From the bookshelves of Forbes India

In a masterclass on how to build companies and products that change the world, and how to persevere through failure, Tony Fadell speaks with Divya Shekhar about his illustrious career, which, through its twists and turns, has helped him become the man behind some of the most inventive products in the world today.

The co-creator of the iPhone, who led the team that built the first iPod at Apple, Fadell's new book 'Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making' is all about how to find one's place in the world, think differently about work-life balance and solving problems, and the lessons he learnt from his mentors, including Apple Co-founder Steve Jobs and Google Co-founder Larry Page.

Jimmy Soni spent more than six years of his life documenting the origin story of PayPal and the rise to power of its founders, who, as the PayPal Mafia, are among the most influential people in Silicon Valley today. Soni's book, The Founders, chronicles how the payments platform shaped the modern consumer internet. It features rich anecdotes, backstories and interviews with all of PayPal's co-founders, including Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Max Levchin and Reid Hoffman. In today's episode, Soni discusses Musk's Twitter takeover and his vision for X, the everything app, Peter Thiel's emergence as a right-wing power player, and how PayPal has created a template of entrepreneurship for a generation of young startup entrepreneurs. The Founders is published by Atlantic Books and distributed by Penguin Random House India.

How safe are medicines made in India? Four cough and cold syrups made in India have allegedly caused the death of 66 children in the African nation of Gambia, which the Indian drug regulator is currently investigating. The syrups contained diethylene glycol (DEG) and ethylene glycol, which can be fatal for humans who consume it. India has had a record of at least five major events of poisoning by DEG in the past. In today's episode, Dinesh Thakur and Prashant Reddy, authors of The Truth Pill (published by Simon & Schuster India), speak with Divya Shekhar about the problem with drug regulation in India, how drug regulators are more responsive to pharma companies rather than the people of India, and what adverse events due to substandard drugs mean for the $42 billion pharmaceutical industry in India, which, according to the Economic Survey 2021, is expected to reach $120-$130 million by 2030.

Aparna Piramal Raje comes from a prominent business family. She is a writer, educator, public speaker, and, in her own words, “happy, thriving and bipolar”. Her new book, Chemical Khichdi, is published by Penguin Random House India. In this episode of From the Bookshelves of Forbes India, Aparna talks about how she and her family coped with her mental health condition, finding one’s identity, the role of privilege in mental health awareness and de-stigmatisation, and why it’s important for corporate leaders to be more vulnerable, sensitive and empathetic.

'What's your story? The Essential Business Storytelling Handbook', is a collection of experiences of three co-authors Adri Buckner, Anjana Menon, Marybeth Sandell who talk about how companies should map their audience and engage with their target audience in a more interactive and relevant way. It is filled with examples of companies and whether they are doing it right or wrong, and how one should engage with customers. After all, the key is to identify your audience and craft a narrative of your brand. From finding the mission of the brand to channelising your company’s SEO, the book provides an insight into how companies should interact in today’s times

“What we learn from the music business tells us so much more about who we really are, than other media industries; music is important not only because it was first to suffer and first to recover, but because it was the first to discover who we really are,” says Will Page, formerly the chief economist at audio streaming company Spotify. In his book 'Tarzan Economics', Page takes a leaf or two from the music industry to explain how lessons from there can be used by anyone to disrupt an industry. The book is filled with case studies and talks about eight principles to pivot through disruption

Marketing guru Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar in their new book discuss the seven wicked topics they have identified for brand activism. The book is an insightful read on how brands end up on either side of the regressive or progressive activism debate, with examples like Anita Roddick building the Body Shop. In this conversation, Kotler and Sarkar discuss moral myopia to brands, why credibility of CEOs in India is at an all-time low, to climate change

'Pandemonium' by veteran banking editor Tamal Bandyopadhyay narrates untold gripping stories from the Indian banking ecosystem. From the bad loans war room created far from the Mint street in Mumbai, to the arrests made in connection to the disbursal of such loans, he breaks down the nuances of bad loans in India, the key faces, and a collection of rare interviews of all the Reserve Bank of India governors on what they think has caused the big banking mess

Binod Chaudhary is Nepal’s sole billionaire according to Forbes World Billionaires list for 2021. In his autobiography, 'Making it Big', he writes about building his business, the impact of monarchy and politics, running 169 companies and how he plans to consolidate them now. His company CG Corp Global manufactures the widely popular Wai Wai noodles and has a controlling stake in Nabil Bank. Chaudhary now dreams of a NYSE-listed company—the first one from Nepal

Steven Levy has updated his book 'In the Plex' and now takes a look at how Google has changed over the last decade. In the middle of the decade, Larry Page decided to call the company Alphabet. Alpha meant Google and Bet means the new bets or the moonshine projects it will undertake. Levy believes this structure has made it tougher for these bets like the fibre optics business to succeed on their own and a lot of them have eventually failed. He says Google has become something the founders never wanted to be—Conventional