Comfortingly desillusional perspective on entrepreneurship, with reassuring insights like: “No one cares.”
Stanislas Deheane – Consciousness and the brain
Fascinating read about how much progress has been made on the path initiated by Daniel Dennett in “Consciousness explained”.
Michael Smith – Streaming, Sharing, Stealing
Recent move of Disney to boycot Netflixs proves that incumbents are starting to realize the new reality.
Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens
Refreshing evolutionary perspective, emphasizing the cognitive, agricultural, and industrial revolutions as turning points in human development.
Naomi Klein – No is not enough
Solid analysis of politics and mass communication ends in a disappointingly polarized plea for “us v. them”-thinking.
Pedro Domingos – The master algorithm
The brave attempt to cover an inherently deep subject in a non-technical way.
Richard Evans – The pursuit of power
Masterful balance between major developments and impact on human scale.
Martin Lindstrom – Small data
The author suggests a (false) dichotomy between small and big data.
Ashlee Vance – Elon Musk
Do not read the Dutch translation: Henk Popken did a crappy job.
Philip Fernbach and Steven Sloman – The Knowledge Illusion
In a world that is both complex and polarized, progress (which is fueled by sharing knowledge) is in serious danger of reversal.
The concept is almost trivial (which makes for a boring 1st half of the book), but the examples (partizan politics, fake news, pseudo science, etc.) are convincing and entertaining.
Clayton M. Christensen – Competing against luck
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
Unfortunately, the book contains too many anecdotes that feature Woody Allen.
Robert Gordon – The rise and fall of American growth
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
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
Sound Math +Dubious Incentives = Potential Trouble
An overdose of righteous indignation makes the writing less compelling.
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
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
The ideas of Peter Drucker (“The Effective Executive”) explained in jargon-filled platitudes.
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
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.