Sunday, June 22, 2025
Jony Ive : a satisfying read on Apple's blockbuster designs and on life of 'Steve Jobs' spiritual partner'
I enjoyed reading Jony Ive: The genius behind Apple's greatest products. It engaged with multiple diverse themes and captured the zeitgeist of the most successful company of the 2000-2020 period. It engaged multiple interests of mine.
1. Design and art. Talked about the finishes and designs of various products from Jony Ive's stable, even from before Apple. For example, the customer centric design aspect of adding a 'fiddle factor' to products coz customers like to fiddle.
2. Deep engineering and manufacturing. For example, the scaled up use of CNC in apple manufacturing. Adopting a 'bespoke' kind of process at scale. During my engineering at 2004-08, CNC was a key upcoming technology, integrating cutting edge IT with age-old manufacturing. Learnt about 'machining' process which Apple pioneered to enable the superb finish on its products.
3. The familiar milieu of the corporate atmosphere. Pressure of deadlines, conference rooms smelling of pizzas
4. Content new enough to excite yet a old enough to get rich content. The author got a bird's eye view of the subject, talking to enough number of sources.
5. Phones during 2005-20 changed dramatically and was my passion: Apple's biggest hit during this period was phones and I was quite passionately into phones during this period ; 2005-2020. I was early adopter with Sony Walkman, Nokia N series, 3 x Google Nexus. In fact, I avoided Apple because of the prices and also suspicion of walled-garden ecosystem. However, it was clear that Apple broke new ground with the iphone. Also, during this period, phone moved from being revolutionary (capacitive touch screen, app ecosystem, music player built in) to routine (latest iphones are evolutionary rather than revolutionary)
6. Apple was glamorous during this period, and the book goes underneath the hood of that luxury car. It depicts many glamorous moments ; for eg relationship between Apple and Foxconn.
7. I've owned a bunch of Apple devices during this period, and the book talks about the processes that went into it. Starting with Shuffle (won at a competition in undergrad). iPod Nano bought at a best buy at NYC. iPad and Macbook air during B School days. Moved to iPhone around in 2021 after being a long time Android user. And latest being the Air Pods Pro 2, which sure are a game changer. Evokes nostalgia! Of course, often been late to the Apple party- never snapped up one immediately on release. Also
8. Jony Ive's approach to customer centricity, embracing the 'emotions' which the devices activate in the user. A radical shift from the previous approach of just numbers and specs.
9. Wired has always been good for tech topics over the years , and the writer is a former Wired journalist.
10. Apple is highly secretive, so this book seems like the secret is being revealed.
11. Apple is now moving jobs to India en masse in a big moment for Indian manufacturing, especially important at a time when AI is likely to take away many service jobs. So was interesting to see how the Apple-Foxconn relationship developed and also how Foxconn works.
12. The book packs a few learnings for my work environment and the space we operate in.
While Walter Isaacson's book was a lot about Steve Jobs the person and less about Apple the company and products, this book is indepth about the company and products.
Labels: Books
Sunday, April 20, 2025
Pleasures and sorrows of work: Philosophical peep into real occupations
PSW is written in 2009 by Alain de Botton, a modern-day philosopher. It ruminates at length about how, why and where we work, by way of delving deep into a wide range of professions, covering transmission tower (pylon) laying to biscuit manufacturing to career counselling and much more. These ten diverse gallivants speak to something I’ve felt: there is a mind boggling range of professions and job-roles, each fascinating in its own way. However, certain professions (eg: Sports, politics, movie actors) and certain roles (eg: CEO, Prime Minister) hog most of the limelight. This book follows the lives of ‘ordinary’ workers, not superstars.
It’s written beautifully (‘river banks gnawed by jetties and
warehouses’). PSW is imbued with flashes of sparkling imagination (an abandoned
warehouse is ‘evocative of a primeval past and a dystopian future, a place
where one half expects that a brontosaurus might emerge from behind the shell
of a burnt out factory’). The observations and the accompanying ruminations offer
unique perspectives (‘the origins and travels of our purchases remain matters
of indifference, although, to the more imaginative, an obscure code printed
along a computer cable may hint at process of manufacture, storage and
transport nobler and more mysterious, more worthy of wonder and study, than the
very goods themselves’).
It’s written in a philosophical bent of mind. Sometimes, the
philosophical interludes are deep enough to produce goosebumps. He comments on
various conflicts inherent in modern work: veneration of technology,
specialization at the cost of understanding the bigger picture, odd behaviours
at workplace which become a norm. He asks various deep questions – why indulge
in art? Why work? Why do some professions get the limelight? The book is so
interesting because while it does its philosophical meanderings, it also gets very
real in terms of descriptions of jobs and people. After all, looking at ‘work’
from a magnifying glass has to be as real or ‘tangible’- can’t just be flights
of fancy. It’s this conflict and contrast that was at the heart of what made
the read appealing for me.
PSW is imbued with wit (‘we were driven to a hangar not much
smaller than Reims cathedral where we caught our first glimpse of the satellite
in a powerful white light, being ministered to by a congregation of engineers
in gowns, hairnets and slippers’). While the author’s base is England, where
many stories are set, PSW does take you globe trotting to some extent. Overall,
it’s a classic piece of journalism, for the author probes deep into each
subject, interviewing and following the lives of many characters involved.
At times PSW becomes a bit cynical and melancholy. Cynical
because the at times the author gets into a mode of saying that the
professionals are in the midst of a mind-numbing charade which in the big
picture does not mean anything. Melancholy for the same reason- he hints at the
pointlessness of it all, especially in the long run.
Net-net, I found it a fascinating read. There are pictures to
accompany the prose, so after reading the book on the Kindle app on my Boox
tablet, I bought a hard copy to adorn my bookshelf at home, and two more, to
gift.
Labels: Books
Saturday, March 29, 2025
'Awareness' book review: a spirited dash of spirituality
'Awareness' is wisdom-packed and humorous. A book I hope to keep returning to.
It was written in the late 80s by Antony De Mello, an Indian spiritual figure, officially a Christian Pastor. In summary, the book advocates being clear-eyed about reality, not distorting it with our various filters and moods. A short 180-page book, it consists of 3-8 page essays on specific themes (spoiler section SS for more) linked to the broad message. The author wants the reader to think of the reading experiences as a 'spiritual retreat'. Most essays are imbued with entertaining jokes relevant to the thrust of the essay(sample in SS). With its infusion of humour, it's like the book which got me into meditation: 'Joy on Demand', where every concept came along with its own comic panel. Despite being levity-packed, 'Awareness' is not a quick read because each of the essays are thoughtful, requiring one to stop and ponder. Some essays provide challenging new perspectives (sample in SS). He quotes from religions, philosophers and history from across the world.
Spirituality books such as Awareness thrive on and demonstrate the power of analogy. One of my favorites (not from this book) is the story of the 'Zen farmer and his horse'. (link) The Zen farmer's story is also, in a nutshell, the story of the book 'Finite and Infinite Games' (FIG), another spiritual book I read last month. In FIG, the author Robert Carse (another Christian pastor!) links my favorite topic, Sport, to spirituality and life. Thesis being that sport is often played with the motive of getting to a conclusive result and ending the game, but a good life is played with the spirit of 'continuing' the game. A and S, to who I read out parts of the book, found the analogies of the book too contrived; i.e. a simple concept made complex by an analogy. While there is some merit in there argument, I found that book to have some lustrous ideas.
Strong Spoiler-laden Section SSS
One of my favorite themes and a central theme in the book: That of 'Beginner's mind'. It particularly stood out because it is a key part of my experience as a new father. The book repeatedly mentions the child being spiritually advanced because (s)he does not know labels and approaches everything with curiosity.
The book quotes J Krishnamurthy: "the day you teach the child the name of a bird, the child will never see the bird again". It refers to the child's 'beginner's mind' appreciation of the bird - the color and the sun shining off it, the flutter of its wings, the bird call, etc. And how it can go away once we supply a 'label' to the child. Once we label things, there is a risk of us ceasing to appreciate the beauty of it.
A memorable joke from the book, on this topic of labels: : When they were drawing up the Russian-Finnish border, a farmer had to decide whether he wanted to be in Russia or Finland. After a long time, he said he wanted to be in Finland, but he didn't want to offend the Russian officials. When the officials visit, the farmer said to them: "It has always been my desire to live in Mother Russia, but at my age I wouldn't be able to survive another Russian winter"
Analogies in Awareness with two recent spiritual reads (some weak spoilers in there)
There were some analogies between some of the themes of Awareness and FIG that gave me goosebumps (like good analogies always give me).
Awareness talks about the concept being different from reality, as mentioned in-depth in the spoiler section. Awareness says 'a concept is static but reality is in flux'. These themes are the very essence of FIG. 'Infinite players continue their play with the expectation of being surprised....it's a triumph of future over the past'. Infinite players do not regard the past as having an outcome ' (the author is contrasting it with finite games, where the game ends with a definite outcome of a winner and loser) . The 'I' vs 'me' concept of Awareness also finds parallels in the Infinite player playing finite games.
I recently wrote passionately on this blog, about how the word 'love' is distorted in Bollywood, referring more broadly to the modern day and age. (link) Awareness talks about love in the same vein, saying modern languages have 'desecrated the word love'. Awareness, in its messages on 'love', also has analogies to my top spiritual read of 2024, 'How to be an adult in relationships' by David Richo. Contrary to the title, it's a read with a spiritual bent of mind.
Labels: Books
Saturday, August 03, 2024
Book Review: Forged in Crisis- a tough read, but worthwhile
When you read a concept, it shows up everywhere.
One of the 5 life journeys that have been detailed in ‘Forged in Crisis’ is
that of Frederick Douglass, who was an escaped slave who made significant
contributions to the anti-slavery movement. I was separately reading the useful
seeming NY Times list of best books of the 21st century that come
out recently, and lo and behold: in it features “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of
freedom”. Apparently, this biography also won the 2019 Pulitzer prize in
history.
Be warned that ‘Forged in Crisis’ is not an easy and smooth
read, definitely not a page turner. Maybe you get into a ‘crisis’ midway
through the book, when you are not able to progress. Then you eventually muster
up the will power to move ahead, and thus are you ‘forged’. The book requires
annotation, and a second reading. The book is a mini biography of 5 leaders-
Abraham Lincoln, Ernest Shackleton the south pole explorer, Rachel Carson the
scientist environmentalist who got DDT banned, Frederick Douglass who's described earlier, and Baunhoffer a German priest
who resisted Nazi-ism through his interpretations of Christianity.
All five lives in this book dealt with serious crises in
their lives. Matters of life and death. Crises large and small. Their sense of
adventure and breaking out from the norm is remarkable. Escaping slavery, providing
for a large family as a young sole breadwinning woman in the 1950s, finishing a
tour de force of writing and journalism while fighting cancer, marshalling men to
safety with limited resources near south pole, outspokenly fighting the nazis,
dealing with losses of sweetheart and son while having broken away from birth
family- these are experiences that can completely break someone who is not incredibly
strong internally. The fact that these famous five endured is testament to the
human will- it can endure so much hardship, yet emerge unbroken with solutions.
This concept of ‘dealing with struggles and failure’ showed
up in multiple places for me, on the lines of how Frederick Douglass did. In a conversation, M, a frequent acolyte, talked about how Indian
myths such as Mahabharata and Ramayana are all about the hero dealing with
serious adversity although in the popular tellings of the tales we don’t appreciate
or empathize with the hero. Rama having his wife stolen and then dealing with
life as a nomad as he tried to find her. Krishna, who forever wanted peace, failed
miserably in his quest for peace for after all he presided over a massive war. A
powerful tale of ‘giving’ and ‘failure’ from Abe Lincoln’s life is dramatically
told in the excellent book Give and Take (gotto read more of Adam Grant!). I
listened to a great podcast episode on parenting, on the reliably excellent
Huberman Labs podcast, this one starring parenting expert Doc Becky Kennedy. Doc
Becky stressed upon the importance of children learning the skill of dealing
with frustration and struggle, at a time when the world provides many conveniences
with minimal effort, such as movies on Netflix, food on Swiggy and essentials on
Zepto. Just yesterday, I was giving up hope when Lakshya Sen was down 5 points
vs TC Chou, with Chou seemingly outplaying him in the QFs of the Olympic
Singles badminton. That was some crisis. The way Lakshya came back was inspiring,
making him the first Indian male shuttler to the Olympic semis. ‘Comebacks’ being
bigger than the‘Setbacks’ is a mantra going on at work, given the tough time
our industry is facing.
The other interesting aspect which came through for me was
how the final position or perspective of the life in question was built over
time. Some of the 5 initially in their lives had no special interest or
willingness to build that grand perspective for which they have become famous. Therefore,
the word ‘forged’ in the title becomes apt.
The famous 5 also got swept up in something that is bigger
than themselves, and that gave them the strength to overcome hardship. At the end
of the second paragraph, I expressed awe about how they endured – and that’s how
it happened- they were bolstered by something much bigger than their own puny
selves. This concept I came across today as I heard a youtube video recommended
by Tim Ferris, a an interview of Joseph Campbell, the author of the book ‘Hero
with a thousand faces’ which is said to have inspired countless artists and
leaders. Campbell talked about the importance of the ‘struggle’ in the story of
the hero, and also about getting involved in a cause that was outside and
beyond their own limited ego. This makes the hero realize that their own ego is
small in the bigger picture. He is an instrument of a far bigger force, and they
draw power from that ‘force’. Especially in the context that the video was
describing Star Wars movies. All 5 people in this book ‘used the force’, the
force being contextual and customized to their circumstances.
The book details out the subject of emotional mastery, which
was mentioned in the book Awe whose review is my previous post in this blog, and
in the movie Inside Out which I rewatched recently. The author of Awe was a
consultant to the directing team of Inside out. He talks about how the ‘Inside’
in ‘Inside out’ means that our emotional experience of an event is driven by
which emotion is at the helm of the mental console inside us, and hints that we
should have the skill to enable the emotion we want to be at the helm when we
want. Doc Becky says that children deal with the entire maelstrom of emotions
as an adult, but don’t have the skill to deal with it.
The book produces some gems from time to time – ‘In moments
of great turbulence when the stakes are high, the fate of a particular
enterprise comes down- briefly and critically- to the energy and actions of the
individual leader’. This is mentioned about Shackleton, who is the Captain of
the endurance which is grounded in the South Pole. Sidenote: In one of my
favorite movies, Interstellar, the spaceship is named ‘Endurance’ putatively after Shackleton’s vessel. One more
gem, from the life of FD: ‘I lived more in that one day than I lived in a year’.
On a similar theme, about how certain moments get etched in memory, by Rachel
Carson when on her deathbed wrote a farewell letter to a friend: ‘For me it was
one of the loveliest of the summer’s hours, and all details will remain in my
memory; the blue September sky, the sounds of wind in the spruces and the surf
on the rock, the gulls busy with their foraging, alighting with deliberate
grace, the distant views of Griffith’s Head and Todd point, today so clearly
etched though once half seen in swirling fog.’
Multiple traits of leadership are touched upon through the 5
lives- cheerfulness and positive attitude during difficult times, creating ‘distance’
from a team, nimbleness in terms of goals to react to the environment. The
leader has to ‘define the crisis’ – first for themselves, and then for the
people involved. There’s a point around avoiding the ‘seduction of the single
definitive answer’. Except for Shackleton, four others are excellent communicators,
either oratorically or through the written word, or both. ‘Right action requires
taking a long pause and considering how one can do the most good. This always
entails putting one’s gifts and experience to their best use’. The ability to create
and sustain an effective community. Effectiveness as a human: Everyday
kindness, humour, humility and accessibility. The need to move beyond data and
facts to translate information into knowledge, knowledge to understanding, and
understanding to wisdom.
Those who live an adventurous life do various crazy things out
of the norm. When Lincoln reached ‘Springfield’, a colleague from state
legislature offered the newcome free meals at is Springfield home, and for five
years Lincoln ate there free of charge. Earlier in his life, at ‘New Salem’, he
took on wrestlers from a neighboring village in front of a large crowd. The
author Nancy uses a nice word to describe him- an ‘autodictat’ – one who learns
by himself. Lincoln shook hands with 6,000 patients at a hospital, after the
war. And after that as a show of strength, he chopped wood with an axe. A feat
which soldiers could not repeat. Bonhofffer, a priest in Nazi Germany and one
of the five, suddenly wonders , ‘his mind turned to Mahatma Gandhi, and he
wondered if the time had come for him to take a sabbatical in India’.
Although not its main thrust, the book satisfyingly dwells upon
other big themes such as history, religion and ecological conservation. Apparently,
Lincoln’s assassination stopped a clean healing process post the Civil war, and
the book speculates that even the current racial issues in US might have not
existed had Lincolns assassination not happened. Gurucharan Das expressed a view
about Gandhi’s untimely death, saying that Gandhi was the only ‘Liberal’ in
India who was not English speaking elite, and with his death the concepts of ‘liberalism’
did not reach the masses in India. When
it comes to religion, Bonhoffer redefines Christianity as ‘not focused on man’s
salvation after death but rather on man’s life on earth’, ‘deal with life and
goodness rather than death and guilt’. He came up with a ‘non religious’
interpretation of Christianity, which ‘presented man with the challenge to serve
those who are powerless, oppressed and reviled- in short, those who suffer’ .
In Rachel Carson’s life, we see how scientific temperament of the masses is
shaped by journalist-scientists such as Rachel Carson, and publications such as
Scientific American. I asked C, a relative and a prof at IIT, if such publications
and writers exist in India. He mentioned a publication from IISc, which we
scanned through and decided to be more technical than a layman would like.
Carson’s ‘The sea around us’ , which was a book on the wonders of marine life,
reached #1 on the New York bestseller list.
So, I recommend this book, but it won’t be smooth sailing. Apt, for that’s the situation Mr Shackleton encountered.
Labels: Books
Saturday, July 20, 2024
Book Review: "Awe: the science of everyday wonder" ; an awe-some stroll
I was 'awe-struck' by the number of connections I made to the book. Firstly, the author Dacher Keltner (quite a unique name) was a consultant for Inside Out, which I had rewatched just a couple of days ago. We have been plotting a trip to the cinemas for Inside Out 2. The narrative mentions Nipun Mehta, who we had heard speak in close quarters around 7 months ago at a spiritual retreat, in what I would say was the best live talk I have heard. The narrative talks about hiking and mountains, at a time when I am going to soon meet a famous mountaineer, who has climbed Everest. The book talks about the 'awe' of a newborn baby, at a time when we are expecting one. It also refers to the Triple Rainbow video, which is one of my favorite videos on the internet.
'Awe' provides a scientific and artistic tour and explanation of the emotion of 'awe'. It breaks it down into eight sources of awe- inspiring stories of others, collective action such as sports, nature, music, visual arts, mystical encounters, life and death, and lastly epiphanies. It's well written. It's set to a deeply personal backdrop. During its explorations of awe, the book ventures deep into art forms such as paintings and music. It introduced me to some beautiful artworks such as those of the Dutch Artist Pieter De Hooch, whose paintings despite being all the way back from the 17th century seem so closeby in terms of the emotion and the experience of the people residing in those frames. Also Monet is not all water lillies- Rue Montarguel's waving flags strike a chord for me because I always find waving flags remarkable. Also, the Euros just ended and France did put up a decent show.
The book quotes some remarkable passages, such as the ending stanza to Charles Darwin's Origin of Species which I found remarkable. Charles Darwin was deeply moved by music and art, and I think can be called the patron saint of Awe. The last chapter and page of the book packs some beautiful writing to tie the ribbon the book.
I enjoyed the book, and hope to dip into it repeatedly. It's a slow contemplative read - a stroll, not a dash. This could also be because I spread it across multiple sessions due to circumstances. So the reading experience itself resembles the concept of 'awe walk', which is defined at length in the book.
Labels: Books
Thursday, November 09, 2023
Lady doctors: many hurdles faced by these trailblazers
The notes that follow do have some spoilers. They are unlikely to impair the reading experience, but if you are absolutely averse to spoilers and are definitely going to read the book, then give this a skip.
The deeply researched book, set in the late 19th century when the first Indian Lady Doctors entered hospitals, talks about the pressures faced by the first few women doctors of India. The idea of women going out of the home and 'breaking' the traditional mould of mothers and homemakers was alien to society. Balancing profession with motherhood and homemaking remain contemporary concerns - but the biggest barrier back then was : overcoming the hurdles placed by child marriage. Females would get married by age 12, and after that there was little interest from the new 'guardians' in the kid's long term development and growth. The other hurdle back then was menfolk feeling threatened by competent women.
On a sidenote, some of the above hurdles are probably common in other contexts too (beyond just the rise of professional women); habits such as sticking to tradition, insecurity of one group with the rise of other.
Doctors aside, the book also casts light on the deplorable state of women. In the absence of birth control and family planning, women would give birth to double-digit number of children, which would necessitate medical attention. However, women patients would not get adequate treatment because they would not be taken to the male doctors, and most of the doctors were male. This situation existed even after medical science had advanced to the extent that vaccines were available (eg: Small pox vaccine was invented in 1796). There was an important section early in Salman's Rushdie's celebrated novel Midnight's Children, which exploited this situation to dramatic effect in creating a romance between Doctor and elusive woman patient, who he was not allowed to see.
It struck me as remarkable that all these hurdles faced by women doctors was in the second half of 19th century, which is barely 150 years ago- just 3 generations before today.
The author's presentation of her subjects is balanced. The book is not what is called a 'hagiography', where the biography or autobiography is extremely positive about the subject person and the mistakes or wrongs of the subject are not talked about. There is indepth analysis of one of the ideological stands taken by one of the subjects which has a negative outcome on a strata of society.
The author Kavitha Rao's context setting notes are nice. She enters the narrative gently, adding some historical context or her own perspective. For example, when talking about Khulna (in present day Bangladesh) where one of the Doctors was born, she talks about the past (building of the 60 dome mosque) and the future (massacres of the Bangladesh war) of Khulna. The tales of Lady Doctors are told over the backdrop of the freedom struggle, and Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Gandhiji both make an appearance.
The first women doctor had a slave driver husband, who forced her to study. Beatings were also administered. Was her life better off due the slave driving? Perhaps. However, she was a torch bearer for future generations of lady doctors. So, most people like her husband, even if they have some overwhelmingly negative trait, might also have some positive trait which might help society. So the situation is a bit like the Dominican republic dictator, who is talked about in the book Collapse. He was authoritarian and ruled with an iron fist, but then he was very protective of the environment. Today, although Haiti and Dominican Republic are small countries on the same island, Dominican Republic is one of the largest economies of the region while Haiti is one of the poorest. So, people have both positive and negative.
However, these women , especially Haimatbai, led difficult lives. Haimabati lived a life of utter poverty throughout. Hats off to them for creating the trail through the thicket, braving all the thorns, and making it easier for the future generations to walk.
Labels: Books
Sunday, March 05, 2023
Good Omens: laugh out loud moments with an ever-thickening plot
I read Good Omens, recommended to me by SS a year ago. It is by masters of the craft of fantasy interspersed in today's world- Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. In the sense that, fantasy of the LOTR kind creates another world, but Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett intersperse fantasy on to our real world, like in Harry Potter. We can imagine it to be VR Fantasy vs AR Fantasy. This book is the first Neil Gaiman I've read. He's famously known as one of the most creative voices of recent times.
There are multiple laugh out loud moments in the book, many of which I savored. My mood varies a good bit, so my reaction to laugh out loud situations varies from time to time. If you are of even temperament, then you will enjoy many more jokes than I did.
An example of a laugh out loud moment, wherein a ferocious dog is described:
"It was already growling, and the growl was a low, rumbling snarl of spring coiled menace, that start of growl that starts in the back of one throat and ends up in someone else's.
Saliva dropped from its jaws and sizzled on the tar"
The book repeatedly uses the word "Ineffable" which is a nice word. It means something that cannot be expressed in words ; eg: ineffable joy. It can be used negatively too- "ineffable sadness, ineffable terror". When you think about it, the word Ineffable itself becomes Ineffable.
The book has alternative and humorous takes on many concepts of the Bible such as Christ, Angels and Demons, Satan, Prophecies, Horsemen of the Apocalypse, etc. The plot moved along a bit slowly for my liking, but I am reading this genre (out and out fantasy fiction) after a long long time, and I think this genre demands you to get into a particular mode of fantasy reading. The build up towards the climax is quite exciting and it gets pretty heated up towards the end, with many threads coming together.
A fun read. Especially recommend if you are a regular reader of Fantasy.
Labels: Books
2034: A "techno-war" book factoring in geopolitics and cyber warfare
I saw this book at an airport. One of the reviews I read online described it as a 'potboiler, in that there is minimal character development'. Ahh- a clear aspect of what a 'potboiler' is- something that's not always been clear to me.
However, I think there is a decent amount of development around the key characters, in the backdrop of a global war between US and allies vs China and allies that breaks out in 2034. The author is a retired Vice Admiral, so a lot of the action is on the sea. The crux, as you would imagine in any future war, is Cyber attacks by China that incapacitate some US weaponry. This is also the underlying premise of the book "Ghost Fleet" published in 2015.
Cyber war is increasingly a hot topic of public discourse and debate, and the 2021 "FT/Mckinsey book of the year" (a good source of non fiction books over the years for me), was the book "This is how they tell me the world ends". That book is also on cybercrime. This book 2048 is also published in 2021.
I found the book interesting in parts, and if you feel like reading a book on war and geopolitics, then this is a good read. If you don't feel specifically like reading something in this genre, you can avoid. I won't go into more details, because it's a thriller and any more words from me will spill some beans.
Labels: Books
Two good girls: An ordinary killing: Journalistic take on a distressing episode
Till halfway in, I thought this book was Fiction which is 'inspired by' a multitude of such events, but well, that's the movie "Article 15" starring Ayushman Khurana. The movie's main influence is this episode but also draws from some other episode.
This book itself is masterly non fiction that tells the tale of the horrifying and sad episode of the death of two girls in rural Western UP. The book portrays the toxic mix of misogyny, casteism and illiteracy that leads to the episode, and documents the ineptitude of the local police and politicians in their response. The code of "honor" that underlies the day to day life in villages is suffocating. The author intersperses the narrative with sad-but-true stats about crimes against women in India.
In the village, women are relegated to indoor spaces and are forbidden to head outside the house. It reminds me of P's college project at Journalism school called "Her Jagah" (link ) which "is a webportal that talks about how women in cities claim their right to public spaces" . Ap went to Vietnam last week, and when I asked her if she saw many more women in public spaces in Hanoi than in Bengaluru, her answer was a sad but expected "Resounding Yes" . An intriguingly titled book that P recommended on this subject is called "Why Loiter?" which looks at women's access to public spaces in Mumbai.
While overall the situation painted is grim, the only hope is that the book is about an episode from 2014. Since then, the data revolution has swept by, making India the highest per capita internet data consumer in the world. Maybe, just maybe, the internet is spreading awareness on these issues and removing some of these ingrained social problems.
Labels: Books
Peer group shapes your eyesight- a "cold splash" experience after reading Quiet
I'm reading 'Quiet' by Susan Cain. (Subtitled - 'The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking') Published in 2012, and given how insightful it is, I should have read it 10 years ago!
(Although it did make a splash back then in reading circles, I heard it but did not quite quite 'listen' or heed it. Maybe it was a "Quiet" splash. And not a "Bigger Splash" like David Hockney's iconic painting)
In Quiet- the author describes the famous and astonishing 'Solomon Asch' experiment of the 1950s. Student volunteers were shown lines of varying lengths, and were asked to answer objective questions such as which line is the longest. When volunteers went through the excercise by themselves, 95% of the volunteers answered correctly. But once imposter volunteers were inserted into their group who gave wrong answers, the volunteers also gave more wrong answers. The 95% plunged to 25%!
A 2005 follow up by researcher Gregory Berns threw up an even more startling insight. He repeated the experiment but with MRI scanners checking the activity of various parts of the brain. Two parts of the brain will be expected to light up- the part related to processing visual input (Occipital and Parietal Cortex), and the part related to decision making (Prefrontal Cortex).
Now one scenario in which the 95% correct plunged to 25% correct is that the volunteers actually thought X is the correct answer but to save face and kowtow the line of the group, said Y, so as to not stick out. In this scenario, the 'thinking' part of the brain (pre frontal cortex), should light up more in the groupthink scenario. However, that was not the case. In the groupthink scenario, there was increased activity in the Occipital and Parietal Cortex.
This offers a stunning insight. The sight was 'altered' due to what the volunteers heard from the group. They actually "saw" what was different from what they would have seen had they not received the input from the group.
Just a day after reading this, I had a 2 hour session of doubles Badminton. There were 5 players, so we took turns in sitting out. Now during a time when I was sitting out, during the game there was a close call on the sideline where it was not clear if the shuttle landed in or out. Since I was sitting out and watching the action, 3 players turned to me, asking - was it In or Out ?
I could feel my mind replaying the memory of the shuttle hitting the ground, and I could not make out clearly whether it was In or Out. However, just at this moment, the 4th player A confidently said- it was "Out". And I almost felt the memory clarifying itself in my mind, and now I could see the shuttle landing outside the line quite clearly! This understanding of how my brain works, read just the previous day and now illustrated so starkly, dawned on me like a cold splash to the face.
Coming back to the 'subtitle' of the book ("The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking")- I can closely relate the subtitle to my favorite book of 2022- How to do nothing, resisting the attention economy (my review here: https://ashwinravikumarwrites.blogspot.com/2023/03/peer-group-shapes-your-eyesight-cold.html ) . There too, a point is made about relentless shallow "chatter" which pervades the social media of our times. The author quotes from elsewhere that "the regime we inhabit relies on the proliferation of chatter, the irrelevance of opinion and discourse, and on making thought, dissent and critique banal and ridiculous".
Labels: Books
Wednesday, January 04, 2023
Review: Chinaman, Legend of Pradeep Matthew (fiction on Sri Lanka Cricket)
Chinaman is a 2010 novel by Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karnathilaka, who won the Booker for another of his works in 2022. The book is predominantly a work of Sports journalism, but also equally a whodunit and a historical fiction of Sri Lanka. The writing is imbued with classic Post Modernist elements such as unreliable narrator, non linear narrative and regular intrusions by the author. While at it's kernel it's fiction, it is set inside a shell of reality because it talks a lot about the dizzying times of 1990s Sri Lanka when the country was in a constant state of political upheaval but their Cricket was mostly in a state of 'Up' considering the World Cup win of 1996 and the world class Lankan Cricketers of those days. There are sizeable portions of family drama, too, in the story. Thus, the book is quite a boundary spanner.
Throughout, the iconoclastic and stubborn attitudes and perspectives of the geriatric and cranky narrator, W.G. Karunasena, gets you to chuckle a few times during the read. As a cricket fan, some writing on fanhood resonated with my own fanhood moments.
I enjoyed how unlike books like Midnight's Children, which I felt are scrubbed clean (to an extent) such that someone who does not understand the nuances of India as much may also follow along without much difficulty, this book comes fully embedded with references from deep inside Sri Lanka. This book unabashedly flaunts its Sri Lankan-ness. I therefore was encouraged to explore some of the topics through Wikipedia. For example, I had to wiki 'Rambutan' from the phrase 'pink as a rambutan' - it's a fruit similar to the Litchi . And it's not just such specific items such as the colors of fruits- I also learnt more about Sri Lankan history. The history and contributions of the 'Burgher' community, Sinhala becoming mandatory and how it created trouble for non-native Sinhala speakers, the decline of Colombo from the envy of entire Asia, and so on. I enjoyed the 'Sri Lankan-ness' of the book's English grammar, because I (like many) love to track the local variants of a non-native language. Such as Bangalorean English or Hyderabadi Hindi.
Since there is so much cricket underlying all the politics, humour and family drama in the book, I feel that someone who is not a cricket fan will have a lot of difficulty in getting through it. However, I suppose it's all about attitudes. For someone who has just a passing interest in the Sport, this book may be all the more interesting in that it might be an eye opener into one of the world's biggest sports. Stuff which I as a fan already knew or glossed over, would be exciting trivia or news to such a reader.
Labels: Books
Saturday, November 19, 2022
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy- Best Read of 2022
Note: There are no spoilers in this write up.
The book talks about how to live life at a time when some of the biggest and most famous companies around are tech cos which are working skilfuly to harness a scarce resource- your attention! Written by an artist (Jenny Odell) who is contemporary and currently active working in an interesting field, the book provides thought provoking perspectives which captivated me. Coming from an author from a background very different from the authors I usually read, it taps into a world of references (art work, books and philosophers ) which are completely new to me and really opened my mind. The most striking example for me being the work of the artist David Hockney, who Wikipedia described as 'One of the most influential British artists of the 20th century'. His works in the field of 'the power of attention' are fascinating and are described in detail in the book. The book spans across technology, philosophy, history and art, and thus provides an enjoyable and challenging mental ride.
I have come across Hockney's famous painting, 'A bigger splash', actually repainted by my friend V who in fact relocated to London where he might have discovered this famous English artist. However, his oeuvre (Hockney, not V) from another set of work - photographs - is referenced in the book. And on that note, scattered throughout the book are themes and ideas which I have encountered or engaged with before at varying levels of time or depth, but not fully grasped. That enabled me to resonate quite deeply with many aspects of the book, and it thus felt like a key milestone in my 'quests' of life. Examples of such themes include: Bird watching, the great outdoors (nature and trees), Cubism, puzzling modern art paintings such as a plain monocolor, the contrast between zooming out of a scene to get an 'outsider's perspective' while staying in the scene at the same time, the rebellions of the philosopher Diogenes of Greece, performance art. These themes are not central to the book and in no particular order, so no spoilers there, really. Bird watching is a somewhat constant analogy which does come in and out of the pages, but it's introduced in very first pages. One such resonation which startled me was when she refers to the fictional work of 'Walden Two' and the 'Library of Walden'- it ties back to my multiple visits as a child to a fabulous (and now shut) bookstore called Walden, in Hyderabad, during my idyllic summer holidays.
However, to reiterate- apart from some scattered aspects which I had thought about earlier, there is a wealth of references and viewpoints that are completely new to me.
The book makes lots of nuanced, striking and beautiful philosophical points, referring to stalwarts such as Plato, Epicurus, Thoreau, and so on. They go beyond just 'resisting the attention economy' to more general viewpoints on living life and spending time. These philosophical explorations justify the fact that 'Resisting the attention economy' is the subtitle and not the title of the book. There's some history, too, and thus making the book wide ranging in terms of the stations it visits (art, technology, philosophy, history). Also, the subtitle is correctly titled 'Resisting' the attention economy and not 'Escaping', as I wrongly mentioned once to a colleague when mentioning the 'book I was reading currently' during a Coffee machine conversation. The book does expand on this theme, too.
Overall, the book has thought provoking insights, and the percentage of the book I have 'highlighted' on my Kindle is probably the highest of all books I've read on the Kindle. I wish to keep coming back to the book over time, reading not just the highlighted parts but also exploring her references.
Labels: Books
Sunday, October 23, 2022
Review: The Secret Race: Inside the Dopey world of Pro Cycling in the 2000s
This is a book by an elite Cyclist, Tyler Hamilton, who raced alongside and competed with Lance Armstrong. It's an explosive tell-all whistleblower tale, and in that way unlike anything I've ever read before. My only other such experience was probably the movie Citizen Four, which was about Edward Snowden.
The author shows how doping was rampant and also 'table stakes' in the world of elite cycling. It truly was a cat and mouse game- the cyclists carefully outwitting the testing agency and testing processes. It would have been so sad- a young cyclist coming up the ranks, but then, once he reaches the upper echelons he confronts reality . Tyler H is brave, in that he is speaking up so openly about his misdemeanors and also the woes of his personal life. He is also 'ratting' on his very 'brotherhood', which would take some doing. The book goes into detail of the minute logistics that was involved in the entire doping operation. It is disturbing to see the abuse that the cyclists put their bodies to, to just compete. Gory is not an understatement, for some of the illegal acts they undertake. Once you set your mind on winning, or reaching a milestone, one can go to incredible lengths.
This is a complete circle on the journey of my blog on the subject of Lance Armstrong. He has featured thrice in the past:
Posts touching on the subject of Lance Armstrong
In 2006, I read the book "It's not about the bike" by Lance Armstrong. I got extremely inspired. The effect was immediate and visceral- I put the book down and immediately went for an adrenalin pumped half hour fast cycling ride on my 18 gear bicycle .
In 2008, when I was in a situation where I was 'forced' to pick my idol, I chose Lance Armstrong.
Then in 2016, when I was talking about Fallen Gods, I mentioned Lance Armstrong. One has to diversify their heroes or idols. Just like stocks- one of them might plunge to absymal depths!
And now, in 2022, I got to know the entire inside story through this book.
Well, 'It's not about the bike' produced a visceral call to action- Go out and get on your bike. That seemed like such a positive message. But then, the reality that came afterwards, teaches you to be a bit skeptical. The reality, and the stories of this book, tells you to treat real life stories with some care. This book does not inspire you to get on your bike. How ironical. How geared we are to believe in one kind of story. "The hero's journey", as codified by Joseph Campbell.
The departure: The hero leaves the familiar world behind - Lance leaves the world of professional cycle racing because he falls sick.
The initiation: The hero navigates the unfamiliar world- Lance learns to get back to the circuit
The return: : The hero returns to the familiar world- Lance returns as a hero to the world of professional cycle racing.
As a society, we tend to be happy to start toasting success. Early social media is an example- everyone sharing their success stories or carefully manicured happy moments. The book also made me think about the 'costs' of winning. The 'winning' is celebrated publicly, but often the costs are hidden from the public eye. I will end with my favorite quote from the book: "The person who finishes at the back is often more courageous than the one who wins"
Labels: Books
Saturday, October 22, 2022
Review: Bad Actors - a new kind of British spy story
A very different British 'espionage' or 'intelligence services' writing, considering that a lot of exposure I and many people have had on the genre, are John Le Carre and Frederick Forsyth. This book is highly irreverent, whereas the Forsyth's and the Le Carre's are highly reverent of the processes and mannerisms of the Services and those within. The book is filled with brutal realities of those in the intelligence services since it's replete with blundering lay-people, instead of the heroic (Forsyth) or calculative (Le Carre). Lastly, it's filled with chaotic happenings rather than the careful origami-like unfolding plots of the Forsyths and the Le Carres.
The sardonic humor is among the best I've come across, and the book is full of amazing office quips. It can be deployed in your office if you want to vitiate or spoil the atmosphere. People fear a 'toxic' workplace, and this book is a guide towards creating that!
1
He slurped some tea, and scowled. 'That's gunna taste better coming back up.
'The teabags are very old'.
2
He might a well be wearing an emergency exit sign. Soon as it's necessary, you'll go straight through him.
3
I have better things to do than to debrief entry level spooks. My lunch won't eat itself.
As you can see from the above 3 examples, the book is packed with sardonic and toxic office quips. One per page, atleast. In some ways, the writing also feels like Noir detective fiction, with the fantastic dialogue and the weak government or justice system. Thus, it's Noir Spy- a new genre I've never come across. I've only come across Noir Detective (The Big Sleep) or Noir Action (Sin City).
I thought the plot was not too taut, and rambles at times. However, it did have my attention.
Apart from just the plot and the humour, there are some broader points that the book makes that are in keeping with the political times we live in. In a democracy, in case the elected person is not competent enough, there can be a power grab by the non-elected. Which is a dangerous situation because the non-elected are not answerable to the public. In such a scenario, if incompetent people are appointed to key positions, foreign unfriendly powers can easily outwit these people and get 'leverage' on the incompetent or the 'unelected' members. For example, these folks may fall for honeytraps, which is the 101 trick for getting leverage, which a competent veteran would not fall for. Further, the incompetents or the non-elected appointees will want to profit in the short term through contracts etc, and thus undermine long term institutions and processes such as civil service or courts. Many of the good people might be forced out or might leave in frustration, and so even after the bad period ends, the institutions are set back a few years due to the loss of key personnel or weakening of key processes.
John Le Carre passed away recently, and I read that he had almost completed the manuscript of his last book. The work was completed by his son. That book is in my reading list, on this genre.
Labels: Books
Saturday, May 28, 2022
Review: Silent Parade- a whodunit after a long time
This review does not contain spoilers
Thanks to a recommendation of C, in our book reading group, I finished reading Silent Parade by Keigo Hagashino. The book stars 'Detective Galileo'- a detective outside of the police force who has a full time other vocation (Physics research) but from time to time steps in to help out the Best of Tokyo with his perspicacity.
Evaluating it from a whodunit genre, it was a good read. The plot was replete with twists and turns. However, I think I am currently not in a state of mind to really cling on to the handle as a whodunit train goes through these curves, and fell off the train once or twice. I think it's entirely my own current state of mind- and nothing to do with the book itself. However, there is one genuine gripe with the book I have- I felt that some of the smoothness in the writing was lost in the translation, and the writing at times felt a bit staggered.
I am reading a whodunit after a long, long time. Maybe more than a decade. I have not watched a single 'detective' show, either, in the past decade. Yes, none of Grey's Anatomy, True Detective, Dexter, and so on. So coming from that perspective, I felt that in this book, the crime felt real. Given the nature of crime, stalking of an 'attractive' woman and subsequent violence (that is not a spoiler), such a crime and such a criminal could be lurking about in any big city. It was somewhat perturbing. This did not feel like an Agathe Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle, in which the extinguishing of life through violent crime, and the concomitant impact it had on the society around, was dealt with in passing interest and the true spotlight or focus was always on the detective's idiosyncrasies and progress of the plot. However, Crime thrillers are such a popular genre of book and tv-show, I suppose the regular consumer of this content is quite comfortable with such crimes being depicted in the book or telly show. To me, it served as some sort of a wake up call , that violent crime can be quite closeby, and has made me increase my vigilance level.
The book does doff a hat to the legendary whodunits of yesteryear, such as famous capers from Agatha Christies and of Sherlock Holme's, even referring to them at times . For example, one section of the book starts with this quote:
"It's a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts" - Arthur Conan Doyle, in A Scandal in Bohemia.
On a side note: The above deductive approach from the master (fictional) detective, Sherlock Holmes, is at odds with what is preached in Consulting. Consulting is explicit about being Hypothesis driven, and then searching for data to confirm or deny the hypothesis. During my times in Consulting, I did think that there is something to be said for the opposite approach too. Well, I should have remembered this quote from the famous short story, and deployed it at an appropriate moment. In fact, my best 'deduction' in Consulting, came from employing such an approach. When I ended up reading an entire public policy book, just to get an idea of the lay of the land. One of the ideas in there was one of the key planks of the solution we proposed to the client, with which they were happy.
The book interestingly depicts the societal interactions of Japanese suburbia. Pinball, music, video game parlours, parades, etc make an appearance. So it's also a decent peek into Japanese culture.
Keigo Hagashino is a prolific Whodunit author. His first book, 'Devotion of Suspect X', is supposed to be the inspiration for the Indian movie thriller 'Dhrushyam', which was originally a Malayalam movie and then made into 4 other Indian languages. So, if you ever feel like a Whodunit, do leaf through the works of Hagashino San.
Labels: Books
Atomic Habits- arrived late but wrote the review
Note: this does not contain spoilers
Even if I arrived at it a few years after it become such a big bestseller, atleast I arrived! And it's not too late, after all. It's not like I'm reading Moby Dick in 2022 (which I have not read. When I review that book, I will not give myself redemption points this way) I picked up this book because it was talked about highly by Morgan Housel, author of the current hot cake book Psychology of Money, when he appeared on an episode of The Time Ferris show.
I enjoyed the book. It starts off with powerfully establishing the importance of habits - how the most daunting of endeavors can be eased by a portfolio of good habits. The author James Clear then sets about deconstructing the steps of a habit - Cue, Craving, Reward and Response, and dives deep into each step. He talks about how to better our performance on each step for a good habit, and weaken each step for a habit. That's the structure- pretty 'Clear'.
The anecdotes and examples are numerous and powerful, as you'd expect at a time when prolific behavioural economists / psychologists such as Daniel Kahnemann are creating a wave in the Academic circles with all their research. Interestingly, only the Polgar sisters example is a repeat from what I remember to have read earlier (from Outliers by Gladwell) . I don't remember having read elsewhere some of the other anecdotes and examples, despite me being a fairly regular consumer of books in this genre (eg: Outliers, Blink, Give and Take). Also, his examples go back into the 19th century and include quotes and poems by literary figures, so the examples are not all new-age computer aided behavioural science experiments.
The tips are pretty practical and actionable. In fact, this very book review I got myself to get started on because of a point made in the book. The point being: In order to create a craving for a good habit, the book suggests to reprogram your brain to view the hard activity from a different perspective- from the perspective of the benefit that it gives you. So I wrote, regarding Book reviews: Writing a review is a way to once again enjoy the book by reliving the best parts. Sharing it enables me to further savor the book in the company of others. Writing a review also helps me cement my understanding of life, because every book after all provides a different perspective on life.
Voila- that's a review on reviews- how Meta.
Some parts of the book though do feel repetitive. His 4 steps are not mutually exclusive , because one of the actionables in the Reward Step is repeated from the Cue step (priming the environment). However, in my second reading, some subtle differences did become clear for this particular example. Then there's an actionable in the Craving that shows up earlier in the Cue (Cue asks you to stick new habit after exiting habit while Craving asks you to stick new habit before existing habit or reward). Then again, maybe the book is just faithful to itself by repeating itself (even if with a slightly different perspective) : after all, the book itself claims that the repetitions are important for habits to stick.
Yet another meta point!
The book clearly brings out some obvious but important points. For example it says at one point- 'the cost of good habits is in the present but the cost of bad habits is in the future'. And that although our logical mind knows this, the 'instant gratification monkey' (as WaitButWhy blog describes it), tends to overrule the logical mind. I would also say that the similar aspect applies for rewards- Rewards of good habits are in the future while reward of bad habits are now. The concept of 'discounting' - the classic underlying principle of modern economics (Rs 1 now is worth more than Rs 1 later), applies behaviorally too, and maybe the discount rate is really high in this realm. And that's where the aspect of rewarding yourself with some instant gratification for performing a good habit, or liking the boredom of repetition, as the book suggests, come in. Here's a nice article on the power of routines: link
Sidenote- I personally liked how his praises the habit of Journalling are scattered across the book. Now Journalling is a habit I admire though I haven't regularly cultivated. So, in three different places he has mentioned three different positives of journaling: makes you creative, makes you think clearly, and makes you a writer (though of course the last example is about writing 'a page' and not necessarily a journal, but I take creative license to interpret)
Labels: Books
Saturday, January 02, 2021
My 20 reads of 2020
Couple thoughts:
- Happy with the diversity - many joyrides I've been on in 2020 :)
- Re-reading becomes critical because some of these books have real nuggets which need to be revisited- on a mission to re-read the Kindle highlights/ book annotations- hope to complete that in January .
More details below:
Labels: Books
Sunday, October 11, 2020
Consider Phlebas from the Culture Series: A cultured Sci fi space opera read
Just finished the second Sci fi read of the year, and a very different experience from the first.
- While the first read, Infinite Detail, was here and now, extending the present tech and circumstances 20 years out, the other, Consider Phlebas, is what’s called a ‘space opera’ sci fi which is altogether different. Space operas are vast in scale crossing multiple galaxies, make big leaps in available science. For example, Consider Phlebas has hyperspace (faster than light speed travel) and laser blasters. Infinite Details is set very much on earth, and the tech is VR goggles and such.
- Infinite detail belongs to the dystopia genre sci fi, and while in Consider Phlebas, one of the main civilizations, ‘the Culture’, is in a state of AI supported utopia.
- Infinite detail is as recent as 2019, while Consider Phlebas is 1989 vintage. In fact, Phlebas has some Communist overhang in the lexicon, albeit not in the premise.
Consider Phlebas is a good read- racy plot, interesting
characters, just the right amount of science, good writing, and some gentle
humour interspersed. Think I’m going to venture forth further into the Culture
series.
How did I get to Consider Phlebas? The ‘Culture Series’, of
which Consider Phlebas is a book in , is a fav of Mr Musk and Mr Bezos. Not
much love is lost between them in their recent twitter wars, but this is one
thing they could agree on- their love for this series.
Also, hat doff to Mr Musk for interspersing so deep cultural
references in his company. Sea based landing ports for Space X’s rockets have
the quirky names ‘Of Course I Still Love you’ and ‘Just read the instructions’,
which are actually the names of giant spaceships in one of the books of the Culture
Series. Space X created a milestone in being the first company to recover
rocket first stages, by landing them on these sea based rocket landing passed.
End Credits: Thanks S for urging me to record immediate thoughts.
Labels: Books
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Perils of hero worship in today's day and age
Will there be a book written about Rahul? Never. He's no CEO, he's just a middling mid-level manager. Where is the drama? Regular, predictable life, nothing seemingly remarkable. No autobiography or movie about him, with a bombastic title - "Story of a Stud" (made that up), "Losing my virginity" (real), "Mah lyf mah rulez" (made that up). However, he's happy, and he's part of a decent bunch of people at work, and 1 Mn versions of him are working cohesively are taking the country towards sustainable prosperity.
My point is to warn against idolising 'heroes' before deep scrutiny. Today, I think there is a massive rise in non-fiction 'hero-worship' content. This is probably due to excellent data recording over the past 30-40 years such as digital storage and the powerful media. Globalization, and reach of the media via streaming and social, is magnifying the power of spreading these stories. Further, there is increasing scrutiny of factors behind world class performance, with books like Outliers offering a formula based on some individual successes. Note that I myself have consumed a lot of hero-worship content, and therefore, all my points below are not just sermonizing to the read but to myself, too.
There are three main issues I see that should lead one to be careful when worshipping heroes that modern media and society throw up. One, is Survivorship bias. Second, is the story that is told and the story that is not told. Last, is happiness quotient of their own selves.
Survivorship bias- classic fallacy- the very mix of traits that supposedly explained the success of this guy, could have led 99 people to failure, but we will not hear of those stories- we will hear only of this 1 guy. Therefore, adopting his traits would lead us towards a 99% chance of 'failure', however we define it. There's the standard finance test; in which there's 1000 people who randomly predict that the market in the year will go Up or Down. After 10 years, there will be 1 guy out of 1024 who predicted the market exactly (Up, Down, Up, Up, Up, Up, Down, Down, Down, Up) and Wall Street Investor will run a cover story on this guy and talk about various habits of his such as drinking Ragi Malt at 11 PM contributed to his stunning success. And completely ignore the 1023 others. All media, be it print or streaming, is built on stories; and humans love stories; and therefore temptation must be great to build a cover story on this 1-guy who got the call right for 10 consecutive years- what are his habits, beliefs, philosophies, and favorite coffee flavor.
Next is that there's the untold story behind the told story- success was only possible because of underhand or unsaid means not mentioned in the book or movie. I call this the Autobiography fallacy, because one might tend to avoid murky secrets or perhaps even suspected elements of luck in telling their story to the wider world, in order to not destroy one's own legacy. Elizabeth Holmes, after the success of Theranos which did blood tests on just a pin prick of blood, was the darling of media and was hailed as hero for women the world over. Netflix would have been close to releasing a mini series on her success and her methods the world over. I am sure girls in Silicon Valley copied her deep voice, her dressing, and her hairstyle, her ways. However, 3 years later, her world collapsed and her company and she was indicted of massive fraud (book review of Bad blood on this blog is here ) . Now Netflix would have quickly done an about-turn and released the series about the shocking fraud. Movie's under process - Bad Blood IMDB link is here . Further, as pointed out in Outliers, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had immense lucky breaks - getting unprecedented access to a university computer at a young age- that gave them a huge early leap over others. No one knew about this, and for all their amazing traits mentioned in movies and biographies and copied by many, this lucky break might have been the most important reason. Their success therefore might have been despite these traits, due to their lucky early break, and not because of these traits. Further, there are numerous famous dubious stands which Steve Jobs has taken, which his biographer has not mentioned. One of which is- when he stole Mac's OS from Xerox, he said in 1996 "we have been shameless about stealing great ideas" (sic); but after Google launches Android, he said he would do Thermonuclear war on Android copying iOS (2 minute link here ). Also linked to this point is the fact that the company that these 'heroes' build, such as Nike or Apple, survive during the date of publishing of autobiography and said heroes hold a lot of stock of the company in their wealth. Therefore, there is no way that Phil Knight or Steve Jobs will reveal anything that will materially lower the company's share price.
Lastly, there's Van Gogh- VVG is obviously an immense professional success- his works have held the world in their thrall for 200+ years. I myself have dazzled by his works in the Van Gogh museum, a book on him and his paintings adorns my coffee table, and there's a review of Starry Night in this very blog right here ) There's also an analysis in the book Range about how the fact that he was unsuccessful in various vocations and those repeated quick failures 'trial and error' approach led him to hit upon big success in painting. However, the fact is, he was clinically depressed, realized that his paintings were a big hit only for the last 2 odd years, shot himself to kill, died a painful and lonely death, at the age of 35 odd. There's no posthumous joy from all the global adulation he is receiving till date. Will you be ok with this deal? Another fairly famous from the annals of biographies is Agassi's bio 'Open' - on how he absolutely hated Tennis and was very insecure for a very long time.
In conclusion, I am not saying- do not learn from heroes or do not annoint heroes. I will continue to read biographies and inspiring stories. How does one guard against this? Some thoughts follow, and they apply to me as much as to you. Firstly, better to wait for a bit before quickly anointing someone as a hero, because the closely guarded dark secrets behind the success might come out soon. Secondly, define one's own framework for personal success based on our starting position and our priorities. Thirdly, filter out survivorship bias and search carefully if there's some critical detail missing in the story and only then pick up traits or stories. More the data around it all, the better. I am reminded about how I went back to IIM B recently for a run, and I was speaking to a Professor Saurav Mukherjee about senior alum returning to campus and giving talks. He was skeptical and said that in such cases, people only talk about 'war stories', which he wanted to avoid, and that he wanted more of cases, with their data and rigour. War stories would probably be highly susceptible to Survivorship bias and Autobiography fallacy. Lastly, massive change and impact can be achieved by a group of 'normal' people with no superhuman powers, who work closely together in spirit of community and bonhomie. So instead of solely focusing on being a hero all by yourself like all the heroes in the book, one could perhaps also spend time on increasing co ordination and cohesion with community around.
Edit on Oct 18 2020: Extract from "The Four" - a masterly read in the tech-firm-bashing genre, by wise and got-my-hands-dirty-not-just-a-phD prof, Scott Galloway: "There are few better examples of what Pope Francis refers to as in unhealthy "idolatry of money" than our obsession with Steve Jobs. It is conventional wisdom that Steve Jobs put a "dent in the universe". No, he didn't. Steve Jobs, in my view, spat on the universe. People who get up every morning, get their kids dressed, get them to school, and have an irrational passion for their kids' well-being, dent the universe. The world needs more homes with engaged parents, not a better f*ing phone" While this paragraph is somewhat reductive in itself, and I feel Apple has done more than create just a phone, I do see the point and it echoes the theme of the post.
Labels: Books, Musings, TechTock
Sunday, February 02, 2020
Specialization (player Gladwell) vs Generalization (player Epstein): Round 1 to Generalization (Epstein)
Gladwell has been widely hailed for his 10,000 hour rule put forth in the book Outliers which I read around 5-6 years back. I was highly struck by it. Duckworth, McKinsey alumna, is famous for her thesis on Grit, and how it is the most important characteristic for success. I've listened to her podcast on Freakonomics podcast- "How to get more Grit in your life". She won the MacArthur 'genius' fellowship for her research. Summary of team GD's thesis: the way to success is practice from real early, and go on for 10,000 hours, and be real gritty through it- no wavering!
Bringing up the opposition we have Team EP, David Epstein and John Pollack. David Esptein wrote in 2019 "Range- the power of Generalists in an Age of Specialization" which I recently read. John Pollack wrote the book 'The Power of Analogies'. Both of these authors extol the virtues of specializing late, exploring many avenues before committing to one, being flexible with plans and not to just grit through.
Epstein's work is a tour de force - it draws upon wide ranging research and devotes focused energy in striking down the 'cult of early specialization'. Epstein takes Galdwell's own examples, draws them out, and demonstrates how they are flawed. One of the flagship examples of Gladwell is Polgar sisters- they were the first women chess grandmasters, just because their parents started early and wanted to demonstrate the power of 10K hours to the world, through their daughter's success. The father has explicitly said that cancer and poverty can be cured if there is a system of early specialization. However, Epstein makes the point- are humans good at Chess, or AI, today? Early specialization is good he says for fields which have clear rules, repetitive patterns, with regular feedback (RPF). This is exactly the kind of field in which AI thrives. He gives an example of one of the Polgar sisters. She has excellent memory (99.99 percentile memory) of chess board configurations when they are configurations which are likely to arise in the middle of regular chess games; flash such a chess board at her for 10 seconds and she can reproduce fully. But when there are rubbish configurations produced (eg: White Queen hanging in the square next to the Black king)- her memory is down to the normal layperson. Therefore, change the rules of the game, and it is difficult for the hyper specialists to show their advantage. And in our world, rules change rapidly.
Similarly, for Grit, one of the key research pieces underlying Duckworth's Grit is set in the US Military's program marquee for all trainees, called 'Beast Barracks' or simply The Beast. She shows how a 'Grit score' (measures Work ethic + resilience & consistency of interests) predicted well the probability of someone completing the Beast program. Grit score also predicted the probability of someone doing well in other fields such as Spelling Bee. Epstein proceeds to smash Duckworth's research. Firstly, in an excellent exposition of logic, he says that candidates are firstly chosen for Beast based on their grades and leadership, and by administering Grit Tests to these candidates alone, you are causing what is called in statistics 'Restriction of range'. Candidates with poor leadership or grades would never be part of the sample of Beast incoming batch, therefore the power of prediction of leadership or grades on the dropout rates can never be studied. Then, here comes argumentation gold- Epstein looks at studies of West Point Graduates 5 years on after Beast- 5 years is the 'bond' the candidates sign in return for the investment of the govt. into them. Half of all Beast graduates leave immediately after the 5 years are over. In 2010, an internal Military memo was published, which said- "prospects for army officers corps have been darkened by ever-diminishing return on this investment (into training) as evidenced by plummeting company grade officer retention rates". The reason is that as the best graduate kids grew into young professionals, they realized that US Military was not what they wanted to and that other career options are equally attractive. So- what was the point of all that grit? Ended up costing the taxpayer millions, and also 5 'lost' years for those who showed so much grit that they overcame their better instinct which told them during training- 'This is not for you!'
Epstein gives multiple such powerful examples across diverse fields, including Sports (Roger Federer), Music (Vivaldi and his generalist musical team in Venice in the 19th century), Science (NASA Challenger disaster, various scientists who dabble in multiple fields) . Drawing from all these examples, Epstein advocates: early exploration followed by late specialization, being ready to switch, and pursuing deep interests in fields apart from your own. For the third point, he quotes this study: Compared to other scientists, Nobel laureates are 22 times more likely to partake as an amateur actor, dancer, magician or other kind of performer. Conclusion of this quoted study was- those who did not make a creative contribution to their field lacked aesthetic interests outside their own narrow area. Further, an important point to note that is that Epstein does not espouse a shallow form of generalization which may be seen sometimes in MBA schools. These Nobel prize winners are after all deep in their field. However, they often sally forth bravely and deeply into other frields.
As judge, I would give it to Team EP over GD. However, they have had the advantage of hindsight and can at will attack the points brought up by G and D. Frankly, I would love to see this debate in action.
A blog post cannot do justice to the various nuances brought up and examples cited by Epstein, so I would urge you to pick up the book. Also, these books are fantastic reads for parents, and I am composing a mail to all recent and to-be parent friends to read this book.
On a side note, coming back to the first point on the problems of identifying the right vs. wrong in this data-rich world- this is what the problem is now with politics and general discussions, too. There is enough data to make great points on both sides! Especially sociological research- there is abundant amount on both sides for any argument.
Notes on Range: It was shortlisted for the Financial Times 2019 Non fiction book of the year, which is where I discovered it. Thanks to S for reminding me about it- I had been gushing about the list after reading 'Bad Blood' which I first discovered there.
Labels: Books
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