Top Investing Tips for 2025 with Saurabh Mukherjea and Nandita Rajhansa

The Unusual Billionaires by Saurabh Mukherjea explores the success stories of seven Indian companies, including Asian Paints, HDFC Bank, Marico, Axis Bank, and Berger Paints, which achieved 10% revenue growth and 15% return on capital employed over ten years. The book delves into the corporate strategies and practices that enabled these companies to outperform others, such as focusing on core business and giving control to top management. It includes riveting corporate stories, such as Hindustan Unilever's bids to buy Mariwala’s business, Page Industries' approach to preventing unionization, and the turnaround of Axis Bank. This book is a must-read for corporate leaders seeking to implement successful business strategies.

In 'Coffee Can Investing', Saurabh Mukherjea outlines a simple and effective approach to long-term investing. The book advocates for a 'buy and forget' strategy, where investors select high-quality, well-managed companies with strong growth potential and hold onto these stocks for a decade or more. Mukherjea emphasizes the importance of focusing on the fundamentals of a company, such as strong earnings growth, high return on equity, and competitive advantages, rather than short-term market trends. The book also covers topics like stock selection, portfolio construction, risk management, and behavioral finance, using real-world examples and case studies to illustrate key concepts.

This book introduces the concept of positioning as a crucial strategy in marketing. It explains how to effectively communicate with a skeptical and media-blitzed public by creating a position in the prospect's mind that reflects the company's strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competitors. The authors provide valuable case histories and analyses of successful and failed advertising campaigns, emphasizing the importance of simplicity, consistency, and understanding how people think and evaluate information. The book also discusses strategies such as making and positioning an industry leader, occupying a niche, and repositioning competitors to create a unique market position.

In *The Meritocracy Trap*, Daniel Markovits argues that meritocracy, rather than being a virtuous and efficient system, has become the single greatest obstacle to equal opportunities in America. The book exposes how meritocracy breeds inequality, ensnares even those at the top in intense work regimes, and prevents social mobility. Markovits, drawing from his extensive experience at elite universities, provides a comprehensive critique of the meritocratic system, highlighting its corrosive effects on both the middle class and the elite. He also discusses the need for a new perspective that moves beyond the current meritocratic narrative to achieve a more equitable society.

In 'The Tyranny of Merit', Michael J. Sandel argues that the current system of meritocracy has led to significant social and political issues. He contends that meritocracy stratifies society into winners and losers, based largely on economic status and educational credentials, resulting in hubris among the successful and resentment and humiliation among those who are not. Sandel suggests that this system ignores the role of luck and external factors in success and instead attributes success solely to individual talent and hard work. He advocates for a new way of thinking about success, one that is more attentive to the role of luck, more conducive to an ethic of humility and solidarity, and more affirming of the dignity of all work. The book also explores the impact of credentialism and the need to restore dignity to work that does not require a college degree, promoting a politics of the common good[1][3][5].

In this book, Annie Duke teaches readers how to make better decisions by treating them as 'bets' on uncertain outcomes. She emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between the quality of a decision and its outcome, acknowledging the role of luck, and avoiding biases such as 'resulting' and hindsight bias. Duke draws on her experiences as a professional poker player and combines these with insights from cognitive psychology and other fields to provide tools for making more objective and thoughtful decisions. The book encourages readers to get comfortable with uncertainty, seek truth through diverse opinions, and learn from outcomes to improve future decision-making[1][3][5].