2020 Books & Podcasts

Another year, another list. I’ve combined books and memorable podcast episodes together here.

No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings, Erin Meyer

“you give employees more freedom instead of developing processes to prevent them from exercising their own judgment, they will make better decisions and it’s easier to hold them accountable.”

The Dictators Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

There’s nothing better than a rigged election, so long as you’re the one rigging it.

The Power Broker by Robert Caro

Power corrupts—that has been said and written so often that it has become a cliché. But what is never said, but is just as true, is that power reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, he must conceal those traits that might make others reluctant to give it to him, that might even make them refuse to give it to him. Once the man has power, it is no longer necessary for him to hide those traits.

Masters of Doom by David Kushner

He was doing what he had always wanted to do: code games. And he was happy, in the moment as always, not thinking at all about what would come next. If he could be here working on games with enough money for food and shelter, that was good enough for him. As he told the other guys on one of his very first days, put him in a closet with a computer, a pizza, and some Diet Cokes, and he would be fine.

Livewired by David Eagleman

The answer is simply that you don’t know where the prosthetic leg is. Your good leg is streaming an enormous amount of data to the brain, telling about the position of your leg, how much the knee is bent, how much pressure is on the ankle, the tilt and twist of the foot, and so on. But with the prosthetic leg, there’s nothing but silence: the brain has no idea about the limb’s position.

Lex Fridman - Dan Carlin

Starting Greatness - Steve Blank: Great Entrepreneurship is Artistry

How I Built This - Sal Khan

Hardcore History: Supernova of the East IV

Business Wars: Hershey vs Mars (2019)