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Showing posts from April, 2020

The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story - Michael Lewis

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ISBN : 0-393-048133 Verdict :  👍👍   👍👍 If like me you grew up during the internet period of the 90’s - a period when ridiculous money was made by a few, who had first mover advantages, taking advantage of new business models using the internet as the channel - you will love this book especially if you were a Netscape Browser user like me hence my 4 thumbs ! The author followed the billionare Jim Clarke for years , observing and capturing key bits of information i.e. the early world of Jim Clark the founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape and Healtheon (all billion dollar companies) – he shares a lot but not the intricate details e.g. he mentions the Microsoft Monopoly case but doesn’t tell us about the outcomes . My favourite quote in the book is – “ a thousand people don’t build anything, if you need to build something really complicated really fast, you hire fifty of the smartest people you can find ” p77   This made me smile -   Clark had a thing for Indians ✊ lol

Confucius The Analects - Translated by Arthur Waley, Introduction by Sarah Allan

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ISBN : 978-1857151848 Verdict :  👍👍   My first review of 2020 💥 as I’ve been a bit preocupied completing  and getting my new book out. I picked this book up because I wanted to get a better understanding of    the Confucian way of thinking, which in part I did, but did struggle with this. The Analects    were written after Confucius died, when    his students put together records of things Confucius had told them, in essence this is the translation of notes, hence called the    Analects. This book requires some extra    thought especially with the footnotes to at the bottom of the page but it’s important to note ( p19 ) that “ Confucius describes himself as a transmitter , not an originator ”. The book is filled with some great quotes, however be prepared to read the first 71 pages from the Translator explaining some of his t his interpretations from the original notes. Some extracts below; He does not preach what he practices till he has practi