Book Review - The Ascent of Money

The Ascent of Money, A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson: An interesting historical perspective of money, its origin to present, how it shaped civilizations, how it financed wars and all its ups and downs. It is amazing how the author has mixed world history with finance and presented the dynamics of moneyless societies and money oriented societies with cash, banks, bonds, stocks and how we continue to evolve.The mix gives us plenty of interesting anecdotes and tidbits of history. I was surprised to note that Fibonacci, famous for the series named after him didn't quite discover the series first - there was a previous mention of the series by Pingala in an older Sanskrit book. As well, Fibonacci made other important contributions that we hardly recognize him for. Then, there is mention of a Persian tablet, societies like Inca that had no concept of money or value for gold, and the South American tribe that lived on monkeys (truly monkey food!) and came into contact with civilization just 5 years back, Italian loan sharks that inspired Shylock character in "The Merchant of Venice", East India company and Dutch finance controller, US civil war and New Orleans immigration & Katrina insurance woes in North America and so on! There is lot of bad news from history, but the author also explains the importance of money and loan/debt markets as necessary instruments without which lot many things may not have been possible for our evolution into a civilized society - the moneyless societies only cared about food and fertile women!

Doctor Joke

I went to the doctor last week and had a rendezvous I thought was funny. My ears were bothering me after hearing my children screaming on top of their voices.

Doctor: (Taking a peek in my ear) Your ear drum and outer canal look OK. But it is possible there is pressure imbalance in your Eustachian tube. E-U-S-T-A... I forget if it is C or T...
Me: Never mind doctor. I only know about You Tube!
Doctor: Yeah. E-Tube! (I figured he wasn't on the Internet often!) Usually it is self correcting and the problem will go away in a few days. Have you had a cold?
Me: No. But, I have some allergy, but I don't think that caused any problems.
Doctor: OK, the allergy can cause the ear problem. Let me give you this nasal spray prescription. That should help.

I thought that was weird - I come for an ear problem and get prescribed a nose medicine! Turned out, the nasal spray did help the ear!

Book Review - Tough Choices - Carly Fiorna

Tough Choices By Carly Fiorna: Great autobiography of Carly Fiorna, the former CEO of HP. This is a must-read for B-school students. While aspiring B-school women could get more reading this book, I think aspiring men are plenty well served too. Carly explains how her parents ambitions primarily drove her excellence and decisions in early lfie, and how she transitioned to making her own decisions when she dropped out of law school. She explains her career progression at AT&T, which shows all the typical large company dynamics how leadership, influencing, strategy and execution works in such places, despite being slow, political and filled with frustrations. B-school students who might start dealing with senior management are well served by reading through her vivid experience and candor dealing with the multitude of what I'd call testosterone packs. She is candid about when she cried, when she was nervous and afraid, when she put her foot down, how she judged people and positioned herself over many different situations, all of which will be immensely useful for the folks who will go through the same in their career, to compare and learn from someone who has been before in such shoes. Of course, she also explains her perspective of what happened at HP - what again stands out is her candor in allowing the board to state she was fired, as well that she hasn't played her gender card through her career to her advantage or disadvantage. Rather than her media stereotype of a glamorous, stubborn, woman CEO, she comes out as a very capable, intelligent, balanced leader and role model.