Summary of all books read in 2018
Summarizing all the books I’ve read in the past year. The broad subjects I learnt from scratch include networking, finance, basics of behavioural economics and some concepts in psychology.
Philosophy
Ego is the Enemy: Definitely recommend, Ryan Holiday’s book talks about the biggest enemy we have in the world today which is our own ego rather than the external world. Draws stories from all sorts of field, history, philosophy, and many more. Besides this book, Ryan is has a few other books and articles about media manipulation.
Psychology
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Classic that I had not yet read, again a must read book for basic principles in life no matter where you are.
Option B: Sheryl Sandberg’s book about getting over a loss or facing adversity by building resilience. This is Sheryl’s personal story from her loss of her husband Dave.
Persuasion Influence by Cialdini: Classic book on persuasion, initially picked up so that I could learn the skills of influencing without authority. Must read book for people learning about how various channels out there take advantage of the preset notions in our brain to steer us towards their agenda. Cialdini is a professor of psychology and marketing with extensive research in the subject.
Pre-suasion: Another book by Cialdini, this one talks about how the art of persuasion begins even before you actually start persuading.
Mindset: Book by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck about grit or a growth mindset. This book talks about how our mindset can vastly influence how we can grow our abilities in various fields leading to success. This is opposed to a fixed mindset according to which if you’re not “born with it” you never try to push yourself to achieve greatness.
Grit: Another book on a similar subject as the above by Angela Duckworth. Personally I preferred this one. Broadly the subject is how tenacity towards a specific goal can help you conquer odds and how talent in itself is not a guarantor of success. Dr. Angela is a professor of psychology at UPenn. This book can be life changing for many people.
What Everybody is saying: Yet another book about body language, however after reading a few books in this field, this one is actually the most no-BS explaining the logic and history about the human brain book that does not try to give you recipes on reading body language but explains you the framework. The author is Joe Navarro, ex-FBI agent who has vastly investigated several criminals where he got to hone his skills and even before that used it as a child when he had just emigrated to the US.
Building a company
Hard thing about hard things: Book about all the hard questions on building a company by Ben Horowitz. I thought this book was the best in this subject until I read the next one.
High Growth Handbook: Book by prominent investor Elad Gil. Highly highly suggest on one of the most practical advice I’ve read in a long time about a huge swathe of things you will encounter while building a company including hiring PMs, engineers, CDs, etc dealing with your board of directors, managing culture, hiring and firing executives and much much more. Definitely get your copy if you’re planning on starting up.
High Output Management: Book by Andy Grove, one of the founders and CEO of Intel. Again, one of the most amazing books read this year. Talks about the processes and manufacturing processes that should be in place in a firm and a crash course for managers in such a firm. Andy Grove was the one who steered a massive giant like Intel from one of the largest revenue generating products in Intel to one that was hardly generating any in order to avoid getting disrupted by the Japanese dumping low memory chips.
Miscellaneous (not miscellaneous in terms of value)
Shoe Dog: Phil Knight’s autobiography, super recommend for all runners and entrepreneurs. Story of Nike and it’s various challenges along the way.
Skin in the Game: A book by Taleb about everything and nothing, some parts of randomness and chaos, some parts decision theory, one line about how people in power who have no skin in the game and lead to bad outcomes. One of the best books of the year.
Hit Refresh: Autobiography by Satya Nadella, which I wanted to read considering the way Satya has turned around a giant like Microsoft.
Pleasure of finding things out: Autobiography of Richard Feynman, full of small popsicles of fun, you can practically pick up any random chapter and read it.
Good to Great: Jim Collins recounts principles and his research around the differences between 10x firms (firms that have outperformed the market significantly) and comparison firms (firms performing worse or equal despite being in a similar position and field). Great book to dispel some myths around this.
Great by Choice: Another great book by Jim Collins where he recounts what are those decisions and activities which the 10x firms made that differentiated them and made them thrive under uncertainty as compared to the comparison firms.
History
Sapiens: Could not for the life of me put this book down. Cannot stress enough on how badly I recommend this book. This book recounts a no-nonsense recap of the evolution of humankind from stoneage to the 21st century.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century [Currently reading]: Another book by Yuval Noah Harari, in which Yuval talks about some guiding principles which will help us deal with a vulnerable, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world.
Finance
Rich Dad Poor Dad: Kiyosaki’s book on a story about his childhood where he walks us through why he started looking at the world differently at a young age and why building assets is important.
Intelligent Investor: Graham’s timeless book on investing and how we should approach it. Must read for all investors.
Financial statements a step by step guide: The author recounts how to read financial statement by constructing a fictitious firm and walking us through the lifetime of it.
The Richest Man in Babylon: Financial advice through a set of stories set in ancient Babylon.
Cashflow Quadrant: Another book by Kiyosaki on how you can become financially independent without trading your time for money.
Behavioural Economics
Thinking in Bets [Currently reading]
Predictably Irrational: Dan Ariely’s must read book on just how irrational humans are and how we approach making some of our most important decisions.
Working with Emotional Intelligence: Daniel Goelman’s book on emotional intelligence at the work place. Must read, also the previous book by Goleman is also recommend.
Cloud Networking and Security
Computer Networks by Peterson
Computer Networking a top down approach: Super amazing book that explains like to a 5-year old computer networks.
Linux Kernel Networking: basics of linux kernel networking
