Recent Books & Podcasts

This summer, my reading picked up significantly. The Seattle Public Library is just an awesome asset. I did not spend a dime to read or hear any of these books

  1. Sapiens. Listened to the Audiobook, which made it very enjoyable. I would have missed a lot of the detail, had I started with the e/physical book. This is a must read for anyone curious about the human species. I got a lot of insight and empathy on species extinction and animal suffering perpetrated by the unstoppable progress of Humans
  2. Essays by the late GM & Coach of the 49ers Walsh, creator of the famed “West Coast Offense”. It’s sometimes dry reading, so feel free to skip around. His story on how to create an organization where everyone from the lowest responsibility worker to the top leaders follow excellence in every activity is quite aspirational, but if put in place is scalable.
  3. Camino Island — John Grisham. Kept us entertained in our summer drive to Fort Collins, where our daughter joined the Veterinary program
  4. Decentalized Applications by Sriraj Raval. Still reading this, but it is a both deeply technical and a business oriented perspective on how to create applications that utilize the blockchain.
  5. The Gene — I’ve not completed this in full yet. I’m blown away at the level of research into this complex topic and how easily Siddharth Mukherjee presents this to an average reader
  6. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight — An exhaustive account of Phil’s experience of starting and growing his famous sneaker company. Sometimes belabored, his journey is indeed fascinating.
  7. The Originals by Adam Grant. Chockfull of real life examples, Adam makes a case where against the grain thinking has propelled people and the world forward.

Podcasts of Note

The one that Tim Ferriss did with Phil Hellemuth was very good. Phil Hellemuth is a word class poker champion. Tim Ferris with Ray Dalio is also superb.

Kara Swisher’s podcast with Scott Galloway was phenomenal in that Scott painted a picture of how Amazon could rule your life. He predicted Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods a week before it happened.

How I built this — Episodes with Alexis and Steve from Reddit, WeWork with Miguel McKelvey and Whole Foods Market with John Mackey

Freakonomics — The Stupidest thing you can do with your Money. A take on Low Cost indexing.