Jamie Bartlett – The people vs Tech
Summary of how tech firms form a risk for democracy, but without a thorough assessment of how technology itself can be applied to improve the democratic process.
To make the difference you have to do something truly different and definitive
Rich repository of one-liners for those who seek to make bold moves.
Everytime you win an NBA championship is different
A surprisingly ‘zen’ view on creating a high performing team.
The principles of the enlightment are still the main driver for human progress
Steven Pinker – Enlightnent now
Considering his plea for scientific thinking, Pinker is remarkably confident on (1) hard to assess long term risks and (2) strong realism (in the epistomological sense).
To be productive, choose goals you care for and aim for a sustainable balance of efforts
Chris Bailey – The productivity project
A bunch of unstructured and badly documented tests by a frat boy, who presents his efforts as “experiments”.
The success of Uber and AirBnB is (partly) due to structural exploration of legal limits
Most illustrative are the descriptions of failed competitors, which show importance of both luck and ruthlessness.
There are 100s of underappreciated scientific concepts that deserve to be widely known
John Brockman – This idea is brilliant
A rollercoaster ride through a laundry list of hot topics in science today.
Live by the philosophy of the stoics, but do not take their advice too literally
Brinkmann’s many nuances and exceptions kill his argument and concept.
N.B. Read in Dutch translation
Financial modelling is not the physics of markets
Emanuel Derman – Models.Behaving.Badly.
Derman’s discussion of models in life, physics, and finance is not a juicy as the title suggests, but it offers some good one-liners nontheless.
Take full responsibility, keep it simple, ensure the team believes in the mission, and act decisively
Extreme ownership – Leif Babin and Jocko Willink
A no-nonsense approach to leadership, accompanied by an overdose of war stories.
Unlike ‘to lie’, ‘to bullshit’ implies an utter indifference towards the notion of truth
Entertaining and still eerily relevant (although already published in 2005).
Digitization, network effects, and participation will continue to disrupt many markets
Machine, Platform, Crowd – Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson
Decent summary of developments with some nice examples, but not sufficiently new or surprising to classify as ‘essential reading’.
Risk is an important disincentive, needed to keep economical systems healthy
Skin in the game – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Written in Taleb’s highly entertaining style, at times overly cocky but with more than enough wisdom to make up for it.
Developing nuclear physics required a lot tinkering and failing
Atomic Adventures – James Mahaffey
Refreshing view on history of nuclear physics with emphasis on ‘failures’ like cold fusion and nuclear rocket engines in this often counter-intuitive branche of science.
You have to work hard before good stuff manifests itself
Mike Dooley – Playing the matrix
Feel-good take on: ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’ from the guy who (somewhat pretentiously) signs his daily newsletters with: “The Universe.”
Jesus of Nazareth was ‘just another sect leader crucified for high treason against Rome’ (which is down-played in the gospels to make Christianity more socially acceptable)
Convincing and elegantly developed argument, building on limited historical evidence and close reading of biblical texts in historical context.
There is a myriad of ways in which AGI can be scary, but also a whole array of options humanity can pursue to stay on the top of the food chain
Mike Bostrom – Superintelligence
More thorough and nuanced than most scary-AI-will-take-over-the-world-books, but it still suffers from the same pitfall: over-estimating the importance of superintelligence for evolutionary success (two random examples: cockroaches and Donald Trump).
Build safety, share vulnerability, and establish purpose
Daniel Coyle – The culture code
Rich collection of cases that jointly convey an important message – even if the individual annecdotes may be somewhat over the top.
Exposure therapy is highly effective to overcome fear of rejection
Contageous enthusiasm of authentic curiosity comes across best in his Jia Jiang’s youtube videos (cf. Olympic rings).
Markets are not efficient, but shaped by the evolution of actors such as hedge funds and electronic traders
Elegant mix of historic analysis of market dynamics and experiments with natural selection in non-biological context.