Information and Communication Technology has been the primary driver of innovation and engineering advances during the last four decades. The dominance is to such an extent that the term technology today refers to these fields, though there are several other engineering disciplines that continue to exist! I am fortunate to have started my professional career in information technology and am enjoying being part of it for more than twenty years. Unlike any other technology domain that emerged as new hotspot since the industrial revolution 200 years back, the entry barrier for information technology is extremely low that allowed passionate technologists to launch their enterprises from garages. And combine this with the success of venture capital industry from 1970s, start-ups have been the primary source of innovation in the technology industry since the advent of personal computing with Intel 8080 processor.

While I have not worked for start-ups so far, I strongly believe that start-up lessons can help enterprises improve their ability to succeed while creating new products. In this blog, I will share my notes from “Zero to One”, one of the best books on start-up philosophy written by Peter Thiel, a successful entrepreneur himself.

“Zero to One” has an explanation for most of the new technology trends during the last twenty years coming from start-ups. From the Founding Fathers in politics to the Royal Society in science to Fairchild Semiconductor’s “traitorous eight” in business, small groups of people bound together by a sense of mission have changed the world for the better. The easiest explanation for this is negative: it’s hard to develop new things in big organizations, and it’s even harder to do it by yourself. Bureaucratic hierarchies move slowly, and entrenched interests shy away from risk. In the most dysfunctional organizations, signaling that work is being done becomes a better strategy for career advancement than actually doing work. At the other extreme, a lone genius might create a classic work of art or literature, but could never create an entire industry. Startups operate on the principle that you need to work with other people to get stuff done, but you also need to stay small enough so that you actually can. Clayton Christensen has provided similar explanation in his book “The Innovator’s Dilemma” through the concept of “disruptive innovation” and how most companies miss out on new waves of innovation. Does it mean big companies cannot develop new things? They can, as long as they enable the teams focused on building new things to operate like a start-up without burdening them with bureaucracy and creativity sapping processes.

Peter Thiel suggests that we must abandon the following four dogmas created after dot-com crash that still guide start-up business thinking today:

1. Make incremental advances: Small increments using agile methods has far better chances of success today than waterfall world.
2. Stay lean and flexible: Avoid massive plan and execute model. Instead, iterative development helps stay nimble and deliver through meaningful experimentation.
3. Improve on competition: New things are invariably improvements on recognizable products already offered by successful competitors.
4. Focus on product, not sales: Technology is primarily about product development, not distribution.

But having seen a number of projects in large enterprises, I would say that sticking to these principles by default and making exceptions only for compelling reasons is better.

When it comes to creating new software products for a market, don’t build an undifferentiated commodity business but one that’s so good at what it does that no other product can offer a close substitute. Google is a good example of a company that went from zero to one, after distancing from Microsoft and Yahoo almost 20 years back and became a monopoly. While monopolies sound draconian, the companies that get to the top create monopoly based on a unique value proposition they offer in their markets. So, don’t build new things unless there is a desire and plan to capture significant market share, if not monopoly. Every monopoly is unique, but they usually share some combination of the following characteristics:

• Proprietary technology
• Network effects
• Economies of scale
• Branding

Another interesting observation is around secrets: most people act as if there were no secrets left behind. With advances in Maths, Science and Technology, we know a lot more about the universe than previous generations but there are still numerous unknowns yet to be conquered. It helps to be conscious of the four social trends that have conspired to root out beliefs in secrets:

1. Incrementalism: From an early age, we are taught that the right way to do things is to proceed one very small step at a time, day by day, grade by grade. However, unlocking secrets requires us to be brutally focused on the ultimate goal rather than staying satisfied with interim milestones.
2. Risk Aversion: People are scared of secrets because they are scared of being wrong. If your goal is to never make a mistake in life, you shouldn’t look for secrets. And remember, you can’t create something new and impactful without making mistakes.
3. Complacency: Getting into a top institute or corporation is viewed as an achievement in itself with nothing more to worry and you are set for life. This leads to complacency and no more fire to unlock secrets.
4. Flatness: As globalization advances, people perceive the world as one homogenous, highly competitive marketplace and an assumption that someone else would have already found out secrets.

To summarise, when a start-up or an enterprise decides to create a new product, it should resist the temptation to go for a commodity one. It should be a product with clear differentiation that will help create a monopoly or significant market share at a minimum. This can happen only through hard work and dedication to unlock some secrets.

There is a lot more learnings from the book but I have only mentioned the key ones that can help us introspect and stay focused on our goals to create new products.

I started 2018 by completing “The Great Convergence”, an insightful account of how the share of world income going to today’s wealthy nations soared from 20% to 70%, with industrial revolution in 1820 till internet revolution around 1990. And how the combination of high tech with low wages propelled industrialization in developing nations and deindustrialization in developed nations during the last 30 years has led to a reversing of this trend. China and India have become new economic super powers after several years of growth rates far exceeding that of developed nations, resulting in convergence of the share of world income in line with population.

As I looked for the next books to read, I resolved to read recent books and my searches led to Yuval Noah Harari’s classics – Sapiens and Homo Deus. I could not stop talking about these books as you can see from my earlier blog.

I followed it with “Principles: Life and Work” by Ray Dalio, the legendary American investor and hedge fund manager. We tend to get carried away by b-school promises to provide secret formulae for career success by pursuing one of their myriad programs. From the lives of people like Ray Dalio, it is enlightening to see that pursuing our vision with discipline, focus and perseverance is the key to success!

After a few books with heavy insightful content, I switched to some relatively light reading with “The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley are Changing the World” by Brad Stone and “Crushing It!: How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence—and How You Can, Too” by Gary Vaynerchuk. I revived my Twitter account after Gary’s book but could not sustain it with my schedule.

Then I encountered one of the most profound books I ever read – “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman. I summarized my high level learnings from this classic here.

After the intense read, I switched once again to a couple of easy reads in “Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins” by Garry Kasparov and “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” by Daniel Pink.

While reading reviews on “When”, I stumbled upon “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ” by Daniel Goleman. As I read the book, there were innumerable OMG moments. This book reinforced my belief in science, explaining every conceivable action by humans. I still need to summarize my learnings from this one for future reference, but quickly jotted down an irresistible learning of being an artful critique in a blog. I started this reading this book in September and am yet to finish as I write this blog. But such has been my work schedule towards the end of the year.

As I was slowly progressing through “Emotional Intelligence”, a geek friend referred “Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel” by Michio Kaku. It gives a peek into the future – the scientists and engineers who breakthrough these barriers will be next-gen conquerors of the world!

That’s all I could cover in 2018 and started the new year with “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” by John Carreyrou and Yuval Noah Harari’s next book “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” in the backlog. Happy Reading!

I am reading a classic on Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, easily among the most profound books I encountered. I usually finish a book, assimilate the contents and start talking about them. But the chapter on “Managing with Heart” and the section “The Artful Critique” in particular holds immense relevance to a challenge encountered all the time that I am talking about it as soon as I read it!

As a leader and manager, one needs to pass critical feedback when an individual has not delivered good enough results. No one intentionally does a bad job, which makes it natural for the person receiving critical feedback to feel it is unwarranted. And worse, also feel that the person passing the feedback has a bias! To quote from “The Speed of Trust” by Steven Covey, “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior”. When critical feedback is not received well, it is likely that the intention of feedback was not understood and the behavior was interpreted as biased.

This is where “Emotional Intelligence” provides some insightful advice quoting Harry Levinson. When you have to pass critical feedback, consider the following aspects:

• Be specific – pick a significant event, an event that illustrates a key problem that needs changing or a pattern of deficiency, such as the inability to do certain parts of a job well. It demoralizes people to just hear that they are doing “something” wrong without knowing what the specifics are so they can change. Many a times, the feedback becomes a personal attack – calling someone stupid or incompetent that makes the recipient defensive and no longer receptive to suggestions. It serves well to stay specific and issue based!
• Offer a solution – feedback should also point to a way to fix the problem. Otherwise it leaves the recipient frustrated, demoralized or demotivated. It can also get to “my manager does not know the solution but expects me to find one”, questioning the capability of the manager.
• Be present – feedback is most effective face to face and in private. People who are uncomfortable giving a criticism are likely to ease the burden on themselves by doing it at a distance, such as email or phone. In person or over video makes it more personal and credible.
• Be sensitive – this is a call for empathy, for being attuned to the impact of what ones says. Managers who have little empathy, Levinson points out, are most prone to giving feedback in a hurtful manner. The net effect of such criticism is destructive, creating an emotional backlash of resentment, bitterness, defensiveness and distance.

This advice provides a template for leaders and managers to make feedback sessions more productive and useful. However, the success of this approach also depends on the recipient being open to feedback and suggestions. If the recipient is not open and feels “I am doing fine but my manager does not understand”, the situation is likely to deteriorate irrespective of how well the critical feedback is passed. This should not stop one from providing timely critical feedback and the manager does not even have a choice as providing timely feedback is an integral part of the job! So, be empathetic and do the best while providing timely critical feedback considering above aspects. If it does not work, seek help from appropriate authority!

I have read several thought provoking books but this one by Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman gives insights into our very own thought process itself. We keep hearing about stepping back to rethink and are encouraged to “think through” before acting – this book explains why they are required.

All my life, I was under the impression that intuition is a talent and a gift. After reading this book, I realized that we should be careful about our intuition and that common sense typically produces ordinary results!

My biggest learning from this book is that there are two systems that help us think and make decisions:

• System 1 – the fast paced “automatic operation” or “intuitive thought” driven by amygdala, a primitive part of our brain.
• System 2 – relatively slow paced “controlled operation” or “deliberate thought” driven by neo-cortex, the most distinctively human feature of our brain.

While invoking system 2 for any decision will ensure thorough analysis and reduce mistakes, we may not always have the luxury of time and energy required for it. So, we will have to rely on intuition for a number of day to day decisions. And this is where understanding the two types of intuition comes in handy.

• Expert intuition: Thousands of hours of practice leads to expertise – Malcom Gladwell’s “Outliers” explains this well through the 10,000 hour rule. While this rule is contested by some, it is still a good framework for understanding expertise. Now, any situation where we need to make a decision will invariably provide a cue that an expert will sub-consciously detect. This cue gives the expert access to information stored in memory and the information provides the answer. Expert intuition is just recognition!
• Heuristic intuition: When faced with a difficult question, we often substitute the original question with an easier one without noticing the substitution. The resulting easier question will be one for which we readily have an answer, which will invariably be based on our biases. I have observed many leaders form “perceptions” about people and now I understand it should be because of their heuristic intuition!

Whenever I have an intuition or gut feel nowadays, I ask myself if this is due to expert intuition or if this is influenced by heuristics or biases. Expert intuition is good – in fact, what is the point of earning expertise through hard practice if we are not going to use it! But heuristic intuition is bad, leading to bad decisions that leaders in particular should avoid as it can adversely impact their people! So, the healthy alternate is switch to slower, more deliberate and effortful form of thinking whenever we suspect heuristic intuition.

This book is a beauty and took more than a couple of months for a slow reader like me to complete. It will be a long blog post and will take several hours for me to write about everything I learnt. So, I will summarize with some quick pointers to key concepts:

• Law of least effort – if there are several ways of achieving the same goal, we will eventually gravitate to the least demanding course of action. Laziness is built deep into out nature.
• Cognitive Ease – when we are in a good mood, we are likely to be casual and superficial in our thinking. Don’t get “carried away”!
• Jumping to conclusions is efficient if the conclusions are likely to be correct and the costs of an occasional mistake is acceptable, and if the jump saves much time and effort. It is risky when the situation is unfamiliar and the stakes are high.
• The law of small numbers – statistics can help when the sample size is large enough and comprehensively representative. Conclusions made based on small numbers will not be prudent as they assume a simpler world than reality and ignore that many facts are due to “chance”.
• Regression to the mean – whenever someone produces extraordinary and outstanding results, an element of chance is likely to be one of the reasons. Over a period of time, the results will converge towards the average.
• Illusion of understanding – hindsight information is often misunderstood as prophetic knowledge. A number of books that analyze past events and postulate a recipe for future success have fallen flat over a period of time. A classic example will be “Build to last” – the gap in corporate profitability and stock returns between the outstanding and the less successful firms studied in this book shrank to almost nothing subsequently! How about this? – the CEO of a successful company is likely to be called flexible, methodical and decisive. If the firm slips the next year, the same executive will be called confused, rigid and authoritarian! The same actions can be conveniently depicted in positive or negative terms creating an illusion of profound understanding of the presenter!
• Prospect theory, loss aversion & the endowment effect – These are profound concepts:
  • Reference points exist – A specific amount of money does not have the same value for everyone. A person earning $1000 a month will be a lot more excited about $100 than someone who earns $10,000 a month. This explains why hikes are measured in % rather than absolute amounts!
  • Losses loom larger than gains – we give up on gains more readily than incur losses. A reason why people cling on to losing propositions for long and end of losing even more rather than exit early to cut losses!
  • A luxury becomes a necessity over a period of time as we get used to it.

There is a lot more to read and learn from this book, which is currently #1 best seller under Cognitive Psychology eTextbooks in Amazon. I have just provided an appetizer here and the book will be the main course. And I promise the main course will be much better than the appetizer. Go for it!

The first book I read on anthropology was Guns, Germs & Steel, way back in 2005. While I enjoyed the insights and talked about it for a long time, it was not yet time for me to develop my reading habit. So, it took half a dozen years before I started on the next anthropology book – Collapse, incidentally by the same author Jared Diamond. By this time I was quite deep into reading non-fiction and a steady stream of great books enriched my knowledge across history and anthropology. Special mention among them would go to The Naked Ape and Origin of Species for being focused on anthropology.

By the end of 2017, I became a believer of science and encountered two enlightening books by Yuval Noah Harari that took my understanding to the next level. Sapiens gave concrete shape to the vague idea I had around how humans came to rule the world. And its sequel Home Deus painted a plausible picture of what future holds for us! It was sheer awesomeness to realize that the beginning of history was only 70,000 years ago with cognitive revolution. And how lucky we are to have gotten the accidental genetic mutations that changed inner wiring of our brains! It is difficult to comprehend that before cognitive revolution, history was just biology, with human life following predetermined pattern like any other animal – dictated by instructions encoded in their DNA!

One should read the book to appreciate the profoundness. The insights at the end of the book are compelling, comparing conventional thinking with contemporary science.

Now that I am wiser, what next? Time to embrace the prophecy and prepare for the future! I started learning TensorFlow and instantly understood that the future of programming is in machine learning. As I started appreciating science, I also realized that Mathematics enables science. Math skills are becoming increasingly key to success in computer science and programming.  And Math skills are fundamental to machine learning! Lot more to learn and that keeps life interesting!!!

As I wrote the blog on books I enjoyed in 2016, the realization stuck that I had slipped from reading habit during the previous year and a half. After finishing more than two dozen books each in 2013 and 2014, I had read only a couple of them in 2015. While I thought it was primarily due to extensive time spent during the weekends for cycling / running / recovery time, it also coincided with my taking up a new job towards the end of 2014. It took another year to sense knowledge debt building up again as my effectiveness as a speaker and motivator for my teams diminished a bit. When I read a book on leadership or anthropology, I immediately relate it to events around me and apply some of the learnings. This happens sub-consciously and I realized it only when while introspecting on recently diminished effectiveness.

In April 2017, I made efforts to restart my reading habit and made one of the best investments in recent times when I bought Kindle Paperwhite. I would later know from “The Everything Store” on strategic thought process from Jeff Bezos and Amazon that went in building an eBook Reader that would be affordable with a comprehensive book store behind it. I can vouch for it after using it for about ten months. You can pretty much find any English book ever published  and at a price that is most competitive! With backlight, I can now read without disturbing the rest of my family and e-ink technology lets Kindle run for days together on a single charge! I might sound like an Amazon marketer, but really admire the value Kindle brings with it!!!

I started with “Great by Choice”, a book by Jim Collins whose “Good to Great” was one of the books that got me interested in non-fiction. It was on familiar Jim Collins style and I could relate to some of the principles that I always followed in my life. No wonder I am great! – just kidding. It was just reassuring to know that some of my principles are good for long-term success. The quote from Roald Amundsen, the first man to The South Pole will always be etched in my memory: “Victory awaits him who has everything in order – luck people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precaution in time; this is called bad luck”.

From “Great by  Choice”, I got reference to another couple of fantastic books that demonstrated Jim Collin’s theory about the best leaders being more disciplined, more empirical and more paranoid. They were the next books I read – “Scott And Amundsen: The Last Place on Earth” and “Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Everest Disaster”.

It was then time for “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry”. I got this from reading recommendations given by one of the senior leaders in my organization.

After my Europe trip, I wanted to know more about the history of Europe and particularly on what happened to Roman Civilization. It took almost four months to complete all the six volumes of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” written by Edward Gibbon in 1770. A true classic like “The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin and worth the effort.

After immersing in history for several months, I wanted to read about some contemporary achievements and went back to the reading recommendations. I read books on two of the modern great companies on Technology space – “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” and “The Google Story”. In between, I also finished “Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone” within a few weeks of Satya Nadella releasing it. All of them reinforced the need for discipline, work ethic and team work – there is no short cut to success! That rounded up 2017, a fulfilling year for reading good books. As I write this, I already finished reading “The Great Convergence” that I got referred from Hit Refresh. More about that when I write about by 2018 experience.

My reading list from 2017: