Dataclysm: Who We Are*
*When We Think No One’s Looking
By Christian Rudder, 2014
By analyzing OKCupid (the dating site) data and publicly available data, this book looks for interesting trends in user data. While there are certainly some interesting tidbits, I found the book to be annoyingly informal. There were lots of vague “current” references that were quickly outdated as soon as the book was published. It felt more like a series of blog posts than a book.
Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero
by Tyler Cowen, 2019
Argues against many of the popular critiques of big business (e.g., crony capitalism, CEO pay, monopolistic behavior). Persuasive, though perhaps non-comprehensive in its research or expositions. However, I appreciate that it was kept short and did not read like an academic journal.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
by Nassim Taleb, 2007
Meandering discussion around this central premise: Many things in life follow power-laws, not normal distributions. Wealth, deaths in war, sales of a book, etc. To act as if everything has a standard deviation from an obvious mean is setting yourself up for failure, but that is what most of modern statistics is built upon. “Black swans” (unknown unknowns that could not be predicted via bell curve assumptions) will occasionally come by that disrupt everything.
Abrasive, aggressive writing. We listened to the book on tape while traveling.
Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less
by Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao, 2014
The gist of the book is how to scale an organization from one location to many while maintaining the success found at the first location. Portions of this book could work for my Operations Strategy class’s lecture on scalability. I already cover a lot of information in that class on internet platforms and digital economics, but this book complements that material by focusing on scaling a real-world service organization. Chapter 2, about how much customization to allow from one location to the next, seems particularly relevant.
While the book has some really good information, it is roughly 2x too long. Many chapters are so packed with examples that it is hard to remember the message at hand. I would have edited out about half the examples, especially since many were repetitive and many were mediocre/confusing examples of the phenomena at hand.
Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone
by Satya Nadella, with Greg Shaw and Jill Tracie Nichols, 2017
High-level think-piece by Microsoft’s CEO. Some portions were interesting for me as a tech-enthusiast and shareholder, but honestly, you can probably skip this one. I listened to the book on tape while running.
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
by George Packer, 2013
I don’t know what to think about this book. It follows a series of actual people (a factory worker in Youngstown, a journalist in Tampa, a politician/lawyer in Washington, an alternative energy entrepreneur in North Carolina, etc.) through mostly the 1990’s to 2012, a few years after the Great Recession and bank bailouts. The stories are heartbreaking in places, though much of that is due to the perceived/actual helplessness of some of the lower class people profiled (I worked hard all my life; why can’t I get ahead?). The author seems to mostly be against the greed and indemnity of Wall Street, though he rarely explicitly states his opinions. I largely agree with this review from NYT when the book came out. An excerpt:
By “the unwinding,” Packer is really referring to three large transformations, which have each been the subject of an enormous amount of research and analysis. The first is the stagnation of middle-class wages and widening inequality. Depending on which analyst you read, this has to do with the changing nature of the information-age labor market, changing family structures, rising health care costs, the decline of unions or the failure of education levels to keep up with technology.
The second is the crushing recession that began in 2008. Depending on which analyst you read, this was caused by global capital imbalances, bad Federal Reserve policy, greed on Wall Street, faulty risk-assessment models or the insane belief that housing prices would go on rising forever.
The third transformation is the unraveling of the national fabric. Depending on which analyst you read, this is either a gigantic problem (marriage rates are collapsing; some measures of social connection are on the decline) or not a gigantic problem (crime rates are plummeting, some measures of social connection are improving).
Packer wants us to understand these transformations, but ultimately, narrative and anecdotes are not enough. They need to be complemented with evidence from these long-running debates and embedded in a theoretical framework and worldview.
Whatever message you take from it, you can probably agree that the narratives within are well-written.
While we are 7 years out from publication now, some interest in 2020 can come from the fact that still-relevant some political characters are painted in either a negative (Joe Biden) or positive (Elizabeth Warren) light. Peter Thiel also gets relatively positive coverage.
The Unthinkable: Who Survives when Disaster Strikes – and why
by Amanda Ripley, 2008
The more prepared individuals are, the more likely they are to survive. Relying on external sources of aid/support/technology is much less reliable. You should know that you have the power to control your situation in a disaster (man-made or natural).
Well-written, and the audiobook version is well-read.
Peak
by Roland Smith, 2007
Fast, gripping climbing novel. Marketed for young adults, but I was still entertained. Will pass it on to Maria and then my young cousins.
I keep a list of books to read as I come across interesting options. This has been on my list for a few years, but unfortunately I don’t remember the source of the recommendation.
Imperfect: An Improbable Life
by Jim Abbott and Tim Brown, 2012
Inspiring story of Jim Abbott’s life as he overcomes being born with just one hand to pitch in the major leagues for years. The book bounces back and forth from chapter to chapter between a semi-chronological biography and a detailed look at Jim’s no-hitter while pitching for the Yankees. Well read by Jim on the audiobook version. This book helped calm me down while I was stuck in the hospital for a week in March with a collapsed lung. Soothing and uplifting.
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
by Alice Schroeder, 2008
Long read (~850 dense pages), but very rewarding. Very well written. Gives insights into Buffett’s thought processes. He was/is supremely focused on business issues, sometimes to the detriment of other aspects of his life. But his honesty, work ethic, and teaching mentality took him a long way in life, obviously. Strongly recommended.