e.g. Steve Jobs). The big learning here is that diversity of skills, interests, etc., are really productive. The greatest tech innovations have come about when diverse minds came together.

3. Artificial intelligence has always been two decades away.. (;-))

Book notes here

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

BR 165: Case in Point by Marc Cosentino

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Comments and Learning: 

Top book if you are preparing for case interviews – I had case interviews in a couple of roles I interviewed for in my technology internship quest in the 1st year of my MBA – this book was very useful.

No learning blogged aside from – solve as many cases as possible and develop an approach that’ll help you tackle case interviews. :)

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

BR 164: Case Interview Secrets by Victor Cheng

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Comments and Learning: 

Top book if you are preparing for case interviews – I had case interviews in a couple of roles I interviewed for in my internship quest in the 1st year of my MBA – this book was very useful.

My favorite learning from the book was the importance of taking the first 2 minutes in a case and developing an approach/structure for the problem. If you structure a problem wrong or just don’t, there are few ways back in a case.

No learning blogged aside from – solve as many cases as possible and develop an approach that’ll help you tackle case interviews. :)

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

BR 162: Cracking the PM interview by Gayle Laakmann, Jackie Bavaro

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Comments and Learning: 

1. Top book if you are preparing for Product Management interviews in technology – this book was very helpful in my internship recruiting quest in the first year of my MBA

2. Book learnings here

3. SHELF it · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Creativity · Psychology · Technology

BR 161: The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

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Comments and Learning:
1. This is a very important book – designers all over have probably read this book. I think of it as a must read if you are interested in anything to do with design. I read this as I was thinking of product design.

2. If a user keeps making an error when using your product, the problem is with your product.

3. Learnings here

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

BR 158: Decide To Play Great Poker by Annie Duke

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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.