Stay Hungry Stay Foolish: Rashmi Bansal

In a country where 10,000 copies is considered a ‘bestseller’, 100,000 copies sold in just 9 months is astounding. So this book has been well marketed:-). The book is about 25 IIM A alumnus who chose as the book describes it rough road to entrepreneurship. Stay Hungry Stay foolish is the benediction Steve Jobs gave to the graduating class of 2005 at Stanford. The book is literally an interview of 25 IIM Ahmedabad grads (23 men and 2 women) who took the untrodden path of entrepreneurship and left the easy option of cosy and comfortable high paying jobs. The book is written in interviow style monologue, and in most of the parts very interesting if you are an MBA. The characters are very ill researched and the stories of all the 25 grads are almost like photocopies of each other “Parents were bureaucrats. I drifted in to IIM-A. Hated the prospect of a cosy life as an MNC exec; stumbled on great idea (it was some form of market research for almost everybody), and here I am as an owner of multi million dollar business". So basically if you have read one you have read all. But despite all this negatives its a must read for all the budding entreprenuers as it inspires you to do things that you want to do and live your dream. At the end of each chapter there is a piece of advice from each of the 25 grads which is really enriching. Buy the book and read it not for the literary acumen of the writer or her research skils but for the inspiration and insights in each of the story. Also the book is very affordably priced at 125 Rs so even if you dont like it you can still be happy you wasted no big fortune on this one. The idea of writing on premier institutions is not an original one. There is Teresa Esser’s book Venture Café that was published sometime in 2000. Esser, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate herself, tells the story high-tech entrepreneurs whose journey started at the Muddy Charles pub located inside the MIT campus. Its easy narrative, rigourous reporting and research not only made Venture Café an engrossing read, it was a primer for aspiring entrepreneurs. Closer home, there was Sandipan Deb’s excellent book "The IITians" a few years back that tried to explain what made IITians such outstanding achievers across the globe. But all said and done I didnt read the other two books and I have ready only Stay Hungry and Stay Foolish and I really found it worht the effort.