Tag Archives: Business

In My Hands Today…

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The Tatas: How a Family Built a Business and a Nation – Girish Kuber

The Tatas is the story of one of India’s leading business families.

It starts in the nineteenth century with Nusserwanji Tata – a middle-class Parsi priest from the village of Navsari in Gujarat, and widely regarded as the Father of Indian Industry – and ends with Ratan Tata – chairman of the Tata Group until 2012.

But it is more than just a history of the industrial house; it is an inspiring account of India in the making. It chronicles how each generation of the family invested not only in the expansion of its own business interests but also in nation building.

For instance, few know that the first hydel project in the world was conceived and built by the Tatas in India. Nor that some radical labour concepts such as eight-hour work shifts were born in India, at the Tata mill in Nagpur.

The National Centre for the Performing Arts, the Tata Cancer Research Centre, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research – the list about the Tatas’ contribution to India is a long one. A bestseller in Marathi when it was first published in 2015, this is the only book that tells the complete Tata story over two hundred years.

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Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire – Andrew Wilkinson

Andrew Wilkinson, touted as the Warren Buffett of tech, pulls back the curtain on the lives of the ultra-rich in this memoir outlining Wilkinson’s rapid rise from barista to successful entrepreneur.

Readers will get fresh insights into building a successful business and a surprising, first-person account of what it’s actually like to become a billionaire.

By the age of thirty-five, Andrew Wilkinson had built a business worth over a billion dollars, but his path to success was anything but a straight line. Never Enough shares both the lessons Wilkinson has learned as well as the many mistakes made on the road to wealth—some of which cost him money, happiness, and important relationships.

Taking a “no secrets” approach to the story billionaires rarely tell, Wilkinson is unwaveringly honest about some of the unexpected downsides of wealth. Money’s toxic effect on personal relationships, how the lifestyles of the rich and famous aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, and how competition with peers leaves everyone—even billionaires—feeling like they never have enough.

In this rare and deeply honest glimpse into the life of a billionaire, Wilkinson examines not only his journey to nine zeros but also what comes after that pinnacled number—something, as Wilkinson has come to realize, that money can’t buy.

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The Money Trap: Lost Illusions Inside the Tech Bubble – Alok Sama

A gripping and entertaining memoir that offers a rare C-suite window on the world of technology investing. Veteran Morgan Stanley banker Alok Sama thought he’d seen it all, until he found himself at the helm of the secretive investment giant that controls global tech— SoftBank, the backer of Yahoo, TikTok, Uber, T-Mobile, DoorDash, Alibaba and WeWork, and the sponsor of the largest technology investment fund in history.

The Money Trap is a thrilling, stranger-than-fiction personal odyssey of Sama’s experiences while working alongside SoftBank’s iconic founder, Masayoshi Son, an eccentric genius who relies on “the Force” to guide his investment decisions and wants to be remembered as “the crazy guy who bet on the future.”

As a high-stakes dealmaker, Sama consorted with A-list CEOs and hobnobbed with heads of state, conducting negotiations on Gulfstream jets, the terrace of a medieval castle in Germany, Son’s private sanctuary with its exquisite Japanese garden, and waterside restaurants in the Turkish Riviera — all while contending with a mysterious dark-acts smear campaign that takes a toll on his private life.

This fascinating and humorous saga provides a unique insider perspective on an industry that is disrupting our daily lives and straining our social fabric. Written with self-deprecating wit, unflinching honesty and searing introspection, The Money Trap is ultimately a morality in life, as in technology investing, more money isn’t always the answer.

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Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives – Michael A. Heller, James Salzman

A hidden set of rules governs who owns what–explaining everything from whether you can recline your airplane seat to why HBO lets you borrow a password illegally–and in this lively and entertaining guide, two acclaimed law professors reveal how things become mine.

Mine is one of the first words babies learn. By the time we grow up, the idea of ownership seems natural, whether buying a cup of coffee or a house. But who controls the space behind your airplane seat: you reclining or the squished laptop user behind? Why is plagiarism wrong, but it’s okay to knock-off a recipe or a dress design? And after a snowstorm, why does a chair in the street hold your parking space in Chicago, but in New York you lose the space and the chair?

Mine! explains these puzzles and many more. Surprisingly, there are just six simple stories that everyone uses to claim everything. Owners choose the story that steers us to do what they want. But we can always pick a different story. This is true not just for airplane seats, but also for battles over digital privacy, climate change, and wealth inequality. As Michael Heller and James Salzman show–in the spirited style of Freakonomics, Nudge, and Predictably Irrational–ownership is always up for grabs.

With stories that are eye-opening, mind-bending, and sometimes infuriating, Mine! reveals the rules of ownership that secretly control our lives.

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Elon Musk – Walter Isaacson

When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.

His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.

At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,” he said.

It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.

For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?