When Varun Alagh shifted school in Class 11, it laid the foundation of who he is today, though he didn't know it then.
"The school that I shifted from was a pretty chill place with 60-65 kids, where you can spend the whole year without getting noticed. The new school had 20 kids in a class and everyone was polished, and spoke in English. I was not articulate at all," Alagh said on Episode 19 of Moneycontrol's show All About Books on Twitter Spaces.
Alagh started reading newspapers and watching English news to improve his English but it set the stage to start reading books, which he did during his MBA.
"When you are in a hostel, you can either spend your free time with your laptop watching sitcoms back-to-back or you can read a book. I ended up on the book side of things. I read 10 to 12 books a year since then. I think that's how it started—from need to actual desire and falling in love with this habit," he said.
Alagh prefers non-fiction books because he thinks it makes him a better person and teaches him more about building a company. For example, Ben Horowitz's The Hard Thing About Hard Things taught him a key hiring lesson.
"That book is a bible. You can run a business with it. . There is this chapter called 'Don't promote the Assholes', which talks about the fact that even if there are smart guys who are high performing but they're not good for your culture, and they don't treat people well, you shouldn't promote them and you shouldn't sort of promote that behaviour," he said.
These are some of the books he recommended
-The Power of Moments by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
-The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
-How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp
-Amazon Unbound by Brad Stone
-Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton
-No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer
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