Ankur Sharma

While last year I had announced the top 10 books I read; based on the feedback I got, I realised it makes more sense to rather zero into my top 5 books this year. Few patterns emerged, when I started reflecting on my reads this year : My top 3 books were written by women. While this happened organically, I see this as a reflection of my reading which has opened to diverse voices. Three of my top 5 books were authored/co-authored by prolific bloggers who share their learnings every week for free and yet have managed to write a book which sells. I subscribed/read/shared their blogs long before I read their books, helping me understand first hand the power of building a network by sharing your thoughts for free. With my 5-year-old son picking up reading this year, I started reading a lot more children books, some read to him as night time stories while others recommended by him so that we can share notes on these books. It is refreshing to have a child’s perspective on book

I am a voracious reader and by experimentation have figured out that books and longreads are always better in ideas sticking longer with you than blogs, since they help reinforce the ideas with structure. Also, with them, you have the liberty to take pauses to deliberate on the idea and come back.  This year, 2018, I ran an experiment via books. I went deeper into specific themes and ideas via books. In 2018, my themes to understand ideas were Crypto, Behavioural Psychology and Greek Mythology. The reason I chose these themes were varied but primarily to understand the long term impact on I being a product person and parent of a 4 year old. Apart from these themes, I also read Autobiographies/Biographies which have remained my constant companion for over 5 years now, considering they help me peek into people mind - People who are/were successful in their respective fields.  Without further ado, here are my top 10 books. I am adding Goodreads link instead of A

cc: Ben Ward While at a event  yesterday, discussing what an aspiring product manager should read, I mentioned the list of blogs I usually read. It ignited a lot of discussion. So here I am sharing the list of all what I usually read. Please take your pick. VC Blogs: Fred Wilson Blog : AVC   Benedict Evans:  http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans Mark Suster:  https://bothsidesofthetable.com Hunter Walk:  https://hunterwalk.com Sam Altman:  http://blog.samaltman.com Paul Graham:  http://www.paulgraham.com Chris Dixon:  https://medium.com/@cdixon/ Brad Feld:  http://www.feld.com Product Management Blog: Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG):  http://www.svpg.com/articles Stratechery:  https://stratechery.com Accidental Product Manager:  http://theaccidentalpm.com Good PM, Bad PM: Ben Horowitz Seminal paper on Product Management Technology News: Global (Primary):  http://www.techmeme.com Global (Secondary):  https://www.techinasia.com TechCircle:  http://t

cc: alienratt I have been hearing since eternity that how bad is Kindle for reading PDFs. The fact is everyone who says is has been doing it wrong. They transfer them directly via USB and grumble how bad PDFs look on Kindle. As far as reading PDFs on Kindle is concerned, don't transfer them directly.  Instead, do the following: 1. Go to your respective Amazon website ( http://www.amazon.in/ or http://www.amazon.com/ etc) 2. Sign-in with the e-mail id you have registered on Kindle 3. On the Top Nav, under Hello, drop-down, go to "Manage your content & devices". Quite , like this: amazon.in  2. In "Settings" tab, look for "Send-to-Kindle E-Mail Settings" - you will have an email id with @ kindle.com 3. Send  your desired pdf  to this @ kindle.com email  id from your registered email id as an attachment, with subject of email as CONVERT, nothing else in the email 4. You will have the book in your kindle in few min

It is becoming a rarity (because of work and me juggling at least two books at a time), but yesterday , after a long time, I finished a book in just few hours. The book's name is " Sh*t My Dad Says " and it is written by Justin Halpern . An insanely hilarious book, the lesson it imparted was prophetic. And yes, for most of the book, though I was laughing my heads off, I still managed to jot down my most favorite excerpts (call them gems!) from the book, for keepsake and for sharing with you all, so that it can make you wiser, just as it made me. From " Sh*t My Dad Says " by Justin Halpern On Showing Fear : " When it's asshole-tightening time, that's when you see what people are made of. Or at least what their assholes is made of . On Sharing : "....If he wants to be an asshole and not share, then that's his right. You always have the right to be an asshole - you just shouldn't use that right very often ." On Dea

For people who know me, know how close reading and books are to my heart and how Shweta (my wife) and I have this whole library stock of books at our home. In just between yesterday and today, I have been able to mop off 2 books which I was reading at a snail's pace. Apart from that, I started off 2 new ones, out of which I did finish off one just in few hours, which is becoming a rarity now-a-days. Hence it will be understatement to say that this week has been phenomenal to me, at least, up until now. The two I wrapped up, though covered diametrically opposite aspects, at the heart, they both were business books: The Real Deal by James Caan is a brave and courageous autobiography, which covers nifty aspects of businesses. What, actually makes it brave was that, despite being a celebrity, James Caan, stayed truthful in his personal stories and with a lot of candor, spoke about the journey which he undertook to find himself, considering he was an Asian and a Mus