Single Sentence Summaries – Page 17

Geoffrey Moore – Crossing the chasm

A cutting-edge tech company marketing to early adopters has to completely reinvent itself to appeal to the mainstream market.

Written in an entertaining laid-back style that more business books could use and – above all – surprisingly relevant over 25 years after first publication in 1991.

Philip Tetlock – Superforecasting

To become a superforecaster: recognize your cognitive biases, do not mind to be wrong, and calibrate your thinking based on evidence.

While containing valuable advice, the book does not go much beyond the basic market research toolkit I’d expect any strategy consultant to possess.

Kevin Kelly – The inevitable

The narrative of how technology is changing the world told through 12 ‘forces’: Becoming, Cognifying, Flowing, Screening, Accessing, Sharing, Filtering, Remixing, Interacting, Tracking, Questioning, and Beginning.

Enjoyable, yet somewhat theoretical, meandering between fundamental truisms and gross simplicications, leaving the reader with one key question: ‘Where does it pay off to act contrarian?’

Scott Carney – What doesn’t kill us

There is evidence that Wim Hof’s method for cold endurance builds resiliance of the human body, despite the fact that the Ice Man himself is a bit of a lunatic.

The quest of a journalist overcoming his initial scpeticism and transforming from a coach potatoe into a survival adept, who walks up mount Kilimajaro bare-chested and loses his initial stance as an objective observer.

Yuval Noah Harari – Homo Deus

Considering incentives for humanity, The most likely future scenario for AI, is for humans to develop into technology-supported cyborgs.

Strongly opiniated view on the future of humanity, mostly valuable due to the emphasis on the role of humans in steering development of technology and AI.

Mel Robbins – The 5 second rule

Counting back from 5 to 1 and then ‘go’ is a useful mind trick that helps to bypass inertia.

Entertaining proponent of the emerging trend of ‘self re-programming’ within ‘self help’, leveraging scientific insights from fields such as neuro science and behavioral economics to train the mind.

Adam Grant – Give and take

In order to be successful, ‘givers’ have to be smart about how they direct their giving.

Remarkable how social environment and incentives can shape giving/taking behavior of individuals.

Deborah Blum – The poisoner’s handbook

Following development in chemistry and society, forensic toxicology experienced fascinating progress in the early 20th century.

Treasure trove of slightly lugubrious annecdotes on crimes, accidents and government schemes.

Ben Horowitz – The hard thing about hard things

In the end no-one but the founder-CEO really cares how difficult it is to do the right thing for your start-up.

Comfortingly desillusional perspective on entrepreneurship, with reassuring insights like: “No one cares.”

Stanislas Deheane – Consciousness and the brain

Combining carefully designed experiments with monitoring of brain activity has led to fadcinating insights about consciousness.

Fascinating read about how much progress has been made on the path initiated by Daniel Dennett in “Consciousness explained”.

Michael Smith – Streaming, Sharing, Stealing

For the first time in decades, the simulaneous developments in distribution and production of media give traditional ‘majors’ something to worry about.

Recent move of Disney to boycot Netflixs proves that incumbents are starting to realize the new reality.

Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens

The rise of Homo Sapiens to the top of the food chain has been the result of its remarkable ability to construct a collective imagination of things like God, nations, money, and corporations.

Refreshing evolutionary perspective, emphasizing the cognitive, agricultural, and industrial revolutions as turning points in human development.

Naomi Klein – No is not enough

All “progressives” should unite against Trump, who’s communication strategy is that of a WWE wrestling star.

Solid analysis of politics and mass communication ends in a disappointingly polarized plea for “us v. them”-thinking.

Pedro Domingos – The master algorithm

The author’s invention (“Markov logic networks”) may unify the symbolist, connectionist, evolutionary, Baysian, and analogizing approaches to machine learning.

The brave attempt to cover an inherently deep subject in a non-technical way.

Richard Evans – The pursuit of power

The 19th century saw the birth of many aspects that still define our world today; from the end of feudalism to the birth of modern democracy and from the death of god to the emergance of Medicine as a scientific discipline.

Masterful balance between major developments and impact on human scale.

Martin Lindstrom – Small data

Information that is typically not captured in ‘big data’ is essential for creatives shaping a marketing message.

The author suggests a (false) dichotomy between small and big data.

Ashlee Vance – Elon Musk

With the cash you get from selling PayPal you can stay solvant longer than the market can stay irrational.

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.