From the bookshelves of Forbes India

In the summer of 2010, Xiaomi Corporation didn't start out as a mobile handset company, choosing instead to launch as the company behind MIUI, an operating system based on Google's Android OS. In fact, Xiaomi officially launched as a mobile phone maker in August 2011. Since then, it has managed to become the largest-selling smartphone manufacturer in India, the 2nd largest smartphone market in the...

The book’s title 'From Incremental to Exponential' is a giveaway and Vivek Wadhwa, a tech entrepreneur and a distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School and Carnegie Mellon University joins us on today's episode. He points out there will be more disruption in this decade than in the last 50 years. Since 1935, the average membership duration in S&P 500 has fallen from 90 years to less than...

GE was created in 1892 and it finds its roots with Thomas Edison. But after 110 years, in 2018, GE was booted from Dow Jones. Many pointed fingers at the senior management. In this tell-all podcast, Jeffery Immelt the ex-CEO of GE talks about his time leading the conglomerate, including decisions that went wrong and some which will bear fruits later. In his book Hot Seat, Immelt talks about the va...

Startups and e-delivery models are usually the talks of the town and they have managed to harness growth during the pandemic but what about the old school enterprises? The book 'Transformation In Times of Crisis' by Nitin Rakesh, CEO of Mphasis and Professor Jerry Wind, who taught at Wharton School, delves upon how enterprises are rewiring themselves and adapting to the new normal. The book outlin...

All of us go through career dilemmas at some point. Shivakumar discusses the top ten dilemmas that we may experience and backs them with research and data to analyse how we can make better career moves. In his book, 'The Right Choice', he says India produces nearly half a million MBAs every year but less than 5 percent of an IIM batch makes it to the CEO’s office, thus explaining that merely posse...

Marketers, globally, are facing an existential crisis as more companies are losing confidence in what marketers can do for their brands. In his book, Rajamannar points out what he calls quantum marketing, the fifth paradigm, that can help marketers to stay relevant in the business. The need to adopt experiential marketing, harnessing machine learning, artificial intelligence, 5G, and more relevant...

As more people feel dislocated in the face of the inexorable forces of globalisation and technology and lash out against immigrants, free trade, governing elites, Professor Michael Sandel, one of the foremost philosophers in the world and a professor at Harvard University challenges the usual notions of meritocracy in his latest book, 'The Tyranny of Merit: What's become of the common good?' While...

Dr. Sudipta Sarangi's debut novel 'The Economics of Small Things' questions our small actions and why we do things the way we do them, and the economics behind them. The book explains concepts of economics with real-life questions, like why we ask for freebies while buying vegetables, and more importantly, why the shopkeeper will give you freebies. The book presents some interesting case studies,...

Every pandemic which tore through the Indian subcontinent like in 2020, brought businesses to a standstill. In 1907, India’s GDP contracted by 5 percent due to the impact on agriculture. One of the biggest shocks was felt in 1918, when India’s GDP fell by 10 percent, which, coupled with high inflation, created a classic case of supply-side shock as 20 million Indians lost their lives that yea...

Noble laureate Dr. Amartya Sen is a celebrated economist but he is highly misunderstood in India. The book is an attempt by the author to bring his economic theories and other ideas in a simple concise manner to common readers. Amartya Sen has never been shy of being critical of the Indian government’s identity politics and economic reforms which has not gone done well with a lot of politicians an...

74% of carbon comes from the energy sector and a third of it comes from the electricity providers in India. Indian renewable sector has faced challenges in terms of valuations, competitive bid prices but things are changing in 2020. With India planning to sell its discoms in Union territories to private companies, renewable companies are now looking to acquire these assets for expanding their port...

Remember that viral image of the long queue at Mount Everest? That was the work of Nirmal "Nims" Purja, who served in the armed forces before leaving to follow his passion for mountaineering full-time. He joins us on this week's episode to talk about his book 'Beyond Possible', a real-life chronicle of the sheer grit it takes to conquest all the world's 8,000-metre 'death zone' peaks in 7 months

In her book 'The Brass Notebook' , Padma Bhushan awardee Devaki Jain highlights the lived pain of ambitious women growing up in pre-Independence India. She joins us on this episode to share her incredible story to success, peppered with intimate anecdotes and reflections—a story she isn't afraid of showing off

With deep experience in banking himself as SIDBI's ex-chairman, Mustafa had an inside view into how the venture capital ecosystem works. From his observation collected across the years, Mustafa's book 'Demystifying Venture Capital' is a primer for the Indian VC scene, which works very differently from other parts of Indian finance. Mustafa joins us on this week's episode to share his insights

Joe Foster joins us to kick off Season 2 of this podcast, to talk about his book 'Shoe Maker' and the incredible journey of how he built Reebok

From movie anecdotes to the mess in the Indian banking system, the author of 'Bad Money', Vivek Kaul, reviews the former RBI deputy governor's book, 'Quest For Restoring Financial Stability'. On this episode, we discuss fiscal dominance, the RBI's need for setting its own targets and the need for freedom to regulate PSU banks

Leadership coach Shital Kakkar Mehra talks about how to get from the cubicle to the corner office, and in the age of remote work, why influencer skills are important. Kakkar Mehra discusses her book 'Executive Presence: The POISE Formula For Leadership' on this episode, and how the idea of leadership has evolved during Covid-19

New York-based journalist Katherine Eban uncovered a web of lies when investigating the rot within the Indian pharmaceutical industry, with help from whistleblowers. On this episode, she talks about her book 'Bottle of Lies', being followed and spied on while reporting in China, and unveiling the mess at Ranbaxy, which had been fabricating their test results, endangering millions of patients

Co-founder of one of the world's largest private equity firms, The Carlyle Group, David Rubenstein joins us on this episode to divulge leadership secrets from some of the world's most prominent business leaders, including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey and more, as expounded in his book 'How to Lead'

On this week's episode, market mavericks and author duo Gupta and Mukherjea discuss the larger lessons they've collected over the years, from their own journeys and those of others—these habit changes will help you thrive in a competitive environment, tap into mentors and in investing too. Their book, The Victory Project: Six Steps to Peak Potential, also has a clutch of interviews from the likes...

On this week's episode, the London-based lawyer gives us a behind-the-scenes look into the power of the courts—and its misuse over the years—and how this impacts modern day freedoms, as seen in Prashant Bhushan's case. Are courts always on the right side of justice? Find out here

Bain & Company's Darrell Rigby and Sarah Elk say that often, companies have misconceptions about what being agile means, which leads to unrealistic promises, disappointment and eventually, replacement of management. On this episode, especially relevant during the Covid-19 pandemic, the authors discuss their aptly named book, 'Doing Agile Right'

The former deputy governor of the RBI details the pressures and fallacies that derail decisions at the central bank, and what could help clean up the mess, on this episode. His latest book on fiscal dominance is called 'Quest for Restoring Financial Stability in India'

Talking about the tell-all 'Room Where it Happened', Trump's erstwhile National Security Advisor joins us on this week's episode to reveal insights on how the President's White House functions—or why it doesn't

The former RBI governor pens down the government’s habit of shaping macroeconomic policies through government banks and LIC and what happens to the savers money when the government is busy lending to the “living dead” borrowers through public sector banks. Patel also talks about the dilution of IBC laws and the implications of the same on the banking ecosystem. On this episode,  economic jour...