Book Review – The Fountain Head

“The Fountain Head” is definitely one of the best books I’ve ever read. It tells the story of a few people in New York of the 20s – 30s. There are 5 characters about whom a lot is written, and these are main characters of the book. The characters are Howard Roark – a brilliant architect. He keeps faithful to his beliefs and ideology. It’s a story of his struggle against people and opinions that oppose that ideology.

Dominique Francon – Newspaper women. Throughout the book she gets married with most of the main characters Keating, Gail Wynand and Roark. Each marriage is, in my eyes, a symbol of a different union. She magnifies the difference between the people she marries. Gail Wynand - one of the most influential people in the city. Owner of a huge press empire, and in particular of "The New York Banner" - the most widely circulated paper in the city. Peter Keating - begins as an excellent architecture student and rises as a famous architect. Eventually falls to pieces. Ellsworth Toohey - a reporter and organizer of communities in unions.

Howard Roark’s strength lies in his work. He an honest man, never distracted by the worldly entities, dedicated and focused, behaving bluntly, mostly take him for being rude, clear mind, and emotionally strong. Work gives him joy. He enjoys his work. On the other hand, there is Peter Keating. He is one of the most realistic characters of the book. Believe in success, but his way of achieving it is not so a likeable method yet fondly practiced all over the world. 

The main theme of "The Fountainhead" is the struggle of the free mind, creativeness and individualism (all symbolized in Roark) against the common opinion, "second-handers", people who think only about what other people think. This main theme is very important, as it is the philosophical main idea of the book and most of the characters revolve around it. He is an independent architect, caring little about the opinion of others. He builds in order to build, to create "right" buildings. Dominique, Wynand and Toohey all "understand" the theme, but differently. Wynand raises himself about all others. He is a freak of power, caused by a difficult childhood. He despises all "second-handers" and aspires to rule them, bending their opinions at his will. Toohey is a very smart and sleek man and he understand how to influence "second-handers", and builds a great supporting around him, which isn't really explicitly felt as supporting by anyone. Eventually, it becomes clear that he wants to take over Wynand Empire.

The narrative is straight and the dialogues exchange between the characters of the book is what droves the plot forward. Not at a single point the book disappointed me, but rather after every chapter it made me curious that helped to read it with more eagerness. Rand’s characterization is well thought and maintained throughout the book. Objectivism is the professional theme of the novel. One might say that Love is a sub theme but I did not see it is a sub theme.

The book enlightened me on the subjects of Collectivism, Individualism, Altruism, and provoked the thought about how society works is a rat race gone all wrong. It will enlighten you about the human parasites/second-handers. Also, it unmasks those who are hell bent on killing the spirit of individualism and want to empower mediocrity because individualism promotes the genius of human mind and mediocrity kills that genius. 

Book Review: 48 Laws of Power

A Moral, Cunning, Ruthless and Instructive, this piercing work distils three thousand years of the history of power into Forty Eight well explicated Laws. As attention grabbing in its design as it is in its content, this bold volume outlines the laws of power in their unvarnished essence, synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun-Tzu, Carl Von Clausewitz, and other great thinkers.

Some Laws require prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master”), some stealth (“Law 3: Conceal your Intentions”), and some the total absence of Mercy (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally”), but like it or not, all have applications in real-life situations. Illustrated through the tactics of Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Kissenger, P T Barnum, and other famous figures who have wielded – or been victimized by – Power, these Laws will fascinate any reader interested in gaining, observing or defending against ultimate control.

The book takes each “Law” in turn and gives historical examples of those who follow the Law and fall to follow the Law. One will quickly see that the Laws of Power aren’t really Laws – they’re more like principles that will help in the art of gaining and exercising Power. Robert Greene uses the examples of Tesla and Edison to illustrate the several of the Laws. Tesla was the better inventor, but we’ve heard of Edison because Edison understood Power.

However, I do not agree with all of its ideas. This book contains examples of History from Sparta and Persia war, Chinese warriors, Scientists and Europe History. It does a brilliant job of explaining the logic and mindset of people who play such games to get power. If one want to understand why people play these games, this is a book well worth reading. It is interestingly written as well, with a lot of somewhat biased historical anecdotes to support each of the points.

My Belief is that real power comes from earning respect, and this is just a list of shortcuts that will easily fall apart under scrutiny. This book is useful for no other than it clues one in to how people tend to think; particularly those that are overly power hungry. For that reason alone, if one work in a competitive office environment, this book is worth reading just to understand the logic behind some of these games. Of course, playing these games yourself is highly likely to get one labeled as the office scumbag, so tread lightly on this stuff – use it to understand the behavior of others, not to try to gain power yourself.

Book Review: What the Dog Saw

Finished reading “What the dog saw” and in this brilliant & provocative book, covering everything from criminology to ketchup, job interviews to dog training, Malcolm Gladwell shows the most ordinary subjects can illuminate the most extraordinary things about us and our world. Looking under the surface of the seemingly mundane, he explores the underdogs, the miraculous and disastrous and reveals how everyone and everything contains an incredible story.

This book is a series of 19 short stories that each addresses a different question or issue. What’s the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there tons of varieties of mustard but only one type of ketchup? It turns out that different people like different levels of sweetness and bitterness, so we see twelve varieties of marinara sauce on the supermarket shelf, and another dozen flavors of soft drinks on the market.

How do you know whom to hire? Does intelligence really matter once you get away from college? What does hair dye have to do with Feminism? He talks about what makes a good salesman. It’s not just the ability to ask for the money. There needs to be an engaging, interesting presentation that draws the audience in. Gladwell discusses the difference between mystery and puzzle, and between the two types of serial killers. He keeps readers on their toes with unlikely comparisons and his unique points of view.

Another story takes a look at the homelessness problem, and we discover how one homeless man cost his city over one million dollars. How can a group of sane people get admitted to mental hospitals, and kept there for weeks even though their symptoms have subsided? And what does that have to do with gathering intelligence? Was Picasso a genius, a late bloomer or neither? What makes someone good at something, and what do they become recognized as great? Gladwell answers all these questions and more in his book.

Book Review – The Google Story

Recently, I had finished reading The Google Story by David A. Wise. This is not a geek manual. There is enough technical information to keep the story moving without losing the reader in code waffle. Google was founded in 1998 and within a span of 17 years; it has become a world leader in internet. Founders Sergey and Larry started Google when they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University in computer science. They both had a crazy idea to download entire information available on the Internet.

There is a lot in the book about the culture of Google, which is compared to a university campus more often than a corporation. Most people works in teams of three to five maximum, and engineers are given 20% time, one day a week in which to work on stuff that’s interesting to them, regardless of its commercial viability. One of the colleagues even writes an equation to explain the whole phenomenon: “youth + freedom + transparency + new model + the general public’s benefit + belief in trust = The Miracle of Google”. The Google story seems to be the mission to prove that equation from first principles.

It is also a business story. For the business reader, it’s fascinating to learn how venture capital firms, still reeling from the post dot com collapse, approached the infant Google with great suspicion, but found the founders and their ideas irresistible. One lesson from the book – no matter how brilliant your science and engineering credentials, you need a business person to talk to the Wall Street and lead your company into the IPO.

It also answers a question that most of our daily users have asked to some point: how does Google makes any money? Vise sees Google as just like any other media corporation in that regard: Advertising. Again the Google Adwords model is described simply. It is a great story. It is a series of chapters that read like articles. There is a whole chapter on Google Chef, Issues in China, and competitive wars with Microsoft. The Google story is the living example of dedication and continued struggle of men who succeeded in achieving their magnificent goals.

David and Goliath: Malcolm Gladwell

Recently, I finished reading David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. It is a non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell. The book is focused on the probability of improbable events occurring in situations where one outcome is greatly favored over the other. The book contains many different historical stories of these underdogs who wind up beating the odds, the most famous being the story of David and Goliath.

David was the shepherd in Israel, who also serves Israel army for food. Goliath was the giant soldier in Palestine army. The story is 800 years old. Once both the armies attacked each other and nobody was ready to fight from Israel when Goliath came forward to fight. Goliath said, if any of the person defeats me then my army would surrender in front of you. Nobody came forward to fight and then David came forward, asked his king to fight against giant Goliath. Everybody laughed and underestimated David. Then David came in front of Goliath to fight and hit him with a slinger and killed him.

There had been many examples of stories like David and Goliath in the past. When a underestimated man defeated a person powerful then him, he is called as Underdog. The same story happened in 1980, which is termed as ‘Miracle on Ice’. This was the story of United States Ice Hockey National team made up of amateur and collegiate players, who defeated the Soviet Union National team, which had won six gold medals in last seven Olympics. US Ice Hockey team was named as ‘Underdogs’.

In this book, there are stories about the civil rights movements, the religious conflicts in Ireland, and the others. The moral of some of these stories can be dark. This is one unusual lesson about change the book teaches. Most success stories are full of compromises, exchanges, chicanery, and actions. We might find hard to accept in a purist moral framework or as an enforcer of polite society. This is one of the best books, which tells about the art of battling giants and tells about the people who had significant skills fired in the kiln of adversity, who are intolerant of the status quo. We might not like them, they may do things we might think are inadvisable, but they are our giant-killers. One must read this book.

Breakout Nations

Ruchir Sharma is a head of Emerging Markets and Global Macro at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. He generally spends one week per month in a developing country. He has been a contributing editor with Newsweek and has penned essays for publications such as Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and Economic Times. He is the writer of Best International Economic Book “Breakout Nations.” Recently, I finished reading this book and it is the most interesting book on economic landscape.

The book takes on a life of its own as it delves in depth into each country and its economic drivers. China, India, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Europe, Turkey, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, USA etc all find a mention and an analysis. This book tells the in depth economic conditions of every country. It also covers past crisis of Asia, USA, Europe, and ASEAN countries. This book is also a revelation as well as treasure trove of information and ideas. In this book, Country Specific notions, are challenged and disproved such as in the section of consumer demand in China. Country specific problems that can hold it back are analysed in short and power pack sections like welfare, investments of Indian Businesses abroad in a time when the home country is in urgent need of capital.

It also contains graphs and numerical which tells comparisons and analytic view of each country. Each nation’s problems as well as enablers find adequate mentions giving a nice balance and flow to the analysis, as well depth and convincing power. Economic, political, crimes, as well as other problems find adequate coverage. Some problems like crony capitalism in India, welfare state in Brazil, political situation in Russia, olipolistic nature of Mexico, and rising inflationary trends in India are covered in depth. Each factor that can affects growth are looked at.

The objective of this book is to identify Breakout Nations- the nations most likely to succeed. Both conventional factors and unconventional factors approach in this book is right. For example, the analysis of number of Billionaires in a nation is a revelation. Overall, this book first, teaches one how to properly analyse a market or a nation. Second, it is a handbook of emerging markets. It gives a perspective of entire emerging market in a short.

A word on writing style, it is simple and easy to understand. One does not need to be a professional economist to understand the book. This is perhaps the most powerful plus point of this book. It makes the entire pitch in very simple, easy to understand and comprehend prose. It avoids needless details and voluminous analysis. The analysis is short and up to the point. This makes for a fast read and it makes for easy absorption of the material presented in the book.

As the Breakout Nations identified, be prepared for a surprise. Read the book to learn more, and open your mind to new ideas and thoughts.