Christiane Lemieux and Duff McDonald – Frictionless
Story on repeat: X had a frustration, X is so privileged that she can raise at least a couple of $100k from friends and family, and X starts an amazing company to solve the problem – at least in theory – for herself and the rest of the world.
Martin Kleppmann – Designing Data-intensive applications
Surprisingly readable for a text of this sort of technical depth
Lee Vinsel, Andrew Russel – The innovation delusion
Funny enough, the polemic narrative applies all the trick of typical innovation literature to promote a maintenance mindset.
JimMcKelvey – The innovation stack
The book is exactly what it tries to avoid: being just another entertaining founder story (in this case about Square).
The book’s set-up with multiple scenarios for the future works surprisingly well and is especiall concerning for European readers: Europe is almost completely irrelevant in all of Webb’s scenarios.
The best quote is not from the author: “Quality is the best business plan” (John Lasseter, director of Toy Story).
Jon Gertner – The idea factory
The fascinating history of Bell labs illustrates how a long-term view is essential for technological progress.
Moises Naim – The end of power
the book, written pre-Trump, pre-Brexit and pre-Cambridge Analytics, underemphasizes the risk of large-scale orchestration of fringe groups to undermine nation states; thereby making the author’s call for stronger institutions feels a bit besides the point.
The book fits neatly in the trend to call out gender inequality, but unfortunately it has limited practical solutions to offer.
Ajay Argawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb – Prediction machines
The authors see AI as just a new option for the division of labor which, although it can have rather dramatic consequences, does not support apocalyptic GAI fearmongering.
When a a big tech investor like McNamee argues for stricter regulation it makes the argument more convincing.
Shoshana Zuboff – Surveillance capitalism
There is a tendency in critiques of ‘big tech’ to underestimate the long-term resilliance of mankind; although that does not render the argument invalid.
Meridith Broussard – Artificial Unintelligence
Great effort to democratize AI and peel off some layers of mistique that harm public debate (althought the case against technochauvinism seems at times a bit too shallow).
Clayton Christensen – The innovator’s dilemma
The history of disc drives and mechanical excavators showcases how difficult it is for incumbents to come out on top when technological innovation hits your market.
Geoffrey Parker, Marshall Van Olstyne, Sangeet Choudary – Platform revolution
Remember: there are many ways in which platforms can fail!
Walter Isaacson – Leonardo da Vinci
Isaacson’s narrative falacy (‘Leonardo never finishing what he starts’) is at odds with the public recognition he received in his own day and age.
Peter Thiel’s war on Gawker Media shows that money is a decisive factor in the US legal system.
Elegant guide to putting contrarian thinking into action, which tries a bit too had to show it is scientific.
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.
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’.
