This year, I completed 21 books, started but abandoned two, and re-read portions of one. Bolded books were my favorites of the year.
- The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance, W Timothy Gallwey, 03 JAN 2021 - transcend beyond the thing by not thinking too hard about how you're doing the thing. Think about hitting the ball over the net, not about the mechnics of your eblow as you set up the swing.
- Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy (Economics, Cognition, And Society), W. Brian Arthur, 21 JAN 2021 - Some older papers that help to set up the basis of complexity economics. I have a post forthcoming on this.
- Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know, Malcolm Gladwell, 04 JAN 2021
- The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov translated by Mirra Ginsburg, 30 JAN 2021 - strange strange book that my friend Kevin loves.
- A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You, Sean B Carroll, 19 JAN 2021
- VC: An American History, Tom Nichols, 25 JAN 2021 - Venture Capitol from whaling off of Nantucket to Sand Hill Road. Doesn't tell a great picture for the return profile of VC as an asset class outside of a few periods. But doens't capture the current deployment phase of technology post 2007.
- eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work, Randall E. Stross, 29 JAN 2021 - Great inside look at the first dot com boom. I did not know that webvan was started by the founder of Barnes and Noble.
- Seveneves, Neal Stephenson, 10 FEB 2021 - good but I liked Snow Crash better.
- The Wright Brothers, David McCullough, 13 FEB 2021 - At every step of the way, the Wright Brothers had to re-invent the relevant thing. Many startups of a certian type go through this same re-invention process. The more things change the more they stay the same.
- Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice, Bill Browder, 16 FEB 2021 - I was hoping for more about the opening of Russia but this was mostly a plea for the release of an associate of Browder's from Russian prison.
- COMPLEXITY: THE EMERGING SCIENCE AT THE EDGE OF ORDER AND CHAOS, M Mitchell Waldron, 10 MAR 2021
- Andrew Carnegie, Joseph Frazier Wall, 24 MAY 2021
- Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy, Isadore Sharp, 29 MAR 2021
- Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon, Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, 29 APR 2021 - Amazon is a company creating company. Confirms so much of how I've been thinking about Amazon ever since reading Origins of Wealth.
- Complexity Economics: Proceedings of the Santa Fe Institute's 2019 Fall Symposium, various authors, 04 JUN 2021 - fascinating history of santa fe institute and some good background on complexity economics.
- Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, James Gleick, 22 JUN 2021 - I thoroughly enjoyed this book
- Vibrant: A Groundbreaking Program to Get Energized, Own Your Health, and Glow, Dr Stacie Stephenson, 12 JUL 2021
- Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, Carl Shapiro & Hal R Varian, 23 JUL 2021 - I'm sure this felt relevatory when I was written but feels more like common knowledge now. Regardless, a good compact review.
- 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy, Hamilton Helmer, 11 JUL 2021 - This was a very compact book of excellent material. I plan on diving deeper in ont his in 2022
- Trying not to Try [abandoned]
- The Information [abandoned]
- American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Kai Bird & Martin K Sherwin, 25 OCT 2021 - This book was more focused on the polotics of Oppenheimer's revoked security clearance; I was hoping for more about the process behind making the atomic bomb.
- An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back, Elizabeth Rosenthal, 22 NOV 2021 - a book full of anecdotes of where our health care system has failed without much deeper of an analysis.
- The Origin of Wealth: The Radical Remaking of Economics and What it Means for Business and Society [re-read]
Jacob Flanders is the President of Flybridge VI, a strategy consultancy focusing on data at the intersection of health care and life sciences. He currently serve as the Vice President of Product for USRetina.