Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day
Charlie Munger
Reading more books, while cutting down on other types of less productive reading (see newspapers and social media), has been one of my goal for this 2017.
In December of last year, I set up the goal of reading a minimum of one book every two weeks throughout the whole year. Thanks to a more disciplined approach to reading and my newly found addiction to Audible, I hit the goal and was able to finish well over 30 books.
In particular, the audiobook format allowed me to add countless hours of reading while commuting, doing low-intensity physical activities or while performing a multitude of low cognitive demand tasks (ie. housekeeping).
Book Stats
- Total Books Read: 35
- Book Type: Business & Management (#13), Self-Help (#6), Social Psychology (#5), Science & Philosophy (#5), History & Anthropology (#4), Other (#2)
- Reading Format: 85% Audible, 15% Kindle, 0% Hardcover
- Book Rating: A-M-A-Z-I-N-G/ Home run (10%), Great (25%), OK (40%), Not worth it (25%)
Book Dealflow
By far my biggest source of book recommendations, that is the “ book dealflow”, come from book lists made by people or publications I professionally and personally look up to.
Below the lists from which I picked up the most books in 2017:
- Zuckerberg 2015’s Year of Books challenge
- Bill Gates’ book reviews
- Book recommendations from First Round Review and their portfolio of company leaders (Airbnb, Slack, etc)
- Naval Ravikant’s personal Book Recommendations
I also picked up several books mentioned in the Podcasts, Twitter accounts and Blogs I regularly follow. Among those:
- Fred Wilson / AVC
- Tim Ferriss / his Blog
- Keith Rabois / Twitter account
- Mark Suster / Both Sides of the Table
The resulting dealflow is big enough that I seldom actively look for other sources of book recommendations, be it friends, official book charts such as Amazon one or book reviews from newspapers).
Best Books read in 2017
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (4.6/5.0 on Amazon, 4.4 on Goodreads, 4.8 on Audible) — read it for the first time last year, re-read this year and appreciated it even more. A comprehensive view of the history of humankind and all the major forces and events that lead us to who we are today. Best book of the year…by far.
- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari (4.4 on Amazon, 4.3 on Goodreads, 4.8 on Audible) — the natural evolution of Sapiens, Homo Deus explains how our unparalleled ability to control the world around us is turning us into something new. Truly fascinating.
- Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight (4.8 on Amazon, 4.4 on Goodreads, 4.9 on Audible) — probably best business memoir ever read. Lots of learnings, especially from Nike’s early days. A story of relentless drive and dedication. Any success story always looks far easier from the outside.
And those who urge entrepreneurs to never give up? Charlatans. Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes knowing when to give up, when to try something else, is genius. Giving up doesn’t mean stopping. Don’t ever stop
Phil Knight
- Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity byKim Scott(4.7 on Amazon, 4.2 on Goodreads, 4.5 on Audible) — I first heard of the author and the book through an a16z podcast episode. What a fantastic discovery! The last book that had shaped as profoundly my management practices had been Andy Grove’s management bible “High Output Management”. Several practical learnings I put in place as soon as I finished the book. Few of them, such as ‘Whoops the Monkey’, were implemented company-wide at iPrice, to further push a culture of appreciation within our company.
The other Great Books read in 2017
Business & Management books
- Only the Paranoid Surviveby Andy Grove — not in the same league as Grove’s masterpiece “High Output Management”, but still full of actionable managerial insights, especially if your company is facing structural changes in its market environment.
“The most important role of managers is to create an environment in which people are passionately dedicated to winning in the marketplace. Fear plays a major role in creating and maintaining such passion. Fear of competition, fear of bankruptcy, fear of being wrong and fear of losing can all be powerful motivators. Simply put, fear can be the opposite of complacency
Andy Grove
- From Impossible to Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenueby Jason M. Lemkin & Aaron Ross — I am a huge fan of Jason M. Lemkin and his Twitter account. The book is a must-read for any SAAS entrepreneur/executive out there. The chapters on how to hire/run an efficient Sales/Account Management organisation are pure gold.
History & Anthropology books
- The Rational Optimist: How prosperity evolves by Matt Ridley — Picked up the book as it made the recommended books’ list of both Naval and Zuckerberg. TL;DR => Life is getting better, at an accelerating rate and pessimism about our future is overrated. Humanity’s collective intelligence will save the day, just as it has over the centuries.
There has probably never been a generation since the Palaeolithic that did not deplore the fecklessness of the next and worship a golden memory of the past. The endless modern laments about how texting and emails are shortening the attention span go back to Plato, who deplored writing as a destroyer of memorising. […]
The pessimists’ mistake is extrapolationism assuming that the future is just a bigger version of the past. As Herb Stein once said, ‘If something cannot go on forever, then it will not.’
- Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu & James Robinson- As per title, the book tries to answer this very fundamental question by analysing the economic success and failure of a range of states in different historical periods (Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, the Soviet Union, Latin America, Europe, Africa, etc).
Self-help books
- Grit: the power of passion and perseverance by Angela Duckworth — Picked it up via the recommendation of Keith Rabois. As per his own review “Although the title may make it appear intuitive, the reading is much more insightful and applicable than you might guess”. After finishing the book the term “GRIT” became one of my new favorite word to use in the workplace. There is also a pretty popular TED talk of the author on the topic if you want to first watch it before picking up the book.
- Tool of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performersby Tim Ferriss — If you are a fan of Ferriss’ podcast, you have to read this book. If you aren’t, I suggest you to listen first to a couple of episodes to make sure you will enjoy this kind of book. It doesn’t disappoint and is full of actionable gems which might inspire you, among others, to start new practices and routines.
- Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success by Brad Stulberg & steve magness — thanks to Tomas Laboutka for the recommendation. Practical advice for achieving both physical and mental peak performance. Highly recommended if you are dedicated to self-optimisation. I put in practice quite a few learnings from this book: from paying much more attention to my sleeping routines, putting the phone out of sight during most of the workday, to optimising the distribution of activities during the morning/evening to match the level of energy (ie. your chronotype)
Most Disappointing Books read in 2017
A few books for which I had very high expectations but didn’t deliver:
- Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb — I am a huge fan of Taleb (“The Black Swan” and “Fooled by Randomness” are among my favourite and most life-changing books), but couldn’t finish his latest book. Highly unstructured and way too long, jumping from subject to subject while continually looping back on itself.
- Principles: Life and Work by Ray Delio — the book is just “OK”, but given the one-sided positive reviews it obtained and the caliber of the Author, I had sky-high expectations for it. I found the book to be unnecessarily long and not so dense in insights, with lots of common sense principles.
- Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future by Joi Ito — Picked it up via the recommendation of Fred Wilson as I was also very intrigued by the topic (and the author). Couldn’t get any new learnings nor new mental frameworks to look at the accelerating technological world we are living in. You can take a look at the summary of the 9 principles explained (at length) in the book here.
There we go for 2017.
Onward to the 2018 Reading Year!
