Thursday, November 3, 2011

Book: The Google Story

Author: David Vise with Mark Malseed

I purchased this book for a mere Rs 100/- in Aundh, Pune. I (like many others) always wanted to know the story of Google's success and how Google actually makes money, while providing everyone online with free services, namely its search engine.

The author has given insights into many interesting events and aspects relating to Google and the Google Guys (founders of Google).

Amongst the first ones is - the Google Guys, right from their college days, pursued excellence. This is how they began to build the world's best search engine. And they never bothered about starting a company or how to make profits, from the search engine. The only thing mattered was to build the 'Search Engine' which would cater to all needs, even if it meant 'downloading the entire internet'. This reminds me of the Hindi movie '3 Idiots', where Aamir Khan's character tries to explain to his fellow mates that while studying (or work) everyone should go for excellence and success will follow. For some, this would be a far-fetched idea. But this is what the Google Guys have done and shown a pragmatic example to the world to see.

Among other things that I admired in the book, is how the Google Guys raised start-up money from friends and investors, but continued to pursue excellence. They never let anyone pressurize them and came up with great way to monetize Google and also retain their holding.

Another very interesting event discussed in the book is the Google work culture. The most I liked was the hiring of a full time chef 'Charlie Syers', whose job was to provide great food for the employees of Google. Hence the employees never had to worry about such things, but would only concentrate on their work. With the kind of culture Google created, such as, focus on innovation, providing food, to university like environment, Google must be the dream company to work with.
Frequently, from my own personal experience, I have found that the company's work culture affects the productivity of the employees. And maintaining a good and conducive work culture goes in benefiting the company in the long run.

Some interesting events penned down are how the Google's IPO, deals and competition with Yahoo, Microsoft, problem in China and several objections, litigation, etc were handled. Also new ideas such as digitizing entire books, genetics research, etc are in progress. It really takes courage to go through these things.

Finally, I found few Indian names mentioned in the book and their important contributions. Not just in Google, but the service that they have provided to the world via Google is laudable. (Google News is created by Krishna Bharat.)

Overall a great book to read and has definitely become one of my favorite books.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Entrepreneurs

Good link for start-up companies and entrepreneurs: http://sprouter.com/

Thursday, November 18, 2010

O'Reilly's E-books

This link provides lot of O'Reilly e-books on Perl, Php, Java, Unix, etc

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Book: Rich Dad Poor Dad


Author: Robert Kiyosaki with Sharon Lechter

This book is an eye opener. The author rightly states that in schools/colleges, students learn and acquire and study a skill, so that they can work later on and earn money. What is NOT taught is how to utilize that money. Hence many times, we all come across people who get lot of money in a short while, but again end up becoming bankrupt. Whereas some people, in spite of not having a lot of money, go on to become millionaires. Here is where financial knowledge comes into picture. Hence the author tries to emphasize on developing each one's financial intelligence.

Important things that I learnt from this book are -
  • Understanding the difference between assets and liability
  • Understanding one's cash flow pattern
  • Understanding the different income types
The author has invented a game called CashFlow. The game is similar to Monopoly. But tries to teach how to get out of the daily 'rat race'. I found a great animation of the game on the internet http://cashflow.vo.llnwd.net/o16/cashflow3.swf


Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Government of India Offices links

All government office related links are available... ..

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Select from the menu to know the available Services contributed by Central Government Ministries/Departme nts, State Government, UT.

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How to plan for the coming new year - by Robin Sharma

Step #1: Evaluate 2009. Do a written story recording what went well this past year and, even more importantly, what areas you could improve on. Also list all your wins and as many high points as you can recall. Get a clear picture of how you showed up.
Step #2: Set Your Theme. Come up with a theme for 2010. It may be "The Year of Financial Freedom" or "The Year of Work Excellence" or "The Year of Fearlessness". But get a theme into a document you can start reviewing every week.
Step #3: Create a Mission. The next step is to develop a one paragraph mission statement and put it into this document. Clarity precedes mastery so the more clear your ultimate mountaintop for 2010 is, the greater your focus will be. And the most positive results you'll see.
Step #4: List Your Big 5. OK, now ask yourself this powerful self-coaching question: "What 5 things need to happen between now and December 31, 2010 for this to have been the single most successful year of my life to date?" Write down those five goals as simply and clearly as possible into this document.
Step #5: Sequence Your Big 5. Now break your Big 5 down into quarterly goals. Set 5 core goals for the first/second/third and fourth quarters of 2010 to ensure you nail your Big 5. Review these every week. Reflect on them everyday if you really want to win. Make these strategic objectives the sole focus of your life.
Step #6: Refocus Every Morning. Life's job is to distract you. Your job is to stay staggeringly focused on what's most important. Take 15 minutes during your morning resetting period to reflect on your goals, to envision your best moves and to track out a day that's productive, passionate and fun.
Step #7: Get Devoted to Learning. The #1 skill of super successful people is that they are relentless learners. While others are wasting time on low-value websites or watching mindless reality tv shows, they are listening to audio programs, studying books on leadership and success and basically creating a rich, beautiful and meaningful life. As you journey through each day of 2010, make the time to fuel your brain with ideas on excellence and creating your absolute best. Nothing's more important than that. And please remember that all it takes is a single idea to transform the way you lead and how you live.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Health Tips

My Ayurvedic Doctor has given me the following health tips -
  1. Milk and Fruits should never be consumed at the same time.
  2. Milk and Fish should never be consumed at the same time. For both (1 and 2), the interval between consumption of the two should be at least one and half hour.
  3. Dahi or Yoghurt should never be heated.
  4. Hot Oil (Oils that are hot in nature example mohari) should never be applied to the head/ head hair.
  5. In case of gases, kadha of Dhaney (1 spoon) + Badishoop (1 spoon) + little bit of suntha should be made. Take 2 cups of water + above contents and heat it till it becomes 1 cup. Suntha should be added only in winter.
  6. When feeling low mentally, drink gold kadha, add a pure gold ring ( no gemstones, etc) to water (4 cups). Heat it till it becomes 1 cup.