Book Review: Outlive, by Dr. Peter Attia

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining – John F. Kennedy

Who doesn’t want to live long? All of us do. But what are we doing about it? Pretty much nothing. Most of us wake up about our health only when something goes wrong, and our daily routine gets affected. But by that time, it is too late.

Outlive, by Dr. Peter Attia takes a deep, hard look at what he calls the science and art of longevity. The author, a doctor and surgeon by profession, quit his medical practice out of disappointment with modern day science and started a practice where he focuses on showing his clients a path to a healthy and long life. The author believes modern day science suffers from severe shortcomings in the way it approaches health and suggests an alternative approach (that he calls Medicine 3.0) that focuses on prevention rather than cure.

To be sure, the lifespans of humans have increased significantly over the last two hundred years, thanks to advancements in medical science. But most of these successes have been achieved by conquering “fast death” – prevention or cure of infectious diseases of various kinds, treatments of injuries, emergency care of accident victims or responses to natural calamities and so on. We have learnt to fix broken bones, wipe out infections, replace damaged organs and decompress serious spine and brain injuries.

But we are markedly less successful in helping patients with chronic conditions. All these issues are caused by metabolic dysfunction, primarily due to a mismatch between our genetic evolution and modern-day lifestyle. Face it - most of us are going to die of what the author calls The Four Horsemen (from the biblical Four Horsemen of Apocalypse) – Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, or Alzheimer’s (or some variants & combinations of these). This is “slow death” – where medical intervention happens too late in the day, and the treatment is symptomatic, without addressing the root cause. While Fast Death diseases can be cured totally and patient’s condition restored back to where it was before the disease took hold, Slow Death treatment has just one goal today – to stop the patient from dying. The patient never goes back to Being Healthy again.  Most of our final years of life – “The Marginal Decade” – will be just spent battling one or more of these Four Horsemen.

Medicine 3.0

In comes Medicine 3.0 – which focuses on the two components of Longevity viz., Lifespan i.e., how long you live, and Healthspan i.e., how well you live. 

It is an approach that places far greater emphasis on prevention rather than treatment. It considers patient as a unique individual and offers solutions that suit his own specific case. There is no one-size-fits-all formula here, but an advice on how to look at your own individual risk of contracting these ailments and how to prevent them. The author says his goal is to present an actionable operating manual with which, you can potentially increase your lifespan by a decade and healthspan by two. It would be ideal if not only the lifespan is long, but if lifespan & healthspan perfectly overlap. That is what we should be aiming for.

With this background, the book then takes a deep dive into the inner workings of each of the Four Horsemen. How and when do they begin? What forces drive them? How are they sustained – and how can they be delayed or prevented? This part is pure science, and the book goes deep into the molecular biology behind each disease. I found this fascinating, despite the text becoming a bit technical at times. To an extent, this is inevitable given the nature of the topic, and it goes to the credit of the author that he has tried to make the subject as easy as possible for a layman to understand, without either losing the scientific angle or making the content too superficial. One can easily get the drift of what is being said, even if not being able to follow every word literally. 

Having analyzed the four slow killers in-depth, the next part of the book focuses on Solutions.

It starts with a study of Aging itself, which I found very interesting. What exactly does aging means? What happens when we age (grow)? Can the process be slowed down, and how? I had never thought of these things before.

As we grow older, the deterioration in healthspan occurs along three vectors – cognitive, physical and emotional. Medicine 3.0 tackles this through five broad domains – exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional health, and medication. The book then discusses each of these topics (except medication) in considerable detail. For example, what are different types of exercise, and why do they work? What happens when we sleep and why is sleeping well so important? Is there such a thing as a perfect diet? The book doesn’t simply prescribe solutions (for example, take this diet or do that exercise) but explains the science behind everything and lets the reader decide what is best for her.

The book busts many myths and misunderstandings surrounding all issues Health. Surely, the book will inspire you to do more for your health. At times, it can also scare the hell out you, as you realize how you are going to die! There are plenty of references to latest research in medicine and molecular biology, information about recent and even ongoing clinical trials, survey findings and everything in between. Be clear, this is a science book written for the layman, NOT just a self-improvement motivational book that tells you to eat good food and exercise more. Even for those who studied medicine a few years ago, the book is a wonderful update on the latest happenings in their field.

As I finished reading the book, my mind kept going back to my late father-in-law, a healthy man of 75 who had no ailments, never went to a doctor, and took no medicines. Late one evening four years ago, he took his dinner as usual, went to bed and never woke up. To use the language I learnt in the book, his healthspan perfectly overlapped with his lifespan. Blessed are the people who die like this. This is the blessing the book is trying to give you. Take it.

Book Review: Revolutionaries, by Sanjeev Sanyal

 My school going daughter refuses to believe India won freedom through non-violence. “Why would the British leave, unless they were kicked out?” is the simple question which our history books fail to adequately answer. I remember that when I was in school, me and my friends faced the same question. Clearly, some pieces of the jigsaw puzzle were missing. The story was never complete, we never got to see the whole picture.

But here it is. In his latest book "Revolutionaries – The Other Story of how India won its Freedom", Sanjeev Sanyal challenges the conventional narratives and brings to light the revolutionary side of India’s freedom struggle. It is a fascinating book - fast paced, racy and thrilling, but at the same time tragic to the core. It is a story that simply needs to be told. Over and over again.

How did a group of young men and women from different backgrounds and regions come together to form a network of resistance against British rule? How did they plan and execute daring acts of sabotage or assassination? Did they succeed, and if they failed – why did they fail? What happened to them afterwards? More importantly, were these just isolated acts of individual bravado, or part of a larger gameplan to uproot The Empire from Indian soil? These are the questions Sanyal tries to answer.

The book starts somewhere in the late 19^th century. The Uprising of 1857 had been crushed, and Britain had established absolute hegemony over the Indian subcontinent. But the undercurrents of anger and dissatisfaction remained. The author starts with an overview of the political situation at that time, which provides an excellent context to the story that follows. The subsequent chapters then follow a largely chronological order and provide a seamlessly woven narrative of how the revolution unfolded. Or did it? The readers can judge for themselves.

Of course, some aspects of the revolutionary side are well known, such as the story of Veer Savarkar & the Cellular Jail, the travails of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose or the daredevilry of Shahid Bhagat Singh or Chandra Shekhar Azad. But what about the rest? What about the extraordinary life of Pandurang Khankhoje (I bet you have never heard of him)? The dedication and commitment of Sachindra Nath Sanyal. About Barin Ghosh. The heart wrenching love story of Ullaskar Dutt & Lila. The untold side of Jallianwala Bagh. The role of Japan in India’s freedom struggle. The Naval Mutiny. And a lot, lot more. There are countless stories of exceptional bravery and courage. But also, of shocking treachery and deceit. Of frightening cruelty and cunning. They are all strung together like beads in a chain. I am sure you know nothing of this, and after reading the book, you will wonder why no one told you this before. Sanyal has done us Indians a favor, and we should be eternally grateful to him for the same.

Sanyal’s simple and easy-going style makes reading the book a breeze. His personal visits to the places mentioned, and how they stand today adds the author’s personal touch to the gripping events those places witnessed a hundred years ago.

Interestingly, the book doesn’t end with India winning freedom. The author goes one step beyond the event – what happened to the revolutionaries who survived to see India win freedom? Did the country do justice to them? In fact, have we really got freedom, or the slave mentality still exists? Clearly, Sanyal has gone much farther than what an ordinary history book would normally take us to. And this makes it much more complete. For, if you study the past, you can understand the present better. The present is nothing but a continuation of the past.

Having read "The Ocean of Churn" earlier, I was keen to read the “Revolutionaries” as well. And the book did not disappoint, far bettering even my elevated expectations. Don’t miss it. 

Thank you, Mr. Sanyal.

Book Review: Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind

Why do species like ants or bees – which have been found to have orderly societies just like humans - don’t have lawyers?

That’s a bizarre question to ask, certainly not something you would have ever even thought of before. But if Yuval Noah Harari is to be believed, there’s a reason.

Of course, this book is neither about ants or bees, nor about lawyers.

"Sapiens", as the name suggests, is the story of origin of our species - the Homo Sapiens on planet Earth, and its journey to the present.

It’s a gripping story - racy and fast paced, at times shocking and controversial - narrated in brilliant style as Harari takes his readers on a tour that starts in the heavily infested forests of East Africa some 70,000 years ago and ends in the modern day laboratories where scientists are busy creating fluorescent rabbits and synthetic humans. In the process, Harari covers most of the important milestones in the history of mankind, such as the birth of language and “culture”, domestication of animals, the origins of God and religion, the spread of Empires, the origin and spread of money and the rise of agriculture, industry, science, wars and conquests.

The book is divided into 4 main parts, arranged chronologically. The first part - “The Cognitive Revolution” is the period starting roughly from 70,000 years ago when humans came out of the barbaric age and began to live like humans (so to speak!). This is the period when language was born, humans spread out of Africa and “history began”. The second part starts around 10,000 BC, when humans began to domesticate plants & animals, and formed permanent settlements. The first kingdoms began to emerge, as also written scripts and some form of money. The author calls this “The Agricultural Revolution”. The third part – “The Unification of Mankind” – is the period starting around the first millennium B.C. when large changes swept mankind. Universal money such as Gold coins were born, several large Empires established and Religion originated.

The last chapter, the longest of all – called “The Scientific Revolution” is the history of the last 500 years of the World. It’s a fascinating story – of European conquests to their East and West, of the rise of Capitalism, the Industrial Revolution, giant strides in Science and Technology, and how all of it has impacted the life on earth. This is the part I enjoyed the most.

But Harari’s book is more than just history.

In the present day world, we have become hostage to a particular way of thinking. We view our world as a logical outcome of the progress and prosperity we have achieved over the generations. Our views and opinions are shaped by the prevalent notions of what is right and what is wrong, and we all view history with the same perspective. For example, our faith in principles of justice, peace, freedom, equality, environment, democracy and several such ideologies has become unshakable. We believe in them because we think that is how things are supposed to be, that is how nature has created the world.  And anything that is in conflict with our notions is an aberration - a result of a deviant upbringing, lack of education or other such deficiencies. But is that how the world was meant to be? Are we really the homo sapiens (“Wise Man”) that we call ourselves or are we just fooling ourselves into delusion?

In Sapeins, Harari shakes up the very foundations of our thinking, busting the myths of what we think of ourselves and the way we see the world. He finds a discrepancy between our evolutionary success and individual suffering. Mankind has made progress, but has that made us happy, asks Harari. As he says, “Most history books focus on the ideas of great thinkers, the bravery of warriors, the charity of saints and the creativity of artists. They have much to tell about the weaving and unravelling of social structures, about the rise and fall of empires, about the discovery and spread of technologies. Yet, they say nothing about how all this influenced the happiness and suffering of individuals. This is the biggest lacuna in our understanding of history. We had better start filling it.”

And that is what the book does, raising more questions than it answers. Did we really benefit out of the growth of agriculture, or was it – as Harari calls it – History’s Biggest Fraud? Have the modern day luxuries made us happy, or have they left us craving for more? Are all humans really equal, or is it a myth we propagate because it makes us more politically correct? Is history working for the benefit of mankind, or had we been better off had the dice rolled differently at some point in the past? Harari leaves us with many provocative questions that we will be at pains to answer. 

One may not agree with everything he says, but Harari certainly makes one think. For that reason alone, this book is worth a read.

Book Review: Mind Master

Chess is a game of Indian origin. Folklore has it that in the 16th Century, Emperor Akbar played chess on gigantic chessboard “floors” and real men walking on it as pawns and pieces. Yet, there is almost no documented history of the game in India since then. 

Until now, that is. 

As I write this, a different type of history is being made. A wave  of chess enthusiasm has swept the country since the last few years. Today, if you place one Indian Grandmaster (GM) on each square of Akbar’s chessboard, you would fill all the squares on the board and still be left with a GM or two to spare! The number of International Masters (IM) – a title junior to a GM, awarded by the World Chess Federation (FIDE) - that India boasts of now runs into three digits. History is being made, everyday.

But it has not always been so. When Anand started out his career in the mid-1980s, attaining an IM Title was what most Indian chess players aspired for. All that changed one day, when a 13-year old boy suddenly burst onto the national chess scene and swept away the honours.

In Mind Master, India’s first GM “Vishy” (a misnomer given to him by the Europeans, for Viswanathan is his father’s name) Anand looks back at more than a quarter century of career playing chess at a professional level. Dubbed the “lightening kid” in his younger years for exceptional speed, Anand went on to win the World Chess Championship several times, not to mention many other awards and accolades along the way. The book gives the reader a close peek into the thinking, strategizing and planning that went into several of his crucial matches. What were the challenges that Anand faced? How did he overcome them? What were the mistakes he made, and the lessons learnt?  Anand speaks out his mind to you, narrates his story. Though chess is an individual game, Anand’s book also brings out vividly the importance of how having a close knit team of coaches and assistants working in unison towards a common goal can make a difference to the final result of the game. 

The book is not exactly a chronological account of Anand’s personal or professional life. Rather, the chapters are divided subject wise, such as one on the art of remembering, another one on preparing for tournaments psychologically, one on the role of talent, hard work, luck & aptitude and so on. Within each of these chapters, Anand shuffles back and forth, narrating his experiences, sharing  his insights and drawing lessons from his long years in the game. There is the inevitable touch of humour here and there, and often the politics that goes hand in hand with the game. Each chapter ends with a chess position – and a summary paragraph carrying the central message that the chapter contains. I find this design beautiful.

In recent years, chess has undergone a dramatic change, with computers (“chess engines”) marauding the game in a big way, busting the myth of human superiority over machines. Anand has been on both sides of this fence, having started out the old fashioned way in the 1990s and transitioning successfully into the computer age, still winning tournaments in the 2010s. The chapter on making this change from the pre-computers era to the post is the one I liked the most.

The later part of the book is dedicated mainly to his World Championship matches (i.e. finals), such as the one against Kramnik (2008), Topalov (2010), Gelfand (2012) and Carlsen (2013). Anand takes a deep dive into each of these matches and narrates the story that did not appear in the press – the challenges, the hard work, the politics, the preparation and the execution. What the world saw is only the final result. But as Anand says at one of the places “chess players do a lot more than sit motionless, staring at moving pieces on a board”. In this book, you get to see what that lot more is.

Clearly, the book is meant for an informed audience. You need to have at least a basic introduction to the game, to make sense of what is written in the book. Words such as variation, pairings, notation, blitz, compensation or fianchetto are straight out of the chess jargon, and a dictionary will help little to a reader if he has never been introduced to the game before. The uninitiated may be forgiven for failing to understand what a sharp Dragon or a dry Catalan is, let alone why playing 1.d4 instead of 1.e4 in a crucial match against Kramnik deserves an entire chapter of its own.

For chess playing generation of today aspiring to be the Anands of tomorrow, the book is an investment worth their time.

Finally, here is a link to the game that Anand says is one of the best games he has ever played. Enjoy!

Aronian Vs. Anand, Wijk aan Zee, 2013

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1704763

(P.S.: You can read my earlier take on why Viswanathan Anand is the greatest sportsman India has ever produced. Click here)

Book Review: Free Capital

“Free Capital” by Guy Thomas is a collection of biographical sketches of twelve individual investors who have made a living exclusively out of investing in the stock markets. The individuals have varying academic backgrounds and previous job profiles – usually unrelated to investing or fund management, and at some stage in their life have given up regular day jobs opting instead to focus exclusively on investing to make a living. All of them have exceptional track records and have built a fortune from modest beginnings.

The term “Free Capital” here refers to the corpus of savings the individuals have started with, essentially what is left over out of regular income such as salary after meeting day to day living expenses. Many of the individuals have chosen to remain anonymous in the book, with the author using dummy names instead.

Individuals who gave up day jobs to become full time investors

All of the investors have taken a different path to success. There are some who make broad macro calls such as on cyclical industries or commodity prices. Others use a bottom up approach, studying company fundamentals to exploit gaps between price and value. Some are day traders, investing for periods from just a few minutes to a few hours, while there are others who take upto 25 percent stakes in their target companies and put pressure on the managements to change course and create value. To each, his own. The book amply demonstrates that when it comes to investing, there is no One Way that is the Right Way to success. You have to choose what suits your style and temperament, and evolve over a period of time.

Despite these differences in investing styles, it is interesting to see some common patterns emerge from the profiles of these investors. There are similarities in personality traits and even personal backgrounds in many – though not all – cases.

This is not a typical investment book, though there surely are many nuggets of investing wisdom. The book does not seek to teach how to invest, or provide a roadmap for making successful investments.  The book narrates the personal stories of profiled individuals, as brought out from their own detailed interviews and the author’s external research on them. Free Capital is a small book that you can easily finish off in a few sittings.

If you are looking for an inspiration in your investing journey, this book will do the job.

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

Every company claims it is customer centric, but have you ever seen a CEO keep an empty chair at management meetings to represent the customer?

Welcome to Amazon, and the cult of Jeff Bezos. 

“The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” by Brad Stone is an extremely well researched, almost biographical account of Amazon.com, and its founder Jeff Bezos. Aided by dozens of interviews (including some with Bezos himself) with former and current employees, suppliers, competitors, friends and relatives, family members, teachers and almost anyone who came in contact with him, the author has built an in-depth profile of Amazon and its legendary founder Jeff Bezos. The author traces the journey of Amazon right from the birth of the idea in the mid-1990s and takes the reader, often in excruciating detail till where it stood when the book was published in 2013.

The origin

It was 1994 and those were early days of the Internet. But Bezos was quick to see its potential. The idea of Amazon was simple – an internet company that served as an intermediary between customers and manufacturers, and sold every type of product all over the world. Throwing away his lucrative Wall Street job, Bezos swooped down on the opportunity and set up Amazon.com. Starting out first with selling books, Amazon soon spread itself to other categories. And the rest – as they say – is history.

The book gives a deep insight into Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos

Bezos is Amazon. Amazon is Bezos.

Bezos’ overwhelming personality is stamped all over Amazon. The story develops as a compendium of countless narratives from people who had close encounters with Bezos and brings out vividly his extraordinary personality and management style. Exceptional intelligence, competitive spirit, a volcanic temper, ruthless combative approach, an almost limitless capacity to put in hard effort and an outlandish ambition (Bezos is also “working to lower the cost of space flight to build a future where we humans can explore the solar system firsthand and in person”, by the way) - this is what defines Bezos. The book portrays him as an extremely difficult micromanager to work for, setting very high standards that others struggle to meet. Bezos’ personality style has ensured a ‘confrontationist’ culture at Amazon. Bezos abhors social cohesion – the natural impulse to seek consensus.  Yet, the author says, former Amazon employees often consider their days at Amazon the most productive time of their career. “Colleagues were smart, work culture was challenging and there were constant opportunities for learning” says one of them.

Customer First

How did Amazon manage to grow at such a breakneck speed? How did Amazon succeed where others didn’t? Bezos realized that e-Commerce had the potential to understand its customers in a way brick & mortar merchants can never do. “We are genuinely customer centric, genuinely long term oriented and genuinely like to invent”, Bezos is quoted in the book as saying, building Amazon on the edifice of a few clearly defined and religiously followed founding principles – customer obsession, frugality, bias for action, ownership, a high bar for talent and innovation. Among this, extreme customer centricity comes out repeatedly as the single most defining character that distinguishes Amazon from others.  “There are two kinds of retailers – those who work to figure out how to charge more, and those who try to figure out how to charge less. We are in the second category. Period.”

Tech, not Retail

Bezos visualizes Amazon as a technology company, not a retailer. A key element of Amazon’s success has been Bezos’ constant focus on innovation. Negative reviews, referral fees, platform services, the Amazon Marketplace – Amazon claims many a firsts to its credit, though it was not the only or even the first online bookstore to start operations. Complex algorithms studying customer behavior, calculating cheapest & fastest shipping routes, crawling the web to keep a tab on competitor prices – all have played a crucial role in Amazon’s success. Yet, Bezos struggled to present Amazon as a technology company pioneering e-Commerce until much later when businesses like the Cloud and Kindle came along. With Cloud, Bezos dreamt of ‘a student in a dorm room having at his disposal the same infrastructure as the largest companies in the world’. And true to it, it facilitated the creation of thousands of internet startups, pulling out the tech sector from a post dot.com depression in the early 2000s.

A must read

As I write this review in early 2018, Jeff Bezos has already surpassed the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to become the richest man in the world. And while the others may well be past their prime, the Amazon story has only just begun.

Book review: Hit Refresh

Can elephants dance? Satya Nadella, only the 3^rd CEO in Microsoft’s history certainly thinks so, as he narrates the story of how he is trying to inject new life into Microsoft’s soul.

Once nearly synonymous with personal computing, Microsoft lost its mojo in the last decade as mobile phones literally gatecrashed into our lives and became the primary channel to access everything from music to internet. Many had written off Microsoft at this stage, but Satya narrates how he is breathing new life into the company, changing attitudes and bringing in new paradigms.

Microsoft, is changing, and making the world an even better place for us

The book starts on a personal note as the author traces his origins from childhood in the small towns of India to his entry into Microsoft headquarters in Seattle in the early 1990s and his eventual rise to the top in 2014. The author is modest in often acknowledging the role of luck in his success, pointing out how he always found himself at the right place at the right time. Son of a civil servant, the author narrates his fascination for cricket and early leadership lessons he took from the game. There are stories from the ups & downs in his personal life, like meeting the love of his life, and the trying circumstances surrounding the birth of the first child. 

This is a book about transformation, one that is taking place within him and also within the company. What was the situation at Microsoft when Satya took over? What did he inherit? And what is it that he wants to change? Trying to bring about culture change in such a big organization is not easy, it is a painfully slow grind but the author’s efforts have slowly started showing results. There is now a renewed growth mindset. Several key events and decisions, such as the launch of Windows 10, learnings from the Nokia acquisition and corporate dispute with Samsung etc. are described, giving an insight into the author’s personality and working style. The author shows how his seemingly unconventional decisions to partner arch-rivals such as Apple or Google have paid off. Surprisingly, even in this dispassionate world of coding and corporate strategy, Empathy keeps repeating itself.

And thankfully, the book doesn’t end here!

In the latter sections, the author takes a deep dive into technologies of the future, and how Microsoft is “trying to imagine a better future for everyone”. It is this that I liked the most. The author writes about three things Microsoft is betting on – Mixed Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing. What are they? What can they do? And where are we – the human race - heading? These are topics not just for the geeks. The author shows how these technologies will become essential tools in everything we do – from education to medicine, or help us fight cancer or global warming. Going beyond pure computing, technologies of the future will not only help us see, hear and analyze, but also “make us feel”. Does this mean machines will eventually ‘take over’ - as some fear? Or will they only augment human capabilities to make this world an even better place for all of us? It is this ‘Human vs. Machines’ OR ‘Human + Machines’ debate that is currently the rage the world over, and the author assures us there is nothing to fear from the future.

In recent times, the growth of technology has also thrown up difficult issues surrounding privacy, security and free speech. The author discusses delicate issues such as privacy of user data and government surveillance, the dilemma between privacy vs. security, individual freedom and liberty vs. public safety. The author rues that laws always lag technological changes, causing friction between Regulation and the Corporation. The role of companies in modern society is also discussed.

As they say, ultimately the best way to predict the future is to invent it. And that is what Microsoft is doing. 

Do give this book a read – it did change my perception of Microsoft, and our future - for the better.

Book review: How Google Works

What makes Google the company that it is? How can a company come to play so important a role in our lives in so little a time? “How Google Works” is a remarkable revelation of the secret sauce that the company is made of. Written by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg – two Google veterans – the book gives an inside view of how Google has created an operating model that is so successful. Schmidt was the Google CEO during its crucial formative years from 2001 to 2011 and is presently its Executive Chairman (of Alphabet). Jonathan was the Head of Products and oversaw Google’s blockbuster products Google Search, Google Ads, Gmail, Android, Chrome etc. during the period.

Google has created an operating model that is impossible to replicate

Written in simple language and lucid style, the book narrates how Google has turned conventional wisdom of corporate management upside down while delivering remarkable results. Issues such as corporate culture, strategy & planning, hiring practices, decision making and communications are explained in detail. Through stories and anecdotes, the book brings alive the company in front of the reader. What can you say about a company which believes ‘processes are bad’, you should ‘fail quickly if you want to’, ‘a top priority should be offices should be crowded’ or ‘messiness is usually a good sign’? The authors’ views on key corporate issues such as team sizes, compensation systems, meeting rules, rules for e-mails etc. will provide useful insights to modern day managers.

The roots for Google’s success are sowed right from when an employee is recruited. There is tremendous emphasis on recruiting the right person. As the authors say, interviewing is one of the most important skills that managers need to have. The urgency of the role isn’t sufficiently important to compromise for quality on hiring. Google wants candidates who have “comfort with ambiguity, bias to action and collaborative nature”. The section on interviewing is the one I liked the most.

It was also interesting to see Google’s emphasis on product excellence, user focus and on issues such as integrity. “Selling a thing to a customer she doesn’t need or doesn’t benefit from” is an integrity issue at Google and is ‘…against the basic interest of the company’. I am sure this will make many a sales and marketing managers squirm!

A key challenge for Google over the years has been to retain that start-up culture while it achieves scale. How does Google manage that? As the authors say at the beginning, “…the only way to succeed in business in the 21^st century is to create great products, and the only way to do that is to attract smart creatives and put them in an environment where they can succeed at scale. …In a large company it becomes more and more difficult to create that environment…forces in a large company can actively conspire against those…who are trying to do something different”. It is these forces that Google has successfully conquered. 

For managers, HR professionals and all corporate watchers in general, this book is a ‘must read’.

Book review: The Inevitable

What comes to your mind someone says ‘technologies of the future’? Think blockchain, driverless cars, Artificial Intelligence, 3-D printing, drones…. I recently happened to read “the Inevitable” by Kevin Kelly, a futurist and the Founding Editor of the Wired magazine. The sub-title of this book said “Understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future”. This is a review of the same. A more concise review has been put up on the Amazon website.

When I picked up this book, I was expecting a deep dive – or at least a comprehensive introduction to technologies (not specifically the ones mentioned above but whatever else) the esteemed author thinks will come to shape our future. However, that was not to be.

The book revolves around what I may loosely call for want of a better term, the ‘Internet–AI–Cloud–Analytics complex’ and various things that are being achieved combining these. The “12 trends” that the author talks about are different manifestations of using the same: 

1. Becoming – a process of constantly changing, evolving, improving

2. Cognifying – How AI is being injected into everything around us 

3. Flowing – Everything is information, copied multiple times and flowing seamlessly around the world over the internet 

4. Screening – More and more screens will enter our lives – from digital books to VR goggles to living room and building walls etc. 

5. Accessing – Access will become more important than possession or ownership 

6. Sharing – Open source software, social media collaboration, aggregator sites, crowd funding etc.

7. Filtering – Since there is an abundance of everything (information age), it will all need to be filtered 

8. Remixing – Mixing multiple elements of different media to create new things, findability, rewindability etc. 

9. Interacting – VR, and one step beyond it to Augmented Reality (AR) 

10. Tracking – From intelligent devices tracking our body to “lifestreaming”, “lifelogging” etc. End of privacy. 

11. Questioning – the most unlikely things will happen and we will need to constantly keep questioning 

12. Beginning – the changes which are on our way are so mindboggling that we are beginning anew

These one liners do not do full justice to the depth to which the author has gone, but I wanted to give a glimpse of what really the author means by technology “trends” and how they differ from technologies or specific technology developments. 

Indeed what the Google-Facebook-Netflix-Amazons of the world are doing is quite remarkable. But beyond a point, the 12 trends appear to be a regurgitation of the same underlying technological capability. The book keeps coming back to the same names again and again, at times making it difficult to distinguish one chapter from another. 

To be sure, there is nothing wrong in what the author has written, but this is not what I was expecting. On the whole, a bit of a disappointment.

Beyond the obvious

Is allowing FDI in multi-brand Retail good for the country? What is the true impact of raising diesel prices or restricting LPG subsidy on the people? Should telecom spectrum and coal mines be auctioned to the highest bidder, or should they be allocated cheaply so that the price paid by the ultimate consumer (for telephone services and electricity) is kept low? Should rail fares be raised? Should the Central Bank reduce interest rates to stimulate industry and make loans cheaper? Should the government act against airlines who fleece passengers by charging exorbitant fares during peak season? Should the government explicitly promote export oriented industries that earn precious foreign exchange? Should cheap imports from countries like China be banned to protect domestic industry? Is the government right in spending thousands of crores on welfare schemes like MGNREGA? Questions such as these are debated daily, and are of interest not only to politicians and bureaucrats who decide on these, but also to citizens whose lives are affected.

How does one take a stand on all these? How does one decide what is right and what is wrong? How does one assess the impact of these decisions – beyond the immediate fallout that we can see (such as, for example, that one would pay more for diesel if diesel prices are raised)? Do these decisions have implications that are beyond the obvious? How do we know what will work out best for us in the long run?

“Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt is a remarkable book by any means. Written in such a simple language that even a layman can understand, Hazlitt unravels the mysteries of economic decisions and their long run effects on the health of the economy and welfare in general. Hazlitt explains how markets work, how people behave, how governments decide and what they do to the very people they seek to assist. Hazlitt gives a framework that enables the reader to analyze the long run impact of such decisions, including that  which is not so obvious but nevertheless very important.

Hazlitt's remarkable book should
be compulsory reading for all

The book is divided into twenty five chapters, each dealing with a distinct topic such as taxation, effects of mechanization, import tariffs, export promotion, government price fixing, inflation, and so on. Hazlitt explains the basic principles underlying these actions and the impact of these on the economic activity as a result. Hazlitt uncovers not only that which is seen, but also that which is not seen. In Hazlitt’s own words, “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely on one group but for all groups”

It is amazing how much ignorance about economic issues is prevalent even among the policymakers today. Take the following paragraph from the chapter on government price fixing, for example. You might want to read it in the context of the current mess in India’s Oil & Gas sector, but keep in mind that Hazlitt’s small book was written in 1946!

Hazlitt writes, and I quote, “We cannot hold the price of any commodity below its market level without in time bringing about two consequences. The first is to increase the demand for that commodity. Because the commodity is cheaper, people are both tempted to buy, and can afford to buy more of it. The second is to reduce supply of that commodity. Because people buy more, the accumulated supply is more quickly taken from the shelves of merchants. In addition to this, production of that commodity is discouraged. Profit margins are reduced or wiped out. Marginal producers are driven out of business….if we did nothing else, therefore, the consequence of fixing a maximum price of a particular commodity would be to bring about a shortage of that commodity. But this is precisely opposite of what the government regulators originally wanted to do…. Some of these consequences in time become apparent to the regulators, who then adopt various other devices and controls in an attempt to avert them. Among these devices are rationing, cost-control, subsidies and universal price fixing.” Hazlitt then goes on to systematically demolish each of these.

As we all know, relying on the promise of deregulation, billions of dollars were spent on all stages of the oil & gas value chain in India, from exploration to refining to pipelines to storage & distribution. But the country still doesn’t have enough of what it needs. Most of the capacity in the private sector has been shut or is on the verge of closure, the public sector survives on huge doles of support from tax payer’s money. People don't have enough of what they want and the private producers have all but fled, all because of faulty price fixing.

It is remarkable that such a storehouse of knowledge can be crunched in such a small book and explained so lucidly. This book should be compulsory reading for all the lawmakers who decide our future, and for all of us who choose them.