224. Books to Read and Gift (2024 EoY Edition)

A Books I Read in 2024 list. Some of them I enjoyed. Some of them drove me bonkers. I like that part of reading. Hope you enjoy this list.

Here's a Books I Read in 2024 list. Some of them I enjoyed. Some of them drove me bonkers. I like that part of reading. Hope you enjoy this list.

This year I included some "thoughts" which in no way a full review but offer more than just the title and jacket (new this year…emojis). I enjoyed some long books this year that took two weeks :-) I have always liked to give books I've read to friends and to teams I've worked with. Each below is available print, kindle, and audio. Links are FYI and non revenue generating.

I'm not trying to make a statement with this list or thoughts. Just sharing how I felt after the read. Ordered in the order I read them. This post also on X.

1. 💯 The Power Elite b C. Wright Mills https://a.co/d/gjHfCWZ // I read this classic 1956 book in a college course (Power and Elites in Society) that I found to be particularly influential to me and felt it was a good time to re-read. It should really make you think even more today. From the jacket: “The Power Elite stands as a contemporary classic of social science and social criticism. C. Wright Mills examines and critiques the organization of power in the United States, calling attention to three firmly interlocked prongs of power: the military, corporate, and political elite. The Power Elite can be read as a good account of what was taking place in America at the time [1950s] it was written, but its underlying question of whether America is as democratic in practice as it is in theory continues to matter very much today.” // I feel like everyone should read this and think about it. It is very easy to use this work to argue one side or another when the real question is “what if anything to do about it” and alternatively did we have any structural changes that changed this trajectory or did we substitute one set of structures for another equally problematic along the lines of “we become what we vanquish”. I think a lot about the formation of the intelligence community (OSS-CIA) and compare the early days to today, as seen in “The Good Shepherd”. If you liked Burnhams “Managerial State” or "Company Man" by Sampson then this is a natural follow on but also a different perspective. Note, this is a decidedly old school essay. It isn’t bullet points or footnoted. It’s a thought-piece though the conclusions and "jabs" along the way are decidedly one-sided if not particularly well-supported beyond anecdotes.

2. 😻Big Intel: How the CIA Went from Cold War Heroes to Deep State Villains by J. Michael Waller https://a.co/d/d14cMmJ // This is a book that starts from the recent events in massive failures of the national security “apparatus” and both looks backward for root cause and forwards for how to fix it. Now that we know everything from WDM to proximal origin of COVID to Steele dossier to 51 NatSec leaders say ‘Russian hoax’ were all massive intelligence failures the question is how, why, and what to do about that. This would all read as paranoid conspiracy theory had we not just lived through the gaslighting of the recent failures. Some stuff does get pretty far out there or just personal to the author.

3. 💯😻 Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare by Paul Lockhart https://a.co/d/6IJrGjM // This is a fantastic book about guns/munitions used in war. It is not a technical book that has specs on every weapon from every country (that kind of big coffee table book I loved years ago). It is a book that puts arms in the context of war in a historic sense. So so relevant to today. But really this is a book about innovation, inventors/founders, as well as disruption. It is my favorite book this year about “making things”. The book traces the role of weapons and firepower from the end of the Middle Ages to the end of World War II. The role innovators, needs of soldiers, local conditions, and costs all factored into what worked. It is an incredible book. With all the changes we’re seeing in war today (Israel and Ukraine and drones for example) and what is almost certainly going to be a totally different next big war if there is one, there’s a lot to think about. Founders should read this book for the long arc no matter your view of war or guns.

4. 👎Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI b Yuval Noah Harari https://a.co/d/cqDMkLK // up front I have to say this was the rare book I gave up on half way through. from the author of “Sapiens” comes this book that takes on the very broad topic of “what is information”. Let me say about any book that says the Internet and information is a "threat to democracy"—I have a very hard time taking the book seriously, especially after this book's historical account of printing presses of the printing press. Also includes the tired assertions about “algorithms” and extends it to “agents”. For many this will flip the bozo bit in the whole book and thesis. Following that the book took on an AI doomerism tone with all the standard and poorly understood (by author) tropes. That said let me talk about the book a little bit. It takes us through the history of information such as stories and books and builds up all the way to a very modern view of AI and information. It has a good number of essays that could be good stand alone especially the first chapters like the section on bureaucracy and documents. I enjoyed this part but make sure to allocate time to take in the breadth as it isn’t for the faint hearted. Also important to not read this through a political lens and recognize the views expressed are an historian with an obvious present day bias selecting which sources to weigh more than others—the selection makes the author’s personal views fairly clear. For example, the author sites a mid 1400s document from the Pope, giving permission to destroy, takeover, and convert other (Pagan) religions in the name of the Church. But this is hundreds of years after the Muslim expansion had started and thus many recognize that such authorization came as a result of defending the Church and recapturing what was lost by a pacifist Church, not really expanding it. I appreciated the history of the overlap of printing and witchcraft. The basic idea is that the free exchange of information also could lead to the free exchange of that erroneous or conspiratorial information, such as witches. But that leads to the need for society to have information curators. Which of course sounds good on paper. But then you overlay the Church and you realize that the curators themselves are susceptible to human fallibility. This is why the free exchange of information was necessary, but not sufficient for the expansion of science. Because the church quashed everything that was counter to the teachings of the church, even though it was a new form of scientific information. There’s a lot more as it gets into AI but I did feel it became more of an (not well-informed) opinion essay and less of a substantial work and disagreed with the extrapolations or implications presented. The goal seems to be about democracy but the conclusions felt rather extreme in putting power in the hands of those with self-perceived enlightened views.

5. 😻😻😻 Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror by Erik Prince (2014) https://a.co/d/horKsBs // Reading about the Crusades made me want to learn more about how the US fought in the Middle East. There was so much controversy over “mercenaries” and the role they played in “profiteering” (many congressional hearings and Sunday talk shows) but I also knew paid support of the military had a long history in the US not to mention all global conflicts. What I didn’t realize was just how big the US government (not just military) came to depend on contracts for support. This is also the story of an entrepreneur, a soldier, and a person on their own life journey. It is a fascinating story. It is super important to go into reading this aware or willing to acknowledge that there’s no world order without private military contractors and calling them mercenaries or thinking they are somehow “extra-jurisdictional” doing things that are sketchy then you will miss what is an important founder story and significant issue for executing our global foreign policy. Recommended for founders too since that is ultimately the story.

6. 👎A Colony in a Nation by Chris Hayes https://a.co/d/5hCoRgh // This book is a pretty standard view of the current racial situation in the US—the view that there are really two societies in the US (the title comes from a President Nixon speech during the upheavals of the late 1960s). I don’t think there is any new territory the book covers and the focus is on the notion of institutional white racism or “white fear” though it tries to build on the more recent events such as the Ferguson MO protests and BLM movement. The book as is usually the case tends to overplay anecdotes and say the statistics are just symptoms of deeper problems. While the book tended to anchor on the BLM movement it was only in a mere footnote did it mention hands up don’t shoot” was fake news and in fact Michael Brown was moving towards soldiers in a “threatening manner” and repeats the trope that “small number of young men looting and rioting” to excuse the wave of violence across the country that many of us lived through (Seattle CHAZ). There are plenty of anecdotes from the authors life growing up in the Bronx and attending Brown University. ultimately this book feels like a sum of defund the police, empty prisons, remove sentencing guidelines, etc and move accountability for crimes from criminals to white “fear”. I was hoping to gain some new perspective. In a world where our cities have been rendered unrecognizable it is tough to think the same approaches make sense. Of course the claim is that the true best approach (treating crime like a social problem and not a violence problem) have not been fully implemented. This debate structure quickly descends into the college debate about Marxism not having been fully implemented in Russia/USSR.

7. 😻😻 😻😻Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West by Raymond Ibrahim https://a.co/d/2mGfL0x // With all going on in the Middle East it is easy to lose sight of the history of the region. In particular most in the modern debate (like on X) often talked as though history started in 1948. It is worth reading different perspectives on the history of the battles across antiquity, from the pre Christian era through the Roman Empire and the rise of Islam etc. the violence of the rise, expansion, and then retaking of Europe between Christendom and Islam say a great deal about what is going on in the world today and importantly provide context about why what is happening, at least for many many, is hardly localized to Israel and doesn’t end there. Those that think what is going on is a fringe part of one religion or another would be served to read a perspective that takes a strong point of view and this book is that. There’s a very deep and to some deeply concerning question about the ability to find peace between Christendom and Islam. This book is incredibly well sourced and noted. It cites specific original writings which are often the subject of debates over “context” in modern dialogs.

8. 😻😻 😻Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam by Raymond Ibrahim https://a.co/d/5BZcQBz // This book should be required reading for those not well-versed in the “why” of the crusades and the way the west pushed back on the colonialist expansion of the islamic world, not to mention the brutality all around. Well known scholar and an Arabic language specialist for the Near East section of the Library of Congress Ibrahim tells the story of 8 defenders of Christendom against the challenges of brutal Islamic imperialism. A sequel in some sense to his previous book on the history of the Christendom - Islamic cultures. Especially today, one might think the 1400 year history of Islamic culture is a peaceful religion on the defense against Western Europe. In fact the expansive and violent nature of the history is well worth understanding. His writing is viewed by some as propaganda but it is history told by an Arabic scholar and translator. One might argue that the dislike of his scholarship is due to the incredible control the Islamic culture exerts over any scholarship that might be seen by them as critical of their history or worse the Prophet himself.

9. 😻😻 😻 😻 The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam by Douglas Murray (2018) https://a.co/d/8nQvHw8 // This is an important topic and excellent book but a difficult one to discuss, at both a personal level and general level. What is culture? What is multi-cultural? What does it mean to be an immigrant? Is there a healthy level of immigration? What is guilt over the past? What is asylum or refugee status? When and why did collective wisdom stop being about assimilation. The topic is about the way UK/Europe has lost its identity due to immigration and the erosion of what made Europe, Europe. It is a super interesting topic. Personally, since all my relatives “immigrated” (eg escaped) from Europe and generations before them “immigrated” (eg escaped) to Europe it is close to home. The book starts with an early 2000s prediction that the majority of citizens in London will be neither white nor Christian by the end of the lives of everyone alive at the time. It was both absurd and “-ist” to make statements like that. Yet just two decades later, 44% of London identifies as white Christian and 1/3rd of households have no English speakers. That’s how the book starts. The US in major cities is of course is much the same. All of these “fears” were discussed in the early 20th century when my grandparents and great grandparents arrived. The biggest difference was one of assimilation. That’s why this is so personal as a product of assimilation versus cultural continuity for those that arrived. Chapter 10 on “European guilt” is required reading for those who have thoughts on reparations, genocide, or apologizing for the past. This is happening. I recommend reading about it.

10. 😻😻The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad https://a.co/d/6Wcgx1w // The author is a Lebanese-born, Arab-first-speaking jew who as a child fled his country under gunfire to grow up in Canada. Almost no one reading this list will read this book. It is one of those books that the built-in audience gets a ton of confirmation and those not reading it just assume it is not worth the effort and probably only know the author as what would be called a twitter troll for some battles with well-known people. The book is better thought of as an essay and strongly formed and supported opinion piece. This is not about “proof” even though the writer is a credentialed social scientist. He’s been on Joe Rogan and quotes Jordon Peterson which is enough to “classify” him for many. Yet that is why it is worth approaching something like this with an open mind. The arguments are sound in many ways but proof is elusive since we’re talking about human behavior—with the exception of the section on Islamophobia and antisemitism which are excellent and provide ample footnotes to rathole. That said, this book offers chapters on likely what originated with this author—the woke mind virus. As a product of 1980s political correctness, I just wish the debate this book took on could receive more rational discourse as the problems described are real. As I read this the discourse around DEI had reached a new conclusion as major universities began to share admission demographics for the incoming 2024 students and classes.

11. 😻😻😻The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982 by Chris Nashawaty https://a.co/d/76JXGmC // wow this book is amazing. It is the “behind the scenes” story of the birth of and creation of modern/epic sci-fi in the summer of 1982. That summer saw 8 landmark films including Tron, Blade Runner, E.T., ST:WoK and more. Really a super fun read. Also that was an amazing summer. Loved this book from when movies were such a part of the summer.

12. 😻On the Edge The Art of Risking Everything b Nate Silver https://a.co/d/1Tbm2ux // this book was a tricky read for me. I love the underlying topic but the use of poker and sports at fairly extreme detail left me behind. The book is about the culture of risk. I just think it would have been more enjoyable had I a shared connection with those topics Silver is so passionate and articulate about.

13. 😻😻😻Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin (1989) https://a.co/d/ab23luJ // I felt the need to dig into a well-regarded book on the pre-1948 history of the Middle East. This is _the_ book AFAICT. It is about the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the close of World War I and the consequences for the Western powers, the then Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, the peoples of the Middle East themselves. At the macro level the book shows the political origins of the present-day Middle East. The book ends with the territorial settlements of 1922, when political lines were drawn that mostly reflect today’s boundaries. The amount of contemporaneous European politics, -isms, and misunderstandings was as surprising to me in reading this book as they are when reading twitter posts today.

14. 😻😻Dead Aid b Dambisa Moyo (2009) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374139563 // Have billions in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth? Poverty levels continue to escalate and growth rates have steadily declined—and millions continue to suffer. This book is really a must read for anyone who believes that big philanthropy and global development work are even a net positive. It is irrefutable that the trillion dollars of post-war aid have done more harm than good. This book explains some of the reasons why. I’m re-reading this just as the President wrote off 10’s of billions of student loans and the recent large scale UBI tests failed. Why does simply giving money to a country or an individual fail to work the way it feels like it should? This book makes a strong case and one that is just as true after another 15 years of aid than it has been for the first 60 years. There are other books critical of aid, with the classic being “White Man’s Burden” by Easterly that are probably more “scholarly” though this book is a good read, overview, and kicks off potential solution ideas. The thrust at the end brings us back to what made me reread this—conditional cash transfers—an offshoot of UBI. The recent study shows, at least in the developed world, the lack of efficacy of this solution. The wildest aspect of this book is that if you work in this field at the international level, everything that it said is true, so why do people keep trying the same things over and over again? This is a space that could use some innovation or more likely some invention and rethinking from first principles. What most people are really concerned to mention is the success that China has had. Rather than try to create a government or manipulate society into behaving a certain certain way, China simply turns this entire process into a transactional one. You have money in exchange for roads or resources or other commercial relationships. And if you are corrupt or anything like that, it doesn’t change the fact that you need to deliver. The west view of altruism has always assumed nothing in return in the short term, but in the medium term, some convergence on ideas, government, morality.

15. 😻😻😻Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die by Garrett Graff https://a.co/d/2CzRcbH // this is a fantastic book tracing the history of the procedures developed to ensure that the government of the US can continue even in the face of nuclear attack on our soil. A vast amount of money and thought have gone into the scenarios, plans, and materiel. As a 70s bomb shelter drills in elementary school and an 80s “survivalist” I have always been fascinated by this topic. Yet the reality is a modern nuclear or chemical war will with near certainty be an extinction event, at least for North America and whoever starts it. Given the fragility we all saw with Covid and our general inability to make it through a flight with poor WiFi it isn’t clear to me, and this book and Nuclear War only emphasize such a conclusion, that any preparation makes sense. As we learned from a War Games, the only way to win is to not play. Scary to think this current leadership thinks they are prepared when for 80 years and 100’s of billions of dollars we were not. The pandemic response shows that the system is not about the population but the government (FEMA is really about the government), which came as a surprise to most (remember the gov sitting on stockpiles of masks, O2, and respirators but not releasing them—that’s why.)

16. 😻 😻 😻 Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen https://a.co/d/55vsybE // Do these terms mean anything to you: MAD, fallout maps, LOW, SLBM, doomsday bombers, nuclear winter, SIGINT, Puzzle Palace, SIOP, Ivy Mike, NRO, Cheyenne Mt, MIRV, Triad, Raven Rock? If so then like me you grew up at the height of the threat of nuclear war. If not then you grew up in the “it will never happen” era of 1990 to about 2020. Read this for a reminder of what we grew up with or read it to see the reality of War Games and what the world would go through. With N Korea, Iran, Russia all putting the world at a level of risk not seen it’s worth considering that defense isn’t an option. This new book is filled with first hand accounts from the people who built out our nuclear defense and strategy. It is written as a tick-tock scenario not unlike the myriad of “docu-dramas” we saw throughout growing up like Nuclear Winter by Sagan and others. It really is a must read. Riveting and scary AF. PTSD for boomers and GenX. Incredibly well done and necessary.

17. 😻 😻 Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism b James Burnham https://a.co/d/0eVe2Vhs // From 1964 (!) this book does a great job of framing the world we live in today—a world where we find the progressives/liberals largely siding with entirely anti-liberal/anti-progressive positions/concepts/nations. It is essentially a treatise on the evolution of the concept of liberalism. The book is written in classic Burnham style which means many lists of bullet points/assertions that are expanded upon (one list was 19 items long, another list of “modern liberals in the media” seemed to go on forever.) It often feels like a full assault on the reader but that is also a bit refreshing compared to just broad thematic work. Everything from “Karens” to reverse discrimination to white guilt to asymmetric outrage make a prescient showing. The section on foreign policy—written in the 1960s—could be describing “support decolonization even if it means supporting the enemy sworn to your demise” we see today. If you’re expecting footnotes or proof this is not for you, the title says it all—this is an opinion essay.

18. 😻 😻 Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg https://a.co/d/0j2i6HPT // Without going too far, this book is in the spirit of Strunk & White that had such an impression on every Cornell freshman like me. The author brings the idea of a relentless focus on short sentences and clarity. He does so without claiming to offer a recipe or “system” which I really appreciated. Everyone, especially me, would benefit from a deep engagement with the ideas and approaches in this book. One read of this is why generative AI writing is verbose and pretty wordy. It is build off a lot of patterns that followed by people writing “one word after another” versus “one sentence at a time”. Super interesting to think about. Worth reading just for this. Really difficult to do.

19. 😻 😻 The Hacker Mindset: A 5-Step Methodology for Cracking the System and Achieving Your Dreams b Garrett Gee https://a.co/d/09YSpiQ6 // trapped, frustrated, bored then being a hacker is for you—the book uses a mindset of hacking and merges it with the techniques and language of general self-help. Not at all what I was expecting. “Slackers versus hackers” is about people who are trapped in a system (life, job, etc) versus those breaking or disrupting that system. He does point out he is taking an amoral stance and that bad people can do bad things just like good people can do good things. When I’ve talked about this in the past I used a sports analogy—are you a person that embraced intentional fouls, sacrifice flies, or grounding? Those are the rules hacks of sports. The biggest innovators saw the rules and used them to an advantage even in the face of claims (or risk of penalty) of sportsmanlike conduct. The 6 principles of a hacking life include: 1. Be on Offense 2. Reverse Engineering 3. Living Off the Land 4. Risk 5. Social Engineering 6. Pivot. This is a really important mindset. The title is not what you might think. The book tapered off at the end when it got into starting your own business and was a bit vague and difficult to act on along with basic money management tips that felt a bit out of place. But the framework is great.

20. 😐 The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy by David Graeber https://a.co/d/5b8z1tV // This was a complex book by someone I know I would not agree with on just about anything. Early in the book, which is more a collection of essays, he introduces the “iron law of liberalism” where any market reform, any government initiative intended to reduce red tape and promote market forces will have the ultimate effect of increasing the total number of regulations, the total amount of paperwork and the total number of bureaucrats the government employs. Given our collective experience it is difficult to disagree with. It is the more hyper-progressive Occupy Wall Street view of solutions I don’t agree with, even if I found myself nodding in agreement with the awfulness of every anecdote.

21. 😻😻😻😻Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography by Rob Lowe https://a.co/d/jeRI7vM // I loved every story and every word of this memoir. And the audiobook was an incredible treat, like having Billy, Danny, or Sam tell the story. Films like Outsiders, Class, About Last Night, St Elmos, Oxford Blues formed the backbone of trips to the Altamonte Mall or Pyramid Mall in college. When I was an RA every girl in the dorm (literally) had that Billy Hicks poster/crush. Beyond that personal connection to his work the memoir is filled with insights about the evolving film industry. I loved for example the sentence “Dustin Hoffman’s opus ‘Agatha’ from a time when a-listers made movies that didn’t have their character’s name in the title.” The deeply personal stories were all tastefully and emotionally told—not at all a gossip. Oh, and the West Wing. Treat yourself to this audiobook. I wish I had done so sooner.

22. 😻😻😻The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America b Coleman Hughes https://a.co/d/3znEyLc // I am a new Coleman listener having joined his following when I listened to an interview with Israeli author and war cabinet member Benny Morris, an historian with views and books that are criticized from all sides but an enormous depth of knowledge. Coleman works through the very core of the “anti-racist” movement to demonstrate how it is itself racist, what he terms neo-racism. He does an excellent job detailing all the ways the well-intentioned efforts end up disadvantaging the very people they aim to help. The telling is compelling even if you are predisposed to strongly agree or disagree. After reading I looked at some reviews and found out just how much of a hard time he is being given—The NY Times used the headline “The Young Black Conservative Who Grew Up With, and Rejects, D.E.I.” from Feb 2024. One look at that and you can actually see Neo-racism in play, which is awful—how they can call out his skin color in a review about a book on being colorblind is kind of incomprehensible. Read this book.

23. 😻😻😻Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History b Nellie Bowles https://a.co/d/9skQNrI // This book is amazing. It captures the absurdity of a “movement” that went haywire during the pandemic. It became a NYT best seller opening week which is amazing and deeply ironic (not to mention rewarding for Nellie a former NYT reporter). The description of Seattle’s “Autonomous Zone” is beyond precious. Don’t let the incredibly entertaining writing take away from the important facts and storytelling of a lens on events that is mostly buried by nearly all press outlets of record. The entire section on “anti-racism” and “Karens” was a tour de force of saying the unsayable. It took me back to my OG resident advisor training at the dawn of anti-racism (c. 1984 when it was just called power dynamics) when I got yelled at for an afternoon for being white and an abuser of power by a facilitator in a pink jumpsuit with colored hair, which even then was a weird thing to tell a jew with living Holocaust relatives. The section on gender and sexuality was both sensitive while pointing out what can be seen by all. I listened to audio narrated by Nellie which makes for an even better read and the occasional great French accent. Detractors will see Nellie as a traitor and will scorn at her descriptions of people, what they said, and events. I think she’s saying what a lot of people felt or feel but were legit afraid to say. The book is a personal memoir not a sermon, which also annoys those who used to agree with her.

24. 😻 😻 😻 The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era b Thomas Schatz https://a.co/d/eQYAzkg // There are a ton of books about classic Hollywood but this one has a unique perspective that will be super valuable to any builders. It talks about the “system” of Hollywood and what made that system and why it worked and why it failed. It tells the story through the lens of big important people we have heard of like Thalberg, Selznick, Zanuck and Hitchcock. It importantly talks about what it took to get movies made and the ever present balance of art and commerce, of story and spectacle. It demonstrates, intentionally or not, that in most endeavors/orgs only a very small number of people really know what to do at any given time/era. There’s even stories of disruption such as how the big studios slow-rolled talkies since they were vertically integrated theaters with orchestras whereas the lesser studios (Warner!) were not set up for any sound. This book should really make you think about the operations of big companies and creative endeavors. Lots of interesting “org” thinking as studios pioneered the “unit” org versus hierarchical general management. Plus even antitrust makes an appearance. And not to be outdone so does censorship. But wow, the salaries in classic Hollywood were crazy—50-100x the typical salary, but also the reality of taking advantage of the writer/director/actor talent (like Cagney, Davis, and more). I know for me it made me think a ton about the “operating system” we built at Microsoft for building software. If the “Fountainhead” describes the idealized view of a founder (or “The Founders”), the “System” describes the idealized BigCo. Another founder book.

25. 😻Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government Is Creating a New American Surveillance State by Byron Tau https://a.co/d/3yiOdeD // When watching a show like “FBI” or the classic “Person of Interest” there are two kinds of people when it comes to privacy and the government. One kind says “dang this is cool and this is how crime should be stopped” and the other says “OMG why in the world should we trust the government to only do good things with all this data and not ruin lives”. It is very tough to see all the benefits of technology, specifically cell phones, GPS, location data and at the same time the risks from global terror or even domestic violence and not think the government should use the tools it has. Yet there need to be limits because it isn’t just abuse but the ability to completely upend the lives of innocent people. I think about on “FBI” when someone just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and sees a crime (or worse taking a cell phone photo of a getaway by accident) and there’s Jubal in the JOC barking out “get that phone, ping it, got it…send OA and Maggie and pick them up” and then an innocent person ends up in the dragnet of the effort. This book is about what the government has done to use not secret eavesdropping but the grey area of “public” data collected for advertising or by apps and data brokers (NOT BIG TECH). It doesn’t do a lot other than freak out you but this is an important topic that is not so simple. The right to privacy is not in the constitution but the framers certainly believed in the right to be left alone. This book breaks my regular guidelines of being a journalist writing about their beat but it is not about one company or frankly even anti-tech. You learn that the worst offenders are the brokers, the parasites riding off (or circumventing) the benefits we all see every day from Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. This is a valuable contribution if looked at through that lens.

26. 😻😻The Second Brain: A Groundbreaking New Understanding of Nervous Disorders of the Stomach and Intestine (1998) by Michael Gershon https://a.co/d/a5h5TH3 // “My interest in serotonin started in 1958 as an undergraduate at Cornell!” From this in the introduction this book only got better. This incredible book is about how real science is done and real discoveries made. I got a great sense for how good this would be early in the book when Gershon said “this was back when the government funded science experiments even when it wasn’t sure the experiment would even work.” (This book is from 1998!) There’s attitude, rivalry, personalities, success, failure, good ideas, wrong ideas, stubbornness, persistence, collaboration, and everything in between. The descriptions of the people he collaborates with and those that are in his lab are so wonderfully warm and amazing. It is a memoir and a book of discovery. Shout out to @davidacrotty and memories of transgenic megacolon mice from the 80s and that time my car got broken into at 168th st. The science in the book is real as is the humility and humanity of discovery. This is a “builder” book for the year. Loved it.

27. 😻Zero Days by Ruth Ware https://a.co/d/bQ4T4ym // this was super fun and fulfilled my one-per-year fiction. One part of it bugged me a lot and was key plot point that was technically off. Would have been fine in a screenplay but not a book (2fa via SMS). As usual/expected did not need the self-reflecting essay/monologue at the end. A good one for the airplane or beach.

28. 😻The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilization b Michael Brooks https://a.co/d/fYuA9es // AI is just math. When thinking about regulating AI it is a good idea to have some context about the history of math. There are a lot of books about math history. I enjoyed this one in how it presents some deeper examples but presented in a way that makes them fun. Really enjoyed some of the history I had not come across such as logarithms. Pay attention to the PDF or get print.

29. 😻Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Paul Scharre https://a.co/d/ezqmf9J // former Ranger and defense analyst at pentagon argues that four key elements define this struggle: data, computing power, talent, and institutions. A major theme is the risk of China and in this regard it talks about the importance of AI in defense, the huge negatives of AI as used in Chinese society, and the many places the US is conflicted in China (there’s a lot devoted to the role Microsoft played with Microsoft Research in elevating China’s AI work.) The defense arguments are strong yet much of the civilian use starts to sound like the fairly standard/mid “AI is risky and we need to get ahead of it”. Where the author was aggressive in the use of AI in the military (personally having been an advocate in the military) he is reluctant or concerned about civilian uses and uses by government outside military. At the same time there is clear recognition that the cat is out of the bag. There’s an entertaining section on Microsoft’s MSR lab in Beijing and how instrumental it was to the *creation* of China’s AI ecosystem, which I’m sure is how people feel but definitely looked better a few years ago (if you read Mandarin you can read about how I was a negative influence wrt China on that earlier era in a book by Kai-Fu Lee). The irony of this view today is also just how much effort Microsoft was putting into elevating MSRA all the while OpenAI is gaining momentum and Microsoft had no product offerings of its own on this “foundational research” yet had no problem giving tours and touting the whole of MSRA. The section on TikTok does the standard “algorithm is the problem” which for me is always a bit of a🚩for what follows. I really enjoyed the section towards the end bringing together topics and detailing the future of war. It had shares of Terminator and ST:ToS “Taste of Armageddon” and “Ultimate Computer.” There not a ton new here but the perspective of a DC/military insider brings value and I very much appreciate how frequently Scharre was on the ground at least hearing firsthand what was going on and telling us when he was.

30. 😻😻The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything b Matthew Ball https://a.co/d/eLb9AWb // Given all that is going on with AVP and Meta I would suggest reading this. If you think the EU is doing wonderful work on DMA, at least read the chapter on Payments to understand history behind 30% and how either EU should be going after gaming companies or EU was short sighted in going after only Apple or that the whole thing is a farce because the market works. This book, for me, is a sharp contrast with Read, Write, Own. Both books acknowledge the power-dynamic with big incumbents where RWO focuses on building and creating a new way to do new things in the market, The Metaverse seems to focus too much on how to extend the existing games market and “divide the pie” versus grow it. It takes as a given the big companies needing to be regulated, even at one point towards the end simply suggesting that it doesn’t seem fair to regulate them after creating the platforms we all use, but that is the price of success.

31. 😻😻😻💯Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet b Chris Dixon https://a.co/d/3wtIe9o // Chris is a friend. He’s also written some of the best thought-provoking essays of the internet era (come for the tool stay for the network, the internet is for snacking, idea maze, climbing the wrong hill, hobbies/what the smartest people do on weekends). But please if you work using the internet you must read this book. First, grasp the historical description of the culture and origins of the Internet. This background is incredibly important to understand the “problem space” technologies like blockchain are going after. And second, even if you can’t see past the “casino” (as Chris calls it) there’s an enormous amount to consider that chris describes when it comes to improving and reinventing the internet by returning to the roots of the “movement” that started it. An analogy that works for me is that in the 1980s a lot of the commercial world was against “free software”—which many saw as the heart and soul of the internet—for obvious reasons (myself included as part of Microsoft). Then as the movement changed approaches and companies like Google, Meta, etc. joined and became contributors to the “open source” movement it became much more acceptable everywhere. There will always be casinos (as chris points out) but there will also be a strong rationale for what comes out of the openness and culture of the internet. It is really important not to let the casino players mess with learning—if only because one might not have noticed there were land grabs/casinos at every step of computing that went unnoticed by some.

32. 😻😻Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell https://a.co/d/1Rl2Qp6 // With all the stuff going on with university presidents and more importantly the debate over the integrity of basic research (Stanford, Harvard Medical, even all of Covid) I wanted to reread this book from 2010. Who are the “public intellectuals” and why do they have so much influence compared to the people “in the arena” (my words)? Fundamentally this is an intellectual critique of intellectualism. It is a social science book questioning the validity of social science. But it is also compelling in the context of today’s punditry.

33. 😻😻The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization b. Peter Zeihan https://a.co/d/cbv8gvg // I think there are real challenges in the global order (as it is called) as we saw with Covid and supply chain. This book is almost doomerism comes to the world order and economy. Reminds me a great deal of 1980s Howard Ruff’s “how to prosper during the coming bad times”. Very much a “story” and not a deep economic reference or footnoted analysis. Audio version is like a 17 hour TED talk. Will some be true? Absolutely yes. Just which parts and when? But makes you think and/or stress. If you want an optimistic view of what happens in the US after “globalism” ends, this is it. Go America!

34. 😻😻How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom b Matt Ridley https://a.co/d/iWD57Z1 // Really two books. First is a series of well-done vignettes on a good number of innovations and how they really came to be. Chances are readers will know one or more of these stories but they are well told. Book is structured as a well organized essay taking those examples and developing a framework that is highly tilted towards the thesis that free markets, free exchange of ideas, ability to try and fail, and to share matter a huge amount. Every time someone takes this approach they immediately rush to point out the really big inventions came from government (like the computers, internet, medicine). Though those champions always minimize the role that war or nationalism played in those. It might be impossible to generalize about innovation and perhaps that is the real point—it takes a lot of approaches to “innovate” though masterminding or inventing are not the ones that tend to work best. I liked this was an Issacsson-like book but pivoted by innovation more than personality. A lot of stories are classic anecdotes and I wish there were primary sources as I picked up on a few things too many that left me feeling uncertain or that a community note would appear. The take down of EU regulatory failures and misinformation is worth the book. I did enjoy this book and it is would make for a really great “book club” discussion on innovation.

35. 😻The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All―But There Is a Solution by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott https://a.co/d/02NDDgt // started reading just before university president congressional hearings. So many examples and anecdotes. There’s a whole chapter on the gaslighting of “there is no cancel culture”. It is easy to get caught up debunking this book, but it even has a section on how arguments against cancel culture are routinely made.

36. 😻Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control b Josh Chin, Liza Lin https://a.co/d/eqDeAVV // all about surveillance and the growing risk to privacy and individual liberty. Shows the depth of the development of Chinas infrastructure and exporting it around the world. But the real stressful part is how the US and far less overtly dramatically increased the surveillance state with too little accountability. This topic drives me bonkers as far as US policy but I feel helpless.

37. 😻😻The Lessons of History b Will & Ariel Durant https://a.co/d/5fLQaXE // A concise survey of the culture and civilization of mankind, The Lessons of History is the result of a lifetime of research from Pulitzer Prize–winning historians Will and Ariel Durant. “Do we really know what history was or what really happened or is it simply a fable not quite agreed upon? Most history is guessing and the rest is prejudice.“ I wish I could read all 10,000 pages of their “The Story of Civilization”. Still the book has many cringe moments such as ”you have to breed as well as breathe.” “Throughout history man remains the same. He changes his habits but not his instincts.” The Durants were the foremost award-winning historians of a generation. Yet when I listened to this book (audio has excerpts of Durant interviews) I could not help but be taken back to 6th grade world history with Mr Huston saying things like “the negroes of the Nile” and “nature versus nurture” or “decline of religious belief is far more important than any economic battle” Durant says we are in a post-theological time in the west which is necessarily a decline if you consider history. Listening to the Durants speak was like listening to the narration record accompanying a dukane project filmstrip. Thus the best reason to read this is to think about what is taught today as history and realize it too will be cringe in 40 years or less.

38. 😻😻Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America b David E. Bernstein https://a.co/d/cTqkSGB // With all the debates over oppressed v oppressor looking at how we even categorize people in the US for things like jobs, hate crimes, preferences, etc. is critical. This book is an **infuriating** look at the arbitrary and cynical world of racial and ethnic classification. It is filled with the absurdity of the legislation, court battles, and cynical application of what amount to fairly nonsensical classifications when considering the goal. This book is must reading for anyone arguing for any disparate impact or remedy based on a classification. The system is abused from every direction and the resulting benefits go disproportionately to those not particularly harmed while the negative results continue to grow. If you really want to be upset read the chapter on race and medical research. The whole concept has gone so far astray from the original goals it is no surprise no one can agree on these topics today. The use of classifications for science research even though they are wholly unscientific is not just bad science it is harmful. tl;dr It is amazing how much a role money plays in all this.

39. 😻😻😻😻💯Chip War: The Quest to Dominate the World's Most Critical Technology b Chris Miller https://a.co/d/02Sz24S // Great quick history of Silicon. A -00-level overview of the history of silicon. Why read? Everyone needs to know the story of DRAM in the 80s especially Japan, DoD, and US companies. Also great characterization of chip company culture, founders, and execs (tl;dr very tough managers). Follow the links mentioned and keep reading (eg Made In Japan, Only the Paranoid, etc). Super fun!! Given the runup of chip stocks this seems like a required read.

Suggest some books to me in the replies! Happy 2025!

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