Curious Random Thoughts

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18213097-the-blood-telegram?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=LXrck1oS36&rank=1 The Blood Telegram by Garry J. Bass is a riveting account of large scale killings of civilians in 1971 on ethnic and religious grounds in what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) under the brutal Pakistani dictatorship of Yahya Khan strongly backed by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger the then US President and National Security Advisor. The book derives its account from many secret tapes and documents that have now been made public in US and India. Also with their eye towards an opening with Maoist China and to undermine Soviet Union, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger gave a free reign to Yahya Khan and gave approval of illegal arms sales to Pakistan. Their admiration of Yahya was to the point of affection and deference. Yahya did not honor the election results of 1970 that gave a clear majority to the Bengali leader, Mujib ur Rahman. This created a catastroph...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/762542.The_Four_Steps_to_the_Epiphany The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank can surely be counted as one of the bibles for product management for building and launching new products in any type of market. Steve shows that often times companies make the cardinal mistake of we shall build it and customers shall come which has proved time and again catastrophic. Then there is the other mistake companies make in assuming their channel partners are invested in creating customer demand. Also Steve describes why giveaways or free trials do not prove that customers will buy the product. Then there is the Silicon valley and Wall Street fallacy of first mover advantage and get big fast. Companies also grossly underestimate the marketing costs involved in launching new products and inaccurately compare to other successful products without researching why those products became successful. Steve presents many relevant examples of failed companies. Ste...

https://youtu.be/JHDkALRz5Rk Often times I have heard the phrase "this doesn't happen in our backyard" when the word poverty is used in our country. I have only heard it being rightfully referenced in context of the developing world or just some big cities of this country. I rarely find this topic to be openly discussed in conversations or in the popular press as if it might bring shame  to a country or a community. This documentary from DW takes you through an eye opening journey of poverty in USA. I have also heard time and again from many that poor people are lazy or are addicted to welfare. While there are always bad apples, this documentary will bust all those myths. It is gut wrenching to see all this hidden poverty in a land of abundance and plenty. There are an ever increasingly larger number of people being pushed into poverty every year and the situation is getting dire. There are families who don't have proper shelter and don't have money to put foo...

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/40534545 There are books that are interesting reads, there are books that are thought provoking and then there are those rare books that are life changing. Ikigai falls into the latter category. Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles take you into a journey of how and why there are societies where there are consistently large numbers of happy people who live very long meaningful lives. They show why its important to have a reason for living (your Ikigai) and how you can get happiness from always being busy. They visit the island of Okinawa in Japan where there are more living centenarians than any place on earth. They try to find all the reasons behind their happy existence in this remote part of the world. Throughout the book you will find excellent tidbits of wisdom that you can incorporate in your life. This one is an absolute must read and should be part of your permanent book collection!