Dan Sulivan and Benjamin Hardy – 10x is easier than 2x
Motivational books are typically easy to misinterpret.
The only way to control the power of tech power houses and defend the rights of ordinary citizens is stricter regulation
Marietje Schaake – The tech coup
Although the book makes valuable points, the full focus on legislation risks overlooking the importance of thriving innovation for defending long term competitiveness in geopolitical context.
Capitalism has fallen: not due to a communist revolution, but by the hand of a new elite of rent-extracting technology companies that has grabbed power
Yanis Varoufakis – Technofeudalism
A surprising blend of philosophical reflections, personal dialogues, the retelling of a Netflix series, and a Marxist polemic pamphlet.
Effective networking needs a system
Judy Robinett – How to be a power connector
A pragmatic and actionable apprach.
The coupling of personal and economic freedom increasingly appears to be a thing of the past
Martin Wolf – The crisis of Democratic Capitalism
After a slow start, the book provides interesting analyses, which after the 2024 US elections is more relevant than ever.
There are a lot of ways in which venture capitalists put their thumb on the scale when funding start-ups
Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson – Venture Deals
Helpful guide to demystifying terminology, but more of a reference work than a book to read end-to-end.
Capitalism is the best economic system, as long as you assume that the marginal utility if incremental individual wealth is not diminishing
Johan Norberg – The capitalist manifesto
Some interesting fact and figures around happiness in different countries support the thesis, but the question of redistribution is treated in a shallow way.
It is great if you can set your own success criteria, achieve them, become financially independent, and have fun in the process
Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith – iWoz
It is amazing how passionate this guy can be about a universal remote control.
The ability to quantify and appreciate risks provides a competitive edge, but in the face of existential risks many models break down
Entertaining, but in-all, the book reads as a manifesto written for those who already agree.
We are not just living in a simulation: our brain is running the simulation and emotions are its predictions
Lisa Feldman Barrett – How emotions are made
Nice and usefull re-interpretation of what emaotions are, but I the anthropocentric way in which it contrasts emotions of humans and animals read as ‘goal seek’ that under-estimates the animal brain’.
Be a connector
Bob Burg anohn David Mann – The go-giver
Typical business allegory: not wrong, but quite cheesy
There are so many guises in which intelligence manifests itself that it truly blows the mind
Enjoyable expansive thinking, unafraid of the pathetic.
You better accept change, because it will happen anyhow
Spencer Johnson – Who moved my cheese?
Typical business allegory: not wrong, but quite cheesy
AI will not take our jobs, but creep into our workflows and contribute as intern, coach, and idiot savant
Ethan Mollick – Cointelligence
Not wrong, but misses true depth and is overly-reliant on the author’s conversations with Chat-GPT.
The ‘almost elite’ of well-educated knowledge workers would benefit from less individualism and more socialism
Dylan van Rijsbergen – De net-niet elite (in Dutch)
Whereas the core concept is interesting and its aim is laudable, the book doesn’t convince due to easy generalizations and lack of academic rigor.
If, as a financial journalist, you want to bring down a fraudulent fintech startup, you need to be very, very careful
The Netflix documentary is better, because it has less extensive digressions into the author’s personal life.
Once upon a time there was a mysterious country that tried to be unique in everything and to large extent succeeded
Jonathan Clement – A brief history of Japan
The broad strokes and accessible style help to create a basic understanding of Japan – although necessarily with major simplifications.
The conventional wisdom of what an entrepreneur needs to do to achieve success can be conveyed through a gazillion anecdotes
Not bad advice, but too many examples of non-scalable businesses and too few eye-openers to make the book worthwhile.
A prince needs to carefully balance show of force and political scheming
Niccolo Machiavelli – The prince
In theory Machiavelli had it all figured out,
Throughout history, Italians went to extraordinary lengths to grow the most perfect and/or exuberant citrus fruit
Helena Attlee – The land where the lemons grow
A juicy tale of culture and food in Itlay.