Category: Business

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BR 142: Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton

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Comments: If you love technology, you will find this book very interesting. It felt a bit gossip-y in that it focused a lot more on the dynamics of a handful of people who were responsible in building Twitter. You come to learn how Twitter nearly imploded multiple times but, against the odds, survived to change the world.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. A strong board of directors is a key in every company as in life. It is very important to have people who have a long term interest in you who are then willing to call bullshit on your decisions and occasionally, guide you to move to a better place.

2. Complexity, conflict, clash of egos, etc., are not the words that come to mind when you think of the glory of a start-up’s journey to success. They’re part and parcel of the journey, however. And, it is worth remembering that no good comes without significant pain and learning. The book explores the path of these multi millionaires who all learnt some very tough life lessons in the process.

3. Twitter was founded by a bunch of geeks who saw it as a way of connecting with people. These weren’t people with strong social bonds or relationships. They understood the power of technology in helping people like themselves find connection. I thought it interesting that Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in the process of getting back at the girlfriend who dumped him. Scratching your own itch is a very powerful reason to build a company that changes the world.

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BR 141: Give and Take by Adam Grant

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Comments: A very good book. It does really make you think about how you lead your life and establishes giving to be the best long term strategy.

Top 3 Learnings
1. There are 3 kinds of people – givers, takers and matchers. Takers never do well in the short term, matchers do consistently well whereever they go and the givers are either at the top or the very bottom of their fields. The givers at the top of their fields are what Grant calls “Other”-ish givers. They have a self interest in giving but don’t give at the expense of their performance. The givers at the bottom are those who give even if it is not in their long term interest to do so. Give a lot.. but be a bit selfish (not self centered) about it.

2. It is best to “chunk” your giving rather than do little bits every day. People who volunteer 3 hours on a  weekend are happier than those who do 30 mins every day. 100 hours was found to be the golden number for volunteering that gave maximum happiness returns.

3. It is in our interest to give a lot more than we get. In the old economy, takers weren’t as easily found out as today. Our track record follows us everywhere and being short term focused isn’t a good strategy.. and definitely isn’t a path to happiness.

Book notes here

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BR 127: The Price Advantage by Walter L Baker, Michael V Marn, Craig C Zawada

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Comments: I read this book thanks to preparation for a project at work. Really good book on pricing written by pricing experts from McKinsey & Co. and makes for a good read.

Pricing moonlights as a seemingly boring topic but is at the heart of understanding profit levers in a business.

Top 3 learnings:

1. Pricing is the single most powerful pricing lever in business. A 1% increase in price for an average fortune 500 company results in an 8.4% increase in profit (!) versus a 1% increase in volume (around 3%). If you care about being profitable, you need to care about pricing..

2. There are 4 components to understanding pricing and I’ve tried to describe these in terms of questions you need to ask yourself-

  • Market dynamics: Am I market leader? What sort of pricing conduct does our market have? How can we instituionalize good pricing conduct. (Aggressive price wars result in irreversible negative consequences)
  • Company strategy: What is our pricing strategy? Do we invest in a best-in-class pricing organization and invest in having  great market and industry analytics? Do we understand our position in the industry via value maps?
  • Transactions: Do we monitor how pricing is carried out in practice? Are our sales people watching for profit vs revenue? How does our pocket price distribution look? (Pocket price is the eventual price for a project following all discounts, rebates, etc.)
  • Pricing infrastructure: Do we have IT and enabling systems that support our pricing organization

3. There’s tremendous areas of opportunity in the organization. A few points critical to good pricing are –

  • Solid market information so you understand your cost and benefit in relation to the market
  • Sales data to understand “pocket price” i.e. what is the net price you receive on your products.
  • Pricing infrastructure for your sales team to understand what are good practices and what aren’t
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BR 107: The Big Short by Michael Lewis

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Comments: I am fast becoming a Michael Lewis fan. I loved the 2 movies his books inspired ‘The Moneyball’ and his fantastic article on Vanity Fair detailing the Irish bubble. ‘The Big Short’ was recommended to me by a colleague as a great book on the financial crisis.

This book takes a look at the unique characters who actually saw the collapse of the financial system coming and details the trials, tribulations and change they went through before and after the crisis.

Great book. A Dan Brown-esque page turner for those with an interest in understanding how we got to the biggest financial crisis since the great depression.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. ‘There is a fine line that divides investing and gambling.’ Not a new learning but the whole book’s essential synthesis was re-learning this concept.

2. The concept of rating agencies like S&P, Moody’s, Fitch and the like are broken. They are easily fooled by the smarter investment bankers far too often.

3. It’s amazing how badly broken the financial system was/is. When we pause for a moment, the financial system doesn’t really create anything. Yet, it accounted for 40% of the US economy in 2007. Banks essentially went from organizations that helped provide capital to businesses to profit generation machines. Sprinkle generous amounts of greed and take away any sense of principles/values from the dish and you can see the recipee for disaster.

And one more..

4. It’s amazing how each of the ‘outliers’ who actually saw the crisis coming was, by all accounts, a weirdo in his own right. Even the smartest people out there drank their own kool aid and got deluded in the mass hysteria.

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BR 85: First, Break All The Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

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Comments: Thorough and well researched piece of work. This books beautifully synthesizes 25 years of research into what it takes to be a ‘Great Manager’ and puts it in front of our eyes.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. The Greatest managers focus squarely on strengths

2. We gravely misunderstand the importance of ‘talent’. Conventional management tells us anything is possible and that if we set our mind to it, we can do whatever we want. Great managers understand that an attribute such as ‘calm under pressure’ is a talent and no amount of training can help hone it in people who don’t have that talent.

This ties right back to the 1st point. The simple idea is that we all have our own specific sweet spots – we need to find them and hone them!

3. Great managers build very close personal relationships with their top performers. How else can you get under their skin and push them? :)

And one last learning (this was a great book!), do check out the 12 questions.

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BR 79: Too Big To Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin

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Comments: I was hesitant to read this as I was not a fan of finance related books then. While the financial crisis intrigued me, I still wasn’t convinced if I was prepared to go through an 18 hour audio.

This book, however, is riveting. It is the financial crisis from the perspective of the massive characters/egos who battled hard to save the world from a complete meltdown. The book got me feeling up close and personal with all Wall Street CEO’s like Fuld, Dimon, Pandit, Mack, Blankfeid etc, key US treasury, federal officials like Paulson, Geithner and the like. It took me on an emotional journey that had me smiling at Jamie Dimon’s tact and diplomacy, marveling at the real power and weight that Goldman Sachs carries with it, gasping at the holes in AIG’s balance sheet  and feeling sad at Dick Fuld’s fate along with that of Lehmann Brothers. I can go on forever on this book.. it is one of the best books I have read, period.

And full credit, of course, to Andrew Ross Sorkin as it is rare to come across a book so well written.

 

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BR 73: The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive by Patrick Lencioni

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Comments: This was a story of 2  entrepreneurial CEOs who started up post B School and it deals with how and why one of them is more successful than the other. Many good ideas with the concept wrapped in a  good story. I don’t think much of it stuck with me sadly.

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BR 59: Made in America by Sam Walton

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Comments: This book was a fun read from start to finish. Sam Walton is insightful, humorous and entertaining all at once. He takes us through the entire Wal-Mart story with great pride and passion. I could almost feel him talking me through the story despite the fact that I read the book.

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BR 57: The Knack by Norm Brodsky

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Comments: Norm Brodsky shares some very profound insights of his thinking as a serial entrepreneur that (in my opinion) is a realistic approach to looking at things. This isn’t one for tech entrepreneurs who want to change the world – more for someone who wants to start a small business. Norm has a few simple ideas – go for a business idea that’s atleast a 100 years old. Don’t bother trying to create anything novel as it’ll cost too much to educate the market. Essentially, go into a business with tons of competitors who have lost the connection with the market in one way or the other, ensure high profit margins and go for success.

It’s not necessarily the ‘right’ way as there is no real ‘right’ way.. it’s honest, straightforward and from my limited experience, he’s definitely got a point.

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BR 37: The Unwritten Laws of Business by W J King

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Comments: Fantastic book for anyone who is just about to enter into his/her first real job. It is a collection of rules that are fundamental to the working world but may not be all that obvious when you start out. It was written in the 1950s but is probably as relevant today as it was then.

Add on Mar 16, 2016: I don’t remember much but do remember finding it useful as a student. Then again, I don’t know if I’d change my recommendations having spent a few years working.