How to Listen to and Understand Great Music - by Robert Greenberg

This is the first teaching company course that i took and it was absolutely fabulous. I finished all 48 lectures of it. The instructor is a very good teacher and his voice and his lecturing style are very suitable for the audiobook. This is not a book that gives you drowsiness as you listen to it and on the other hand it keeps you very attentive.

The course is a combined music history and music appreciation course. I learnt a lot of subject matter from this course. The only complaint i have is that the author sometimes has an edgy sense of humor so this course is perhaps not sharable with small children. But the subject matter itself is very accessible for children too, especially if they have some musical background.

Book Reviews: Patrick Lencioni's Business Fables

I read the following books from: Patrick Lencioni

In general, I hate business or philosophy books that are structured as fables. The following books just made me cringe:
Who Moved My Cheese?

Our Iceberg is Melting

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Books But Patrick's way of storytelling is a bit different and less cringe inducing when the book is well written. However, when he uses the same style for all of his books, soon they get old and as annoying as other fables. Having said that, his concepts are very good and very usable. If you want to cut to the chase and save yourselves from those fables, you can read the methods from his website.

Here are my reviews:

Three Signs Of a Miserable Job

This book talks about how the root of misery in workplace is rooted to 3 things: Immeasurement (lack of measuring one's progress in the job),
Anonymity (when people are not known, recognized and appreciated for what they are and what they bring to the job)
Irrelevance (People need to know how their works matters to someone or a group of people).
I liked the fable part which was actually instrumental in illustrating the above 3 concepts. The fable was about an old executive trying to revive a clunky pizza place using the above 3 concepts.

The Five dysfunctions of a Team
More than the concepts, you need to read the fable which illustrates how an executive revived a team and helped them function well. The five concepts are too many to remember crisply, however, here is how it stuck in my mind.

When you have a team of people, they need to function in such a way that they are accountable to each other. They should expect open criticism from their team and should not feel vulnerable because they could be criticized. So you could have conflicts and you should not be afraid of facing such conficts. Conflicts need to be played out and resolved instead of trying to achieve artificial harmony which does not resolve the underlying conflicts. After having such conflicts and the decisions are made, everyone needs to stick to their commitments and be accountable for those commitments. And the team must pay attention to the results of the team. So individual goals should give way to the goals of the team.


Death By Meeting
This book is when the fable structure stopped working for me. Essentially this book talks about how the meetings must be like performances. They should have drama and conflict and they have to be played out and resolved. Just like the different forms of performances (ex: sitcom, serial drama, movie, etc.) you should have different types of meetings: daily checkins, weekly meetings, monthly strategic and quarterly offsite reviews.


Three Big Questions For A Frantic Family
This fable was the most boring. But the concept was interesting. It asked families to make a value statement for themselves embodying what made their family unique. Then it asked families to identify their most urgent rallying cry (like: buying a new home, getting the child into college, etc.) for things they should do in the next 2 to 6 months. Then it asks to identify defining objectives, the way they will achieve the rallying cry. Then it asks to outline the standard objectives, i.e. standing responsibilities. This is a good framework for families.

I liked all these books but the above order indicates my ranking for this series.

Theodore Rex [ABRIDGED] [AUDIOBOOK] (Audio CD)

I listened to this book about 2 years ago. A fine book detailing the life of Teddy Roosevelt one of the great American Presidents. This was a man with a great appetite for everything in life. His hunting was big, his political career was supersize, his dedication to his causes and what he got done for them were big too. You can learn a lot about the way American politics is run in this book through his life. Although times have changed some of the basic workings of political life has not changed much. This was the first guy who understood the power of the bully pulpit, which still defines an important way in which the presidency operates, even in this era where anyone having an internet connection can have a pulpit. Here is also a president who sowed the seeds of American imperialism, which is still an important tendency of American foreign policy. Here is also a hunter and a conservationist who did so much to the cause of environment. American presidents still reach over to conservation initiatives for defining their legacies and Teddy set the blueprint for the grand presidential conservation initiatives. Here is also a Republican who started out representing the interests of the rich and the powerful and who turned into a polar opposite of a progressive minded populist reformer. For me, while this book illustrated all of the above points about Teddy, the essence of what i got from this book was a portrait of a man of BIG ambition, BIG actions, BIG appetite, BIG impact and BIG legacy.

Book Review: Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (Paperback)

Recently finished the audiobook version of this book.
Engrossing book for me, combined elements of History, Technology, Governance, Politics, Nautical science, technology, astronomy in this story of how Longitudes were "discovered" or more correctly how they were established. A great account of how the nautical and navigational technology advanced through the active involvement of monarchy and the royal institutions in Britain. This is another example of how the original inventors only partially benefit from their hard work and innovation and how others exploit them and make profits from them. One more lesson is how the academic group think can hinder innovation and how practical techniques often overtake other techniques that are considered to be technically purer. In this case, the "Lunar method" of finding the longitude was considered technically more accurate by the academics, but in practice it was impossibly difficult. Meanwhile, the chronometer based method was much more easier. However the astronomy establishment looked down upon the chronometer method and threw all kinds of roadblocks at it. However, the practical chronometer method succeeded.

Book Review: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (Paperback)

I read this book during the beginning of last year (2008) and have been practicing this method for getting organized for about an year. I can totally vouch for its effectiveness. The take away for me is that organize your work into a simple system consisting of file folders and a prescribed way to label and organize your folders. Then bring all your work items into that system. Then crank this system periodically by processing the items that come into the system. The premise is that if you have this operating system for your work, you will not get items piled up on your desk but you will be processing the items efficiently.

I have to admit that i am rather poor follower. The author's advice about using a good filing system to organize your workstuff is spot on. Labelling your files, making them easily accessible are all valuable advice. I have switched over to the plain manilla folder system instead of hanging folders. One practical tip i found out is that, if you want to use plain manilla folders, the best way to keep them standing up inside your filing cabinet is using bookends, especially the heavy tall magnetic bookmarks do the job admirably well. Authors advice to put everything into paper and organizing the folders instead of keeping anything inside your brain is very valuable. Surely by doing this, you reduce the stress. The only thing is that you need to visit your filing system periodically. That is the issue that keeps stumping me and I keep telling myself to go back to visiting my inboxes and processing my incoming stuff.

Book Review: ENIAC, the triumphs and tragedies of the world's first computer / Scott McCartney.

History of computing is full of unsung geniuses and hard work put on by so many people who are not given enough credit for their work. Eckert and Mauchly are these 2 great inventors of the first electronic computer who were not given enough credit for the invention of computer. This book claims that the computer scientist: John von Neumann stole away the credit for a lot of the ideas (especially the memory device) from the ENIAC team. History is kind to those who articulated and popularized an idea rather than the original minds who conceived an idea. The book also vividly illustrates how many of the inventions, especially those as complex as a computer do not occur out of the blue, but they are the result of a long tradition and history of ideas proposed around them and happen when various other conditions become favorable and the right people with prepared minds happen to be at the right place to take advantage of all those favorable factors to push the invention out. Also once an invention comes into being, it gathers momentum of its own and soon enough the envelope gets pushed so far ahead that the original invention appears so far removed and ancient. ENIAC is a fitting example of that where a light switch has more computing power than the 30 ton ENIAC.

Book Review: The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson, Sr. and the Making of IBM

This book read like a novel, in fact a better novel than many that i have read. It starts with white collar crime then a life remade through determination, then rich business exploits and adventures follow, but it has drama and ups and downs. The central character is a charismatic super-hero but he also has a number of fantastic flaws. There is a lot of family dysfunction and tragedy, but still the son receives the baton from the father and excels his achievements in many ways.

This is about Thomas Watson Sr. who built IBM to be a great corporation by building a great culture and becoming an embodiment of that culture. IBM is a very customer oriented and sales oriented company. But it also made huge R&D investments, spearheaded enormous number of technical advancements and did a number of "bet the farm" technological initiatives. So they are no doubt a technology company. But the important thing about IBM is that it a very customer and sales oriented company. And the reason lies in it's history and its roots laid out by Thomas Watson Sr. And this book essentially gets into the essence of what IBM is all about by dissecting the life of Mr. Watson.

Some of the fascinating things to learn from this book are how the computing era dawned from the mechanical calculators and the cash registers. Mr. Watson figured out how to sell technology long before others did. This explains totally the "IBM Middleware commercials" which only talks about the solutions and the business benefits and never gets into the technological mumbo-jumbo.

Lou Gerstener in his book: Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround
talks about how his turnaround job was essentially to re-establish IBM's culture like it was under the Watsons. Reading this book will really help in understanding Lou's book and what he accomplished at IBM.

When I read that book, Mr. Watson's persona often reminded me of Larry Ellison (Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle ) with their outsized ego, penchant for publicity and self-promotion and impeccable business instincts. I was delighted to find out that the author thought the same too.

DNA: The Secret of Life by James D. Watson and Andrew Berry

I could not have received a more enlightening introduction to the DNA and Genetic Sciences and BioTechnology than this book from a worthy and eminently illuminating author - Dr. Watson.
He weaves his book with tales, trivia, history and facts and information as well as deeply involved scientific subject matter from the world of DNA and Genetic Sciences.

From DNA fingerprinting to Genetically modified Corn and Potatoes that is ubiquitous in the Soda, Sweeteners, Chips and Fries, I bet that no one living in the US is left untouched by the genetic technologies.

What i liked about Dr. Watson's book is that parts of it is history and tales around this large subject area: Biology, Genetics, Forensics, Law, Science, Technology, etc. I listened to the audiobook version of the book so that style works well for the audiobook. I think the printed version might feel excessively long winded.

Dr. Watson is a controversial figure. I do not agree with all the ideas that he espouses. Especially in the last chapter, he argues for aggressively pursuing Gene Therapy and advocates differential learning programs to account for the difference in learning potentials that are dictated by the genes. I thought those arguments were not clearly articulated and I do not agree with all those ideas.

In any case, for a novice to these subjects, this book presents the best choice by weaving several threads in this large story and presenting how all these connect and intertwine. The blurb says this book is an "Instant Classic". I think I agree.

The HP Way - David Packard - Book Review

I was led to this book after reading Tom Perkins' Valley Boy. The book is somewhat of an inconsistent read though. It is part memoir and part Valley history. But partly it reads as the HP employee benefits package explaining the history and values of HP. You can learn about how Fred Terman mentored Packard and other entrepreneurs of the Bay Area. In turn, Packard helped other budding businesses (Tektronix for ex.) The book illustrates the spirit of cooperation amidst competition that existed in the hi-tech industry, HP and General Radio, for example.
Many of the practices that are taken for granted in the Valley companies like: comprehensive benefits program, profit sharing programs like ESPP, stock options, education reimbursement, etc., company offsites and company picnics, informal work atmosphere, de-centralized organization structure, open door policy, etc. all of these were pioneered or early adopted by HP.

The takeaway messages from the book are the principles of Management by Objective and Management by Walking Around. Packard talks about how the management works effectively by laying out the objective and leaving the details to the team doing the execution. He also talks about Management By Walking Around (MBWA), which balances the former principle. He talks about how the managers need to have a deep view of their business, including all the details of how execution happens. His approach for gaining that is by walking around the factory floor and watching everyone doing their jobs. He argues that detailed view is vital for effective management and that Walking around will help in overseeing exactly how the goals of a business are carried out and in correcting the mistakes that could happen in Execution.

The book although it was a very good read, it somehow did not fit together and did not feel complete to me. I still recommend it.

Rise and Fall of King Cotton - Book Review

This is a book about the history of Cotton plant. This is a very well written book. It is out of print now and can be either loaned from libraries or purchased from used book sellers. I loaned it from our library.

I grew up in a cotton town - Erode. My town was a big market for cotton clothes. I had many many friends from the weaving families and i had even visited their family handlooms and powerlooms. We had a spinning mill (natesar mill) in front of my house and everyday the mill workers came on bicycles with their lunch pails. When the siren went on, workers would enter and the earlier shift workers would leave. Occasionally there would be picket lines for the workers strike. Almost every month there would be union members standing outside and would shout slogans announcing their demands. I was naturally curious to know about Cotton. India was a major cotton producer in the ancient times. Indian cotton was the luxury fabric used for the Roman togas.

This book combines the history of technology of processing cotton with the social impact that the crop had on so many continents.

o Cotton was the crop that largely fueled the Slave trade and the Plantation system in American South.
o The Lancashire cotton mills employing poorly paid and treated workers and that produced cotton cloth were essentially funding the whole Slave operations!
o When American Civil War raged, it shut off the cotton from American South and thus pushing the British to go to India to source their Cotton. They had originally given up on growing cotton for their industries in India due to various reasons.
o Many of the Indian Railway projects that the British built were actually for transporting cotton! And many were funded after civil war, perhaps indirectly by the Cotton industry. The cotton crop was introduced in my home town Erode around 1819. I believe, the original railway lines (railroad) and railway station in my home town were originally built by the British. It is astonishing to know that it perhaps got built there only because of the American Civil war!

The book chronicles how many important inventions that made the cotton cloth production possible were invented by American and English inventors and how despite the patent laws, they were cheated out of their inventions by the ruthless capitalists of the early industrial age.

The book is a strong cautionary tale for the modern times. Technology, Trade, Consumption and Social changes all feed off of each other in powerful ways in both good and bad. There are plenty of examples that were contemporary to the cotton's development like: Automobiles. But there are also plenty of modern examples: internet, mobile phones, etc.

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World - Alan Greenspan - Book Review

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World By Alan Greenspan - Audiobook version

This is a very long volume. Thankfully, the audiobook version was very well produced and did not induce sleep despite the mundane subject that it covers - economics. Actually that is not quite true, because although Alan is the personification of an economist and the tone his memoir sounds very much like the his congress briefings, he covers a lot of history and current events. After all, he is the ultimate insider who was thick in the middle of so much action in the recent times.

He argues forcefully this book behalf of market based economy, rule of law, strong property rights, free trade and globalism. He expresses disgust at Nixon and George W's presidencies. He doesn't have much of an opinion for Bush Sr. He adores Bill Clinton as he probably achieved the most under his presidency. He readily admits that Iraq was was about oil. He proclaims that "the Republicans traded power for principles and ended up with none", which rings very true. He certainly does not come across as the "Republican Hack" as Harry Reid called him.

When i finished the book, i got a very good insight into how the macroeconomics works and i got a very good introduction into how the government regulates the monetary system. I am now very curious to read Adam Smith's book. I am going to start with P.J. O'Rourke's The Wealth of Nations.

I thought his long term economic preditions are a wash. They are very much similar to his famous Fedspeak pronouncements. It was like if we don't run into any crisis and if we dont screw up, we will do just fine in the long run. Thank you very much Nostradamus!

o I very much agree with his stressing of the "Rule of Law" and strong property rights as a key foundation to the Wealth of a nation.
o He seems to be still convinced that Gold Standard is a good idea. Similarly there are several instances where he seem to adhere to ideas that have more to do with Libertarian purity than being more practical.
o Regardless of his convictions he seems willing to set them aside to arrive at practical solutions under the rules of the economic system we have setup for ourselves. His libertarian bent and strong advocacy of free market economy seems to have checked the tendency of politicians to meddle in the economy.
o His argument that Adam Smith's approach won over Keynesian, Fabian and Marxist economic philosophies is very convincing. Having grown up in the centrally planned economy of India, I still remember the days when we had to stop the building of our house because of the cement scarcity. We had used up our quota, which was grossly inadequate for the building requirements, and we had to wait for the next cycle to get our next quota.
o His survey of the major economies was very interesting. He is very bullish on china, not very impressed with India, understandably so.
o He is very much against the dependence on foreign oil and optimistic about the technologies which can reduce that like: plugin hybrids. And the surprising thing was that he was not opposed to introducing taxes in order to promote and accelarate the adoption of green technologies that will reduce our oil dependence. I thought that was remarkable coming from a staunch libertarian.

However, he certainly seemed to have made compromises in order to remain in power. The constant support of Republican administrations, even when they pursued bad economic policies is a good example. He strongly supported Republicans even when Nixon imposed price controls. He supported George W Bush's tax cut even when the balanced budget was clearly resulting in widespread prosperity for the country and the tax cuts essentially would bring back the deficits.

Overall a very worthwhile book for understanding the world that we live in and the political and economic context of our generation. I highly recommend it!

Valley Boy - The education of Tom Perkins Book Review

This is a memoir from Tom Perkins a founding partner of the legendary Silicon Valley Venture capital firm: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

This book provides a rare insight into the personal dynamics between some of the legends of the Silicon Valley, Hewlett, Packard, Perkins, etc. It chronicles the adventures of founding new companies and in many instances new industries that generate billions in turnover. It has an interesting interview about Perkin's relationship with Danielle Steele, which talks much about the prolific author's writing habits. It also has a great chapter on building of Perkins' high tech yatch: Maltese Falcon.

These days venture capital has become a big industry that in many instances they don't provide the value in guiding a young company by providing the executive input and connecting it to the vital network of people that will help the company to succeed. Instead they just provide the money, which seems to be abundant these days in the venture capital industry. Even hedge funds are getting into providing venture capital and they provide nothing other than money to the budding venture.

For anyone living in the valley and working on hitech, i think this book should be high on their reading list. If you want to understand how the valley was founded and the values of entrepreneurship that still powers it and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, you must read this book.

In Defense of Food - Book Review

This book by Michael Pollan warning the public about the harms caused by our modern culture of food and eating is built around a simple set of rules of eating that he outlines:

Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.

The first one points out that the modern and scientific sounding inventions of food industry like "fiber rich", "vitamin fortified", "omega 3 enhanced", "protein formulated" etc. probably come at a high cost to us. The industry takes the basic food ingredients, processes them removing them of one nutrient or the other and then adds others to make up for the ones they removed like a mad scientist who always invents things that always have a downside to them.
He says: if any food is marketed for its nutrients, avoid it.

The middle rule talks about our culture of fast food, of removing the culture of eating from our lives and turning ourselves into food processors for the Food industry so they can sell us more food than we need, sell mindless nutrients instead of food and later sell food to deal with the effect of too much food and thus pocketing the profits.

The final rule talks up the benefits of not eating too much meat. It illustrates how humans had never in the past, late as much meat as often as the western world does today. It talks about how so much meat eating was due to the promotion of Meat by the Meat industry with ample support from government.

This is not a big book but it is well written and is a wonderful read.

Basic Brown - Book Review

For a memoir from a politician, this book from Willie Brown, the colorful and engaging mayor of SFO was a very gripping read. I loaned this from the library not expecting to read it within the 1 week rental period. I finished it in 2 days. I bought Hillary's memoir but never read more than 2 pages.

Willie fills the book with anecdotes, his political conquests and skullduggery, sacremento and san francisco politics, san francisco city vibes and lots of fashion tips.

o Im rather proud of the liberal and progressive roots of the Bay Area where i live.
o California is on the forefront of forward thinking legislation (Civil Rights, Environment, etc.) because of the liberal influence of our area and of the politicians coming from our area like Willie.
o As much as i do not like the politicians who tax and spend, I do not like the direct democracy system either. Proposition 13 is evil and took the pendulum in the other extreme. This is Athenian democracy and ultimately, it is not not very democratic. I like the Roman republican system better.
o Term limits are not evil. They are absolutely necessary for posts with a lot of power like presidents. But term limits for legislators are completly useless. Perhaps term limits for powerful assembly positions like Speakership could be term limited.
o Business people seem to have huge influence in the California government. Lots of bad initiatives come from down in SoCal.
o Anti Politician attitude may be good populist politics but not good for our civic system and government. Legislators control a lot of our lives and take a number of important decisions, you want it or not. So instead of bringing quality people into the system by paying them fairly, why treat them in a miserly way thus encouraging corruption? Im not convinced "Citizen Legislators" idea will ever work in the modern world unless you pay them properly.

I do not believe all of what Willie says in the book but a lot of it. I do not like some aspects of his persona but i do respect him much better than the likes of people like Gingrich, Dashle, Byrd, DeLay, Bob Dole, etc.

Very interesting book, i recommend it!

Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond

I listened to the audiobook version of this book
It is a treasure trove of facts, history and science and was intellectually stimulating.
The author uses anthropology, history, linguistics, archeology, etc. to make a case for his theory on how the European/Eurasian dominance of the world was due to environmental and geographical reasons and not a result of any genetic or racial superiority.
The book won lots of prizes. However, it had a lots of sweeping generalizations. Maybe in order to embrace his theory more completely, author did not spend much time on the shortcomings and determining factors, other than the environmental ones, of some of the areas of the world that did not fare as well as Eurasia.

Here are somethings i learnt from the book:

o Humans are so different. They come in all different kinds and they can survive in all kinds of places and conditions.
o The achievements of Australian aborigines who landed and colonized the continent probably about 60000 years ago are as amazing or more amazing than the european expeditions to Northpole.
o Polynesian people are fantastic. They could go on the unbelievably expansive pacific ocean in their puny canoes for thousands of miles and reach the island they intended to go land in. All using their neolithic technology and using only the stars and other natural elements as their navigatory aids. Im going to feel so little when i fire up my GPS to go to an address 5 miles away!
o Different hunter-gatherer people survived their entire life, just eating fruits, tubers, grubs and worms, moths and insects and occasionally some people ate others as delicacy when they had meager food and protein supply.
o Competition between countries is good for our collective advancement, as long as it doesn't involve violence.
o So called "advanced and civilized" people who call others "savages" or "uncivilized" or perhaps the real "uncivilized" ones because in spite of their so called advancements, they are unable to understand why other people are the way they are.

In summary, i was left with awe of our shared human heritage and with deep respect for the land, the environment that we live in, where ever we are, because the environment is what shapes our collective destiny.

In a Sunburned Country

I listened to the audio book version of this. It had 10 discs. Bryson's books are very long but they are very interesting reading. I had read the Short History of Nearly Everything book and it was one very good reading. But i do not have the time or inclination for reading long books these days. Audiobooks are another matter.
I learned so much about the Down Under in this book. This book is a cross of a travelogue and a memoir. Many facts and historical notes and stories were narrated in such an engrossing way you almost feel mesmerized by the story telling.
I thoroughly loved it and at the same time learnt a lot!

Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 Stephen Ambrose

Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 Stephen Ambrose

Fantastic book about building the railroad that opened up the west. I learnt about the history of the united states, lobbying, western US, california, immigration labor, racism against the asian americans, ingenuity of the engineers, ruthlessness of the early capitalists, government-industry nexus of colloboration and exploitation, poor working conditions, business competition, visionaries, wallstreet and financing in the early years and much more.