My fave books, podcasts, and articles of 2024
Sajith Pai's somewhat irregular newsletter #31
The last newsletter of the year is a departure from the traditional format. Like last year’s final newsletter this one too is devoted to listing the books, podcasts, and other creative endeavours that made an impression on me over the year with my thoughts and notes on them.
But before that a short take on the year it has been. Two common strands or themes to the year across all my identities (work, writing, family). First, it was the year that things didnt come to pass:) Second, it was the year of inputs, and investing in, and not the year of outputs or harvesting.
For instance, on the work front, I expected a portfolio closure or even two, but both survived the year, and may survive longer too. I haven’t got the decisive uprounds and wins I expected from my portfolio in 2024. If 2021 was the year when investors loved you even though your customers didn’t, then 2024 was the reverse. But the progress the companies made was impressive. There has also been incredible evolution on the founder front for a few, especially Classplus. Watch out for them. All of this makes me cautiously (after this year’s disappointment) optimistic for 2025.
There has been considerable evolution in my thinking as an investor as well. It is six years now as an investor, a new identity that I adopted when I joined Blume in 2018. It was a strange world, and I adopted myself the best I could. After six years of experimenting, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, and continuous learning, I am beginning to arrive at my style of investing, one that takes into account my strengths, and patterns of habit, while fitting into the house style. If you are familiar with Robert Kegan’s five stages of adult development framework, I have moved from the socialized to the self-authoring phase. Or if you prefer Graham Duncan’s five levels of the investing game, then I moved from the expert to the professional level.
On the writing front, there has been some progress towards the book on PMF (product-market fit). I hope to start releasing the first two parts of the book online this summer. Hopefully by 2026 summer, the entire book should be online. Because the book sucked up a lot of my writing energies, there weren’t enough articles, short or long-form from me this year. That trend won’t change I think sadly, but hopefully there will be enough to read in the multi-chapter parts I will release online summer onwards.
On to the recommendations, and my notes on them.
Books
I read 22 books this year, of which three were works of fiction. Now I have kept stats of what I have read over the past two decades; I average 23 books a year, about a quarter of which are fiction. Two goals I have set for myself a few years back is to read more fiction, and read older books. On both counts I failed this year. Far too works of fiction, and too many recent reads.
From the 22 books I read this year, I have listed about 10 here, which I particularly enjoyed or recommend.
The first five below are the ones I recommend highly, and then the next five round out the list. There is no particular order in each quintet.
1/ How Big Things Get Done (2023) – Bent Flyvbjerg & Dan Gardner
Bent Flyvbjerg is an expert on megaprojects and why most megaprojects are delayed and overbudget (only 0.5% of megaprojects are under budget and on time he says). In this book, he covers why most megaprojects ‘fail’ and how you can get them done in time and under budget. The mantra is ‘think slow, act fast’, i.e., take your time getting the plan right, and move furiously to execute. Good easy read with lots of interesting examples. Could have been much shorter though, as with all business books.
My summary of the book is here.
2/ Court on Trial (2023) – Aparna Chandra, Sital Kalantry, and William H.J. Hubbard
Compact and enjoyable book reviewing the (mis)functioning of the Indian Supreme Court, through data. Highly recommended. It is surprising it hasn’t created the kind of noise it deserves to, given the topic it deals with and conclusions it derives.
The book was fascinating and infuriating in equal measures. Fascinating, because to a legal layman like me, it opened up the world of the Indian Supreme Court, and the challenges the court faces (the large number of cases, the pendency / delays, the power of the senior advocates, the lack of diversity on the court etc.). Infuriating, seeing the Supreme Court riddled with challenges which it has brought upon itself. The book lays out the challenges the Indian Supreme Court is grappling with, not through anecdotes (though there are some of those in the book) but through data which is not easy to come by, and was painstakingly assembled.
Through this data, the authors come to conclusions such as the Court, in trying to be a ‘People’s Court’, takes on too many cases, and often unimportant ones at that. Most of these cases are of a kind known as SLPs (Special Leave Petition, a provision which was only meant to be used sparingly, but accounts for a bulk of the workload of the court). The court admits a sixth of the ~60k cases it is petitioned (far too much), with SLPs accounting for 88% of these, and passes judgement in ~1k of those. (In contrast, US Supreme Court admits 1% of the ~8k cases it is appealed). Because of the lack of time to deal with the ~10k cases it admits, the ~1k judgements it passes often do not cite legal precedent, give limited guidances to the lower courts, and thus often cannot be used for future judgements.
In different chapters, the authors cover different misfunctioning facets of the court including how the large number of SLPs lead to admission hearings on mondays and fridays, where the ‘elite senior’ advocates get facetime of 90 seconds per case, and charge anywhere from 1L to 15L per appearance. Many of these hearings are influenced by the signaling power (or ‘face value’) of the Senior Advocates. It looks at how the power shifted from judges to senior advocates and asks what can be done to redress that.
Subsequent chapters look at topics such as diversity, political influence, the power of the Chief Justice in determining which judge is assigned to which case, etc. All of these are analysed, and conclusions are drawn through the use of data. Despite all of the legal arcana, the book was an easy read, even for a legal layman like me. It is also a relatively slim read (around 200 pages). Recommended read.
3/ Write Useful Books (2021) – Rob Fitzpatrick
A short and highly readable guide to writing the non-fiction book that dispenses actionable advice, and helps readers achieve their outcomes (books like The Lean Startup, Building a Second Brain etc., which the authors calls ‘Problem-solvers’) as opposed to non-fiction works that are edutainment products such as Malcolm Gladwell or Steven Johnson’s books (which he calls ‘Pleasure-givers’).
Writing a ‘Problem-solver’ needs to be approached very differently, says the author, noting that much of the advice that is usually dispensed for non-fiction books is for ‘Pleasure-givers’. For one, you need to define the scope and the audience tightly enough that there is a strong promise (it is hence ‘Desirable’), it needs to deliver on the promise by offering a high degree of value (‘Effective’), the reader should not have to work very hard to extract that value (‘Engaging’) and finally it needs to be aesthetically designed and well-produced (‘Polished’). ‘Desirable’, ‘Effective’, ‘Engaging’ and ‘Polished’ add to the acronym DEEP, which is a handy way to remember the attributes of a successful ‘Problem-solver’.
Such a DEEP work, he says, will become a self-recommending title, because it is actionable and useful for anyone faced with the problem the book has solutions for. The author shares a lot of useful tips to create self-recommending titles, such as 1) a descriptive Table of Contents, with each chapter’s description being the benefit or value the reader gets from reading the chapter 2) front-loading the value – quickly getting to the meaty parts / main course instead of forcing the reader to consume a lot of starters or front matter 3) having ‘listening’ and ‘teaching conversation’ with prospective readers to validate the Table of Contents, and some key chapters 4) striving for high value per pages turned – reviewing the pages per value or benefits offered, and so on 5) Beta-testing the book with a select group of readers you recruit 6) a guide to self-publish and market the book 7) how to decide on the cover page, and so on. All in all, a useful read for anyone looking to write a ‘problem-solver’.
4/ Lilliput Land (2023) – Rama Bijapurkar
One of the best books I read this year. The book looks at India through the trifecta of its socio-economic-demographic structure, the Indian consumer’s behaviour, and finally the supply structure catering to demand. It says that despite the Indian consumer’s adaptability and their rising aspiration (behaviour), the growth of the economy is held back by a) high inequality and low disposable income for a vast majority of Indians (which is reflected in the socio-economic structure), and b) despite the clear demand for high value, affordable products, the inability of supply structures to cater to this demand (barring a few Indian company, a few Chinese and ecom companies).
The nature of India’s demand – large overall, but aggregated by the small spends of masses (hence the title ‘Lilliput Land’) – means that companies interested in catering to mass India, will need to create ‘Made for India’ products that reflect this reality, providing affordable value to consumers, taking advantage of their high digital awareness and rising aspirations.
5/ The Mom Test (2016) – Rob Fitzpatrick
This is the second book of Rob’s in my shortlist! This is the single best resource for conducting customer conversations better, especially during the problem validation phase of a startup (before you build the product). It is a short book, and the time of 3-4 hours invested in reading it is well worth it in terms of impact.
The name ‘Mom Test’ comes from asking questions in such a manner that even your mom can’t lie to you, because your mom will always think whatever you tell her is a great idea, and respond effusively. Hence your questions need to pass ‘the mom test’! The book encourages you to ask questions about your customers’ lives – “their problems, cares, constraints, and goals” and use these “concrete facts about our customer’s lives” to “take your own visionary leap to a solution”.
The book says that the later you mention your idea to the customer you are interviewing, and even better if you don’t mention your idea, the better the questions you will ask, and the more insights you will extract from the conversation. The book puts it well: “It boils down to this: you aren’t allowed to tell them what their problem is, and in return, they aren’t allowed to tell you what to build. They own the problem, you own the solution.”
My notes / highlights of the book is here.
6/ Accidental Empires (1992) – Robert X Cringely (Mark Stephens)
Fun, racy, spicy, ultra-gossipy read of the history of Silicon Valley, and the shenanigans of the computer pioneers (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs etc) from the 1970s-80s. That said, it goes beyond gossip and funny anecdotes to cover the shifting technological trends and business dynamics of the industry as well. There is also a deep dive into the culture of then startups Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, Lotus etc., as well as behemoth IBM (the best one). Its ability to mix and cover tech trends, business strategy, as well as bad boy behaviour, equally well made it an enjoyable and interesting read for me.
The book became notorious when it was first released in 1992 (apparently Microsoft tried to get it banned) because it mentioned stuff like Bill Gates not showering regularly, and drunk-bitching about IBM in a meeting with Lotus executives (which found its way to IBM). Should you read it? Well, if you have a deep interest in Silicon Valley history like I do, go for it. If you don’t, then strictly don’t bother, though if you do, you won’t be disappointed!
7/ The Rise of Asian Paints (2024) – Anupam Gupta
Well-written chronicle of the birth and rise of Asian Paints, as well as its ‘first among equals’ cofounder Champaklal Choksey. From what i could make out basis the book, Asian Paints’s growth is a classic compounding play, benefitting from the steady growth of the Indian economy as well as the ’70s FERA diktats that kneecapped its foreign-owned rivals.
It ran a tight operational ship and took a set of bold decisions, such as investing in R&D / product development by hiring chemistry experts, bringing in professionals to run key aspects of the
business (first family business to hire from IIMs in a big way, investing in tech (first non IT co to invest in a computer in early 70s), going direct to retailers bypassing distibutors, investing in brand marketing etc.
8/ Breaking the Mould (2023) – Raghuram Rajan & Rohit Lamba
A cautious, or even a mildly negative take on the Indian economy and the recent policy directions. In particular I enjoyed reading the authors’ take on why the PLI (production linked incentive) is an expensive mistake. Along with the analysis of recent policy missteps it also tries to lay out recommendations to set the economy on the right course.
9/ India is Broken (2023) – Ashoka Mody
Good breezy read on India’s economic history since 1947 with a deep dive and discussion of its economic failings. Skewers both the Congress and the BJP. Much like ‘Breaking the Mould’, recommended if you like to read books written from a macroeconomic perspective on India.
10/ Beyond Market Value (2019) – Annette Campbell-White
Interesting though ultimately a slightly disappointing read. It could have been so much more I felt this book, an autobiography by a venture capital investor and rare book collector. I was expecting an equal weightage to both topics, but sadly it is a bit weighted in favour of book collecting. As a female investment banker-turned venture investor, and as one of the few female VCs in her time, a detailed and comprehensive narrative of her career and investing experiences would have been fascinating to read. In fact we do get a few glimpses of this but they are too few and far between.There is far too much space given to books and book-collecting, and while there are some amusing anecdotes, sadly much of it is not as interesting as the venture part. Yes, your mileage may vary, depending on your interests. That said I have reasonable interest in both and yet, I felt the book collecting part overwhelmed the venture part, leading ultimately to a book that is not as intriguing as the cover and premise suggests. Still given the topic and the author’s candour, I felt this was worth an inclusion.
Podcasts
Podcasts are having their moment today, given the outsized role they had in the US 2024 Presidential election. It is impressive how some of the larger ones, such as the Joe Rogan Experience, have emerged as counterweights to mainstream media. While podcasts have hit the cultural zeitgeist and have broken into the mainstream, they have always had an outsized influence In our own little (well, no longer little) tech + startups + venture world.
A key reason for that is that podcasts are likely the least frictionless way for tacit information or tradecraft to be made more explicit in the tech world, given the opportunity costs of time for a founder or VC. Hence they offer the highest information bang for the time buck as far as the tech + startup world goes (see my old piece ‘Why Podcasts Matter’). Kinda like how biographies / autobiographies are to the world of non-fiction.
As I became aware of the advantage podcasts offered, I reformatted my information diet to prioritise podcasts, consuming it mostly in the form of transcripts (Apple Podcasts’ autogeneration of transcripts has been a gamechanger of late). I reduced my consumption of articles and newsletters, unsubscribing from most newsletters, or autoarchiving them, barring a handful of paid subscriptions (Lenny, Generalist, Newcomer etc.) I described it once to an acquaintance as the equivalent of an information keto diet, eschewing information carbs (articles, twitter) in favour of proteins (podcasts) and fats (books)!
Here is the list of podcasts I consumed and enjoyed, in 2024. Not all the podcasts are those released in 2024 (though most are).
1/ Acquired – Hermes
Link to podcast + transcript.
Excellent episode, where the hosts Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal dig deep into the Hermes history as well as their manufacturing process, with lots of fun facts sprinkled across such as how they never openly reveal their highest-selling and most prestigious products, the Birkin and Kelly bags. Overall an excellent episode to listen to, and one of the many that have come on luxury brands such as on Ferrari, Rolex and Patek (these three in Colossus’ Business Breakdowns; the Rolex one in particular was v good). Common to all is that you cant just walk into a store and walk out with a purchase. Often the one you want will not be available or you will be told the ones in stores was reserved for a specific buyer. Purchase of choice products like the Birkin is subject to you building a track record or purchase history over time and spending lots of money on what you really don’t need before you get to buy what you want:)
2/ Turpentine VC – Sarah Tavel + Eric Vishria, Benchmark
Link to podcast. Link to transcript (organised by me).
Benchmark is such an interesting firm, given the strategic choices they made around the equal partnership, and working without any support (no analysts / associates, just an occasional Principal, and no platform team). In this episode, there are interesting discussions of the implications of these choices and tradeoffs. The bad is that this can mean insufficient coverage (not enough cold bodies to email) or support to founder, but the good is that it is a forcing function to focus on what is truly important, which is direct time to the founder on key inflection points, and build greater and better context about the business which informs future decisions. There is also an interesting section on how they think about future Partners and recruit them. Benchmark is a one of a kind firm. It is very unlikely there will be too many more like it, so it is unlikely any of their strategic choices will fit those of other firms, but it is fascinating to see the entire set of choices and tradeoffs, and how they make for a firm like them, and the implications of these choices.
3/ Colossus | Invest Like the Best – Gavin Baker, Atreides
Link to podcast + transcript. Excerpts from the podcast that I found interesting here.
This was an astounding episode. Gavin Baker is clearly amongst the most knowledgeable tech analyst and observers out there, and this episode is an excellent one to get his perspectives on the AI landscape.
The section on how the explains that GPU advances alone are not enough to understand the power of a data centre was riveting. What matters he says is MFU of the GPU, where MFU = model FLOPS utilization. He then teases apart MFU into MAMMF (maximum achievable matrix multiplication flops, or software on chipset efficiency) x SFU (system FLOPS efficiency, essentially networking, storage, and memory efficiency). His key thesis is that the networking tech and improvements havent kept pace with GPU improvements and are rate limiting GPU advances from being utilised. A large segment is his perspectives on AI, which I can’t say I understood it entirely, but it gives you a drone level view which is extremely useful. There is other interesting stuff as well such as the segment on how Elon, Jensen Huang, work – only on the most important problems, and like to hear bad news first. Jensen: “I have no fixed schedule. I have no standing meetings. I just find out what is the most important problem at the company, and I go, and I sit my desk out in that area, and I pull the best resources to work on that problem, and I love it.”
4 / Lenny’s Podcast – Eli Schwartz, SEO guru
Link to podcast + transcript.
Long episode at nearly 2 hours, but worth a watch for any founder / operator wrestling with SEO or content. Eli Schwartz is one of the foremost thinkers in the SEO space today, author of the book ‘Product-Led SEO’ and advisor to Zapier, Tinder, LinkedIn etc. He speaks to Lenny on a wide range of topics related to SEO.
2 key themes in the podcast that stood out to me:
Eli covers how AI / LLMs will impact search / SEO. Effectively the top of the funnel will now be owned by Google and LLMs – so content like 20 best beach hotels in Southern Europe will now either get aggregated into AI Overviews (top hit on Google Search) or within LLMs with occasional citations, and your site will get pushed further downward. Hence the best SEO content will move midfunnel and have content that is helpful to drive conversions. This is how SEO should have been from the beginning but because it is hard to measure conversion, and harder with SEO, and relatively easier to show rankings impact, SEO got positioned as Top of Funnel.
The other metapoint that Eli makes is around whether you need SEO at all. Not everyone has to do SEO he says. It is best used in contexts where the customer is aware of the problem, uses specific keywords or language to understand the problem or look for a solution, and this behaviour arises naturally in the user / customer journey of addressing the problem. User Journeys is a term which comes frequently in the podcast episode, and effectively Eli is saying that if searching for content is not helpful for the user in solving the problem / and not relevant for you in driving conversion, then you don’t need SEO. Too many companies default to doing SEO because yi have raised money and you need to spend on SEO. This is wrong he says. It is expensive when you add up all of the cost of creating the content and hiring the experts. You need to consider the ROI of the investment actively like you do with Paid Marketing, but not enough companies do that he says. In his perspective, most sales-led / top-down SaaS motions can eschew their investments in SEO. It is more relevant for PLG motions like Zapier, Notion etc.
5/ 20VC – Alain de Botton
Link to episode page. Link to my notes + highlights of the episode.
I thought this was an exceptional episode. Alain De Botton is an intriguing guest for a tech podcast, but I am glad Harry did it and was able to pull it off. I read Alain De Botton’s romantic novels when I was in my 20s and enjoyed them hugely. Later he evolved into a (pop) philosopher of a kind and I kind of lost touch with his writing. I am now tempted to dip into his philosophical writing given this episode. What stands out here is his insight into the psychology of parenting, the parent-child dynamics, and the psychology of the workplace. That one line (see first para in the ‘Advice to parents’ section in my notes page linked above) where he encourages you to praise or esteem your child for what they are vs for what they did, and you will thus give them psychological armour for adulthood, was the biggest takeaway of the episode for me.
6/ AI + I – Matt Cynamon, USV
Link to podcast and transcript. Link to my notes / highlights.
One of the more interesting podcast interviews I have consumed in the past months / year. Matt Cynamon the ‘Head of Library Sciences’ at Union Square Ventures comes on the AI + I podcast with Dan Shipper to talk about all the cool AI stuff they are cooking up at Union Square Ventures (USV). You may have seen the OH (overheard) on the USV Librarian account @usvlibrarian on Twitter. That was built by him. Over 70 mins he takes us through the GenAI stuff they are building at USV, detailing cool tools such as The Librarian (a querying too for all the 15k articles they have written at USV), OH or Overheard (Meeting Notes) and The Dream Machine (v trippy video tool to create AI images to sync with conversation topics).
Am sure some other VC funds have some of these built (Yohei Nakajima comes to mind), but USV is of course one of the giants of venture. Impressed with the suite of tools that USV has built out, and grateful that they and Matt have been more public about it. An interesting point that stood out to me from the episode was Matt’s posit that the cost of creating good storytelling is dropping, and that there is a ton of content getting created that is not getting captured and AI can help you capture and make that content in a ready to consumer format.
7/ Dwarkesh Podcast – Daniel Yergin
Link to podcast + transcript. Excerpts from the podcast that I found interesting here.
Daniel Yergin is an oil / energy expert and author of ‘The Prize’, which is an acclaimed history of oil (and as Dwarkesh says, a parallel history of the 20th century too). I haven’t read the book yet. It is there in my bookshelf somewhere waiting to be read. For now this podcast will do. This is a riveting episode with so many interesting threads and themes. Dwarkesh’s range is incredible – from AI to Oil to Geopolitics and History (do check out his episode with military historian Sarah Paine). He is also able to see parallels between different contexts, like w Kerosene and early AI models, which is fascinating.
For 50 years after oil was discovered its primary use was as Kerosene for lighting. When Edison invented the lightbulb there was a view that Rockefeller’s Standard Oil would go out of business. It was only when the motor car was invented and became popular that gasoline became the primary use of oil. (“In the 19th century gasoline was a waste product. It went for like three cents a gallon.”) Interesting to see if there are parallels w AI, asks Dwarkesh. He says “Currently what we’re using these models for is research and chat and whatever. That’s like the kerosene. What would the equivalent of billions of vehicles look like for AI?”
8/ Ideas of India – Karthik Muralidharan
Link to podcast + transcript.
Enjoyable and interesting episode where Shruti Rajagopalan interviews Karthik Muralidaran, author of the book ‘Accelerating India’s Development’, a prescriptive book where he writes on how specific interventions around improving the quality of expenditure in areas such as healthcare, education can yield dramatically improved outcomes. I am presently reading the book (it is a big one at 800+ pages!). The podcast episode gives you a sense of the contents though. The core message of the book is that too much rhetoric is devoted to what the government should do, while remarkable little is around how it should do it, and that matters because thinking about the how, and interventions around these can generate very high returns for the investment undertaken. I found the discussion on centralisation vs fiscal federalism in the context of India and US respectively utterly interesting. The other interesting theme was around government pay (high) and recruitment (too few) in India and how that limits state capacity. During the course of the podcast, Karthik Muralidharan shares this deeply thought-through ideas such as the Practicum and Empanelment, and interventions around local hiring, as well as hiring a second anganwadi worker etc. A good read / listen for those with an interest in public policy and statecraft, and India, or all of these.
9/ Turpentine VC – Chris Paik, Pace Capital
Link to podcast.
Surprisingly good podcast episode. I encountered Chris Paik first on a Invest Like the Best podcast which was interesting as well, and then again recently when his post ‘The End of Software’ went viral. He is an interesting thinker as you will see from the highlights of this episode. A few points which stood out –
On Thrive Capital, his previous employer, he mentions how they were always ‘playing offence’, given they were based in NYC, and no one from the Valley had to visit NYC. You were default on a plane.
Pace Capital’s unfair advantage lies in being early. That is the only way they can compete with the multistage funds. If there is a deck, it is too late, is their internal motto per Chris.
Bullish on local inference, and applications take advantage of that. Apple has a huge advantage per his thesis. Buy Apple! as he says sometimes the obvious trade is the clever trade (like FAANG and Bitcoin)
Minimum viable infrastructure is an interesting mental model. There is a minimum technology format or bandwidth needed for a media or software product, like text for twitter, 3G for uber / snapchat, 4G/5G/video for tiktok etc. It explains why Instagram succeeded Twitter, and Snapchat succeeded Instagram, and TikTok succeeded Snapchat. The flow is usually in one direction. The reason we havent had a new consumer co in the past decade is because bandwidth has topped out. Interesting theory and he proposes Livestreaming as a potential new format (suggests Whatnot as a likely winner). Some of this thinking also appears in the Invest Like The Best podcast I mentioned.
Don’t miss out his cute parable of the Three Brothers and why local inference (and Apple) has a huge advantage).
10 / Lenny’s Podcast – Mike Maples, Jr.
Link to podcast + transcript. Excerpts from the podcast that I found interesting here.
I have always enjoyed Mike Maples’s podcasts. He is a differentiated thinker, and backed by a terrific track record. These days Mike has been on a podcast tour, as he is promoting his book Pattern Breakers, which is about the success patterns or themes underlying successful startups. The title comes from his quote that “The way a startup wins is they deny the premise of the rules and propose something completely different. They radically break the pattern and can’t be compared to anything which came before.” The book’s basically broken up into two parts, how to come up with an idea and then the actions you need to get right to move forward an idea. In this podcast with Lenny, he covers the key themes of the book. It is worth a listen / read. I particularly enjoyed this riff on how startups can storytell better, especially in the context of their fundraising pitch.
11/ Colossus | Invest Like the Best – Nick Kokonas, Tock + Alinea Restaurant Group
Link to podcast + transcript.
One of the best podcast episodes I ‘read’ this year. It is not new, but after it was referred in the 2023 Colossus annual wrap as one of their best episodes, i decided to give it a go. Any one who is a restaurateur (esp offering mid to high priced food) or in strategy will enjoy and learn from this podcast. One of my big learnings from it was on how to figure out your revenue sources (essentially all of the experience touchpoints that customers may be willing to pay, or pay differential prices for) and make that visible to your org. Time-based pricing, and having the courage to go all-out on that, then using advance bookings / getting your customers to pay you early, and leveraging the float to buy in advance at lower prices from your vendors, so as to price the menu lower, and be competitively advantaged, were other learnings as well.
12/ Lenny’s Podcast – Carole Robin, Stanford GSB, ‘Touchy Feely’
Link to podcast + transcript.
I really enjoyed this interview with Stanford Professor Carole Robin who teaches an ultrapopular course ‘Interpersonal Dynamics’ popularly known as ‘Touchy Feely’ with the objective of helping people build strong relationships, because as she says “people do business with people, not ideas or products”! The conversation covers topics such as why vulnerability is central to strong leadership (why should someone follow you?), how to progressively and safely be more vulnerable in a relationship, the three realities underpinning any interpersonal interaction, why feedback is never negative, and why feedback is central to every relationship, but advice can hinder relationships.
I found three concepts especially useful – first the part about anger being a secondary emotion covering up for fear or hurt, was a very interesting one. Second, on the leader’s job being to ensure that the best answer is found and not necessarily by him or her, and creating a culture and environment where everyone is empowered to come up with the best answer. Thirdly, and finally, that behind every behaviour is a choice, and there is a belief and underlying mental model underprinning that choice and behaviour. We need to unlock the belief / mental model driving the choices really.
13 / Colossus | Invest Like The Best – Lulu Meservey, Rostra
Link to podcast + transcript. Excerpts from the podcast that I found interesting here.
Lulu Cheng Meservey is the founder of Rostra, the ‘PR’ firm du jour, and the high priestess of the ‘go direct’ movement, where founders are encouraged to front the message about their co to the world, instead of relying on internal or external PR teams to front their point of view. I first came across Lulu on Twitter when Dwarkesh Patel thanked her for connecting him to Daniel Yergin (resulting in a wonderful podcast episode). Hmm, I said who is this? And then I read her site (rostra.co) and her message for why founders should go direct, and I was impressed. So when this episode with Patrick O’Shaughnessy was released, I knew I had to check it out.
The episode is a great introduction to Lulu’s and Rostra’s philosophy of going direct. She covers
Why founders should go direct – no transmission loss in messaging, all the tools of going direct are there, many have good distribution reach through their social followers etc.
What the key elements of going direct are – loved the line on communication being a vector and not a scalar, as in, it is important to have a communication direction or objective attached to each message
Why founders should write a manifesto whilst going direct and the contents of the manifesto
The specific publication matters less than the right journalist for sharing the message with. Individuals >> Institutions (similar to how founders sometimes select a great Partner a Tier2 fund over a so so Partner at a Tier1 fund)
How a good PR firm can help you ‘read the room’ (more on this below)
Crisis PR, and why CEOs should apologise less, and do wartime scenario exercises
14/ Lenny’s Podcast – Dalton Caldwell, YCombinator
Link to podcast + transcript.
Dalton Caldwell is an exfounder and YC Partner. His podcast is an enjoyable interesting one covering a lot of frameworks such as how to think about pivots and when to pivot (has anecotes of Retool, Brex, Segment pivots), tarpit ideas (which look good but ultimately are doomed to fail, like serendpitious meeting apps) and the importance of talking to customers, and driving customer validation for the idea / product. Every month he says the founder should review the previous month’s calendar and see if at least 20-30% of the time has been spent in in-person meetings with potential customers. There is also a fun anecdote of the ‘Collision Install’, where Patrick Collison of Stripe would do the installation himself, to ensure the onboarding happened:)
15/ Colossus | Business Breakdowns – Saurabh Mukherjea on Bajaj Finance
Link to podcast + transcript.
This episode on Bajaj Finance where Matt Reustle interviews Saurabh Mukherjea of Marcellus Investments is an exceptional one. Worth a listen / read even if you are not in fintech, if only to understand what an incredibly tight biz model Bajaj Finance has built. The market share numbers (Bajaj Finance accounts for a sixth of India’s non bank lending) and growth numbers (50% Profit After Tax CAGR over 16 years( are mind blowing, resulting in a $50b market cap and a 1,000x increase in share price over the past 16 years. Whoa!
They say there are 4 elements to a lending business – cost of capital, cost of acquiring customer, quality of underwriting, and ability to collect. You need to great at at least two of these and ok at the others (cant be bad) to run a profitable lending biz. Bajaj Finance is that rare lender, who is great at all four elements, from what I understand from the podcast.
The segment on the data advantage they have, was mind-blowing. I heard once that Bajaj Finance is Salesforce’s 2nd biggest account globally. I couldn’t believe it then, but now after reading about it here, I do, and can understand why.
***
Others I liked as well but couldn’t accommodate as this was getting too long (!): Tyler Cowen talking to children’s book author and John Donne biographer Katherine Rundell, Tim Ferriss with astute people reader Graham Duncan, McKinsey interviewing incoming Disney + Reliance JV CEO Uday Shankar, David Senra of Founders Podcast on retired investor Nick Sleep’s letters, Venture Unlocked with Ben Sun of Primary VC, Lenny’s Podcast with strategy guru Roger Martin, and storytelling expert Matthew Dicks.
And, if you liked my podcast recommendations then you may like glancing throught this shortlist of my fave podcasts.
Articles
Long-time readers would know that I have been deliberately reducing consumption of articles in favour of podcasts. It is a journey that I began a few years ago, and I have stuck to that path since. 2024 was no different.
The few articles that I read this year were either from newsletters I subscribe to (Generalist, Lenny, Newcomer etc), or recommended by a few trusted curators (Diff’s Long Reads, or Jan Chipchase’s newsletter for instance) or DM’d to me by people who know me well. Finally, I also end up reading those that attract a lot of attention on twitter (e.g., Founder Mode by Paul Graham). The content is overwhelmingly in the business / tech space largely, and within that the themes of Product Market Fit or PMF, and venture investing, stand out.
So, here is a list of my favourite articles of 2024.
1/ Mario Gabriele – various
Mario’s Generalist (paywalled) had a lot of extremely interesting and educative articles on the venture industry. His series ‘Letters to a Young Founder / Investor’ (Vinod Khosla, Reid Hoffman, Ho Nam are the letter writers), Modern Meditations (interviews such as with Chip War author Chriss Miller – see below) and ‘Investor Guide’ (where he speaks to expert investors, and curates their recommendations, along with his observations on various venture industry topics, such as raising your first fund, building soft power) in particular had a lot of interesting reads.
Letters to a Young Founder: Vinod Khosla – The Story of a 2500x Investment.
Investor Guide series has close to ten or so articles. I really liked ‘How to Raise Your First Fund’ and ‘How VCs Build Soft Power’.
In addition I also liked his interview of Chip War author, Chris Miller, part of his Modern Meditations series.
2/ Graham Duncan – various
Graham Duncan, who is easing off from his role at Eastrock( a multi-family office that identified investors and then backed them with funds; essentially a Limited Partner) is obsessed with understanding and assessing people, especially investors. I had come across him in Tim Ferris’s ‘Tribe of Mentors’ long back, but had forgotten the piece. His profile in Colossus Review (paywalled, I think) was what brought him back into my consciousness. Duncan’s obsession with people reading and talent assessment really came through strongly in that piece.
Since then I have been on a Graham Duncan trip, reading his pieces such as
‘What is going on here, with this human?’
Where he collects all his recommendations about candidate selection based on the hundreds of interviews and assessments he has done.
Graham says there are five levels of the investing game, from apprentice to steward. He describes the various levels and gives us some glimpses of what it means to operate at each level. Utterly fascinating.
3/ Lenny Rachitsky – Time management techniques that actually work
Lenny’s substack is one of a few newsletters I subscribe to. I read almost half of his writings, typically every one of his PMF pieces, and then some. This duo of pieces was an interesting departure from his usual writings on product management and growth topics, but resonated with me given my obsessive interest in productivity pr0n.
Link to articles: Time management techniques that actually work Part 1, and Part 2.
Good collection of time management and productivity tips and hacks. The most useful of these might be calendaring instead of to-do lists, keeping a ‘waiting for’ list, scheduling deep work time, saying no more often, moving meetings to mails, and lastly, creating a limited set of items (3 typically) that you have to get done, and doing them first in the day as much as possible.
4/ Natalie Rothfels – Why no productivity hack will solve your overwhelm
In this piece, which is a response to Lenny’s above pieces on productivity / time management, and published on Lenny’s substack, the author Natalie Rothfels, an executive coach, describes how some of her clients struggled to manage time better / be more productive despite knowing all of the techniques that Lenny suggested. She suggests the framework or practice of Internal Family Systems (IFS), to overcome these conflicts. I first came across IFS Or Internal Family Systems in an article on how Clay achieved PMF, where the cofounder Kareem Amin described using the technique. IFS propounds there is a family of different selves (the perfectionist vs the pragmatist vs the slacker etc) within us who are not entirely aligned with each other. It is a technique to understand ourselves better and to drive better alignment amongst our different selves. Kinda like the movie Inside Out!
5/ Ranjan Roy – Technology and grieving
Ranjan Roy writes about the death of his young daughter Samaya due to a rare condition called FIRES. It is simultaneously the best and the most painful read I have had in a long while. I hope this helped him process the loss somewhat.
6/ Vaishnav Sunil – Liquid vs illiquid careers
Superb framing of careers as liquid vs illiquid. TL;DR = Liquid careers have high demand and ‘legibility’ that others can attest to your value or work, e.g., a McKinsey consultant, or an elite magic circle firm lawyer, while Illiquid careers are harder to parse for market value – a freelance marketing person who previously worked in an NGO in Africa and worked in a couple of startups before that in junior roles. Interesting, but unclear what his or her value and worth is.
Essentially, if you are in an illiquid career, you have potentially higher alpha than in a liquid career, but it can be hard for others to parse your value / worth, without someone burning their social capital to promote you, and / or without signals or artifacts that you can provide to sell you better (say a blog, or a github repo etc). As someone whose illiquid career became relatively more liquid thanks to a fortunate move to VC, the article struck a chord.
7/ Tanner Greer – The Silicon Valley Canon
This essay by Tanner Greer (@Scholars_Stage on twitter) contrasting the ‘book writers’ of Washington DC and their narrow erudition, with the ‘book readers’ of Silicon Valley and their broad eclectic explorations was a fun read. In particular the contrast and framing was excellent.
Bonus: The essay has a list of the Silicon Valley ‘vague tech canon’ (recommended by Patrick Collison et al). Lots of good reads there. That said, I have always felt that podcast interviews matter disproportionately in Silicon Valley / startup landscapes, as that is the lowest friction way for tech elite to broadcast their learnings / ideas.
8/ Dwarkesh Patel – Podcast progress update
This ‘progress update’ by Dwarkesh Patel detailing how he thinks / approaches his podcast was an interesting read. Dwarkesh publishes one of the most eclectic podcast series I have seen. Perhaps only Tyler Cowen comes close. Not surprising, for both are super-learners.
This passage on how he chooses guests was illuminating: “I choose guests not based on whether I want to spend two hours chatting with them, but whether I would learn a lot by spending two weeks preparing. It’s a high bar, and it’s often uncorrelated with how famous they are.” The podcast is effectively Dwarkesh’s forcing function for learning.
9/ Todd Jackson et al from First Round – Levels of PMF
Given my obsession with product market fit (PMF), I end up consuming a lot of content on that topic. This was probably the best read of all of the lot. First Round launched their framework, or rather a program, titled PMF Method, for B2B companies with a top-down motion to systematically work towards PMF. As part of the launch of the program, they published this essay which was a description of the content in the first session of the program – introducing the framework, describing the four levels of PMF, as well as related dimensions and levers.
Overall, I thought this framework and program was a very well-designed body of work. Post the launch of the PMF Method, I wrote a review of the framework where I shared my view that I thought the framework was perhaps the most important advance in PMF lore and craft since Eric Ries’ Lean Startup.
10/ James Hawkins – The Product Market Fit Game
Excellent article by Posthog cofounder James Hawkins on a step by step guide to hitting PMF. James visualises PMF akin to a game, with 5 levels and how to jump levels. More relevant for B2B / SaaS founders than B2C given James’ experience w Posthog. Minor quibbles aside, I felt this was a truly masterful resource for iterating to PMF. Every B2B / SaaS founder starting out or an aspiring B2B / SaaS founder should eyeball / read this.
11/ Jason Cohen – The Roadmap to Product Market Fit
Jason is the founder of unicorn co WP Engine. He is a prolific writer with consistently interesting posts on various aspects of building a B2B business. I really liked this post on a step by step guide to achieving PMF. There are some similarities with the previous recommendation (of James Hawkins’ PMF Game) but there is lots different and interesting here too, including a peep into how WP Engine wrestled with these steps.
12/ Rob Go – Revisiting the craft beer metaphor for the VC industry
Fun but clever post comparing VC to the evolution of the craft beer market. Loved the analogy of YC as hard seltzer and Indie VC as non-alco beer.
13/ Palash K – All risk is creative
Interesting comparison of indie film producer A24 to venture funds. Not sure if A16Z is the right comparison, but still a good, fun read.
14 / Nicola Twilley – How to Get Rich From Peeping Inside People’s Fridges
Loved this Wired magazine profile of emerging markets investor Tassos Stassopoulos whose firm Trinetra uses ethnographic research (at the core of it is peeking into people’s fridges) to determine evolving consumption trends. The article is in fact an excerpt from Nicola Twilley’s book Frostbite on the science + downstream impact of the growing cold chain industry.
15/ David Heinemeier Hansson – The reality of the Danish fairytale
Good post by tech guru David Heinemeier Hansson (@dhh) on Denmark and the integrated choices + intentional tradeoffs behind the Danish economy + society. Think of Denmark like a less populated European Japan.
Your recommendations?
What were your favourite reads or watches or listens this year? Comment here or email me your recommendations at sp@sajithpai.com
I wish each of you a very happy new year, and hope you are able to make substantial progress this year, towards your long term and short term goals.