The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommended by Bill Gates as one of the business books that he’d actually recommend someone about how to run a business. And sure enough, the book gives you that narrative from Robert Iger. I picked this book as I generally enjoy reading memoirs and specifically about global business. Even with that, it takes a while for the book to engage you. Probably because Iger might not be as well-known or popular CEO as other names that come to your mind like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, etc when you think of CEOs. Another reason might be because of the lack of knowledge about the sheer scale of The Walt Disney Company.
Unless you’ve followed or grown up watching the ABC network shows or Disney, this book doesn’t grow on you until Chapter 4 about Disney. A lot of times the content didn’t seem very relatable and hence difficult to continue reading. Also after reading the book, it seems like Iger has been a relatively low-key or underrated CEO. This is partly corroborated by the rigorously long and repeated interviews he’d to been subject to for the position of Disney’s CEO after having worked as the COO with the previous CEO Michael Eisner. The lack of that rockstar or eccentric streak might make the book a mundane read.
However the book is a tremendous illustration of the long and enduring principles followed by Iger during his tenure at ABC and subsequently Disney. It serves as a reminder that not all CEOs have the mad streak or make a lot of noise and still run colossal companies with perpetually changing global landscape in face of incredible challenges with dignity, grace and respect. And as vouched by Bill Gates, this book has some remarkably valuable lessons to live and work by.
If you’re not interested in reading the entire story about Iger or ABC Television or Disney and just want to learn the lessons or philosophy to live by then simply refer the Appendix section about ‘Lessons to live by’. Very useful and pragmatic lessons enlisted by Iger for easy reference.
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Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A book of success. For today’s computer scientist, it’s more like a book of machine learning application (haha.. I know I didn’t have to include this analogy :P..) - bunch of features related to the person himself/herself, the society they were born in, the date, time, year, family and place of birth, their class and all other imaginable and unimaginable things all end up contributing to the person’s life - success, failure and everything that happens to them.
While this seems very obvious right now, it’s not always how people tend to perceive success stories. More often than not, we see different sorts of books which illustrate all the things that a person did, the traits they exhibited, the way they acted, etc. This book just uses the person and what they’re famous for and doesn’t talk about all that the other books normally do. Gladwell here discusses all the hidden forces behind what made Bill Gates and Steve Jobs be the software entrepreneur, reason behind plane crashes not related to the pilots’ ability and other such examples.
It’s an interesting read in attempt to understand how legacies, cultural background, time of opportunities and other remote things can end up influencing aspects of someone’s life. Couple this with the hard-work and dedication that is more often talked about in the self-help books, memoirs, etc gives us a success story that we know.
The book attempts to show us that success stories (also often called outliers) are not indeed a result of hard-work, grit and determination of a single person against all odds. It’s a project of many things working out in favor in a larger scheme of things over a longer period of time that makes these outliers. And mind that none of these variables are unique. Hence making the outliers not really outliers. Read on to know the untold background story and know some interesting influences that are play in now famous success stories.
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Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
One of the most gripping business journalism books, I’ve ever read! Having been a long-time fan of stories about legendary companies and their leaders and having heard great reviews about this book, I’d been eager to read this one for long now. And boy am I glad I waited and read the book! Now I can go and watch the documentary. Haha!
The author narrates an unbelievable story and that’s what keeps you hooked throughout. The book is not over-stuffed with medical jargon that people from outside the industry would be put off by it. Also, the chapters were not too long and could command reasonable chunks of attention from the reader.
So, just to put it out there, if you already have an idea about the story and want to simply understand why Elizabeth Holmes did what she did then you wouldn’t find that in this book. Holmes refused to be interviewed for the book. Despite the turnout of the events, Carreyrou has portrayed her in as non-judgmental way as possible which is truly an admirable quality in a journalist.
One thing that I’d like to point out from my experience of having read a bunch of such books is that a big reason for this book to have garnered such wonderful and well-deserved reviews is because the story is stupendous and you keep wanting to know more. This leads to two things - First, the laudable quality of the author’s writing to be consumed by the story and second, you don’t get to see the author’s unique story-telling style or his narration!
Terrific journalism from Carreyrou and commendation for having stood his ground and continued investigation into the series of events. Cheers to everyone at Wall Street Journal for going up against the entire clan behind Theranos helmed by Holmes and backed by Balwani. Going by the experience of this book, I’d love to read more such accounts from John Carreyrou in the future as well.
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So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
If you’re someone who’s been plagued by the thought of not having known your passion or not having able to figure out what your passion is, then the lessons from this book would be extremely valuable for you. And this is really the case with a lot of Indian kids, where you’ve been part of a rat-race growing up. Scoring high in school, studying hard to crack the college entrance exams, doing well in college and studying again to get a good job in the industry. But often we hear this from the content in West (be it series, movies, etc) that we should find our passion and match our work to it. But this far from the reality where hundreds and thousands of people are far-more pressed to provide for themselves and their family by making a decent living.
However, this book dispels all such notions about how it’s not absolutely necessary to find your passion and find work to let your work in that field. The idea is simple - look at all the knowledge you’ve gained over the years, see how it all comes together (actively or passively) to an area where you’ve been learning and growing ‘rare and valuable skills’ all through the years and become so good at whatever you do in the right market that you command a level of autonomy or control that gives you the highest order of happiness.
These lessons are corroborated with numerous examples in the book. Most noteworthy and well-known among all is that of Steve Jobs. It was not passion that led Steve Jobs make Apple the iconic company it is today, in the first place. It started out with a simple need to make money by assembling and selling computers with help of his friends. It was over a period of time that by doing this and making such exceptional looking computers that they started to gain traction and move on to now well-known history of Apple.
It’s important to note at this point that Steve Jobs did not start out in 1976 with the vision of making the world’s greatest computer company. Similarly it’s not necessary to know in advance what your passion is and then work towards it. You can simply get so good at whatever you do that you cultivate your creativity, have the impact and give you the control that makes your work great.
In this book, Cal Newport is a wonderful author who’s written (in a true spirit of a computer-scientist) an algorithm that defines the steps to enable you to find and enjoy the dream job elixir - something that makes it seem to the outside world that you’re following your passion but you’re merely doing your work so good that they couldn’t ignore you.
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Note - The statements mentioned in such quoted blocks are from the book ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’ by Cal Newport. Rest of the points are based on my understanding from the book.
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