Bookwatch: Samir Gulve, EFI

Samir Gulve, popularly known as Sam, the managing director, India & VP of engineering, EFI, comes with more than 29 years of experience in technology, spanning both successful startups as well as large prestigious multinationals. Therefore, it is no surprise that his reading list should contain both a history of the dot com boom and a book on problem solving, and of course, Freaknomics.

For Gulve, who joined EFI in 2013 as vice-president of engineering for the EFI India Development Centre in Bengaluru, problem solving is just a part of the job description, as he is responsible for the largest engineering organisation at EFI as well as for commercial activity in India. Thus, it’s no surprise that Gulve, an alumni of Indian Institute of Technology, Virginia Tech and Illinois Institute of Technology, is also interested the power of data and statistics.

PrintWeek India picks five items from Samir Gulve’s personal library.

1. The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story by Michael Lewis. “The book is on the dot com era startup culture in the Silicon Valley. I was lucky enough to witness this first hand and personally knew many of the key characters in the book, Gulve says, adding that it an “Easy read.”

2. The McKinsey Mind by Ethan M Rasiel and Paul N Friga. “It’s a great book on problem solving. There isn't a single day that goes by, where I don't apply the learning from this book. It’s a bit abstract at times but surely an all-time business classic.”

3. Freaknomics by Steven Levitt. “This is an awesome book about the power of data and statistics. It gives amazing coverage of practical applications and clearly served as a precursor to the big data, predictive analytics, machine learning storm that followed.”

4. What is Strategy by Michael E Porter. This five-part article was published in Harvard Business Review in 1996. “Though this doesn't classify as a book, it’s clearly a seminal article on this often misunderstood topic. Of course, Michael Porter is considered to be one of the all-time great strategists.”

5. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni. “The book gives quite a pragmatic coverage of what ails well-meaning teams.”