Hi
I have been flipping through this book (randomly showed in my ecom feed and I decided to buy it because of the beautiful illustrations 
It is written very concisely and has 2 pages for 1 idea. There are a total of 100 ideas. Simple things like give yourself 10 minutes a day of doing nothing, getting up early by 15 mins, only listening to your reasoning etc.
It is something one can flip through, read an idea and think over it. Most importantly practice these.
Rgds
Where are the Customersâ Yachts?, Fred Schwed Jr., 1940 - This is by far the most hilarious Investing book I have read. Whatâs written in 1940 still holds good as our instincts have hardly changed in the interim.
Some of the gems I came across in the book
Accounting is not even an art, but a state of mind.
âŚsome of them donât know what they are talking about; and those who do know, donât tell all they know, or donât permit themselves to believe all that they know
if you do someone the signal honor of asking him a difficult question, you may be assured that you will get detailed answer. Rarely will it be the most difficult of all answers - âI donât knowâ
In due course of time, if they bought on margin, they went to âthe Cleanersâ, that mythical establishment to which their brother speculators had repaired some time earlier. âThe Cleanersâ was not one of those exclusive clubs; by 1932 everybody who had ever tried speculation had been admitted to membership
His business might be defined as the lending of money exclusively to people who have no pressing need for it (talking of a conservative banker)
He doesnât know enough medicine to do a patient any harm
(On papers carrying predictions) Sometimes these letters came back with a jug of mustard and a forcible suggestion that the writer apply the mustard to his letter and eat it
(One of my favs) Rhinophobia - the dread of ever having any cash. Customers who suffer from rhinophobia always have as many securities as possible. When they sell out stocks at a profit they hasten to fill the void in their accounts with other stocks
(On the âbestâ securities) - The pathetic fallacy is that what are thought to be the best are in truth only the most popular - the most active, the most talked of, the most boosted, and consequently the highest in price at that time.
(On âgullibleâ public sometimes ignoring operated stocks) - When this happens, the operators, who in the beginning fancied themselves as devilish manipulators, wake up one morning to find that they have become involuntary investors
In a sea of investing literature that is usually boundlessly optimistic, this is a refreshingly caustic work of satire. Use it to temper excess optimism - If you are naturally pessimistic, you might carry the wrong lessons from here. Worth a read just for the humor. 9/10
Relativity, Einstein, 1916 - I have read various versions and watched several videos on relativity but there is nothing that has explained it to me as well as this book. The main reason I think is that it doesnât jump directly to the train and the platform. Einstein has written this in exactly the sequence in which it occurred to him and so delves quite a bit on co-ordinate system and points of view and perspective varying based on the chosen co-ordinates of observation and the limitations of applying Euclidean geometry to reality without questioning its applicability.
The theory progresses then slowly into special theory of relativity with observers on the train and platform that we have heard thousands of times and how the observations vary due to the motion of one with respect to the other. Establishing this thought-experiment as the base for the theory of relativity, Einstein moves onto introducing the speed of light and observing how it violates the constancy of speed of light in vacuum (observed and verified) and then proceeding to think about what we must be missing if we were to not violate it and proposing that meaning of âsimultaneityâ varies with respect to the co-ordinate system chosen and thus bringing in time as the 4th dimension into traditional 3-d co-ordinates and also establishing the relationship of distance with time.
Einstein borrows heavily from Maxwell-Lorentz work in the field of electrodynamics and optics, in particular the Lorentz transformation for theoretical proof. One key takeaway for me was the way Einstein would always attempt to find limiting cases and generalize a comprehensive case in which what was previously known becomes a limiting case. This approach is what ties mathematics, physics and philosophy in my opinion as it lets us surpass limitations in our knowledge by altering our frame of reference or by finding where our knowledge breaks and finding an encompassing knowledge that fills the gaps - be it our geocentric to heliocentric conversion or the limitations of knowledge that Hume proposes - and probably the reason for Einsteinâs (or any other great scientistâs) readiness to be proven wrong.
The second half of the book sets the stage for the general theory of relativity with moving from Cartesian co-ordinates to Gaussian co-ordinates (another beautiful thought-experiment here on the heating of rods in a grid on a table). In the same fashion in which he introduces light into the equation, he introduces gravity into the equation to address the limitation of the applicability of special theory of relativity only to uniform motion. In the same way he borrows from Lorentz transformations for proof in the special theory, he borrows from Reimann spaces for the general theory (both beautifully explained in the Appendix of the book). I liked how the heavy-lifting was left for the appendix and the main body of the book was focused on thought-experiments with rigid bodies, light, gravity, time, tables, trains, measuring rods and clocks that a lay person like me could appreciate. Highly recommend if the topic interests you. 10/10
Overdraft, Urjit Patel, 2020 - This is an insider view of the Indian banking and finance system without too much political or ideological bias. Since 2015, perhaps for the first time, central bankers in India started pushing for far reaching reforms to get rid of the bankersâ extend-and-pretend strategy (evergreening), govt.'s influence in banking where they establish âCredit budgetâ on behalf of the banks and also influence whom to lend to and how much, and the practice of some banks to lend based on non-existent collateral like brand/image, among other things.
There are a lot of stats in the book and for the most part, the book reads like a research paper on the Indian banking industry. This to me added a lot or credibility to the arguments put forth. There are a lot of stats of government banks (GBs), from performance of employees, growth in NPAs etc. nothing we didnât already know. There are also hints of what happened since 2018 in terms of going easy, as the pill was too hard to swallow for the economy.
Some of the best parts in the book for me were towards the end - especially the paper on Agricultural credit, the chapter on preventive vigilance (spectacular stuff), and the piece on aggravated moral hazard in the indian financial system - which were all scholarly works. This is not a book for everyone though. 9/10
Romancing the Balance Sheet, Anil Lamba, 2016 - Having taught myself this skill of reading financial statements by trial-and-error over the last few years, I thought I would get nothing out of this book but this book has something for everyone, from people who have no knowledge of what a balance sheet or profit-and-loss statement is, to someone who is a seasoned professional. This is a very written and well-presented book both in terms of the examples chosen to explain as well as the way information was laid-out and highlighted.
Some of the things I learnt afresh or reinforced were on how Inventory management, either as a policy or through intentional mis-statements can impact profits. It was also new for me the easy classification of an expense vs capitalized as an asset - purely based on the lifetime. Sometimes even these basic things can get convoluted when a pharma firm capitalizes its RnD or an established e-Commerce firm pays no tax, by expensing its brand-building in the PnL. The book simplifies it nicely by saying that anything that outlives the BS date is an asset - very elegant way of thinking but still leaves a lot to subjectivity.
I very much liked the Sources vs Uses to understand the Liabilities and the Assets side, which sounds more plain-English. One of the important things I learnt a couple of years back was on knowing what cost of capital was and understanding its importance - this is analysed in great depth in this book from a âfeelâ perspective than just plain theory and percentages.
Some of the best chapters in the book were on Operating and Financial leverage and Current Ratios and how these things impact businesses and how to optimize such leverage based on business and financial cycles. The discussion on Op. leverage, working capital and risk actually runs through the mid-to-end of the book, focusing mainly on unit economics (what the author called âContributionâ and âPV Ratioâ). There are several counter-intuitive points where discounting is actually beneficial to an Organisation. These are things I never thought about in the way it was discussed here in depth. I was glad to have stuck through till the end of the book because a bulk of the learning is in the second half for people who are self-taught like me. For someone who has run a business, this might be second-nature. This book should be recommended reading for everyone. 11/10
Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely, 2008 - Behavioral Economics is one of my favorite subjects in the last few years, thanks to Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman which is one of the most important books I have ever read. Was a bit skeptical starting this, as I wasnât sure what more the author could add to Kahneman and Tverskyâs works. Turns out Ariely explores most of the same subjects from Contrast & Relativity, Endowment bias, Anchoring, Framing (Broad vs Narrow framing on Costs and other things), Availability etc.
This made it a very breezy read as the incremental knowledge for me in this was minimal. However, there are some original works by Ariely as well on these topics and some of his own on Arousal, Procrastination & self-control, Burning bridges, Market & Social norms, Expectations, Honesty etc. which made it a worthwhile read. If you have never read anything on Behavioral Economics, this book might be a good easy start to get your feet wet compared to Kahnemanâs book which is more dense and information packed compared to this one. 9/10
The Idea Factory, Jon Gertner, 2012 - What stimulates innovation? Why do some countries/businesses innovate more than others? You may find some nebulous answers to those questions from this book, which covers a 100 years of AT&T and Bell Labs which was an absolutely fascinating read. My takeaway was that seemingly insurmountable problems, assurance of risk capital (either through regulation/monopoly/policy whatever), a culmination of brilliant minds from multiple disciplines all working under the same roof without barriers of disciplines and departments and deadlines, where fundamental and applied research worked hand-in-hand could create magical things. Also, the book doesnât use the word âinnovationâ lightly. Tweaking a platform/product to run faster or making it more desirable, doesnât count as innovation. Things which are ground-breaking that completely turn not just their industry but adjacent industries upside-down only count. By that measure, probably no other Organisation may have contributed to innovation as much as Bell Labs.
Letâs look at some of the things Bell Labs has done - From making telephone lines that could carry signals across the country through repeaters/amps (vacuum tubes - which found applications elsewhere as well), to creating switching systems for telephone, concept of quality control (mandate was that things like poles and cabling had to last 40 years under rough weather, pests and in the case of a telephone receiver, even human moods), radars, radio astronomy, pretty much all early research on solid state physics, the first transistor in an attempt to replace vacuum tubes which went on to find extremely varied usecases from transistor radios to computers and everything in-between, photo-voltaic cells (solar cell), undersea cables, pulse code modulation, laser, optic fibres, communication satellites (telstar), cryptography, UNIX/C and of course information theory and laying the foundation for the information age. Seen from this perspective, not many things that have come after have been ground-breaking in terms of innovation and even when there is, not one company has created so many of them that have found applications in several industries.
The book is written in a riveting style where the story of innovation and innovators is told together, so you can sort of see the environment which fostered it. There are mini-verbal portraits of Kelly, Shockley, Shannon, Pierce, Baker and other brilliant minds that worked under one roof in the Golden age of Bell Labs. It would almost seem that the breaking up of the monopoly of AT&T ended innovation at Bell Labs and it pretty much lost the plot then on. However, some of the knowledge that flowed out laid the foundation for companies like Intel and the silicon valley. Bell Labs was broken, acquired, sold, re-sold, renamed and lost but the strong foundation laid by the innovations live in pretty much everything we use today. Maybe monopolies work, or rather the R&D spends that monopolies can afford to do, because of subsidisation of it from profitable arms help. Though competition helps lower cost of products and services by marginal innovation, ground-breaking leaps in innovation need incubation of ideas for longer periods and need a lower cost of capital and a mind free to wander from everyday PnL realities. If research and innovation and brilliant minds fascinate you, donât miss this book. 10/10
Hi
Happened to discover an investing section in my neighborhood library. Picked up a book called Dead Companies Walking by Scott Fearon. It was a wonderful read.
Short notes I made (since I canât underline/highlight so typed these)
Rgds
Deepak
Bottle of Lies - for folks interested in the Pharma industry.
Pasting my Goodreads review below and attaching my notes.
Notes:
BottleOfLies.pdf (82.4 KB)
Goodreads review:
This book exposes the sub-standard manufacturing practices adopted by Indian and Chinese pharmaceutical plants; the side-effects which come with it to the patients; and why sub-standard manufacturing is still being followed.
The book kept me so engaging that it is the longest book I have read in 2020, but probably took me shortest period of days to complete it!
Below are some topics which are covered in the book.
Spoiler Alert.
Ranbaxyâs work culture; Promoterâs (Singh brothers) family background; their story of deceiving the US FDA; sale of the company to Japanâs Daiichi Sankyo by hiding critical information; family fueds between the brothers and how the Singhs finally ending up in jail (well-deserved) in 2019
Life of Ranbaxyâs brave whistleblower, Dinesh Thakur; his taxing journey through the FDAâs case of eight years against Ranbaxy; how it took a toll on his personal life; his fight against Indiaâs regulators after winning the case against Ranbaxy
History on how FDA evolved over the last century; political implications on Congress of FDA being strict which could lead to drug shortages; internal politics within FDA; stark difference in investigation processes in domestic vs. overseas plants; how behind / laggard FDA is in comparison to company plant executiveâs âsmart-nessâ in hiding their faults, while FDA is considered as the âGold-Standardâ; comparison of FDA to CDSCO
Special appreciation for Dr. Yusuf Khwaja Hamiedâs education and accomplishments; his role in building Cipla Ltd as one of most ethical pharmaceutical company in India; his revolutionary approach in supplying drugs to African and Indian consumers at fraction of market price while maintaining quality
Mylanâs work and quality culture during the early 2000s; itâs growth and acquisitions in India; quality deterioration after Rajiv Malik (current President of Mylan) joined the company as he brought in ex-Ranbaxy employees; Epilepsy scandal; itâs journey from top quality pharmaceutical company to a situation where its head manufacturing plant was issued warnings even after political influence
Technical aspects like how FDA relied on companyâs test data than testing the drugs themselves; why bio-equivalence tests conducted by FDA are sub-standard; Experiences faced by patients (including death experiences) due to their in-take of substandard drugs manufactured even by top companies like Dr. Reddyâs
Investigative stories in various Indian and Chinese manufacturing plants. Examples include FDA investigators getting life-threatened; their hotel rooms getting bugged; their DHL delivery executive getting impersonated by companyâs sales guy; being shown falsified / tampered test and quality data; offered bribesâŚ
Africaâs fate of being supplied with sub-standard drugs; how companies supply the best drugs to developed countries as the regulators are âstrictâ and simply divert the sub-standard drugs to Africaâs poor countries instead of discarding them
All in all, my biggest take-away is to keep a track of how pharmaceutical companies are being run in India by tracking their FDA investigations and ensure that me and my family take drugs manufactured only by legitimate companies!
Discl: I may be invested in some of the companies mentioned. Please build your own conviction.
How Not to Die - Best book on health and wellness out there.
For investors, the incentives are it helps you focus in âNâ in (1+R)^N equation.
Focussing on âNâ is contrarian in approach to >99% of investors.
Also, all those years you get due to maintaining good health are happy years.
Notes:
HowNotToDie.pdf (267.3 KB)
Goodreads review:
Eye-opener for people who havenât read too much about health or diseases before (like me).
For people who try to get their health tips from various articles on the internet, I would suggest reading this book as it has got all the basics covered at one place.
This book mainly has two parts. In the first part, the author talks about the most common diseases in the US. Each chapter in this part is dedicated to a single disease, describing its cause and also the foods which help reversing / preventing that disease. In the second part, he talks about the foods he consumes daily, describes their benefits and his recommended way of consuming them.
I started improving my diet in the past 30 days and already lost 3 inches in waist perimeter. Now, very close to his recommended height-to-waist ratio of >2. I feel ecstatic about my progress, not just in terms of losing weight, but eating his recommended diet will actually make you look good, feel better and live a more active life.
The doctor while recommending plant-based whole-foods in place of animal foods, uses language, as if it is effortless and straightforward to change your diet. The foods he suggests to consume are expensive and some could be difficult to find in the supermarket too (I live in a metropolitan Indian city). Overall, I felt that the doctor showing a bit more empathy while suggesting the readers to shift towards his recommended foods would have made the book perfect.
Finally, the book could be a lengthy read as it has got a lot of details (especially for beginner readers on health).
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes, 1976 - There are several bold theories in this book, some of it perhaps lacking lot of sound evidence but the author is a master at theorizing and that makes it an extremely engaging read. The primary claim was that human beings first became conscious only about 3000 odd years ago. Before this period they heard voices in their head (auditory hallucinations) which they believed as God. This voice always told them what to do and that the people never had a subjective consciousness - i.e. the sense of âIâ and âMeâ.
He also proposes the reason for the auditory hallucinations with a theory of the brain split into two hemispheres and the region of speech primarily coming from the left while the instructions came from the right hemisphere and the people always spoke the instructions as they came from their âGodâ which was in the right hemisphere. He proves this with conjecture based on site excavations from Mesopotamia, Assyrians, Egyptians, Hittites and later stage Greeks and Hebrews and also primarily from the epics of Iliad and Odyssey, and also from the Old Testament.
Another bold claim is that development of language was the most important thing that lead to consciousness and this was a part I always believed in (The more nuanced words you have to express abstract thoughts, the better your conscious thought itself becomes, for eg.). The explanation given for the development of consciousness and what âIâ or âMeâ means is phenomenal. The author sees âIâ as the analog of the self in the mind and the âMeâ as a metaphor - this part was very beautifully put and for most of us that think in metaphors, it is very easy to see why and how this may have happened. There are also in-depth explorations of prophecies, schizophrenia, hypnosis and music (meter and rhyme and its significance to the bicameral mind) with respect to the bicameral mind theory put forth which was strangely unputdownable.
This is a book thatâs equal parts biology, neurology, anthropology, spiritual, psychological and linguistic (languages, poetry, etymology) and is a heady mix of outlandish and extremely plausible and there really arenât too many books like this. I picked this book to explore how we became conscious and to see if it was plausible for artificial intelligence to ever become conscious as we are and what it would take for that to happen. The earliest signs of our becoming conscious from ancient epics appears to be the origin of âdeceitâ - If deceit is the most necessary aspect of consciousness, you probably wouldnât want your AI to be conscious - coming to think of it, the deceit is what made HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey shockingly scary. I would highly recommend this book if spirituality, religion, science and anthropology interest you. You are bound to think to a lot on a lot of things while reading it. To me this is a very important book, probably on par with something like âThe Selfish Geneâ. 11/10
King of Capital.
(Sorry, no image of the book, read it in a digital copy)
Notes:
KingOfCapital.pdf (138.1 KB)
Goodreads Review:
Deep insights into the Private Equity industry!
This book is not only focussed on Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone but broadly touches lots of other players in the US private equity industry. (A lot of focus on KKR.)
Listing down some topics of the book:
Some interesting facts which can get you enthused:
The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver, 2012 - This is a breeze of a read and the odds of finding anything new if you have read most of Taleb work, Ubiquity and Kahnemanâs Thinking, Fast and Slow are very low. That doesnât mean this is a bad book - It applies the overarching theme of predictions, forecasting, probability, statistics and hypothesis testing to a wide variety of fields and reasons out why certain fields are highly predictable while some are not, and why personal biases cloud our judgements and how difficult it is to pick signal from noise in complex systems.
The domains discussed are economy, politics, weather (near-term predictions), baseball, poker, chess, climate (longer-term weather predictions), earthquakes, epidemics, terrorism and of course markets. There is a celebration of Bayesian thinking, power laws, chaos theory throughout the book and practical discussions on the topic of risk and uncertainty as it pertains to everyday life. Though I may have gained nothing new (except the idea of Futarchy, which was new to me), it helped in revisiting some of my favorite themes again.
The key takeaway for me, if anything is just this - amount of truth in the world hasnât increased dramatically with the invention of press or internet and the universe is just a vast wide empty space, so most data is just noise. 9/10
Sam Walton: Made in America.
Notes:
SamWalton.pdf (124.2 KB)
Review:
Candid autobiography by Sam Walton on his entrepreneurial journey with Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world by sales.
Sam lays out his management principles to his readers, backed with some anecdotes from his Wal-Mart times. Some examples include willing to share profits with associates, pro-actively cutting down bureaucracy, ignoring conventional wisdom to create your own nicheâŚ
You will find lots of new insights related to retail business. If you are invested in retail businesses, this is a must read. Some personal new learnings for me are
There is some coverage on his personal life and family, which is quite sweet to read about.
Looking for books on Indian Chemical Sector - appreciate any recommendation.
Thanks @lingalarahul7 for reviews of âBottle of LiesâŚâ and other books - Ordered. Do you have your top 5-10 books list?
Read âThe Psychology of Money by Morgan Houselâ - Have expectation in line of âThink fast and slowâ, but Morgan book is very basic, Nothing in-depth and repetitive like reading Finance articles. Disappointed.
A Bank for The Buck.
Read the book few months ago. Revised notes this week as I got constantly reminded by media that Aditya Puri is exiting.
Notes:
ABankForTheBuck.pdf (80.0 KB)
Review:
My first book on Indian banks and itâs definitely a great start! This book covers HDFC Bankâs story right from 1994, when it was started to 2012, when this book was written.
No pre-requisites or knowledge on banking or finance is needed to read this book. Only thing you need to understand is: âA bank takes deposits from individuals or institutions, pays lower interest rates to them, while using that capital to lend to individuals or institutions at higher interest ratesâ!
The Good:
The Bad:
The author introduced 50+ names in 300+ pages book, most of them already retired now and his constant reference to them by only their first names made it worse. At some point, it wasnât easy to understand to whom the author was referring to if the name is of not the top-level management. However, people who were following the banking industry since 1990s or 2000s will enjoy it a lot compared to newbies like me.
A must read for everyone involved / interested in Indiaâs banking industry.
And by the way, you might end up researching a lot about Aditya Puriâs (HDFC Bankâs first and current CEO) lifestyle after reading the book due to his peculiar character. He doesnât use a mobile / computer, eats at Punjabi dhabas in suits⌠and lot more 
@Deven, my Top 5 books are Sapiens, How To Win Friends and Influence People, Shoe Dog, One Up On Wall Street, King of Capital.
Thanks Rahul.
I already have 4 out of 5 
; King of capital - will order soon. Thanks for âBank for the Buckâ review. Itâs useful, keep it up. Thanks.
The introduction of so many names seems to be a pattern in these kind of books. Same issue observed in Myth Breaker about Kiran.
The Spider Network.
Notes:
TheSpiderNetwork.pdf (54.1 KB)
Review:
Thorough research on the LIBOR scandal. The book mainly revolves around Hayes, his bosses and his brokers though there are lot many players involved in the scandal.
Though the book sounds like deep finance, someone with a basic understanding of interest rates can read through the book.
The Good:
The Bad:
Discl: I work at an IB
To add on to the thread I would like to share my notes on Warren Buffett Partnership. I hope you guys like it.
