From the bookshelves of Forbes India

Disruption is often outside in, says serial entrepreneur K Ganesh. It takes an outsider to change the status quo, like how Elon Musk and Tesla challenged ICE cars. Ganesh, the founder of venture-building platform GrowStory, who has incubated and scaled successful startups like BigBasket, Portea Medical and Bluestone, talks about how new-age business models in India have localised, innovated and ma...

How does AI change our approach to work? Are Gen Zs impatient? What does it mean to build our own ‘personal board of directors’? Vivek Gambhir and Sunder Ramachandran answer all these questions and more in today’s episode. In conversation with Divya Shekhar, they discuss their book HeadStart, which contains their collective wisdom from spending decades in various business leadership roles. They al...

Through his nearly two-decade career, Mohinder Amarnath fought against the fiercest of bowlers. In his recent autobiography Fearless, written along with his younger brother Rajender, a former cricketer, commentator and author, Amarnath sheds light on his formative years under the watchful eyes of his father, his time on the international stage, and why, in 1988, he refused to back down from callin...

Alok Sama was chief dealmaker at possibly the most influential technology investor in the world: Softbank. The company, founded by maverick investor Masayoshi Son, has backed some of the most disruptive companies in the world, like Nvidia, Uber and Tiktok and Alibaba. In this episode, Sama speaks with Divya Shekhar about his book The Money Trap , in which he gives an insider’s account of the peopl...

What does it take to run a successful restaurant? Why do so many F&B ventures fail? What qualities do successful restauranteurs have? Ravi Wazir, a seasoned strategist in the food and beverage industry, who has worked with popular restaurants like Olive, Izumi and Swati Snacks, answers these questions in his new book Beyond the Menu: A Restaurant Start-Up Guide. In conversation with Divya Shek...

Artificial Intelligence is already part of our day-to-day life. It is in our homes, our offices, and increasingly in our public spaces too. Technology, including AI, “will only serve society in the best way if we have checks and balances”, Verity Harding, director of the AI & Geopolitics Project at Cambridge University, tells Divya Shekhar in April. It is important, she adds, that regulators a...

What does it take to build an iconic jewellery brand for the ages? CK Venkataraman, the managing director of Titan Company, attempts to answer this question in his new book The Tanishq Story. It is an insider’s account into the people, ideas, situations and challenges that went into building one of India’s biggest jewellery brands. Venkataraman, a Titan lifer, is candid about missteps in building...

In her new book 'Code Dependent', Madhumita Murgia brings voices and stories of people from across the world to describe how AI is impacting our work, our health, our body, and our freedom in various ways. Murgia, who is the artificial intelligence editor of the Financial Times in the UK, tells Divya Shekhar that while AI is still considered as a futuristic technology, it has started impac...

In a world where ESG (environment, social, governance) is often reduced to box-ticking and greenwashing by businesses, Rajeev Peshawaria believes that sustainability is a leadership challenge, and entrepreneurs and CEOs should instill the culture of accountability top-down. In his new book Sustainable Sustainability: Why ESG is Not Enough, Peshawaria, the CEO of the Temasek-backed non-profit Stewa...

The two-time World Cup-winning Australian all-rounder talks to Divya Shekhar and Kathakali Chanda about his new book The Winner’s Mindset . He talks about a tragedy that triggered a fear of the short ball, how he overcame his anxiety, why it’s important to train the mind, and what he wants to do next after a successful career as a cricketer and now commentator. He also discusses what young players...

In his book 'Slip, Stitch and Stumble', senior journalist Rajrishi Singhal takes a broad-scope look into the evolution of financial sector reforms in India. From Manmohan Singh's landmark July 1991 Union Budget speech to the current complicated relationship between fintech companies and regulations, the book takes stock of the various events, stakeholders and motivations that propelled...

Gurcharan Das believes that reliving your life is better than living it. In his memoir  Another Sort of Freedom , he reflects on 80 years of his life. The author talks to Divya Shekhar about how he fled his home during the Partition, stumbled through various academic disciplines—from engineering and literature to philosophy and Sanskrit—survived doing business during the License Raj and scaled the...

To compete in the new age, companies need to fuse the physical and digital to create value, says Vijay Govindarajan. The Coxe distinguished professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, his new book  Fusion Strategy  is all about how companies need to use technology and real-time data to turbocharge their products, strategies and customer relationships. He also talks to Divya Shek...

We’ve heard about the popular phrase “leading from the front”. It means taking the lead in making decisions and showing people the way. But Ravi Kant, former vice chairman and CEO of Tata Motors, is of the belief that business leaders should no longer aspire to lead from the front, but instead, aim to lead from the back. Why does he say that? What does he mean? And is this something organisations...

Sudha and Narayana Murthy are no doubt icons of our generation. But when so much is known about their life already, what can you possibly write that seems new to readers? And when the subjects of your book are your primary sources, how can you avoid being hagiographical? In this conversation with Divya Shekhar, celebrated author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni talks about ‘ An Uncommon Love’ , her firs...

In this episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner, managing director of Graham Fisher and Co., talk about their book These are the Plunderers: How PE runs and wrecks America . The book is a well-researched critique of how private equity firms in the US that specialise in buying companies, load them with debt and completely squeeze them for profits. The authors...

The author and leadership coach, known for international bestsellers The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and The 5 AM Club , speaks with Divya Shekhar about his forthcoming book The Wealth Money Can’t Buy , and the relevance of self-help books in the age motivation content fatigue, thanks to social media. He also discusses why hubris takes down many great people and companies, why most CEOs and billiona...

Raghuram Rajan and Rohit Lamba believe that India’s best days are still ahead and that the country shouldn’t lose its biggest strength—its democracy—by “any stretch of the imagination”. In their new book, ‘Breaking the Mould: Reimagining India’s Economic Future’, Rajan, former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, and Lamba, an economist at Pennsylvania State University, talk about why creativity...

What if I tell you there’s a company that can scrape every photo you casually upload on social media? A company that uses powerful facial recognition technology in ways that even big tech companies like Google and Facebook have refrained from using. The New York Times Journalist Kashmir Hill speaks to Divya Shekhar about her book Your Face Belongs to Us , which investigates the inner workings of C...

Fali Nariman is arguably the greatest living expert on the Constitution. He started his legal practice the year the Constitution of India was enacted in November 1949. He spoke with Divya Shekhar and Forbes India Editor Brian Carvalho about his new book 'You Must Know Your Constitution'. He discusses pertinent issues, including how the Constitution can be taken to the masses, questions aro...

All through his career, Madhav Gadgil has worked closely with communities on the ground, roping in researchers, policy-makers, NGOs, farmers, teachers, students and citizens for environmental conservation. His contributions towards saving the Western Ghats and building an inventory to monitor biodiversity in India, among other things, have made him one of the country’s most eminent field ecologist...

The teachers of sustainability at the Azim Premji University in Bengaluru discuss their new book ‘Shades of Blue: Connecting the Drops in India’s Cities’, which combines scientific rigour with anecdotes, community histories, and nostalgia to take us through water bodies across the country. The authors talk to Divya Shekhar about our complicated collective history with water, community warriors who...

In his book  ‘Back to Bharat: In Search of a Sustainable Future’ , impact investor Nagaraja Prakasam distinguishes between India and Bharat. For him, the word ‘Bharat’ means the “ignored billion” in the country. These are people, he says, that are still largely left out of the digital revolution—venture investors are mostly wary of them, and businesses stay away as they do not see profit in solvin...

Anurag Behar is the CEO of the Azim Premji Foundation that has been working in the space of education and now healthcare. In his new book, ‘ A Matter of the Heart: Education in India’ , he shares a collection of essays that takes us to schools in some of the most remote villages in India. Behar leads an organization of thousands of people working across districts in India. He tells Divya Shekhar t...

You might be all in on the #OOTD (outfit of the day) trend or not care about leftover food from a takeout. All this, and a multitude of small daily habits that we might not think twice about, could add to the climate burden. Digital influencer and activist Aakash Ranison attempts to decode these in his new book ‘ I’m a Climate Optimist’ . He takes stock of various sectors—like transport, beauty, f...