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Books

In 2021, one of my New Years resolutions was to read more. Growing up, I never really read books, besides a handful of fiction books (I loved the Harry Potter books and the Percy Jackson series). After graduating from university in 2020, I realized that my formal education journey is over (unless I decide to go back to school at some point). I decided to read more books to keep constantly learning. Like most New Years resolution, it started off strong, but fizzled out. Luckily, in November 2021 I picked myself up, and started to try to read everyday, even for 5 minutes.

Books I'm currently reading:

I enjoy reading a couple of books at the same time. I find it pretty interesting to make connections between the books I'm reading, which helps me remember what I read.

  • The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey
  • Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
  • Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action - Simon Sinek.
  • Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Focus

Books I read in 2023

  • Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World - Cal Newport. Book argues that the rise of social media has corresponded with raising rates of mental health issues. The book advocates digital minimalism, a lifestyle that greatly reduces the current rate of social media consumption. The book doesn't argue that technology (social media) is inherently bad, but that our habits of consumption has gone overboard. After reading this book, I've deleted social media from my phone. I noticed that whenever I had a moment of boredom, I reached for my phone. The book suggests replacing social media use with high quality crafts.
  • Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari. Very interesting read about the history of the Sapiens species.
  • Deep Work - Cal Newport. Deep Work's main argument is that the ability to do "deep work" (professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to the limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skills, and are hard to replicate) is a valuable skill for the modern worker. Cal provides 4 tips/rules to engage in deep work. 1. Work deeply (decide on a deep work schedule, when you're working just work, once you're done with work, completely shut off work to recharge your brain). 2. Embrace boredom (Concentration is a skill that we can develop. If we keep going on social media when we're bored, our attention span will stay short). 3. Quit social media. 4. Drain the shallows (Reply to messages/emails less urgently, push to be in less meetings).
  • The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho. Classic book about a Shepard boy who has a dream about treasure in the pyramids of Egypt. The story is about one's Personal Legend, and to listen to one's heart. The book's main message is that following one's Personal Legend is the only way to happiness/fulfilment. Those who ignore their Personal Legend (crystal merchant) will live a life of regret. The book repeatedly mentions that the world favors those who pursue their Personal Legend, and to look to omens that will guide one. The book shows that fear is one of the largest obstacles for people. The book suggests that fear should be irrelevant when pursuing one's Personal Legend. The book's central theme is alchemy. The book talks about how all things on Earth has a Personal Legend, such as metal, which wants to become gold. In order to pursue one's Personal Legend, one must remove impurities (alchemy) such as societal acceptance, material wants, and even love. To find one's Personal Legend, a person must follow their own instincts, and look to omens.
  • Zero to One - Peter Thiel. Avoid competition. Dominate a sub-market before expanding (PayPal with Ebay). Sales > product (A product with a sales/distribution strategy is worse off than a bad product and a killer sales team). Thiel's Law (If the foundation of the startup is faulty, the startup will fail).
  • Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day - Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
  • Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of AI  - Avi Goldfarb, Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans. AI's use case is making predictions much cheaper, and more accurate. AI will disrupt industries in that decisions can be split into predictions and judgement. AI won't displace humans as judgement must always be supplied by humans. An example of judgement comes from the movie "I, Robot".  Del Spooner, played by Will Smith, gets in a car crash that sends him and his daughter into the ocean. The robots in the movie save him instead of his daughter because they deduced that his chance of survival was greater than the child's. That is the prediction piece. The judgement piece that is in the backend of the robots software is that each human life is worth the same. Thus, the decision is made primarily by the prediction. If Del has a greater chance of survival, the robot chooses him. Del is furious with the robot because he deems his life to be worth less than that of his daughters (judgement). The authors argue that to reap the benefits of AI, system changes must be made. Often times technology takes time to adopt because point solutions don't offer enough to justify the costs.

Books I read in 2022

I'm honestly proud of myself for reading 15 books in 2022.

  • Bubble or Revolution: The Present and Future of Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies - Mehta, Agashe, Detroja  (Great entry level read into blockchain/crypto, main insight: pretty pessimistic about public blockchain, but the authors believe private blockchains can create lasting change)
  • And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie (Thriller/Murder Mystery. First fiction book I've read in awhile. I love the Sherlock Holmes TV series, so I loved trying to figure out who the murderer was before the end of the book. The book masterfully makes you suspect every character on the island. 9/10)
  • Swipe to Unlock: The Primer on Technology and Business Strategy - Mehta, Agashe, Detroja (Great primer on tech, such as how the internet works (IP/TCP, why Microsoft bought LinkedIn etc.)
  • Pachinko - Min Jin Lee (Historical Fiction. Following up on reading some more fiction books, I was entranced by this story of a Korean family set during colonial Japan. This book really made me feel connected to the characters, and bombarded me with waves of emotion. Being Korean, it also made me understand a little bit about what times may have been like for my family in the past. 9.5/10)
  • Barking Up the Wrong Tree - The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong - Eric Barker  (Book that details different stories about successful people. I found this book useful as I navigate the start of my career. One of the main takeaways is that research shows that successful people, weren't "successful" in high school. Aka they weren't the valedictorians. Doing well in school means being good at following clear guidelines. Often times, those who change the world (ex. successful CEOs), are unruly. Another lesson I learned was that flattering your boss, makes a good impression on them, even if they know you are being insincere. Another great lesson was a story about grit. Angela Duckworth says grit is like a muscle, Barker goes on to say that grit can come from a positive mindset. Like how Victor Frankl survived the holocaust.)
  • The Premonition - Michael Lewis  (Details the US's incompetencies with how COVID was dealt with. A story that discusses multiple heroes (Charity Dean, Carter Mecher etc.) who was failed by the systems in place. The CDC is an organization that is great at analyzing what happened during the pandemic, but is not equipped to handle real disasters).
  • Algorithms to Live By, The Computer Science of Human Decisions - Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. Humans can learn a lot from computer algorithms. Optimal stop problem (buying a house, meeting the love of your life, hiring the best worker) - Observe for 37% of the sample, then choose the next best option.
  • Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World: What China's Crackdown Reveals About Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere - Mark L. Clifford. I'm not a political person. Being an expat living in Hong Kong, I never really learned or cared about the political situation in my home country (South Korea), or in Hong Kong. I didn't grow up understanding the political history of Hong Kong / China. The book talks about Hong Kong's history and future.  
  • The Big Short - Michael Lewis. I read this book after watching the movie a couple of times. I now work in a prop-tech/fin-tech start up, and I really wanted to better understand why the '08 crash happened. Essentially, Wall Street fueled the financial crisis by buying mortgage loans, bundling it into a tower (mortgage bond), and then bundling mortgage bonds into a new tower (CDO). These CDOs were comprised of a lot of triple B rated mortgages, but rating agencies were rating them triple-A, citing that it was sufficiently diversified. Incentives were misaligned, as if these rating agencies didn't rate them how Wall Street wanted, they would just go to a competing rating agency down the street.
  • How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future - Vaclav Smil. Bill Gate's recommended book. Talks about the fundamentals of the modern world (energy, food production, materials (steel, plastic, cement, ammonia)), which helps frame world problems. As Smil puts it, "The gap between wishful thinking and reality is vast, but in a democratic society no contest of ideas or proposals can proceed in rational ways without all sides sharing at least a modicum of relevant information about the real world, rather than trotting out their biases and advancing claims disconnected from physical possibilities.”Without the basic knowledge of how the world really works, policies such as carbon neutrality, are void. While I enjoyed learning from this book, I felt like the style was a bit dry. There were too many facts and calculations, that it was hard to follow at times.
  • Educated - Tara Westover.  Memoir about Tara Westover (author) who was raised in an unorthodox family. Her father, Gene, was a devout mormon who believed that the end of the world was imminent. He forbade his children from attending school, and instead had them work in a junkyard. Tara escaped the enclosure her family placed her in, and self-studied her way to BYU. At first she found school immensely difficult, as she was never formally educated. One notable event was when her classroom was talking about the holocaust, but she had no idea what it was. Even through her circumstances, she ended up obtaining a PhD from Cambridge. Tara grew up with a skewed perception of the world, but was able to free herself through broadening her worldview by learning.
  • The Founders - Jimmy Soni. Story about the creation of PayPal (merged from Confinity - Peter Thiel/Max Levchin and X.com - Elon Musk )and the challenges they faced while starting a payments company.  The story shows the scrappy and hardworking nature of the founding PayPal team. They hired unconventional employees, and prioritized problem solving abilities over experience. For example, the PayPal team rarely hired from banks, as those from banking came with implicit assumptions and biases that they were trying to avoid. They revolutionized growth by paying customers (joining bonuses and referral bonuses) to attract them. PayPal's CAC was $20, but the industry average through advertising was $40. Banks would never acquire customers rapidly as PayPal did. Heuristics > rules. Social capital is also stressed - many of PayPal's success stems from interpersonal connections.
  • Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything - Joshua Foer. Book about a journalists journey through the world of memory. Book argues that rote memorization acts as guideposts/cobweb for people when learning. Details some memory techniques, such as memory palace, mnemonic major system etc. Essentially memories are best remembered through vivid imagery. For example, when trying to memorize a to do list, try to imagine crazy, lewd, and funny pictures.
  • 1984 - George Orwell. A classic fiction novel about Winston Smith, an outer party member in a dystopian society (Oceania) in the year 1984. The government, represented by Big Brother, controls the world by controlling the human mind. They obsessively rewrite history by burning books/newspaper/anything from the past, that doesn't conform with their narrative. The main message of the novel is a warning against totalitarianism. One interesting method of control the book talks about is language. The book describes a new language, Newspeak, that is meant to replace English by removing meaning behind some words. Through the control of language, and erasing the existence of words, the Party is trying to make it impossible for people to think (especially thoughts of disobedience and rebellion).
  • The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness - Eric Jorgenson

Books I read in 2021

  • Just Mercy - Bryan Stevenson (Story about Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer who represents the under-represented. "The opposite of poverty isn't wealth, the opposite of poverty is justice")
  • Grit - Angela Duckworth
  • Living with a Seal - Jesse Itzler
  • Can't Hurt Me - David Goggins
  • Speed Reading: Learn to Read a 200+ Page Book in 1 Hour - Kam Knight (Subvocalization - when you are "hearing" the words instead of "seeing" it because we were all taught to read by saying the words)
  • Show Your Work! - Austin Kleon
  • Atomic Habits - James Clear

Books I want to read

  • Meat Racket - Christopher Leonard
  • Essentialism: Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
  • Pivot - Jenny Blake
  • Spark - John Ratey: Exercise's power on the brain
  • Educated - Tara Westover
  • Happy - Darren Brown
  • The Cold Start Problem
  • Man's Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl (Holocaust survivor's take on how to find meaning in life)
  • Liftoff - Eric Berger (about SpaceX)
  • The Circle (About big tech, and a horror story of what can come)
  • Genghis Khan and Making of the Modern World (history book)
  • Think Again - Adam Grant
  • Fooled by Randomness
  • Ordinary Men
  • Howard's Gift - (Book about Howard Stevenson, a HBS professor, who had a near death experience)
  • No One Would Listen - Harry Markopolos (Bernie Madoff investment scandal)
  • 10% Happier - Dan Harris
  • The Daily Stoic - Ryan Holiday
  • Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  • When - Daniel Pink
  • The Effective Executive - Peter Drucker
  • Good to Great - Jim Collins (Companies that turned themselves around and went from disappointments to huge successes)
  • How Are You Really? - Jenna Kutcher
  • Thanks For the Feedback - The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone & Sheila Heen
  • The Tyranny of Merit
  • Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley - Antonio Garcia Martinez
  • The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World - Brad Stone
  • The Lost Bank (Lending space)
  • Too Big to Fail (similar to The Big Short)
  • Zero to One
  • Decisive - Chip Health
  • Start with Why - Simon Sinek
  • Designing your Life (Bill Burnett and Dave Evans)
  • Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
  • Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your Career by Saying What You Mean
  • Deep Work - Cal Newport
  • No Rules Rules : Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention - Reed Hastings
  • That Will Never Work - Marc Rudolph (Netflix co-founder)
  • Good to Great - Jim Collins (Culture builds great companies)
  • Rich Dad Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki (Investing)
  • Communicating with Data: Making Your Case with Data by Carl Allchin
  • https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6588767-thinking-in-systems
  • The Biography of 0. Recommended by Bryan Johnson.
  • https://www.theverge.com/c/23771068/best-tech-books-nonfiction-recommendations