• Books,  Excerpts

    Excerpts from “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight

    After completing the book on Elon Musk, started reading this amazing memoir by Phil Knight. The book is very gripping, especially getting to know the emotions in various situations, world tour planning, relationship with Bowerman, Pre, Johnson, Strasser, Hayes, Woodell, the details of law suits, managing the persistent situation of “Pay Nissho first”, etc. etc. I would highly recommend this book for any entrepreneur at any phase, and this book really fits the “entrepreneurial thinking” philosophy. [Page 21] The junk merchant doesn’t sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer. [23] I was a linear thinker, and according to Zen linear thinking is nothing but a delusion, one…

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  • Books

    Excerpts from “Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of Spacex and Tesla is Shaping our Future” by Ashlee Vance

    After finishing the book “The Everything Store”, I started reading another book, I probably completed about 40 – 50 pages, the book was super heavy and a lot of new terms to digest, I will write a blog on this book, if I do end up finishing it!!! So was looking for a break, and picked up this 360 pages book on Elon Musk. Thanks to Dhruv Kuchal for giving this book to me in Summer / Fall 2019. Dhruv, one of our Research Associates #classof2019 is currently a Ph.D. CS student at GaTech. [page 9] “I [Elon] think there are probably too many smart people pursuing Internet stuff, finance,…

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  • Books

    Excerpts from “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” by Brad Stone

    Wrapped this amazing 432 pages book over the weekend! Here are some compelling lines from the book: [Page 49] Bezos told his parents there was a 70 percent chance they could lose it all. ‘I want you to know what the risks are, because I still want to come home for Thanksgiving if this doesn’t work’ he said. [92] Physically, I’m a chicken. Mentally, I’ bold. [115] They agreed on five core values and wrote them down on whiteboard in a conference room: customer obsession, frugality, bias for action, ownership, and high bar for talent. [160] [167] ‘If you’re not good, Jeff will chew you up and spit you out.…

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  • Books

    Excerpts from “Mind Master: Winning Lessons From A Champion’s Life” by Viswanathan Anand

    Just finished the book “Mind Master: Winning Lessons From A Champion’s Life” by Viswanathan Anand. Thanks Vishy for sharing the inside story of your raise, fall, tips, etc. I especially loved the insights on the games you lost, which unwraps qualities needed to take failures! Touching to read about Chennai, I grew up in Chennai too 🙂 Some compelling lines from the book: [Page 25] My mother and I would take them to and from the club, and a good game meant that I would be treated to a bucket of ice cream with tiny chunks of jelly and nuts in it at the parlour right next to our house.…

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  • Books,  ProfGiri,  Reading

    #Books: Life, Productivity, Biography, and India

    Even though I would like to read more, last few months have been productive in terms of reading books compared to the past, here are some excerpts (that are profound and relatable) from interesting books that I finished recently. Life Once in a while I look at the books suggested by Bill Gates, in one of his list, there was “Life Is What You Make It” by Peter Buffett. I have read / seen a lot of videos about Warren Buffett (more on this in future blog); I went and checked their relationship to find Peter was Warren’s son. I read some reviews of the book and then decided to…

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