Ricardo Semler's book "Maverick: The Success Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace"

Think of it - the corporate world is bogged by so many diplomatic levels that by the time a vision reaches to the top , an objective becomes a subjective debate whose real benefit gets lost

Semco is one such company which does not have this structure.The company has an open policy and the employees are all a real stakeholder in decision making
Including the decision to have how much of salary they deserve !!!! The transparency and the good intention is what makes the company a flagship corporation which has withstood the economic crisis of Brazil

Its only when people feel connected with the company and its only when they feel part of the business decision would be able to value add to work .
without this , its just a diplomatic way of handling things and getting the work done....Sort this - At any time the productivity of any company is just 20% ...that means , only 20% of them are effective and rest 80% are dilly dallying and sticking around the company for a different reason and if you can do something to make the other "80%" of them to be effective , you are not just building a company , you are building a brand and semco had all the ingredients to make such a "brand" in a country where lot of economic turmoil happened !!!

Semco has unions and they can fight for their rights including filing cases and dragging the corporation to the court. But none of those would be sacked for (mis) deeds !!!!
Rather the matter would be settled legally and fairly.But guess what , here is the twist - these guys continue to work for the same company irrespective of what ever happened between the corporation and the workers !

Semco doesn't have receptionists, secretaries or personal assistants, regarding them as unnecessary. The top boss has to walk into the printer/fax and get the things done !!

Its just not these policies which make semco a great company to work for...The workers can shift their base from engineering to accounting to any other department of their choice.But they have to perform and they have to fight for their place
Not because their performance would be impacted but for the reason that they own the company and have decided what level of salary they deserve to be in that place.
The inherent nature of the system is such that employees always feel connected and responsible for what ever they do inside the company and run it as though it is their own

Semco allowed its workers to set their own production quotas and found that employees would voluntarily work overtime to meet them. Profit sharing is practiced right down to factory floor level, instead of large bonuses only for senior management. Semler eventually retired from all executive positions at age 33.


Its hard to imagine such a company exists - it did , it thrived and it did make lot of money...But it does not mean they made blunders .They did. But the sheer power of people inside the company made it a formidable force to recon with,.....Semco's CEO , ricardo semler was just 24 year old when he took over from his father and he ensured the success belongs really to the people and not to the company... Check this excerpt from the book .... makes me think , A company cannot be a bureaucratic nerve center but the one which binds people to a single goal...

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---> How rules snowball:

In their quest for law, order, stability, and predictability, corporations make rules for every conceivable contingency. Policy manuals are created with the idea that, if a company puts everything in writing, management will be more rational and objective. Standardizing methods and conduct will guide new employees and insure that the entire company has a single, cohesive image. And so it became accepted that large organizations could not function without hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of rules.

Sounds sensible, right? And it works fine for an army or a prison system. But not, I believe, for a business. And certainly not for a business that wants people to think, innovate, and act as human beings whenever possible. All those rules cause employees to forget that a company needs to be creative and adaptive to survive. Rules slow it down.

With few exceptions, rules and regulations only serve to:

1. Divert attention from the company's objective.
2. Provide a false sense of security for the executives.
3. Create work for bean counters.
4. Teach men to stone dinosaurs and start fire with sticks.

The desire for rules and the need for innovation are, I believe, incompatible.Rules freeze companies inside a glacier; innovation lets them ride sleighs over it.A turtle may live for hundreds of years because it is well protected by its shell, but it only moves forward when it sticks out its head.

----> What's wrong with bosses:

That's what's wrong with bosses. So many of them are better prepared to find error and to criticize than to add to the effort. To be the boss is what counts to most bosses. They confuse authority with authoritarianism. They don't trust their subordinates.

----> Why bureaucracies get built:

Bureaucracies are built by and for people who busy themselves proving they are necessary, especially when they suspect they aren't. All these bosses have to keep themselves occupied, and so they constantly complicate everything.I wanted our people to have more contact with one another. I wanted less clutter. I wanted fewer levels. I wanted more flexibility. I wanted a new shape for our organization.

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It is this vision which makes a corporation a great place to work for - its free , fair and Unconventional

Whats your company look like - do you feel , you have a role to play , do you feel connected and most importantly do every one follow one principle which leads to trust each other ?

Mohnish Pabrai: the DHANDHO Investor

When ever you think of investment , for the west it is equities and for us it is debt,gold etc..
I think the world saw one of the worst financial crisis through 2007 to 2009 and yet India Inc had a stable but yet sustainable growth . All thanks to a proven and sound track record of Indian Investment strategy in general and People in particular

We always believed in organic growth and as per the last SEBI data available , hardly 1% of the Indian investor's are in equity market and this % is now increasing

Well, equity is good if country's economy supports it and its bad when you have a growing desire to make a quick money yet you do not know where you have invested and
worst yet not knowing where your money has been invested

this is true for all the middle class families who would wish to grow their money and to that extent this book gives you a chance to open up to a new world called "Arbitrage"

Warren buffet did it , so did Microsoft and other companies who have given their shareholders a consistent returns....confused ??



Most of the strategy in financial market is purely a copycat of a well proven and well spun plan.

1. Invest in sustainable business
2. Do not invest in industries which you do not understand. Warren Buffet does not understand Information technology. He cannot see a tangible results. So he does not invest.
Did he lose ? yes he did but then cost of loss is much smaller than the profits he made in business he understood. Classic case is Washington News and other business he invested and continue to reap a huge profit.

At this point in time , Berkshire has given an investor more than 25% profit consistently over last several years

3. Look for low risk and High uncertainty market. Now this one is a clincher . Its like saying , Head you win tail you do not lose much !!!!
The case of Patel's from Gujarat ruling the Motel business in US is worth taking a dig and a learning to every one who would want to be entrepreneur
Motel business stands at more than $40 Billion in US alone and this figure could be much higher across the globe. And this is all run by Indians mostly.
When patels migrated to US , they barely had foot-n-Mouth existence and US was going through depression in 1970's..Motel business was losing and they saw an opportunity of arbitrage.
These business were selling at a cheap price....they bought them , turned them around into low cost models and made volume based profits which has sustained all the crisis of the market .


How did they see an opportunity which nobody could. How did buffet made profits when Index was losing and when wall street was downgrading the stocks , he was buying...How is it that one or two men could always be right when the wallstreet was telling it otherwise.....The answer lies in the Ingrained philosophy which these guys follow irrespective of market conditions and those things are told in very simpler terms in the book

Financial independence is one of the best gift we could give it to our kids . So we need to be knowledgeable enough to impart the right strategy and information to them

Let this book be a step towards that directions......


And lastly its interesting to go through Buffet's letter he sends every year to his investors...This letter gives you a different perspective of "Value Investing" and the power of Investments and
what they did differently which beats the market most often than not and more importantly tell's us where the investment guru - Mr warren Buffet sees an opportunity in coming days :)

iCon:Steve Jobs, the greatest second act in the history of business

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According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are no second acts in American life. Apparently he forgot to tell Steve Jobs. Jobs rose from an outcast high school electronics nerd to become the driving force behind Apple and avatar of the computer revolution, only to be driven from the company in failure and disgrace. Then, having endured repeated personal and professional disasters, he went on to make an indelible mark on the entertainment industry, reclaim the throne at Apple, and, with the extraordinary success of the iPod, regain his reputation as arguably the greatest innovator of the digital age.

Remember Incredibles , Monster Inc and all the toy story sequels which amassed a hug money world wide

Not to mention Ipod , Ipad and Mac series of computers

Apple had it all and he had already made the dent in the universe atleast thats what it look for some more years before another stefan Jobs come's in and take over this world

Nothing could deter this school dropout. He was there somewhere positioning his belief , moving with all the convictions he had in his heart and true evangelist.

He was a pirate in its true sense and what world once thought could end Job's era was just a beginning to this great man. His greatness was not in his characters but in his leadership to move a small team to conquer the world and make an History by itself

Thrice he got into a bankruptcy but then he is now the most charismatic figure you would see...that's steve job for you


He joined Apple , messed it up to an extent where he was thrown out of it and then he went on to believe Hardware is where his heart lies and design is what everyone thinks will stand out But then it was too late

IBM pc on one end and Microsoft on the other ripped apple apart and so does his next company which he founded when he was shown the doors from The apple..He called this company 'Next' and dreamt it to be the best seller in the PC market...But he misjudged everything from the starting. He misjudged customers and he even went to an extent where he thought he could sell those dumb computers by a spectacular design

Everything flopped. He had not learnt his lessons at least that's what world thought he could have ...But then , universe was just waiting to explode to his sheer enthusiasm and belief that he held for so long years

20 years of making is not a joke and holding on to his own convictions of proving his point is no way a sane act ..It was insane...Steve Jobs was bleeding with his loss making company , Next and he was looking out for a hope

He was looking out for another venture for a turn around and it was a sheer accident to Buy Pixer for few millions and turned that company to a billion dollar or may be more than that

Disney wanted it .So does every other great companies like Sony and others wanted Pixer. But it was Steve's remarkable power to turn around what seems impossible to possible which made apple ,Pixer and Next such great companies.

He gave un realistic demands , schedule to his world class engineers and everyone were working 18 hours a day and in the process broke all the history and here he was the king of Animation - Toy story which hit the market and he never turned back again..

He sold Next to Apple and went to sell iMac series to different market or rather he created a market for everyone to come and conquer...perhaps...but none could !!!

And not to forget Ipod which went head to head with Pixer sales and Now we are waiting , what next from Steve Jobs

The blue ocean strategy had just bugged him in the late 80's and he could never be failed ..
He had conquered everything from Hardware to Animation to Music to Technology but sadly couldn't be in a good health. the last I heard , he wanted to stay close to his family...Well that's the truth but he had made a dent already in the universe which no one could ever imagine .....

What set him apart could be seen in his sayings...read on and I am sure you will be excited !!!

"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations."

"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me . Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful. that's what matters to me."
"We've gone through the operating system and looked at everything and asked how can we simplify this and make it more powerful at the same time."
"Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected."
"I want to put a ding in the universe."
"I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn't that important because I never did it for the money."
"The Japanese have hit the shores like dead fish. They're just like dead fish washing up on the shores."
"Unfortunately, people are not rebelling against Microsoft. They don't know any better."
"Bill Gates'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger."
"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products."

"My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better."
"We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them."
"Click. Boom. Amazing!"
"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."
"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
"Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?"
"A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets."
"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."
"Recruiting is hard. It's just finding the needles in the haystack. You can't know enough in a one-hour interview.
So, in the end, it's ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they're challenged? I ask everybody that: 'Why are you here?' The answers themselves are not what you're looking for. It's the meta-data."
"We've had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren't going to lay off people, that we'd taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place - the last thing we were going to do is lay them off."
"I mean, some people say, 'Oh, God, if [Jobs] got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.' And, you know, I think it wouldn't be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple.
My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that's what I try to do."
"It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want. And I think we're pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That's what we get paid to do.
We just want to make great products. (I think he means "insanely great products!")"
"So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it quietly, and, you know - just explore things."
"When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself.
They'll want to do what's best for Apple, not what's best for them, what's best for Steve, or anybody else. (this actually reiterates my oft-repeated mantra of "ubiquitous evangelism" in companies)"

What Ever You Think , think the Opposite by Paul Arden

20 minutes of reading but a game changer in your life - this is how I felt when I read this book

My review might look timid but the book is far more exciting.

I am bugged of pushing my ideas through book review's and thats my way and I believe I did the right thing after reading this book :)

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I am pretty sure and I can guarantee this to all you - You are dead bored.where ever you are , at some point in life , you would have felt that life is Just this or is it something I have been forcedto go through.

Hold your breath and just sit back and deep breath. You are now connected to your soul and you are now in a journey of your own thought. You will have ideas...some are wild , some are foolish and some are just eccentric

Take it , apply it...fail because thats the best way to learn than getting the right answer after a 3 long hours of thinking...This is what we call Intellectual drain. Because the more you reason out and

more you are knowledgeable , you will not enjoy the journey of the goal . So we see great companies are built by young than the old :)..

Pragmatic decisions everyone of us take is just a Blunder we are making in our lives.The idea is to remain foolish and remain childish

Steve jobs would not have made Apple if he was an intellect and taken right decisions...He failed and he failed to an extent where he could have lost is life..

Thats the beauty.He won , he conquered and the rest is history

Dear patrons, its better to fail than winning and the amount of lesson it teaches is just beyond everything...

So take those decisions , right or wrong , you will have tremendous scope ...Think you can , think you can't either way you are right

Don't go with the crowd...pull them to you .Don't do what other people do , Don't listen to every one and get manipulated...ACT on your self and then you will see the richness

its YOU and YOU alone can decide the destiny ..Good or Bad , Just Do it !

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