The US led liberal world order: where is it headed?

(I had started writing this in late 2021, but never finished the last 5%. I decided to put in a few hours this Sunday, almost four years later, to complete it)

In an earlier post, I looked at how world orders changed over the last 400 years, and how we entered the US led unipolar liberal world order after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Here, I am trying to analyze where it is headed.

The basics framework of the liberal world order rests on the following tenets:

1. Individual rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of religion; and "no taxation without representation".
2. Separation of church and state: the state not establishing a religion and not favoring one religion over another. 
3. Free enterprise: the rights of a business to set prices (without collusion) and to invest according to their interests. This also implicitly promised "free movement of goods, capital, and labor" and free trade among nations. 
4. Minority and civil rights and the commitment to the universal declaration of human rights. 

Although the philosophical principles of this order were laid early in the 17th and 18th century, and gave birth to the revolutionary republics like the US and France, it wasn't until 1945 that it became the accepted principle of the nations west of the iron curtain. Well, the UK still had the Church of England, but it slowly turned into a social organization, not a religious one. And when the iron curtain fell in the collapse of 1989-1991, the world assumed that the liberal order had triumphed. Francis Fukuyama declared the End of History. The US and the West thought that by the wave of a magic wand, the rest of the world will become copies of the western democracies. They thought that even the people of communist China, after tasting capitalism, will clamor for democracy. Well, that didn't happen.

That triumph, and the inability of the Western nations and leaders to understand the underpinnings of their successful system, their military, economic, and political over-reaches had sowed the seeds of the challenges that the liberal world order faces now. This was accompanied by two "once in 500-year” events (a) the return of China and India to their pre-existing position (pre-1805) in the global economic order, and (b) the internet.

The US and NATO led-unipolar world, the rise of India and China, the birth and growth of the internet, and a border-free, single-currency European Union brought about a few over-reaches of the system.

1. Earlier, the ideas and news that used to become mainstream were vetted through a hierarchical system. It was hard for a rogue idea to become mainstream. The internet and social media changed that. Freedom of speech does not guarantee freedom from falsehood, so it became easier to pursue polarized politics backed by questionable claims under the guise of "free speech". The internet and freedom of speech also enabled religious radicalization and indoctrination.
2. Secularism extended into godlessness, or denial of religion. Although every bit of early liberal writing derived the individual's rights from the divine, over time, the western liberals, bit by bit, drove religion out of public discourse. 
3. Inconsistent application of the free enterprise tenet led to the belief that the system is designed to socialize the risks, a lack of skin in the game. The bailouts and the bonuses handed to the very people who triggered the 2008 financial crisis was further evidence of the collusion between business and government. "The system is rigged", some said.
4. Immigration and manufacturing in low-wage countries helped keep inflation in check, but it came at social and economic costs. The middle class in the liberal economies stopped feeling financially secure. It is hard to pursue a global free trade regime with countries with one-tenth the labor costs, and still expect the same standard of living. 
5. Civil liberties over-extended to social justice, and then to woke-ism and cancel culture to a point where even traditionally liberal publications like the Economist, or traditional liberal commentators like Bill Maher have started pushing back.
6. Globalization of the liberal world order took a few new forms. 
• The Washington DC fantasy that it had a god-given duty to impose democracy around the world, and it had a right to depose dictators it didn't like, but only the ones without nuclear weapons (Saddam, Ghaddafi). There was no Soviet Union to balance misadventures, and China was still too weak. The experiments to build liberal democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the Arab world failed.
• The expansion of NATO and the European Union to the Russian border. 
• The urban-financial integration that not only integrated the major US cities (NYC, Boston, DC, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco) and the elite universities into a mono-culture, it also brought European and Asian cities (London, Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul, Taiwan, Tokyo, even Shanghai and Beijing) and universities in the mix. Suddenly, the distinction between the Capitol and the districts of the Hunger Games didn't feel that unreal. 

All of this generated pushback from individuals, communities, and nations who did not benefit from the globalization of the liberal world order.

After the collapse of communism, the liberal world order has been great for the college educated, urban or suburban elite who were able to take advantage of the economic expansion to build a good life. It lifted hundreds of millions of people in Asia out of poverty. But the blue collar workers in the western liberal democracies and the uneducated or the under-educated in rest of the world did end up getting the short end of the deal. And, after the financial crisis of 2008-2009, where they had the right to vote, they expressed their dissatisfaction at the polls. 

(Source: The American Prospect, using data provided by Branko Milanovic)

In June 2016, I was in the UK and watched the Brexit campaign very closely. Two things, a few days before the vote, convinced me that Leave would win. In a radio program, a caller outside London called in to say "how is it that I can't afford a flat in London, but the foreigners who have been here for just a few years can?". The other was when my driver, who was himself a Kosovo-Albanian refuge said "Oh, yes, there are too many refuges here". In my visit to France, our driver-cum-tour-guide in Cannes said "I hope the British leave, and I hope the French also have a leave election so that we can leave too". A friend of mine who worked at an investment bank in London, who, obviously was a Remainer said, "I don't know if I will have the time to go and vote". The Brexit results gave an early indication that Donald Trump had a chance in November. 

Over the years, the populists and nationalists won elections in Italy, Brazil, India, Poland, Hungary, Philippines, and consolidated power in Hungary, Turkey, Russia, and China. Hungary's president openly talked about the emergence of the "illiberal democracy". It was clear that the working class were demanding a system that works for them, through the ballot box. It was also clear that after the great recession, immigration issues (legal and illegal), and the rise of China as a manufacturing hub; the working middle class in the west were not satisfied with their political, economic, and social situation.

The response to the over-reach of the liberal order in the west has been two forms of populism: 

1) Left-wing populism of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Jeremy Corbyn. They tended to blame capitalism and big businesses for the situation and advocated for a centralized redistributive state. 

2) Right-wing populism, or Trumpism. They tended to blame immigration and free-trade, and wanted to advocate for a "nation first" solution by bringing back manufacturing jobs and closing borders.

The centrist, even where they are, or were in power (like Joe Biden in the US, or Macron in France) lead a fragile coalition of left-wing populists and some center-rightist, but have a hard time getting anything done. 

So, is the liberal world order over? Globally, I think it was over on August 15, 2021 when the US & its allies admitted that they didn't have any more reason to stay in Afghanistan, and left the country to status quo ante, handing it back to the Taliban. This, along with what we have seen in Iraq has demonstrated that liberal democracy isn't universal, and an effort to impose it top-down ignoring national history and politics is futile. The rise of China, the Russian reconquest of Crimea, and the rise of openly illiberal regimes in Hungary and Turkey is showing that there are other ways to govern. I am very skeptical of US willingness of sending their own citizens in another foreign war, be it in Ukraine, or in the South China Sea. The best we can expect is the US selling military equipment, a new lend-lease perhaps, but with more strings attached.

In the US and the west, I think the institutions (local government, courts, police) are still strong enough and will prevent a slide to either outright fascism or communism, but the political system has to re-invent itself to deliver what the voting public wants. Deng Xiaoping famously said, "It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice." Similarly, in the west, the voters will end up saying that ideology doesn't really matter if the political system can deliver progress, peace, and prosperity. 

The first six weeks of the second Trump administration is indication that the United States is not willing to lead and maintain this liberal global world order, unless there is some direct economic benefit to the United States. Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, in his first interview as Secretary of State, talked about returning back to a multi-polar world. It is still unclear if a new world order will became a new "Great Game" with little to no rules, or if there will be an effort, similar to 1815 (Congress of Vienna) or even 1945 (United Nations) to write down the rules of the game and to secure commitment from the major players to play by the rules.

Books I read in 2023

It was another busy first half of the year, so it took me longer to write my 2023 book list.

The Storm before the calm: America's Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond, by George Friedman. The book builds the historical context on how generational changes happened in the United States and shows that there is an eighty year cycle: 1780-1860, 1860-1940, and 1940-2020 for every new system that adjusts to the changes. A period of crisis creates a slightly new system that adapts to the new social, economic, and political needs. The book ends on an optimistic note, saying America's best years lay ahead.

The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins. This book almost reads like a conspiracy theorist finding the hand of the CIA in every global disturbance, regime change, and coup all over the world. It is an interesting read.

Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe, by George Friedman. This book is less optimistic than his book on the American Crisis of 2020 (Storm before the calm, discussed above). It sets up the current situation in Europe and how the institutions of NATO, EU, and the Euro as a currency emerged out of the two world wars. Then, it sets up the current flashpoints: the Balkans, Azerbaijan-Armenia, the German question (once more), the buffer lands between Germany and Russia (that includes Ukraine), of course, the question of Russia, of Turkey and that of Islam in Europe. The book concludes with the short answer that Europe's history of conflict is far from over.

After Europe, by Evan Krastev. This book almost continues from where George Friedman's book concluded. Ivan Krastev is a Bulgarian political scientist. His other book, "The Light that Failed" examined how the democratic euphoria after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991 is fading. In this book, very provocatively written, he examines the future of today's European Union. With examples, he explains how the European meritocratic elites are disconnected from its masses. How democracy in some of the Eastern European countries is a tool of majoritarian led exclusion. He concludes that the disintegration of the EU is a likely possibility, by saying "It's less important that European leaders understand why the Habsburg Empire collapsed in 1918 than why it did not disintegrated earlier, in 1848, 1867, or any number of other occasions. Rather than seeking to ensure the EU's survival by increasing its legitimacy, perhaps demonstrating its capacity to survive can become a major source of its future legitimacy". Without explicitly mentioning it, perhaps he wants us to learn from the Holy Roman Empire, that survived for over eight centuries?  

Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry, by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff. This is a story of the rise and fall of RIM (Research in Motion), the makers of the Blackberry. A good book for someone who studies how companies that are earlier adopters of new technologies rise and get big, and then how the same big players get disrupted because of strategic mistakes and a new wave of technologies that they are unable to adapt to.

The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, by Eugene Rogan. The author was a guest at the Empire Podcast and it was a nice refresher for me to go through the story of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, by Eric Cline. This is a book about Bronze Age civilization collapse when a number of civilizations from the Mediterranean to the Indus Valley collapsed almost simultaneously. The author reviews various reasons: pandemic, attack from Sea Peoples, economic collapse, political instability and concludes that it was a perfect storm of causes that collapsed a bunch of interlinked civilizations and ended the Bronze Age.

River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads, by Cat Jarman. I bought this book after listening to Cat Jarman on the Empire Podcast. The story starts by investigating how a bead made in Gujarat, India ended up being found at the site of a Viking settlement in Northern England. I learned a lot about the Viking domination of Europe from the 8th to the 10th centuries and their trading links with the rest of the world. 

The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, by Amy Edmondson. This book introduced the concept of Psychological Safety and its role in managing teams and leaders. I liked the book so much that it became my next book club read with my leadership team. 

Don't Tell the Boss!: How Poor Communication on Risks within Organizations Causes Major Catastrophes, by Didier Sornette, et. al. This is a combination of my interest in exploring collapse, strategic mistakes, and psychological safety. The book goes through a case studies of failures and determines the role poor communication and hiding information plays in systemic failures. Didier Sornette has spent his entire life building the math and science behind failures, including rocket engine failures and the stock market collapse.

Angrynomics, by Mark Blyth and Eric Lonegran. I have been a fan of Mark Blyth ever since I watched his talk "Why do people vote against their interests". In this book, he analyzes the current economic, social, and political unrest and explains what's behind it. The audiobook is a fun listen. 

Judgment in Managerial Decision Making, by Max Bazerman and Don Moore. This book turned out to be very different from what I was expecting, in a good way. It started out almost like a psychology book, talking about biases, blind spots, framing, and loss aversion. It talked about things I learned as part of probability, like the Monty Hall problem. But then, it ended with a summary of strategies to improve decision making: using decision analysis tools, acquiring expertise, debiasing judgement, reasoning with analogies, taking an outsiders view, understanding biases in others, and nudging ethical decision. It gives a good decision making framework in being right a lot.  

The Green Sea of Heaven: Fifty Ghazals from the Diwan of Hafiz, by Elizabeth Gray with an introductory essay by Daryush Shayegan. I have found Hafiz to be very untranslatable and appreciate every scholarly endeavor to translate Hafiz's ghazals. Elizabeth Gray picked fifty ghazals from his Diwan and translated them. All I can say is that the translations helped me in peeling a few more layers on some of the Ghazals that I am more familiar with. My favorite couplet, is the ma'aqta (the last couplet that has the poet's name embedded in it):

        Gharaar o khwab az Hafiz tama'a madaar ay dust/gharaar cheest, saboori kadaam, khwab koja?

        Do not covet rest and sleep from Hafiz, O friend. Where is rest, which is patience, where is sleep?

Rome: Strategy of Empire, by James Lacey. The author serves as Professor of Strategic Studies and Political Economy at the US Marine Corps War College. This was a fascinating mix of history, politics, diplomacy, and military strategy. There is also an uncanny similarity how Rome maintained her Empire through her legions and how today's United States maintains its global naval dominance through the carrier strike groups.

The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, by Karl Polyani. This book got recommended through Mark Blyth's talks. I must admit, it is a heavy book and a slow read. But very thought provoking, perhaps because it challenged my own belief in self-regulating markets. Karl Polyani was an Austro-Hungarian economist who fled from Hungary to (post WW-1) Austria to the UK and then to the US. The book has a Foreword by Joseph Stiglitz, who summarized, "Polyani saw the market as part of the broader economy, and the broader economy as part of a still broader society". The tremendous social and political change that we are seeing now across the western liberal world as a response to neo-liberalism and globalization is perhaps a vindication of his theory.

Persians: the age of the great kings, by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. The author was a guest at the Empire Podcast. This was a refresher on the first global superpower, the Persian Achaemenid Empire that extended from Greece and Egypt to Central Asia and Western India in the sixth century BCE. It is also a fascinating tale of rise and fall, ambition, power, as well as examples of good governance.

Emperor of Rome: ruling the ancient world, by Mary Beard. This was an account of Roman emperors, their private and public lives and how the Empire was governed and fought over. 

A Very Courageous Decision: The Inside Story of Yes Minister, by Graham McCann. This is a story of the making of my favorite TV show: Yes, Minister and Yes Prime Minister. The shows are very quotable and re-watchable. This book goes behind the scenes on the authors (Antony Jay and Jonthan Lynn), the actors and how they worked with career bureaucrats and historians to create their material. 

MANAGEMENT & MACHIAVELLI : A Prescription for Success in Your Business, by Antony Jay. I got the link to the book from the previous book on the inside story of Yes, Minister. I have been an avid student of Machiavelli's writings as well as student and practitioner of modern management. I even remember saying, "to understand the human impulses driving a modern corporation, studying medieval history is a better alternative than just the last 70 years of modern management". But I did not realize that someone smarter and more accomplished than me had made the connection before me and even wrote about it. The book was a delight to read. Antony Jay was the older and more conservative leaning co-authors of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.

The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization, by Jon R. Katzenbach, Douglas K. Smith. This book analyzes high-performing teams and through case studies, determines how they are formed and how they succeed. It starts by saying that six "team basics" define the discipline required for team performance: (1) Small number (less than 12), (2) complementary skills of members (3) common purpose, (4) common performance goals, (5) common working approach, and (6) mutual accountability. They also non-intuitively conclude that the role of the team leader is not the primary determinant of team performance. The case studies and the conclusions are very insightful.

I have to end with two special mentions. One is a podcast and other is an explanatory essay. 

The Empire Podcast, by Anita Anand and William Dalrymple has been my commute companion for all of 2023. They bring in a lot of historians as guests and they engage in a fascinating and funny discussion on serious subjects.

The second is Stephen Wolfram's essay titled "What is ChatGPT doing and why does it work?". This helped me build my mental model on the science and math behind generative AI and the things we can use the technology for.

My previous book lists:

2022     2021    2020    2019     2018     2017     2016    2015    2014    2008    2007

Continuing education of a Tech Leader

Education does not conclude once one leaves the halls of academia. True learning begins when classroom theories confront real-world challenges. Here, I outline the framework I've employed to foster continuous growth and learning. I identified gaps in my own formal education, particularly in finance and the liberal arts, which I sought to fill post-graduation. Moreover, in the fast-changing realm of technology, it is important to remain on top of my latest development. Also, my tenure at companies like Hughes, Openwave, Microsoft, and Amazon provided me with an invaluable, immersive learning experience.

When I advise and mentor technical leaders who manage people and products, here are the broad areas I ask them to look at, to help them keep learning on the job, and what has worked for me so far.

Stay updated on your domain. There are three aspects to stay in touch with. The first is the basic sciences: this includes reading the academic papers around an emerging science. That is how I first learned about  quantum computing, DNA computers, or CRISPR, for example. These are long-lead time research, many of which may not find a mass-market product in our lifetime, but many of them will. Thinking about interesting research and asking "how would this be available to the masses in the form of a product?" is always an interesting exercise. I never start a day by asking "what academic papers will I read today?". Instead, I frequently stumble upon something through my regular reading (Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Economist, Nature, Scientific American) that then leads me to go deeper into the basic research.  I scan the ACM and IEEE journals for interesting papers. I also read the research of Nobel Prize winners in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, and Economics every year.

The second is the technical innovation that is coming out of universities and business as a result of focussed funding that is more "product-ready" but don't yet have mass-market adoption. For example, I follow very closely what the MIT Media Lab is up to. I have been following the latest in brain computer interface for almost a decade, including trying out experimental products. 

The third is the immediate trends coming out of the industry that quickly get mass adoption. For example, I learned Java weeks after Sun announced it: I was in college then. I downloaded the iOS and the Android SDKs when they were released, and learned by building apps myself. I follow the developments in the open source community closely: especially in languages (Python), web infrastructure (Chromium and Webkit), operating systems, and AI. Coursera has courses in partnership with the top universities that can help one state updated on the latest.

Finance. I was advised by a mentor very early in my career to learn the basics of finance and accounting. One could always take a course from the local community college or Coursera, or from a textbook. I was recommended Finance and Accounting for Non-financial managers by Edward Fields, and it was a good start. After that, at work, I made sure that I always spent time with my finance partner to understand the basics of how the business or the division I am in makes money (or plans to make money). As part of my investing due-diligence, I make it a point to read the financial reports of the company (going back at least 3 years) I am investing in. Understanding what every line item in the financial statement means has also given me insights. I also make it a point to read every line in the footnotes. I spend time reading the annual reports of the tech companies that I track (the usual suspects) and get to learn from that.

Investing basics. The two people who influenced my thinking around investing were Benjamin Graham (The Intelligent Investor) and Burton Malkiel (A Random Walk down Wall Street). Benjamin Graham's Security Analysis is a comprehensive guide on how to analyze securities and the companies behind them. In 2005-2006, I remember trying to apply his model to my own stock picking and used to be surprised at how few stocks met the criteria he had. That changed a bit in 2009, after the crash. Graham's "margin of safety" and "in the short term, the market is a voting machine and in the long run it is a weighing machine" has been a big influence on how I look at capital markets. Which brings us to learning from Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger. It is a delight to read Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder letters every year. John Bogle's (Vanguard's founder, Common Sense on mutual funds) thinking has been a later influence as well.

Management principles. A big part of management is doing, practicing, and learning from mistakes through introspection. Peter Drucker has been my inspiration and guide on thinking about management as a practice. I would recommend anyone in management to read everything that Peter Drucker has written, just not once, but over and over again. Ram Charan's book on Execution is a great add on top of that. The two authors (and their principles) that influenced me a lot very early (from my college days) were Dale Carnegie (How to win friends and influence people) and Stephen Covey (The 7 habits of highly effective people). On strategy, my earlier influences were Jim Collins (From Good to Great) and Clayton Christensen (The Innovator's Dilemma). On operations, my early influences were Akio Morita (Made in Japan), Lee Iocacca, and Jack Welch; although these days, I am having second thoughts about Jack Welch's management style and his long-term impact in GE. On tech, I have closely followed Microsoft and Apple and where they have been placing bets. I have followed Bill Gates' and Steve Job's thinking on how to build products and how to build and protect moats. And, of course, learning first-hand from Jeff Bezos has been an incredible opportunity and a privilege. I would recommend reading the Amazon annual shareholder letters too. Over the years, I have read books by, or autobiographies and biographies of founders from JRD Tata to Peter Thiel to help me understand how to build and operate a successful business. Harvard Business Review is also a great resource to stay on top of the latest thinking on management principles and how to apply them in real life.

Economics and how capitalism works. We operate in a capitalist economy. Therefore, learning the basics of how capitalism works in practice helps one understand our foundation. The best (but long) book to understand the system is Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. David Ricardo's On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation is a great read too. John Maynard Keynes' works, especially, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money helped me understand the Great Depression and how the different components of the economy interact. I would recommend John K. Galbraith's American Capitalism: the concept of countervailing power and his other works. And to balance that, I would recommend Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom.  Joseph Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy introduced the concept of "creative destruction" around the time (1942) when the future of that world order was in question. To understand the case against capitalism, one can always read Das Kapital, or Thomas Piketty's 21st century version. A friend introduced me to Jane Jacobs' works and I found her Cities and the Wealth of Nations very insightful.

Among modern economists, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner helped change the way I look at things and look beyond the obvious answers to problems.  One thing to keep in mind is that Economics is not an exact science like Physics, so multiple theories often claim contradictory things. In a given year, the Nobel Prize in Economics can be shared by two people, one of whom would show that markets can be irrational (Robert Shiller: Irrational Exuberance) and the other would show that markets always price in all available information (Eugene Fama: efficient-market hypothesis). Yale University has one of Robert Shiller's economics classes on Financial markets (Econ-252) available on YouTube: and that is a delight to watch and learn from. My current thinking is being influenced by Mark Blyth (Austerity: the history of a dangerous idea, Angrynomics) and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, Anti-Fragile, Skin in the Game). Mark Blyth is a great speaker and I recommend watching his lectures to understand the economics and politics of the last ten years: especially "Why people vote for those who work against their interests". 

Psychology. Understanding human psychology and motivation is essential for leadership. Dale Carnegie's book (mentioned earlier) has been one of my earliest introduction to how to influence by understanding motivation and incentives. I would strongly recommend reading Daniel Kahneman's and Amos Tversky's research on framing of decisions, judgement under uncertainty, and cognitive bias to anyone who is managing people and products. Of course, Kahneman's book: Thinking Fast and Slow is also on my "must read multiple times" list. Michael Lewis' Undoing project goes behind the details of their collaboration. Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point and Blink: The Power of thinking without thinking are great books on understanding the world around us and what goes on inside our brains. 

History. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", the saying goes. As well as "History doesn't repeat, but rhymes". I have two simultaneous approaches of learning history. One is depth-first and the other is breadth-first. For depth, I recommend learning the history of where one is living and working in, as well as where one is from (if that is different). That gives the depth to understand oneself, as well as the environment one is operating in. For the breadth, I recommend understanding how different parts of the world have been interconnected since the ancient times, and how multiple cultures, empires, and nations interacted with other; what mistakes they made; how they rose and fell; and also the biographies of individuals who made outsized contributions. I like to read military history to understand strategy and effective leadership: how great commanders and generals plan their steps to attain their objective, and how they inspire and lead people towards that objective. 

Philosophy. I have approached philosophy to learn about models or frameworks to explain how the world operates, or how it should operate. I read Plato's Republic a few years after graduating and the debates about justice, ethics, rationality, and reality helped me with the framework of how to think in abstractions about human issues. Artistotle's (who was Alexander the Great's teacher) works helped me understand how to apply abstract concepts in practice. I later read Avicenna and Al-Ghazali and realized how Arab philosophers ended up being a bridge between the ancient Greco-Roman world and the modern world and were essentially of the same tradition. Maimonides' works was my introduction to the Jewish tradition and how he connected the tradition with European philosophy. Reading Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau gave me an understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of today's liberal democratic society. Reading René Descartes, Francis Bacon, Karl Popper, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant helped me understand the foundations of the philosophy behind modern science.

Statecraft and geopolitics. There are two reasons why I recommend learning the nuances of statecraft and geopolitics. The first is because it gives a leader the philosophical and the operational framework to operate at scale. The second is because geopolitics impacts businesses and markets. So, trying to understand the motivations of the people and the leaders of where one is doing business in helps in staying prepared for, and even predict events. From the ancient eastern world, I recommend Kautilya's Arthashastra and Sun Tzu's Art of War. Incidentally, the US Army War college has a course that covers Arthashastra. From the medieval world, I recommend Machiavelli's Prince and Discourses. For modern geopolitics, I recommend Henry Kissinger's On China and World Order. Peter Zeihan and George Friedman's recent books have been interesting reads too.

Classics. By classics, I don't mean studying just the ancient Roman and Greek literature, but I also mean studying the literature and the culture of some of the modern nations that have shaped the contemporary world. I would recommend Homer's great epics: Iliad and Odyssey, to anyone operating in the western world. Ancient India's two great epics: Ramayana ("The story of Rama") and the Mahabharata ("The Great India") is a great way to understand ancient India. Anglo-Saxons have Beowulf and the Old Norse Sagas, and Persians have the epic of Gilgamesh and Shahnameh. William Shakespeare's plays have been a lesson in human behavior and English history for me, as well a source of great quotes. His historical plays: Richard II, Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2), Henry V, Henry VI (Parts 1, 2, 3), and Richard III are a great way to understand English history and the complexities of leadership. 

Religion, spirituality, and introspection. I always recommend learning and understanding the basics of one's own religious tradition, even if one is an atheist. Over millennia, religion carried the nuggets and pearls of the collective wisdom of a society, for better or for worse. In almost every ancient society, the priests were also the teachers and had an influence on how society was structured and run. They were frequently the only literate people. Most of Europe's earliest universities were founded by and run by the clergy. For me, the Upanishads (including The Bhagavad Gita) have been a great guide for understanding reality and understanding myself. I have found Sufism (through the poetry of poets like Rumi) re-iterating similar principles. I would recommend anyone operating in the western world to read the Bible. Among modern spiritual teachers, I have found Eckhart Tolle's books very good. Music been a source of rejuvenation and energy for me.

This was a short summary of what and how I have been learning over the last 25 years. If you have read this far, do share with me your own framework of how you keep learning. 

Books I read in 2022

 It was a busy first half of 2023, so it took me a while to write up my 2022 book list.

Discourses, by Niccolo Machiavelli. When we one says Machiavelli, we think of The Prince. But Discourses is the longer and a more dynamic book that articulates the principles of the state and republican government. It starts with a commentary of Titus Livy's history of republican Rome, and the sets up how cities, states, governments get established and preserved. The short chapters (especially in book 1) around principles of administration and policy ("he who proposes to change an old-established form of government in a free city should retain at least the shadow of its ancient customs", "those who setup a tyranny are no less blameworthy than are the founders of a republic or a kingdom praiseworthy", "a weak prince who succeeds an outstanding prince can hold his own, but a weak prince who succeeds another weak prince cannot hold any kingdom") makes the book great for quick and partial re-reading. Some of the things he re-iterates about outstanding princes apply to modern CEOs too.

The book is also very quotable. In book 2, he says "... for money cannot find good soldiers, but good soldiers will be sure to find money ..." and I thought that one could say the same thing for software engineers. In book 1, he says "... in every republic there are two different dispositions, that of the populace and that of the upper class and that all legislation favourable to liberty is brought about by the clash between them..."

The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom, by James Burnham: This came recommended from a podcast I sometimes listen to. James Burnham was a philosopher and political theorist who started as a Trotskyist but eventually became a leader of the American conservative movement, becoming a regular contributor and editor of William F. Buckley's National Review magazine. The book is a commentary on the works of Machiavelli and on Dante's de Monarchia, and of four modern philosophers that Burnhams calls "The Machiavellians". They are Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, Robert Michels, and Vilfredo Pareto (the Pareto of the 80-20 rule). Mosca, Michels, and Pareto are cofounders of the Italian school of elitism. Burnham then summarizes their principles in a section titled Politics and the Truth. In that section, in the chapter on Democracy, he explores both the self-government meaning of democracy and that of liberty: the freedom to criticize and the existence of a public opposition to check the power of the governing elite.

The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal, by William J. Burns: This is one of the best books I read to understand the foreign policy choices of both the George HW Bush (41) and George W Bush (43) administrations. He was the US ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008. This book, along with Michael McFaul's memoirs (US Ambassador to Russia 2012-2014) gave me a good first hand understanding of the Russia of today. William J Burns is now the CIA director, but he had a long career in the State Department. The key takeaway from the book is how the backchannel, or the informal relationships between leaders and diplomats are a big part of how foreign policy is conducted. 

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford: This is a re-read. But the third (or was it the fourth?) reading made me realize a few more things that I had missed in the earlier reading. Especially around religious tolerance, forging a nation out of warring tribes, communicating across large distance, and setting standards around diplomatic immunity. For example, to ensure error-free (and hard to intercept) communication of military orders, the Mongol army orders were composed in rhymes to ensure that messages was easily memorized and repeated to every soldier as exactly as they were originally spoken. The other realization I had is that the Mongols did not glorify death in battle, so most of their battle plans centered around ensuring the survival of the Mongol core.

The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, by Ayesha Jalal: This is the book version of Ayesha Jalal's PhD dissertation. This is admirably researched and very well analyzed, starting with the demographics of different provinces of undivided India, the separate political journeys of Congress and Muslim League, and that of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. I have always been interested in blow by blow accounts of how India got divided on the basis of religion, but it has left me confused on the definition of nationhood and secularism in the South Asian context; as well as how a democracy should operate in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society. It is just unfortunate that the founders of India and Pakistan couldn't agree on a single model. 

The Storm Before the Calm: America's Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond, by George Friedman. George Friedman is a geopolitical strategist and found of Stratfor and Geopolitical futures. In this book he gives how political, social, and economic crisis in the US comes in cycles, and how the US responds. He predicts that the 2020s will be the confluence of multiple crisis and how the US will overcome it. Friedman is very bullish on America.

Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley, by Emily Chang. I attended a "meet the author" organized by our county public library, where Emily Chang talked about the book. It is a fascinating and well researched book about the bro culture in Silicon Valley and how the culture has made it hard for female entrepreneurs to raise money and start companies. 

The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (Bridging the Gap), by Rush Doshi. This was recommended by an ex-coworker. It is a good read, but I think it over estimates Chinese capability. China's deserved economic and military rise is nothing but spectacular, but China still depends on the American Order. 

The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America, by Peter Zeihan. Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical strategist who worked at Friedman's Stratfor and then founded his own firm in 2012. Zeihan has been vocally predicting the end of globalization and the eventual disinterest of the US in running global trade and security. In this book, he explains how the shale revolution is going to make North America energy independent and trigger the foreign policy changes that will make the US increasingly disinterested in running the global order that it built to fight the cold war.

Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life, by Jane Jacobs. This book was recommended to me by a classmate, when we were discussing the economics of the European Union. According to him, Jane Jacob's book gave him the insights on how the monetary union is hurting the less developed economies within the union and preventing their ability to develop. Jane Jacobs is best known for her book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," and has been a vocal activist for a vibrant urban life and the preservation of neighborhoods. In this book she focused on how cities developed by import replacement and then using that to develop local infrastructure, suppliers, and skilled labor. Her overall point is that cities drive economic growth for regions and nations and the book described the mechanisms of that growth. In that context, Jane Jacobs explains that cities or initially under-developed countries that have their own currencies have the ability to make their exports cheaper and competitive in order to start the first phase of growth. 

Neither Civil nor Servant, Break rules to build new economies, the Philip Yeo Story, by Peh Shing Huei. This book, a biography of Philip Yeo, written in an interview style seemed like a good practical manual to read on how to build a city-state from scratch and watch the principles of Jane Jacobs' book in action. Philip Yep served in Singapore Administrative Services and held various roles overseeing and executing Singapore's economic development, science and technology research, trade, and defense. 

The Singapore Story, memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew. This is the shortened version of the first volume of the memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew, the founder and the first prime minister of the modern city state of Singapore. It is a fascinating and inspirational read. He describes his experiences during the Japanese occupation, as a leader inside the federation of Malaysia, and the eventual separation and independence of Singapore. His conviction in opposing the forces of communism and of communal intimidation is very inspirational too. 

The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization, by Peter Zeihan. This is Zeihan's latest book, released in May 2022. He continues his earlier narrative of the end of globalization and the beginning of a multi-polar world. Using demographic charts and maps, he goes through the major countries that he thinks will have a good time (hint: Turkey and France) in the decades to come and the ones that will struggle (hint: Germany, China, and Russia). Like Friedman, he is very bullish on the US.

Without Marx or Jesus, by Jean François Revel. I got interested in Jean François Revel's philosophy after reading his conversations with his son in "The Monk and the Philosopher". Without Marx or Jesus signaled Revel's transition from a socialist to a classical liberal and a proponent of free market. In this book, written during the height of the cold war (1971), he predicted the victory of the American system. 

History Has Begun: The Birth of a New America, by Bruno Maçães. I must admit that it was one of the harder to read books that I read this year. Not because of the language or the concepts, but because the thesis that the US is charting a new course for itself in its cultural journey, and may (will) abandon its European enlightenment roots. It was thought provoking, and left me very provoked. I agree with Maçães  that America is not in decline, but I had a hard time accepting that it is going to re-invent itself in a way that it will break from the past. 

This year, reading Zeihan, Friedman, and Maçães' books left me wondering about the coming challenges of this decade, including the technological challenges that will transform how we work, and how to get ready for that. 

My previous book lists:

2021   2020   2019     2018     2017     2016    2015    2014    2008    2007

Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh

 A few months ago, I came across an article on Dara Shikoh that presented a common viewpoint suggesting that if he had become the Mughal Emperor, things might have turned out differently. However, my perspective on this matter is a bit more nuanced. I don't believe that Dara, or any other Indian ruler for that matter, could have thwarted the European domination of India. It was an inevitable outcome, considering even the mighty Ottoman Empire experienced decline and downfall. Mughal India's overall reluctance, along with the rest of Asia, to invest in science, technology, and scientific education during the 17th and 18th centuries would have held it back regardless. It's worth noting that while Indians were constructing the Taj Mahal, American colonists were busy establishing Harvard College, which later became Harvard University. National priorities and investments in education play a significant role in determining how a nation will develop in the future. The Mughals didn't prioritize building a strong navy, and Dara's ascension wouldn't have changed that. The Marathas made attempts in that direction, but their defeat in the third battle of Panipat put an end to those aspirations. Furthermore, religious discord in India would have continued to persist.

Instead of Dara Shikoh, I find Aurangzeb to be the tragic figure in Indian history. My perspective is influenced by the research of Sir Jadunath Sarkar on Aurangzeb's life and rule. Towards the end of his reign, Aurangzeb expressed despair with the famous phrase "Az ma ast, fasaad baqi" (after me, chaos). This sentiment echoes the well-known phrase "après moi le déluge" of Louis XV. From a character standpoint, Aurangzeb possessed qualities that one would hope to see in our politicians. He lived a simple life, refusing to accept any salary from the treasury and earning his income through calligraphy and cap-making. He was devoutly religious and avoided the indulgences that his father and grandfather were known for. He valued merit over religion or family ties when appointing individuals to positions and had Hindus serving in his military and administration. He even prohibited the practice of Sati, the Hindu tradition of burning widows on their husbands' funeral pyres, which not even Akbar had addressed. (Eventually, the British successfully banned it permanently.) Aurangzeb also harbored a vision of expanding the Mughal Empire deeper into southern India. However, his successors were unable to maintain that legacy, and the empire began to unravel by the end of his reign. That, to me, is the true tragedy.

In contrast, Dara's focus primarily revolved around spending time with mystics. He got the Upanishads translated from Sanskrit to Persian. But, unlike his three younger brothers, he lacked the experience of leading armies into battle, or govern a province of the empire. This lack of experience was a significant drawback for a medieval prince and would hurt him in the war of succession. While Dara did possess a vision for a syncretic Indian culture, he failed to envision the necessary political structure required to sustain such a culture.

If we examine the historical pattern of India, we observe two distinct aspects that fluctuate over time. On one axis, we have the fragmented versus unifying nature of the body politic, or the central governing system. The unifying periods signify when the entire subcontinent is brought together under a strong central authority. Throughout the past 2,500 years, these unifying phases amount to approximately less than 500 years in total. This includes roughly 100 years under the Mauryas, 100 years under the Guptas, 100 years under the Mughals, 100 years under British rule, and 75 years under the modern Indian republic. Conversely, the remaining 80% of the past 2,500 years comprised fragmented kingdoms and smaller empires. During the time when Ghaznavi was plundering temples in Gujarat, Rajendra Chola was raiding temples in Bengal. I won't delve into the debate on whether an imperial India or a state of warring factions is preferable; rather, I am simply stating the observations I have made.

The second aspect revolves around the dominant culture and its characteristics: whether it is rigid or flexible, imposed from the top down or developed organically. One might assume that a top-down, rigid imposition of a mono-culture on India, similar to how Chinese Han rule unified China millennia ago, would bring about unification. Aurangzeb held a rigid cultural vision, believing (understandably) that such rigidity was necessary to maintain and expand the empire. His vision of India did not accommodate a Shia-ruled Golconda. On the other hand, Dara's vision was flexible and inclusive, but his methods were unlikely to contribute to a politically and administratively stronger country. Even Ashoka the Great had to impose Buddhism as a state religion. Conversely, Sufism and Bhakti are examples of organic, grassroots movements driving cultural and social change. However, their capacity to politically unify hundreds of millions of people remains unproven.

The debate between Dara and Aurangzeb is not particularly pertinent, in the long arc of history. What truly matters is the trajectory of India's history, specifically whether it tends towards unity or fragmentation. Crucially, the basis of the unification is important. Should the unification be grounded in values of flexibility and tolerance, or should it be on the basis of a mono-culture. Aurangzeb's tragic legacy in the 18th century serves as a valuable lesson, highlighting the necessity of striking a balance between unification, tolerance, flexibility, and making appropriate investments in military strength and education. Ultimately, these factors play a vital role in shaping India's future.

Maximum engagement vs Maximum abstraction: how to scale without losing touch with reality

One of the biggest things I had to learn over the last five years was to scale myself without losing touch with the details of the business and the operations. Mental models have been a great tool in that. For me, they are like maps, or mathematical equations; they help me understand reality without having to spend the time to understand everything that happens in the real world. My biggest struggle was to use the right mental model for the right decision making and keeping the mental model updated as reality changed. The real world is very dynamic.

Last year, I stumbled upon an episode of the Endless loop podcast where the guest speaker was Tom Morgan, a knowledge curator in the financial services industry. He talked about a mental model of maximum engagement and maximum abstraction. I have been thinking more about it, and I wanted to expand a bit more on it. 

Here's how he describes it in the podcast. "At maximum engagement, you're one with everything in this undifferentiated mass. And at maximum abstraction, you're completely isolated from the world with enormous power over it, but completely disconnected from it. And I think that a lot of people get into real trouble in life when they become maximally abstracted. So if you're living completely in the map and not in the territory, that's actually one of the descriptions of major depression. It's basically when your map doesn't get updated by new territory. And your network is completely closed to new information and there's no connectivity whatsoever. So, basically people in the executive suite, when no one wants to bring bad news to them, they're almost like completely disconnected."

When you're running things as a leader, the larger the organization, the harder it is to have a maximum engagement experience all the time. So, the ideal situation is to keep walking between two ends of that continuum between maximum engagement and maximum abstraction. Napoleon used to lead his army into battle, when most monarchs and prime ministers at the time stayed in their palaces and cabinet rooms. Duke of Wellington led his army into battle in India and Europe before becoming Prime Minister. Sir Winston Churchill resigned from the cabinet after the Gallipolli disaster and went to command an infantry battalion in France during the first world war. In the software world, Bill Gates coded - until he couldn't. However, the maximum abstraction behavior gave us the tragedies of Iraq and Afghanistan. It also gave us the 2008 financial crisis. The people running our largest banks had no idea what was really backing up the mortgage backed securities. The maximum abstraction behavior definitely helps leaders scale as long as the abstraction - or the model - is getting updated with reality. And the way leaders can update their abstraction is by having that maximum engagement experience to make sure that their abstractions match reality.

What should leaders do to be able to live on maximum engagement, sometimes? Some of the executives at AWS actually roll-up their sleeves and code against the APIs their teams are producing. Leaders go out and talk to customers and participate in customer call-listening sessions. Leaders of smaller or medium sized engineering teams participate in and contribute to code and design reviews. Many product leaders use their own products like a customer would: eating your own dogfood. The trick is not about staying in maximum engagement all the time, but it is about staying at the right level of engagement and using the lessons learned during that engagement to update the abstraction of reality. This also involves creating the right organization culture where anyone in the organization can bring bad news, and bring in suggestions to improve what's broken.

Books I read in 2021

 

Here is my 2021 book list.

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. This was suggested to me by a coworker in a discussion about artificial general intelligence. I found some of the ideas a bit far fetched, but fascinating. I also think that Life 2.0 isn't done yet: we (humans) have not finished our evolution as a culture yet, so artificial intelligence is more like version 2.5. 

The walled garden of Truth: Sana'i. This was another suggestion (in the form of a question) from a coworker. Sana'i was a Persian Sufi poet, who lived in Ghazni (Afghanistan) in the late 11th/early 12th century. 

The Dawn of Eurasia: On the trail of the New World Order, by Bruno Maçães. This is an interesting travelogue cum history lesson plus attempted prophesies by the former Portuguese minister for European affairs. I liked the stories and the insights (for example an insight into the difference between the Chinese and the Indian way of doing business), but I'm not sure if I agree with extrapolating the Chinese economic growth linearly into the future. 

Nishabd Noopur, by Balram Shukla. This is a collection of Rumi's ghazals, both in the original Persian and the author's Hindi translation. Balram Shukla is a professor of Sanskrit and Persian at the University of Delhi. Of course, he teaches Sanskrit in Persian! I loved the translations, and it helped me understand many of the Ghazals really well. 

The Goal: A business graphic novel, by Eliyahu Goldratt. I read it as quick reading before a book club at work. This is probably the most read book at Amazon book clubs. The graphic novel just made the reading faster.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid, by Douglas Hofstader. This is one of the most abstract books I have read in a long time, and I must say that it is very hard to quickly read it. I am now looking for books to help me understand GEB!

The splendid and the vile: A saga of Churchill, family, and defiance during the Blitz, by Erik Larson. This book was also suggested to me by a coworker, and served as a new perspective of the British mindset during the second world war.

India as seen by Amir Khusrau (1318 AD), by Prof. R. Nath. I came across this book while trying to suggest a good book to understand Amir Khusrau. 

Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, by Joseph Schumpeter. This was part of my reading to understand the basic model of how the economy works, and how the political forces shape the economy. This is also the book that first introduced creative destruction to describe innovation. 

Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment, by Yanis Varoufakis. This is part of my continued attempt at understanding the great recession and its aftermath: economic and political. Yanis Varoufakis was the Greek Finance Minister for a few months in 2015 as part of the Syriza government and wrote a first hand account of how the European Union functioned. He had the un-enviable task of negotiating with creditors, when debt restructuring and abandoning austerity should have been the right thing to do. I highly recommend this book, but do read Mark Blyth's Austerity: the history of a dangerous idea after this.

The Accidental superpower, by Peter Zeihan. "The next generation of American preeminence and the coming global disorder", according the author, is inevitable. This is the first book of Peter Zeihan's series that is describing a new world-order that (according to him) will start in the 2020s. This is when the US will become disinterested in policing the world, will be self-sufficient in energy and food, and the US rivals (China and Russia) will experience a demographic collapse. "It takes twenty years to raise twenty year olds", according to Zeihan. I would recommended it to the people who are predicting that China is about to take over.

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson. This book covers Jennifer Doudna's career and the development of CRISPR, the gene editing tool. I bought this for my daughter to get her inspired, and I got inspired too! 

Here's a list of books that I started reading, but haven't finished yet:

Railroader: The Unfiltered Genius and Controversy of Four-Time CEO Hunter Harrison, by Howard Green

Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A corporate fool's guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie, 

Multipliers: How the best leaders make everyone smarter, by Liz Wiseman.

It's your ship: Management Techniques from the best damn ship in the Navy, by Captain Michael Abrashoff. 

And here are the books that I read for the second time in 2021.

Writing systems of the World. This was actually one of my first purchases from Amazon, and I seem to have misplaced that book in my last move. I love it as kind of a reference book on writing systems.

Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world, by Jack Rutherford. 

Baburnama. My ritual yearly reading.

How Great Generals win, by Bevin Alexander. I read this over the winter break to prepare for another book club at work. I blogged my book notes earlier.

Summarizing, my reading over the last few years has a few themes.

Understanding leadership and strategy. This is where I venture far into documented and verified history as much as I can and take inspiration from leaders from the past. Leaders who also led armies (or navies) tend to inspire me the most, because they not only had to talk, but they also got to organize and act.

Understanding who we are, where we came from, why we are here, and where are we going. This is not only the material aspects of who we are (language, history, genetics), but also the spiritual aspects. My interest in Sufism has come from this urge to understand. Reading the translations of the Upanishads (no, I have not mastered Sanskrit well enough to understand the original) helps me analyze the nature of being, consciousness, and reality.

Understanding how the economy works. This has been another theme, not just to figure out where and how to invest, but also to be clear on the cause and effect in economics. I thought that Ray Dalio's explanation was fascinating, but I felt missed the political piece of the cause and effect machine. Mark Blyth's books and lectures have helped me understand as well. 

Understanding the cycles of history, and trying to predict the future by exploring the role of technology in shaping the future. My interest in understanding history in terms world orders comes from this. Bruno Maçães, Peter Zeihan, Kishore Mahbubani, Henry Kissinger, Yuval Noah Hariri are some of my recent friends and teachers in that journey.

My previous book lists:

2020   2019     2018     2017     2016    2015    2014    2008    2007