Ankur Sharma

Steve Jobs did it by building Apple aficionados . Marc Andreessen did that with Netscape when he forced people to look web browsing as an entertaining experience and not just "a geek activity". Sean Parker ,  Shawn Fanning and John Fanning did it with Napster when they changed the way people look at the music. They all are/were great product guys who knew what the tribe wanted even before the tribe had laid eyes on their products. They didn't do the focus group studies or market research to know the viability of their idea. They didn't show the stakeholders, mocks of their products so that they can "fill in the blanks". But is that the only way to leave the product legacy? I don't think so. Google products , passes through at least 3000 eyes, before they get released even for the Beta. Agree, their hit rate is low but that is because they churn products dime a dozen, an evidence of their agile environment - one of the most important as

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

I usually don't read a book just because everyone else is reading it - it makes me thinks conventionally, corrupts my thought process into more of a mass one, not the kind I usually love to live with. But if I can take the liberty of paraphrasing Steven Levy from " In The Plex ", with his new book, Walter Isaacson made me chase everyone elses' tail lights, and for the first time, I am kind of proud at being conventional. From today, I am going to start reading Steve Jobs in Hardcover, which has gotten shipped at a 50% pre-release discount, from Indiaplaza (Yes, Flipkart ; they pipped you this time!), a couple of days back.  Now if you please excuse me, I have to go to get some carrot juice for Mr. Jobs! It's Halloween after all!

To build a new system, you don't compete with the old one. You build a new system and make the old system obsolete - Buckminster Fuller Too often, we end up spending too much time staring at the old system, trying to improvise it for the new world, that we lose the race even before we start running it.