Skip to content
dr.Pep
dr.Pep
knows better
  • Single Sentence Summaries
  • Baking
  • AI & Data
  • Recent posts
Copyright © 2025 Pepijn van der Laan.
All rights reserved.
Clayton M. Christensen – Competing against luck

Clayton M. Christensen – Competing against luck

When working on innovation, always ask yourself: “What job does my product/service do for its user?” as a first test.

Good thought starter and a great tool to point out failures afterwards, but usually hard to get “the job” right before launch

Kevin Ashton – How to fly a horse

Kevin Ashton – How to fly a horse

Creativity ( = ‘logical thinking’ + ‘trial-and-error’ ) does not fit well with most organizational cultures.

Unfortunately, the book contains too many anecdotes that feature Woody Allen.

Robert Gordon – The rise and fall of American growth

Robert Gordon – The rise and fall of American growth

High growth is a thing of the past: all great major inventions have been made and can only be made once.

OK… exponential decrease of discomfort may imply decreasing marginal gains, but that does not imply that the future will not see consumer surplus stemming from future inventions.

Elmira Bayrasli – From the other side of the world

Elmira Bayrasli – From the other side of the world

Success factors for tech start-ups in emerging economies differ greatly from those in developed countries.

Some well chosen case studies; but with too little explanation on ‘what’ they did and too many stories about how they did it.

Cathy O’Neil – Weapons of Math Destruction

Cathy O’Neil – Weapons of Math Destruction

Sound Math +Dubious Incentives = Potential Trouble

An overdose of righteous indignation makes the writing less compelling.

Leander Kahney – Jony Ive

Leander Kahney – Jony Ive

The designer behind Steve Jobs has greatly contributed to Apple’s successful revival.

Still surprising how many Apple products were flawed (overpriced, transparent, with wheel navigation, monitorless, …)

Adam Grant – Originals

Adam Grant – Originals

If you want to change the world, apply creative, unconventional thinking in a strategic way.

Surprisingly practical advise on how to drive change (make it safe for others, build coalitions, pick the right moment, be courageous yet receptive).

Laura Stack – Doing the right things right

Laura Stack – Doing the right things right

The successful business executive steps up to the plate and motivates her team to push the envelope towards a point on the horizon.

The ideas of Peter Drucker (“The Effective Executive”) explained in jargon-filled platitudes.

Jill Dyche – The new IT

Jill Dyche – The new IT

Align your IT department with your corporate objectives.

It seems to be impossible to write a book about IT without referring to ‘frameworks’ (= a solution a little bit more specific than a thought, but far less concrete than a plan).

Simon Sinek – Leaders eat last

Simon Sinek – Leaders eat last

Go for servant leadership: it’s in line with the chemistry of our brain.

NIcely crafted narrative around Endorphins, Dopamine, Serotonin and Oxytocin to support a well established concept.

Chris Voss – Never split the difference

Chris Voss – Never split the difference

Make sure you understand the motives of your counterpart, and make him/her responsible for finding a solution. 

Useful view on high-stakes negotiations condensed into simple rules, and larded with FBI ‘war stories’.

Simon Sinek – Start with why

Simon Sinek – Start with why

Live by Covey’s 2nd habit: ‘Begin with the end in mind’

Energizing expose of a well known leadership truism.

Liz Wiseman – Multipliers

Liz Wiseman – Multipliers

Most corporate cultures stifle learning and cross-fertilization of ideas.

Useful archetypes of desireable (‘multiplier’) and undesireable (‘diminisher’) behaviour.

Dan and Chip heath – Switch

Dan and Chip heath – Switch

If you want to realize change: have a compelling rationale, make it intuitive to grasp, and make it easy to do.

Just remember the metaphor of the elephant, the rider, and the path.

Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs, and Steel

Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs, and Steel

Environment-specific survival strategies developed by different civilizations explain the global power balance today.

Remark: Fascinating narrative on how agriculture spread across the globe.

Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths – Algorithms to live by

Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths – Algorithms to live by

Computer science provides self-help wisdom: optimal choices for some real-world dilemma’s can be defined as algorithms.

Essential concepts from computer sciences intuitively explained for non-techies.

Oren Klaff – Pitch anything

Oren Klaff – Pitch anything

When pitching: set the frame, tell the story, reveal the intrigue, offer the prize, nail the hook point, and get the decision. 

Remark: By far the best book on Pitching that I know.

Graham Jones – Click.ology

Graham Jones – Click.ology

Straight-forward sanity checks can make webshops a whole lot better.

A brave but flawed (e.g. on pricing) attempt to provide naive rules of thumb for how to influence highly context-dependent and ultra-personal customer decisions.

David Lewis – The Brainsell

David Lewis – The Brainsell

The impact of many facets of the in-store experience on shopping behaviour can be measured neurologically (from pricing, to colours and smells). 

More emphasis could have been put on online shopping where more direct measurement possible and implementation is easier.

Salim Ismail et. al. – Exponential organizations

Salim Ismail et. al. – Exponential organizations

Prioritize long term accelerating growth over short-term gains.

Diamandis’ Abundance concept applied to companies. The book peaks early on: the howto guide is not sufficiently specific.

Older PostsNewer Posts
Tags
AI (17) Analytics (6) Art (14) Biology (7) Brain science (6) Business (10) China (8) Culture (50) Data (6) Data science (8) Design (6) Economics (34) Economy (16) Entrepreneurship (25) Ethics (18) Evolution (9) Hacking (6) History (88) Innovation (68) Intelligence (7) Investing (7) IT (13) Japan (6) Journalism (12) Leadership (32) Linux (8) Management (8) Marketing (11) Mathematics (8) Philosophy (18) Physics (14) Politics (65) Psychology (12) Retail (6) Science (48) Silicon Valley (11) Sociology (13) Start-ups (7) Startup (14) Statistics (18) Strategy (10) Technology (64) Ubuntu 20 (8) USA (42) War (9)
Archives
Copyright © 2025 Pepijn van der Laan.
All rights reserved.