[Point 1] What I’m reading [or listening to on Audible] —
1) American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins – This extraordinary 2020 published book by an American author was featured as part of Oprah’s book club and soon catapulted to fame. Captivating from the very first page, this book talks about the ordeal of a Mexican woman who had to leave behind her life and escape as an undocumented immigrant to the United States with her son….. There is also tremendous amount of controversy surrounding the book around racist stereotyping by the American author….
2) Secrets of Sandhill Road, Venture capital and How to Get it, Scott Kupor – Authored by the managing partner at Andersen Horowitz, this book is called the ‘definitive guide to how to engage the VC community, including governance and other best practices in a startup’s journey to a successful public company.
Sand Hill Road is for Silicon Valley in the same way as Hollywood is for Actors, Wall Street is for investment bankers, Music Row is for country music artists.
Going by the reviews and the initial chapters, this seems to be a fantastic book if you want to learn about Venture Capital!
3) Creativity Inc, Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, Ed Catmull
“What does it mean to manage well?”
From Ed Catmull, co-founder (with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter) of Pixar Animation Studios, comes an incisive book about creativity in business—sure to appeal to readers of Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, and Chip and Dan Heath. Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.”
Point 2] Time management hack that I am trying out —
Planning out my day in pomodoros instead of keeping a to-do list.
What is the Pomodoro technique?
1. Choose a task you’d like to get done · 2. Set the Pomodoro for 25 minutes · 3. Work on the task until the Pomodoro rings. 4. Checkbox item completed. 5.Take a short break of 5 mins 6. Every 4 pomodoros take a longer break of 15 mins.
Why does it work?
Ensuring you are not checking emails or your mobile every two minutes allows one to concentrate on the task at hand without constant context switching
Point 3] New tool that has made my WFH life easier!
Apart from my airy and sunny corner besides the window that serves as my workspace, I also got this Wall-mount standing desk from an on-line retailer that has been brilliant!
Point 4] Latest Video Review on the block!
Stop Waiting to Live your Life and other lessons from a VC
5] Quote that I came across
‘We Do Not See Things as They Are’