The Uncle

So, my genius uncle is an angel investor (among many other amazing things). He invests in start-ups that make sense and he invests in books of all sorts. I’ll leave the start-ups for later, but let’s shine the light for a hot second on this book fetish of his. He is a serial reader, and his reading speed is the stuff of legends and folklore in our family, described using adjectives that range from photographic to lightening. Apparently, he has found errors in encyclopedias, written letters to editors, stumping them with grammatic finesse that even the Oxfords of the world would be proud. His love and knowledge of and for books is so vast that it is like currency for him. And, he has a big heart with this book-tastic currency. Most riveting conversations with him end with at least two or three incredible book recommendations, and they are always on point. Inspired by his recent foray into angel investing, he angel-invested books in me. He loaned me two books, “as long as I gave them back” and the interest he charged was that I needed to write book-reviews on them. Don’t get me wrong, it was an awesome deal – outside of just giving me the books, it also gave me a decent nudge to devour them before I saw him next.

This blog post is the interest I owe him – maybe not exactly what he expected, but to be fair, he didn’t set clear rules for what these book reviews could or could not contain.

Rapid-fire Book Review 1 – The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision Of The Future by Steve Case

I want to be an entrepreneur. That’s why the uncle recommended this book to me. And it lived up to all the hype. So, if you are thinking of starting something or have any interest in the start-up space, indulge in this book for sure.

Steve Case is best known for being the CEO of AOL at the beginning of the internet world. He is basically famous for commercializing the internet as we know it. In this book, he talks about the three “waves,” or the current technological growth phases, we have been in and are about to be unleashed into. The first wave was the creation and commercialization of the internet. The second wave was the proliferation and capitalization of the internet – the emergence of the Googles and the Facebooks of the world – and this is the wave we are still sort of in. But Case says that we are about to embark on the third wave, where the world won’t just be dominated by the internet of certain things, but with the internet of everything. Which, to be honest, makes a ton of sense. After setting these waves up, he uses his wealth of knowledge and experience to predict what would be needed to succeed as an entrepreneur in this third wave.

I think that different people take different things from a book. What stayed with me from this book are the three “P”s that will be needed to succeed in the third wave – policy, partnerships and perseverance. He mentions how the days of sitting in your basement and writing code to create a Tinder-like application are almost gone, and how we are moving into a rapidly developing, morally conscious and constantly connected world. He stresses on the importance of social enterprises and impact investing, and is actually walking the talk through Case Foundation. So yes, he has my heart. One cool thing was that, in this book, he actually mentions and opines on my old CEO at iHeartMedia, which I might or might not have read more than once – they worked together at AOL once-upon-a-time.

Also, it’s a super-easy read, double-spaced and short-ish. Don’t we all love good, quick reads?

Rapid-fire Book Review 2 – The Beautiful Tree by James Tooley

I believe that education is the long-term solution to poverty, and pretty much everything. That’s why the uncle recommended this book to me. And, it provided me with a new perspective on the importance of private education for the poor and the importance of looking at a problem with fresh eyes. If you’re in the education space and you care about poverty, you must read this thoroughly-researched book.

The hypothesis the author, Tooley, spends 300-odd pages proving is that the poor can and are educating themselves. The poor understand the value of a good education and if the broken public sector can’t provide it, they are willing to pay small, in-home private schools to get their children educated. Tooley has spent decades in the education space, and his travels and experiments across the developing world in Asia and Africa have provided him with overwhelming evidence that private schools are not only an actual thing in the developing world, they are a relatively more effective means of education than the public sector, and in many cases – more affordable and more accessible. The biggest challenge he faces in his conquest to prove his hypothesis is to convince local education leaders that private schools for the poor are real. Nobody seems to believe him, and nobody local seemed to have unearthed this phenomenon, including laureates like Amartya Sen. Everybody just seemed to be too close to the problem, refusing to believe something as “preposterous” as the poor paying for education (instead of taking advantage of free public schooling) could be true. Honestly, it’s a fascinating journey, corroborating anecdotes with statistically significant evidence that has the potential to make “education for all” a reality.

The other thing I personally took from this book is the importance of having a global, unbiased perspective while approaching any problem. James Tooley was able to uncover a trend going thousands of miles away from his home, while the people closest were completely oblivious to it. Also, private schools for the poor are essentially social enterprises. The importance of making them financially sustainable provides automatic checks to ensure that there is a level of quality that is maintained. Also, teacher attendance rates are significantly higher than in public schools.

I obviously can’t do justice to Tooley’s years of research in a rapid-fire review. But the book was inspiring, well thought-out and well researched. It’s not the shortest read but is worth the patience and the repetition.

Epilogue

This angel investment of books that the uncle made in me was an impact investment. Both books added value to what I want to do in the future, were extremely relevant and made me blog. I think the uncle should continue making these investments with even more gusto, but perhaps with a clause of sorts that clarifies what the book-review expectations are.

P.S. Here are some other books that have struck a chord with me.