Readings & Listens

Mother of God -> I love the outdoors so every bit of this was a pleasure for me. I went down an Amazon rabbit hole while reading this.

Creative Selection -> An awesome perspective on the engineering and design decisions of Apple's products

The Founders -> There are so many legends wrapped into this saga, it's an epic business read.

The Soul of a New Machine -> One of those books that makes you feel like you are there with the team as they're building the breakthrough product.

A Piece of the Action -> This book manages to explain the history of U.S. financial products from 1920-2000 without being dry.

The Great Demographic Reversal -> The thesis is straightforward, but one that will inevitably have a material impact on our future.

Brazil in Transition -> This book manages to explain the 20th-century history of Brazil without being dry.

Founders -> stories of the great founders, investors, builders, creators

Acquired -> deep business breakdowns of the greatest companies

All-In -> just some wealthy tech friends talking tech and current events

Gamecraft -> history of the video game business

Read Write Own

Electronic Value Exchange - Origins of the VISA Electronic Payment System

Mother of God -> a first-person account by Paul Rosalie, of his adventures in the Amazon rainforest.

The Woman in Me -> an autobiography of Britney Spears, she's a legend so I was curious. This book humanizes the story of her life.

Creative Selection -> Written by a long-time Apple software engineer and chronicles his experience as he and his teams built some of Apple's breakthrough products.

The Power Broker -> I had to audiobook this because it's 1,100 long pages, but the story of Robert Moses who was an extremely influential and impactful New York public official from around 1920-1970.

Zero to One -> Peter Thiel's thoughts on start-ups, building, and life. Most of the advice isn't new if you're into this stuff, but I think this would be a very thought provoking book to think through while you're building a company.

Atomic Habits -> how habits are formed and changed.. a bit too fluffy for my taste.

The Founders -> the story of how Confinity and X.com and their iconic early employees formed the PayPal we know of today 

Payments Systems in the U.S. -> describes the background, systems, and economics of checking, ACH, cards, cash, and wire transfer payment systems

A Piece of the Action -> a story of the financialization of America from 1957-2000ish and the people behind the innovations. Examples: credit cards, money market funds, market-determined broker commissions, low-commission mutual funds, interstate banking, ATMs, etc.

Founders at Work -> interviews/stories of technology founders. It's a 2008 book, the founders are from late 90s to early 2000s.

The Great Demographic Reversal -> takeaway: the world is aging which will lead to lower productivity, higher interest rates, and higher inflation. India and Africa are young and won't peak until 2030-2050.

Super Pumped -> talking about the making of Uber, its founder, and how VCs/Silicon Valley impacted the company.

Code -> primer on computer architecture including binary code, machine code, logic gates, memory w/ logic gates, transistors, RAM/Memory, OS

The Soul of a New Machine -> based in mid to late-1970s, tells the story of the computer engineering team at "Data General" building an innovative computer

Animal House -> takeaway: we want equality but are too greedy for this to ever be achievable

Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government -> memoir of Paul Volker, provides nice perspective into him/the economy in the 70s

China’s Great Debt Wall -> talks through some of the mechanisms China has used to boost debt/spur production in a slowing economy

Brazil in Transition -> great review of Brazil's financial and political history in the 20th century

Trade Wars Are Class Wars -> argument: globalization has helped boost inequality (based on wealthy people's propensity to save), trade wars are a result of internal dissatisfaction and ultimately lead to the working population being hurt more than the wealthy population.

The Art of Thinking Clearly -> 1-2 page descriptors of different cognitive biases we have. A good book to revisit now and then to keep the biases top of mind.

The Secret Life of Pronouns -> analyzes the little words (ex: I, you, we, they, a, an, the, to, for, over) used in text to determine what at says about the writer, their message, and their relationship with the audience

How Emotions Are Made -> takeaway: we can't pinpoint emotions as concretely as what many books try to portray. The "anger" emotion can spark multiple parts of the brain and the word "anger" doesn't mean the same thing from person to person.

Red Notice -> book based in the 1990s about a hedge fund that started doing business/being very successful in Russia and then the government imprisoned/killed them.

Winning in Emerging Markets -> goes through a case study on a handful of business that each went to different countries, built different businesses, and used different competitive levers. Awesome book showcasing applied competitive strategy in a foreign/emerging markets.

The Art of Not Giving a F*ck -> a cushy motivational-esque book, but was a good book none the less.

Thinker Toys -> lists then briefly explains a bunch of ways to spark creativity. A good book to revisit now and then to keep the strategies in mind.

Analyzing Complex Appraisals For Business Professionals -> goes through multiple types of properties and the considerations when appraising

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion -> 7 "proven" ways to influence, explaining the proof with digestible scientific studies

The Dictionary of Body Language -> listing gestures and their emotional implications

The Affluent Society -> microeconomics in way too many words

The Person and the Situation -> takeaway: to not observe a person in isolation but to consider how they feel their surroundings are impacting them

The Ellipsis Manual -> talks through gestures and their emotional implications and the latter portion gets into some weird social engineering stuff (written by CIA guy)

The Definitive Book of Body Language -> explains a 100+ gestures and what they imply about the person's emotions in a readable manner

The Rainmaker

The Intelligent Investor