Highly recommend this for every knowledge worker out there.

My key takeaway: To engage deeply with work, we need three key elements:
1. Autonomy – the chance to do things our own way, follow our instincts and feel like we matter
2. Mastery – a sense of growing confidence and competence, informed by rapid feedback that lets us understand whether what we’re doing is ‘working’
3.  Purpose – the feeling that our work is having a genuine impact, and contributing meaningfully to something bigger, and part of a greater good, whether that’s for our colleagues, clients, or society at large

When all three come together, the depth of our motivation can inspire us to overcome all sorts of challenges, helping us navigate times of change and respond to setbacks with determination and resilience.

I spent the first few years of my professional life in the social sector. And, I was a huge fan of Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of Acumen Fund. She's just such a fantastic storyteller and has made cool the concept of business with purpose and patient capital.

In the Manifesto for a Moral Revolution, Jacqueline Novogratz convinces us, as 21st century professionals to invest in building meaningful, positive change in the world by prioritizing moral leadership, empathy, and innovation alongside profit. She draws on her decades of experience building Acumen and investing in large social businesses, meeting visionary founders to share principles such as moral imagination, building courage like a muscle, and embracing the tension in opposing values to create meaningful, sustainable leadership.

If you're a business history and business model junkie like me, you're sure to love this book. Written by David Brown from the famous Business Wars podcast by Wonderly, this book is even better than the podcast. Goes into details on the famous business rivalries, using Sun Tzu’s Art of War principles as a framework for strategy, resilience, and innovation.

Some of the engaging spotlights include iconic business battles like Netflix vs. Blockbuster, Uber vs. Lyft, Nintendo vs. Atari, and Southwest vs. legacy airlines, and more. It leaves you with important leadership lessons relevant to anyone in business, from startup founders to large company professionals, emphasizing decisive action, enduring adversity, and learning from failure.

Loved reading The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen with simple mental models and real life startup examples to break down seemingly complicated business terms.

For instance, he nailed simplifying this concept on growth hacking. What's sometimes referred to as escape velocity.

Escape Velocity: Once products reach their tipping point, they scale their growth rapidly i.e. phase of escape velocity.

It is actually three distinct underlying forces:

1.Acquisition effect which lets products tap into the network to drive low-cost, highly efficient user acquisition via viral growth. Eg. PayPay acquisition by eBay to enable sellers to auction easily, almost like a verified badge.

2. Engagement effect, which increases interaction between users as networks fill in. Retention is much easier than acquiring new customers. Simple things like a weekly activity summary propel engagement. Solving easily for use cases like 'forgot password,' which isn't the big problem in early stages but makes a whole difference to retain/ continue to engage.

3. Economic effect, which improves monetization levels and conversion rates as the network grows. Eg. Driver referrals with details on payout, easy user flow to aid Uber's network to grow.

I enjoyed Hidden Potential by Adam Grant. Not because it changed my thought process or was revolutionary, but kind of clarified the thought process, reinforced it and is a simple read.

My key takeaway - Character is often confused with personality, but they’re not the same. Personality is your predisposition —your basic instincts for how to think, feel, and act. Character is your capacity to prioritise your values over your instincts.

How do you develop character?
It starts in school. Debunking the popular narrative that early academic prowess is the sole predictor of future success, Grant points instead to important intangible qualities that are vital for future career success: dispositions like
- discipline and
- determination and
- being proactive and
- prosocial

These are perhaps the best indicators of future success. And, unfortunately there's little we do nurture and measure this, as against acing the alphabets or numbers or country capitals.

Developing these skills, he says, can’t happen in a vacuum. “You need the opportunity and motivation to nurture them.” Schools, for example, should be challenging students to push through academic struggle and discomfort, and rethinking grading practices so they highlight not just performance but growth over time.

I picked up Half A Billion Rising by Anirudha Dutta written nearly ten years ago and can't recommend it enough.

The author is an unconventional writer, an equity research analyst for more than two decades. The stories from his travels across India are vivid and relatable. He noticed the changing face of women in India, who are more confident and aspirational and studied the potential economic impact of this in a changing society. And yet, the society is far from perfect, as this was written in the aftermath of the horrific Nirbhaya case. A decade later, I see not much has changed. We had the recent horrific rape in R G Kar medical college and while women continue to work hard and grow ambitions, the ecosystem seems to be stuck in a rut.

Sharing below an excerpt from the book's introduction, which provides an excellent context. Would love a refresh of the book to see how we've progressed over the last decade Anirudha Dutta.

"Girls and women in India have had eminent status and positions of power from ancient to modern times, in mythology and in real life. Consider this: the gods of learning, wealth and power are all women. During the independence movement and after independence we have had some very powerful and successful women political leaders like Sarojini Naidu, Vijay Lakshmi Pandit, and Indira Gandhi. Unlike most of their male counterparts, and irrespective of whether we agree with their politics or not, leaders like Jayalalithaa, Mayawati and Mamata Banerjee who have emerged over the last three decades are self-made. And it is not just in the field of politics. Take corporate India as well. In recent years many of the large financial institutions and banks, both in the private and public sector, have been led by women CEOs, a record that is globally unprecedented.

It would be easy to conclude that women in India enjoy an exalted status of respect and equality. But this is far from the truth. There has been a wide gulf in the power, esteem and respect that women deities in the Hindu pantheon and a few women in different walks of public life enjoy and what an average girl or woman has to endure through her life.

But this cycle is changing and breaking down for good. We are at the cusp of a once in a lifetime change. What is increasingly evident is the rise of woman power in India as women get more educated, better informed, more empowered and traditional barriers collapse to give them near equal, if not equal, opportunities. Increasingly one sees and hears of women taking up formal corporate roles in managerial and technical positions as against traditional jobs like teachers and office assistants. The change has been long overdue.

India is home to 586 million women, just over 17 per cent of the world's total number of women. So the developments and changes in the lives of women, socially and economically, are of importance not only to India but to the world at large.'"

We spend way too much time debating and discussing things that change in an everchanging world, when actually we should focus on what stays same.

And that's why, Morgan Housel is genius for calling it out in his book Same as Ever.

There a story about Warren Buffet talking to a friend in late 2009: "Jim, do you know what the best selling candy bar was in 1962?"

"No," said Jimm

"Snickers," Warren said. "And do you know what the bestselling bar is today?"

"No," said Jim.

"Snickers," Warren said.

Another story on one of my favorite founders. Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder once said that he's often asked what's going to change in the next ten years. But, he's almost never asked "What's not going to change in the next ten years." And, the second question is actually the more important of the two. Bezos said it's impossible to imagine a future where customers don't want low prices and fast shipping, and that's why Amazon invested heavily in those things.

I have worked for Amazon for 5 years but still enjoyed this read! Really recommend both Amazonians and non-Amazonians to pick this book up to understand what makes Amazon this great innovation machine.

My biggest takeaway from this book about Amazon's success over the years has been "Single Threaded Leadership." I've also been seeing this first hand in how teams are organised to deliver key projects in Amazon India.

"The best way to fail at inventing something is by making it somebody’s part-time job." David Limp, former Senior Vice President of Devices and Service at Amazon.

Here's an excellent example of Fulfilled by Amazon that will stick and make the case.

"Initially known as Self-Service Order Fulfillment (SSOF), its purpose was to offer Amazon's warehouse and shipping services to merchants. Rather than handling the storing, picking, packing and shipping themselves, the merchants would send it to Amazon and we would handle the logistics from there. The executives in the retail and operations teams thought it was a big, interesting idea but for well over a year it did not gain significant traction. It was always "coming soon."

Finally, in 2005, Jeff Wilke, former COO at Amazon, asked Tom Taylor to drip good other responsibilities and gave him approval to hire and staff a team. Only then did SSOF take off, finally becoming Fulfilment by Amazon, which became a huge success as we know it today. Third party sellers loved it because by offering then warehouse shave for their products, Amazon turned warehousing into a variable cost for them instead of a fixed cost."

I remembering reading about Indra Nooyi as a young teen from almost 20 years ago from a newspaper cut-out kept aside by my father when she was announced CEO of PepsiCo. My father had made this a habit for sharing important news with me. Though I don't remember the content, it left a mark. 

Recently, I picked up My Life in Full based on Nooyi's life, work, family and philosophy and have left re-inspired. 

Hence, sharing my top takeaways from the read.

1. It's a pity that our best talent from India leave to be "successful".
Nooyi observes: "In a way, the US got India's very best, students who had been educated in elite institutions subsidized by the Indian government." While some domestic green shoots have emerged recently, from my sample set of intelligent hardworking friends from school, college and work, most are settled in or vying a near term transfer to the US, where they find careers/life that values them better. It's a pity and massive economic loss.

2. A respectful environment at leadership meetings is an underrated litmus test of corporate culture.
Nooyi narrates an incident at PepsiCo where every quarter she was confronted with hostility in a big meeting when presenting to twelve company leaders, all men, despite her analyses consistently being proven correct. This added to unwarranted stress. Finally, Nooyi went up to then CEO to put in her resignation "I've put up with countless meetings where I have been humiliated. I won't deal with this anymore. I don't want anything from PepsiCo. I'm just going." What ensued was intervention from the CEO. And, though Nooyi spoke up and had leverage, most will agree, this isn't isolated and most up and coming professionals rarely have this "in".

3. In the book introduction, Nooyi shares: "Many young people, worried about how they will manage it all, are choosing not to have children. I find this detail sad. With everything I have accomplished, my greatest joy was having children."
As a young working mother of a three year old myself, it's always crazy. Yet, after a long day at work, nothing cheers me more than a big hug from my daughter. And, I've been close to quitting in my parenting journey. There's a lot that companies can do to help to make things easier.

4. Love and respect to the families is more valuable than a great paycheck.
Nooyi shares examples of and reactions to the hundreds of notes she wrote as CEO to the parents of executives for the gift of their child to PepsiCo. Similarly to spouses of her direct reports. The personalised and thoughtfulness of this gesture speaks volumes to the legacy she left as a leader.

5. Being overprepared is the sign of an involved leader.
Once, as CFO, she was to sign a large investment for a major IT re-haul. While she had commissioned the project herself, she couldn't get herself to sign without knowing the details and so missed her planned holidays to study, followed by questions to the team and gave her go-ahead once satisfied. Her advice "don't be a pass-through."

If you have to read one book only, I recommend reading this one. For sure.