Links
Below is a collection of my favorite books, blogs, and podcasts. I’ve spent years collecting these links and now, I’m excited to share the best of the best with you.
In this collection, I brought together the things that have influenced my thinking the most. I hope this page will help spark your curiosity as well.
DECISION MAKING
Sam Hinkie - Sam is a role model of a general manager. When he wrote this memo upon leaving the 76ers in 2016 I pored over every word. He rarely gives interviews, but when he does they are filled with nuggets of wisdom that bring invaluable outside knowledge to sports. He is the antithesis of a results-oriented person.
L.A. Paul on Vampires, Life Choices, and Transformation - Would you choose to become a vampire? That’s the question L.A. Paul sets out to answer. This is just one decision to ponder, others include children, religion, and education. When you’re making a decision, which person matters more, your current self or the future version of yourself? Also, the information you get, as well as how you acquire that information, changes with age.
Branko Milanovic on Capitalism, Alone - Branko Milanovic points out that we’re all becoming individual capitalist enterprises. Recent social changes and atomization of goods and services have removed the incentives to follow the principle “2 live more cheaply than one.” For example, prepared foods are now much cheaper, and we’ve attached a money measurement for every unit of time. Are our preferences such that we will all come to prefer to live alone?
John Kay and Mervyn King on Radical Uncertainty - To make a prediction you need to make many assumptions (auxiliary hypotheses), and when the model fails you don’t know if it’s because the main hypothesis is wrong or the auxiliary hypotheses are wrong. We are not properly equipped to deal with uncertainty, and as a result we often deflect responsibility for decisions. According to Kay and King, we currently have politicians say they’re relying on the scientists, and scientists saying they’re just giving advice to politicians. This conversation will change how you think of economics as a discipline.
Margaret Heffernan - An important question that Heffernan asks across these podcast interviews: How can you invest in sure-fire winners if you’re investing in something you’ve never seen before? She explains that we don’t want to actually take gambles, which is why most experiments are the equivalent of changing the color of candy for different holidays. She also points out that besides with dating, we don’t experiment much in our lives, especially with our jobs.
Annie Duke - Annie is a true expert in the field. From her books How to Decide and Thinking in Bets, to several podcast interviews, there is high information density in all this material. Her work will change not only how you think about decisions you’ve made in the past, but also how you’d act differently if you had to pin down variables like certainty.
Predictably Irrational - Why is there a huge difference between something being free as opposed to costing a penny? Why, in western culture, are people more likely to order different things at a restaurant when the exact opposite happens in the east? Why exactly is it insulting for someone to offer to pay you for a home cooked Thanksgiving meal when they’re your guest? All these questions and more are answered in Dan Ariely’s riveting book.
LEADERSHIP
Jocko Willink - Everyone needs to learn 2 lessons from Jocko: Extreme Ownership and discipline equals freedom. You’ll soon think differently about leadership, teamwork, and the concept of waking up at 4am to workout every day.
Agnes Callard on Aspiration - Callard immediately compares aspiration to ambition. Aspiration is the rational process of value acquisition. Ambition is not trying to learn or value something new, but trying to satisfy a value you already have. From there the conversation goes into a comparison between Aristotle and Plato, as well as a guide on deciding what to aspire to.
Leaders Eat Last - Simon Sinek has written extensively on leadership. Like the title says, by creating a circle of safety and being willing to eat last, there is no limit to what a leader can get teams to accomplish.
The Obstacle is the Way - Fire feeds on obstacles. Ryan Holiday’s work introduced me to stoicism, and now many stoic principles have changed the way I view life.
Good to Great - Jim Collins’ thorough description of level 5 leadership will quickly let you know whether you’ve met a great leader. The book contains dozens of case studies that form a blueprint for taking your organization from good to great.
Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change - If you want to change your own behavior, or that of a team or organization, look no further than this book. Often, the failure to commit to change is due to a lack of methods being used to enforce change. If there are several spheres of influence, using all of them as opposed to just one is proven to create longer lasting results.
Running Into the Wind - Many of the principles that Virginia is built on originated with Bronco Mendenhall at BYU. In this autobiography of sorts he details the five smooth stones and the steps he used to build a winning organization.
Nassim Taleb - His Incerto can’t be summarized. Nobody has changed the way I think more than Nassim Taleb. Rarely do books get remarkably better upon a second, third, or even fourth reading. More people need to know about convexity and how to tell whether something is antifragile.
Tren Griffin - There is nothing like hearing someone talk about their passion. If you follow him on Twitter, you know that Tren has an intense passion for learning and sharing knowledge. Even better, he has extensive experience in the world of business and investing. Although some of the lessons are over my head, I make sure to take note of every article and pearl of wisdom he shares. His blog 25iq is a treasure trove of wisdom. There is undoubtedly something to be learned there for everyone.
Ben Hunt - An outspoken voice in today’s society, Ben Hunt is trying to get us to care about what’s really important. Read THIS and see why.
Andrew Brandt - Andrew’s knowledge sits firmly at the intersection of sports, law, and business. He has extensive experience as an agent, team executive, professor, lawyer, and many other roles as well. He is constantly educating me on the different perspectives to keep in mind whether it’s a negotiation, sale, or draft selection.
Michael Lombardi - imagine being able to learn from Bill Belichick, Bill Walsh, and Al Davis at the same time. That’s what it’s like when listening to Michael Lombardi’s podcast and reading his book Gridiron Genius. Required material for anyone seriously interested in football.
Jim O'Shaughnessy - You need not be interested in finance and investing to learn from Jim. He is always finding ways to arbitrage human nature. Instead of studying quantitative finance, he posits that you can better understand the markets by understanding human behavior. This means studying the classics and learning about what makes us tick.
LEARNING & EDUCATION
Why Books Don’t Work by Andy Matuschak - Last year I started highlighting and annotating everything I read and haven’t looked back. I also make sure to take notes on podcasts I listen to. Why? Because the act of turning one-way communication into somewhat two-way communication pays dividends. Andy’s description of transmissionism will change the way you think about reading.
Bryan Caplan on the Case Against Education - Bryan makes a compelling argument as to why the act of learning is, in some cases, less important than having a degree. Take this hypothetical, would you rather have sat in and done the work for 4 years of classes at MIT without getting a degree, or received a degree without learning a thing?
Diane Ravitch on Slaying Goliath - Diane Ravitch argues that charter schools are not the solution to all our educational problems. She points out that charter schools divert resources from underfunded public schools, billions of dollars are wasted on testing every year when tests are mainly predictive of family income, and there are not enough people focused on classroom management.
Robert Pondiscio on How the Other Half Learns - Robert Pondiscio talks about his experience from within a Success Academy charter school. One of the primary advantages of their model is the curriculum. According to Pondiscio, it’s a prestigious waste of time for teachers to curate material themselves. That accounts for above 90% of their time. Teachers should be planning how to teach the lesson, not planning the lesson. There’s also a focus on scalability. You want to create a system that can run on people of average sentience, not one that’s reliant on having the best and brightest teachers.
Robert Lerman on Apprenticeship - The rate of apprenticeship in the U.S. is currently 0.5%. In Europe, apprenticeship starts at 16 and you get paid. It’s a cost in the beginning, but later on the investment pays off as productivity increases. Why can’t we just mandate that all internships are paid? Lerman argues that internships would only become more selective for skills that are likely developed in wealthier households. An added benefit of the apprenticeship model would be increasing the amount of people who are “top of their class.” With everyone in the same classroom, only 10% of people can be in the top 10%.
Michael Munger on the Future of Higher Education - Munger provides a concise, yet thorough, summary of the state of higher education. He lays out the 3 goals of college and the 4 buildings that comprise the college experience. Signaling and value capture play an important role in finding the obstacles to improving the current system.
STRATEGY
We Don’t Sell Saddles Here - This is the memo sent to the team making Slack two months prior to release. In retrospect, it’s easy to understand how they were able to change the way teams communicate with each other. The intense focus on strategy and asking the right questions provided the Slack team with a clear path forward. This level of commitment and belief should be the bar for deciding what to work on.
How I Won Jeopardy with Data Science by Colin Davy - I love Jeopardy, and I loved watching James Holzhauer demolish his competition. I haven’t come across a better description of what it takes to win a game of Jeopardy, let alone maintain a winning streak. Colin’s recounting of events gives an invaluable peek behind the curtain of preparing to not only be on Jeopardy, but to win Jeopardy.
Tobi Lutke - Shopify’s decision making process has two objectives: making something newly possible, or making something possible 10x easier. If it doesn’t accomplish one of those two it’s a bad process. Also, I was fascinated by how the Internet made it harder to start new businesses. Previously in history, every city needed a copy of something. If you could travel, you’d be able to bring home something new to your city. Lastly, we’re all taught cause and effect thinking. For example, the chain goes study to test to grade to college admission. That’s not how people really think about the world. This just scratches the surface of lessons to learn from Tobi Lutke.
HEALTH CARE
Vivian Lee - This year, I learned more about our nation’s healthcare system from these two interviews than ever before. Vivian not only describes the incentives in place, but also the business model as a whole and what can be done to improve it. With regard to our future, there are few issues bigger than this one.
ECONOMICS
Free to Choose - Milton Friedman, famous not only for explaining how a single pencil gets made, explains why a well functioning economy necessitates freedom of choice. His examples range from education to healthcare to taxes and everything in between. If I didn’t know any better, I would think this book was written recently.
Economics in One Lesson - I’ve studied economics for years. This book is the clearest, most concise resource to consult for learning the basics of economics. Hazlitt certainly featured more Classical economics than Keynesian economics, but the lessons are well written and disprove many commonly held assumptions.
Moneyball - What Jerry Maguire was for a wave of sports agents, Moneyball is the equivalent for the newest wave of general managers. Regardless of the medium (book, movie, podcast), the objectives, strategies, and tactics employed by Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s will help you in any industry.