Books

Yesterday, I started my day by finishing A People’s History of American Empire: The American Empire Project, A Graphic Adaptation and ended my day by finishing Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope . In between Amy took me to see John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (or maybe I took her to see it.) All three experiences were satisfactory. Mark Manson is a phenomenal writer. While the book is about hope, it’s not in the way you might think. He mixes philosophy, literature, opinion, self-help, inappropriate jokes, and thought experiments. His footnotes are in the spirit of David Foster Wallace. He has mastered when to include the word “fuck” in a sentence, although his publisher is apparently afraid to use it in unmodified in the book title. ...

If you are looking for a great book to read this weekend, I recommend Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me . I read it last weekend and am still thinking about it. McEwan is a magnificent writer. When the hardcover ended up on top of my infinite pile of books to read, Amy said, “Wow, you’ll love Ian McEwan’s writing.” Whenever Amy says something like that, I know I’m in for a treat. ...

If you are an entrepreneur working on a physical product, Jules Pieri’s new book How We Make Stuff Now: Turn Ideas into Products That Build Successful Businesses is a must read. Jules is the founder / CEO of The Grommet , a website that discovers a new and amazing product every single day. They’ve been doing this for around a decade (over 3,000 products). I’ve known Jules since around the time she started The Grommet and they’ve discovered and reviewed a handful of products that we’ve invested in over the years. ...

Amy and I took our Q219 Vacation in Kyoto and then finished up with a few days of work in Tokyo. I had a terrible cold so I spent a lot of time in bed sleeping and reading. We wandered around some in Kyoto and saw cherry blossoms, but the food was mostly lost on me given how crummy I felt. I did, however, get a lot of reading done. So, as a return from vacation bonus, you get my reading list with some short comments. ...

I wasn’t able to sleep last night, so after doing the final copy edit on Do More Faster 2nd Edition, I started reading J.D. Lasica’s new book Catch and Kill: A high-tech conspiracy thriller . My brain was toast and my head was full of dripping dead virus goo, so I hoped some good mental floss would help pass the time. I finally crawled into bed at about 3am after reading about half of the book. Today was supposed to be the emotional warm up for the Knoxville Marathon. Instead, it has been a lay on the coach, read, doze, read some more, get up and do some work with Amy on the final copy edit of Venture Deals 4th Edition, and read some more. ...

Last week I met Max Yoder, the CEO of Lessonly , at the annual High Alpha CEO summit. He was the last speaker in the afternoon and ended a great day on an energized note. He handed out copies of his recent book Do Better Work: Finding Clarity, Camaraderie, and Progress in Work and Life . His talk discussed his journey around writing the book, motivation for doing it, how it is integrated into the mission of Lessonly, and why he decided to self-publish it. ...

I read Roger McNamee’s book Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe the day it came out. While likely uncomfortable for a lot of people, it was excellent, provocative, and challenging all at the same time. I have not, nor have I ever been, an investor in Facebook. However, I benefited indirectly from, and indirectly contributed to, the rapid rise of Facebook as an early investor in Zynga. I remember being amazed at the pace of growth of both companies and, in an effort to understand it better, went deep on how each company’s product intersected with the psychology of humans. ...

Several friends have mentioned that I’d love Cal Newport’s writing. I finally got around to reading his most recent book, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World and my friends were correct. Newport is famous for being a millennial, computer scientist, and a book author who doesn’t have a social media account. Digital Minimalism is complementary to Jaron Lanier ‘s book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now , but I found Newport a lot more comfortable and convincing. More importantly, it reinforced a number of changes that I’ve already made in my life over the past few years. ...

I read Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger by Rebecca Traister recently. It was recommended to me by Tami Forman, the CEO of Path Forward and I was immediately cheered on by Amy when I started reading it. It was extraordinary. Every man I know should read it. I’m now officially a Rebecca Traister fan. I learned a lot, was forced to think about a bunch of uncomfortable stuff, and formed some new ideas about how to address some gender-related issues in our society. ...

James Oliver, Jr. has written a fun book that is part memoir, part advice, for what he calls Parentpreneurs (entrepreneurs who are trying to raise kids.) He’s got a website with a bunch of history about him, his journey, and the book . It’s also got some pictures of his twins, which even I, as a non-kid kind of person think are pretty adorable (although they are apparently eight now according to James, so I’m not sure if they qualify as adorable anymore, but they probably do.) ...