Book cover titled "Hyderabad Days" by Ravi Vedula with an orange background, black text, and a subtitle "The code we lived by before we coded."

Hyderabad Days

Hyderabad Days: the code we lived by before we coded, is a warm, witty memoir set in a middle-class Hyderabad colony of the 80s and 90s, a world of barefoot cricket, hot bajjis, fan letters to television goddesses, and jamun-stained summers that shaped the early instincts of a future engineer and executive.

Through a series of vivid vignettes and stories, Ravi captures a childhood filled with friendship, mischief, and small moments that become lasting memories. He shows how the rhythms of colony life — a streetlamp study session, a cricket match played with borrowed gear — can echo decades later in rooms far from where they began.

Whether you grew up in Hyderabad or halfway around the world, this is a story about home, memory, and the magic of growing up with nothing and everything.

Hyderabad Days is published by 8080 Books and distributed by Simon & Schuster. The foreword is written by Greg Shaw, co-author of Satya Nadella’s Hit Refresh and Kevin Scott’s Reprogramming the American Dream. All author proceeds are donated to charity.

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  • “In this book, you will find little or no mention of computers, software, business process, or leadership values. This book is completely nontechnical. But like me, I hope you find something even more valuable, even more insightful. I hope you learn more about the inner lives, the families of people who code.”

    Greg Shaw, Editor, 8080 Books;
    Co-author of Satya Nadella's Hit Refresh

  • “Ravi took me down nostalgia lane, pleasantly reminding me of all the little things we’d forgotten in our busy lives—the very things that shaped who we are today. His humor and storytelling, wrapped around such vivid details, are as engaging now as they were on our walks to high school four decades ago.”

    Madhukar Reddy, VP Central Engineering, Maxlinear

  • “Ravi always had a gift for articulation. His stories are our stories too. In reading this book, we got to live our childhood again. Precious!”

    Vamsi Mohan Thati, President, Barry Callebaut Chocolates
    Former President - China, The Coca Cola Company

  • “As someone who works closely with Ravi, I immediately recognized the values in this memoir—empathy, grit, humor—because they’re the same qualities he brings to his leadership every day. Hyderabad Days is as moving as it is inspiring.”

    Chris Harig, Senior Director of Program Management, Microsoft Corporation

  • My younger brother Ravi resurrected the memories that comprised our childhood in the chapters of Hyderabad Days so vividly. He writes with heart, humor and honesty, as he tells us of the things that became part of our inner core as children and later evolved into a durable foundation for facing life. The book made me laugh, cry, hope, smile, and re-live all the elements that made our family.

    Nagender Vedula, Senior Vice President of Engineering, ScienceLogic
    Ex Microsoft and GoDaddy

  • “Hyderabad Days is a beautifully crafted memoir that blends vivid storytelling with timeless insights. Ravi takes us inside the rhythms and gullies of a community — where friendships, family rituals, and everyday challenges quietly shaped character and leadership. It’s a narrative that feels personal yet universal, reminding us that the foundations of resilience and empathy often begin in the humblest of places.”

    Steve Clayton, Vice President, Microsoft Communications

  • “Ravi Vedula’s Hyderabad Days is an elegantly written memoir about the “code” that he—like many other Indian-American software developers—learned in their colonies, or neighborhoods, as kids before they learned to code for computers.”

    Greg Shaw, Editor, 8080 Books;
    Co-author of Satya Nadella's Hit Refresh

Watch the teaser

Open the video full screen, turn on the music, and travel back to another time — to the sights, sounds, and spirit of the ’80s and ’90s India.

Cover of the book RAG-Ready Patterns for Data Platforms

Book#2 is coming soon!

Generative AI needs better data foundations. In his second book RAG-Ready Patters for Data Platforms being published by O’Reilly, Ravi Vedula and co-authors share practical patterns to make data platforms RAG-ready, enabling trusted, scalable AI built on enterprise data.

Drawing on real-world experience building one of Microsoft's largest data platforms, the authors present proven patterns for unifying data across silos, capturing metadata, and embedding governance. With clear explanations, architectural diagrams, and reusable playbooks, you'll learn to design platforms that enable developers to build scalable, retrieval-augmented AI systems grounded in enterprise data. Visit the O’Reilly page for early release chapter access.

READ EARLY RELEASE CHAPTERS