Books you must read...

Screw It, Let's Do It by Richard Branson

This is a short autobiography of one of the most admired business personalities in the world, Richard Branson. There is a lot of interesting trivia that one can come know reading this book like how Branson met Pil Collins, why did Elton John compose an album for Princess Diana, what got Banson into the jail, what's the connection between Branson and Amundsen. Besides these trivia what really grabs your attention is the determination that Branson towards all the things he has done in life so far. This book also answers your question on what sets a world class business leader aside from the mediocre ones. This book is one of the 'Quick Reads' editions that is 100 pages written in simple and plain english. You just need about an hour to read this book.

"Always beware if the risks are too random or too hard to predict, but remember, if you opt for a safe life, you will never know what it's like to win."

"Chase your dreams, but live in the real world.

"Never do anything if it means you can't sleep at night."

"Challenge is the core and mainspring of all human action. If there's an ocean, we cross it. If there's a disease, we cure it. If there's a wrong, we right it. If there's a record, w break it. If there's a mountain, we climb it."

Inside Steve's Brain by Leander Kahney

This is a book on Steve Jobs, the face of Apple. I would strongly recommend this book to managers, techies and aspiring entrepreneurs. If you've ever wondered, "What's so great about apple?" or " What's so great about Steve Jobs?" then this book will be able to answer. Its facinating to read about how Steve Jobs plans every single product launch to the minutest of details. The book also explains the miticulous approach of Steve Jobs when it comes to developing products. Each apple product is designd to perfection and the motive behind designing each product has always been to redefine existing standards and taking it to the next level. This makes apples products far mor supeior in the market and the only thing other companies can think of is to try and catch up. There are definity a lot of things to learn from Steve Jobs, and this book clerly highlights those and goes a lot in detail making it easier for the reader to look at the big picture. If you have already read or planning to read Steve Wozniac's (co founder of Apple) biography, then let me tell you there is a bit of cotadiction between both the Steve's version of the story.

Some Exerpts from the book....
"What makes Steve's methodology different than everybody else's is that he always believed that the most important decisions you make are not the things you want to do, but the things you decide not to do."

"A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."

"Design is a funny word, some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, its really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn't what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarly, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you hav to get it. You have to really grok what it's all about. It takes passionate commitment to really thoroughly undersand smething, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most peple don't take the time to do that."

"When you start looking at a problem and think its really simple, you don't understand how complex the problem really is."

"Innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10.30 at night with a new idea, or because they realised something that shoots holes in how we've been thinking about a problem. It's ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea."

"The older I get, the more I'm convinced that motivesmake so much difference."

"You can't be too far ahead, but you have to be far enough ahead because it takes time to implement. So you have to intercept a moving train."

"It gave a tremendous level of self-confidnce, that through exploration and learning one could understand seemingly very complex things in one's environment. My childhood was very fortunate in that way."