Reviews and Comments

I wanted to like this book because Satya Nadella is not the typical CEO.

Usually, India born CEOs are either from IIT or IIM or Stanford. He studied at Manipal University. When many of the US migrated Indians are into baseball or basketball, Satya is into cricket and seems like he can play it well too. Satya's father is a Marxist but served in Indian Civil Service. His mother is a Sanskrit scholar. (In another book, Half-Lion, on the ex-Indian Prime Minister and polymath, Narasimha Rao, I read that Rao was present at the wedding of Satya.) Satya's challenge with his special needs kid and his graceful way of handling it. His love for books like Caro Dweck's Mindset or Marshall Goldberg's Non-violent communication. His emphasis on empathy and culture, I can go on. But hold on.

I was expecting this book to be a story about him, his transformation, his learnings on how he influenced such a big organisation like Microsoft and revitalising it. But it was a mega-bore. Other than the first two chapters where he talks about his personal life, cricket and his son, which was mildly interesting, the rest of the book was really boring for me. It read like an internal blog with frequent mentions about Skype or Windows or any Microsoft's product.

If you really want to know about Satya's life, you can simply skip this. This book reminds me of Bill Gates' Business @ Speed of Thought. (Bill is definitely my hero, I love his book recommendations but not this book 😜. )

I have been hearing about Taleb a lot for a long time, and I picked this one after a colleague was showering praise on this book.

SITG by Taleb is refreshingly frustrating. Yes, many things he says might lack nuance, but he seems to know his shit. He is not foolishly dressing down Thaler or Pinker or Sam Harris. But I don't see the depth of this topic. I would give four stars because of the novelty of ideas and for being common-sensically contrarian. On the first listen, what he says is new, nod-worthy and also gives that aha-moment. But to take his views seriously, I need to "read" the book and dig deep, instead of "listening" to this. My audiobook listening to SITG satisfied my goal. I want to understand in broad stroke why Taleb is being hyped up. In a way, he has "racked his gun" and got my attention with SITG.

I will have to dig into the Taleb rabbit hole in the next weeks by listening to podcasts and other critiques of him to understand him better. I will revisit my ratings in some months.

I wanted to like this book because Satya Nadella is not the typical CEO.

Usually, India-born CEOs are either from IIT or IIM or Stanford. He studied at Manipal University. When many of the US-migrated Indians are into baseball or basketball, Satya is into cricket and seems like he can play it well too. Satya's father is a Marxist but served in the Indian Civil Service. His mother is a Sanskrit scholar. (In another book, Half-Lion, on the ex-Indian Prime Minister and polymath, Narasimha Rao, I read that Rao was present at the wedding of Satya.) Satya's challenge with his special needs kid and his graceful way of handling it. His love for books like Caro Dweck's Mindset or Marshall Goldberg's Non-violent Communication. His emphasis on empathy and culture, I can go on. But hold on.

I was expecting this book to be a story about him, his transformation, and his learnings on how he influenced such a big organisation like Microsoft and revitalised it. But it was a mega-bore. Other than the first two chapters where he talks about his personal life, cricket and his son, which was mildly interesting, the rest of the book was boring for me. It reads like an internal blog with frequent mentions of Skype or Windows or some Microsoft product.

If you really want to know about Satya's life, you can simply skip this. This book reminds me of Bill Gates' Business @ Speed of Thought. (Bill is for sure an inspiration, I love his book recommendations but not this book

Few months ago, I read Chaos Monkeys, a scathing but a hilarious insider account on Facebook. It was written by a product manager, Antonio García Martínez. As a fellow product manager and as a snacker on content everything related to Facebook & Mark Zuckerberg, I thoroughly loved the witty at same time an optimistic critique on ad-tech companies and social media companies by Antonio.

I chanced upon, Disrupted by Dan Lyons, in a Kara Swisher's podcast. I loved this book. It is rip-roaringly hilarious, acerbic and brings down all the holy cows of the SaaS startup world. Yes, the tone of the writer is pessimistic and sometimes it borders lament. But it so very well written and an awesome experience to listen to the book in author's voice.

The book is about Dan's experience in working for HubSpot. It is a company that is revered in my work circle. I laughed out so loud during my commute on many instances on his snarky sarcastic comments. No one is spared. Dan makes fun of HubSpot's CEO and its CTO. He takes huge dig at Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff and my hero, Marc Andreessen. His take on HubSpot's CMO (Cranium - Mike Volpe), Mike's report (Wingman) and Dan's boss (Trotsky) are extremely funny and very enjoyable.

The chapter were he describes on how he gets fired from Newsweek was so moving and so scary. The travails he endured in dealing with Trotsky, his boss was also very gut-wrenching in many aspects. It was very, very well written and I could really empathise with him.

Sure, he really criticizes the Silicon Valley's ethos and ways of building things. I get a feeling that sometimes its a world view problem of people coming from a different (media, journalism) world and not getting the basic understand (insistence of make profit as a key and sound parameter for a business and many other such quirks). He dresses down and harshly criticizes Marc Andreessen and a16z's media content. I am not here to judge and pass comments on his opinions. But its damn interesting and funny to read his views. It is really good.

Highly recommend it for people interested in hearing an outsider's view into the startup world.

This is a gut-wrenching but an endearing memoir.

It’s a story of a girl growing up in a paranoiac family that doesn’t believe in public schools, Holocaust, government agencies and with many other quirks. It’s also a story of living through a physically abusive and mentally tormented upbringing.

If I sound gloom, hold your horses. It is an endearing story of someone who went from no schooling to getting a Ph.D in just a span of ten years through sheer grit and perseverance.

This is soulful reminder of counting one’s blessings and privileges that we all take for granted. Simple acts of going to a school or visiting a hospital or wearing a fashionable dress are indeed a privilege and luxury for certain people.

One of the wonderful books I listened through this year. Eerily it reminded me of the Netflix’s documentary Wild Wild Country for the cult like beliefs upheld by many characters in this.