"Stay Hungry Stay Foolish" is the famous concluding line of Steve Jobs's commencement speech at Stanford in 2005. The book profiles 25 IIM-A grads who took the entreprenerial path. The book has been intelligently divided into three sections based on the kind of entreprenerial ventures undertaken by the people featured or the phase in their life when they took the plunge.
I like Rashmi's disarming and original writing style where she tries her best to bring out the feelings these people had. She uses Hindi phrases effectively to achieve this. While reading the book I realized that these people faced similar predicaments and apprehensions when they wanted to quit their comfort zones and reach out for their larger calling. In that respect, at the end of each entrepreneurs story is a section of advice from the horse's mouth.
Some of the recurring points that I noticed were
- Do not quit. Some of the most successful ventures came after near hopelessness.
- Trust and understanding between the founding team members. Here, many also stress that without hurting the notion of equality, one person has to lead the team.
- Experience on the ground is important. You can sit in the classroom and try and prepare yourself for D day. But nothing prepares you for your brush with reality better than reality itself.
- You do not necessarily have to start big. You have to make a plunge at some point of time.
In the book you will find people behind some of the most enterprising companies like Sanjeev Bikchandani of naukri.com, Narendra Murkumbi of Renuka Sugars, Vijay Mahajan of Basix, Venkat Krishnan of Give India and many many more. At the end of the book you will feel happy and proud knowing more about these people.
I am also happy to see that many of these organizations work in the field of education, financial inclusion.
