Book Review - The Google Story

The Google Story

David A. Vise has done a notable contribution to the society by revealing the inside story of Google. It covers the entire history of Google from the day the search idea was conceptualized (even before the organization was named as Google) to the recent times and it even highlights some of the initiatives that Google is taking currently to change the future of mankind.

It covers the personality trait & family background of Sergey Brin & Larry Page (The founders of Google) as well as Eric Schmidt (Who was appointed as CEO and stepped down from this role recently). This helps us to understand the parameters that made them and this organization successful.

The Google word has become a Verb today. People just say if you cannot find something online just Google it. It has impacted our life so much that at times when I cannot find my belongings that I have misplaced; I feel that I would be so happy if I could Google that as well. (This is a business concept for the Google Guys, I would have also banked on it but don’t know how to implement it)

Google has saved a lot of time of every individual. While in college (15 years back), I remember we used to search several books and publications to get some information that was required. This was also true for the working professionals at that time. This used to take us hours. However today searching some books or publications for acquiring some information is so easy & less time consuming because of the digitization that has happened since the search technology was made available. I thank the Google guys for providing us with such a technology that has helped in saving so many hours of the mankind.

This organization has not only made the founders and the employees successful but even the people who followed it have been successful. Several people (Including me) who have helped Google grow and propagated its benefits to others by providing services like 

SEO, SEM etc have also grown well in the last decade. If Google continues this trend, it could become synonymous with Growth in some time and the author may have to rechristen this book as “The Growth Story”

Book Review - The Starfish and the Spider

The Starfish and the Spider - The unstoppable power of leaderless organization.

If you want to know why facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, Google, torrents, Napster, Kazaa etc have succeeded this book is a must read. The interesting thing is that all these organizations have worked more as a starfish (everyone contributes model) than a spider (top management driven). Although not all these organizations have given 100% powers to the users, they have allowed users to contribute and help them to expand in a controlled manner.

In authors words – “If you cut off a spider’s head, it dies; but if you cut off a starfish’s leg, it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top down organizations are like spiders, but now starfish organizations are changing the face of business and the world.”

The authors – Ori Brafman and Rod A Beckstrom have done a remarkable work by studying and comparing several organizations like Toyata, General Electric, eBay, MGM, etc.

The interesting thing I observed was each of the new successful organization say Facebook is more like a starfish that the other organizations that it overtook.

Me now thinking of something that could be more resemble a starfish than a Facebook.

Book review - The Alchemist

The Alchemist
By Paulo Coelho


This is a great read for all people who dream something big in life. The story teaches us that if we desire something in life we should not hesitate in sacrificing the current moment and the current possessions to achieve that dream. It is this desire to achieve your dream with your true heart that makes the entire universe to move and help you in achieving what you want.


Human Beings sometimes wander round the globe to find their treasure (their dreams), However they fail to realize that a person’s treasure is always located where his/her heart is.


Regards


Kaushal Thakkar

Book Review - Critical Chain

Critical Chain
By Eliyahu M. Goldratt

I am reading this book again after several years. Even on the second turn it was as interesting read as it was for the first time.

Critical Chain is a recommended read for all the leaders, project managers, operations manager, finance & marketing personnel’s. The book teaches us how we should question the pragmatic ways in which things are been done and come up with alternatives to do the things in a better way.

In this book Eliyahu Goldratt highlights how the current education system has done more harm than added any value to the individual. In my opinion the current system has made people to stop thinking and follow those things as they are mentioned in those books. The teaching methodology as described in the book highlights how the training and learning should happen in the class via more interactive sessions between the students and the trainer.

The book is especially a great value add to Project managers who are in a constant Endeavour to identify the right things that needs to be done on their projects. Eliyahu mentions how the student syndrome needs to be taken care of and how the estimates have to be developed in a way that they are more realistic.

A must read.

Kaushal Thakkar

Book Review - The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

Title – The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
Author: John C. Maxwell

The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership – Follow them and people will follow you, is a must read (Leadership manual or reference guide) for all the leaders and people aspiring to be a leader. More than 1 million copies of this book have been sold and it has been rated as a bestseller by New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Business Week.

In his book John C Maxwell (American expert on leadership and a founder of various organizations) has shared his secrets of being a great leader via the 21 laws of leadership. He has shared his insights that he has gained from this thirty plus years of leadership roles from politics, business, religion, sports and military.

The book gives excellent cases for each of these laws that help in a better understanding of these principles. Thus it not only explains, ‘What to do?’ but also ‘How to do it?’ and with proven examples of how it has worked in the past with other people.

Being from an IT projects background I liked the way he has a provided a way to measure leadership like we measure project parameters. Based on the leadership scores he makes an interesting analogy that a person with higher leadership score will never follow a person with a leadership score less than him.

The cases of McDonald, Henry Ford, Princess Diana, Mother Teresa, and such other world leaders teach us how leaders have made an impact on this world and we too can make a similar impact by following what they did. The book not only provides the success stories but compares it at various points with the mistakes that have been committed by other people. This enables us to learn from other people’s mistake instead of learning it the hard way.

Some of the other interesting information that I acquired from the book is
1. How leaders manage their time?
2. How leaders motivate others?
3. How leaders influence others?
4. How leaders gain respect?
5. How leaders develop other leaders and lead the organization to explosive growth?
A must read according too me….