Yuval Noah Harari takes a broad sweep across human history, dividing it into a few key “revolutions” that changed homo sapiens’ interactions with each other and with the physical world. The agricultural and scientific revolutions are familiar to many, but an earlier revolution that he talks about that caught my attention is the cognitive revolution. This is when, about 70,000 years ago, humans developed language and, with it, the ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers through the creation of common “myths” or beliefs. These are the precursors of today’s common “myths” including money, government, corporations, and religions. They are all concepts that are real in that they facilitate our cooperation, but do not have an existence in the physical reality of rocks, rivers and trees.
I enjoyed his evocative writing style that made me feel like I was traveling at speed to all those historical times and places. I was impressed by his bold imagination in creating credible narratives for the times of history where we don’t really know what happened or why.
Easily my favorite read of the year.
Isaacson writes a fast-paced and fascinating narrative on the arc of technology development since the 1800s , starting with Ada, Countess of Lovelace (who, in the 1840s, published “Notes” on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine) through to more recent innovators like Larry Page and Sergei Brin (Google) and Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia); and closing with a discussion on recent developments in the world of artificial intelligence. His central point is that there is a path that technological innovation follows. The path is not pre-determined, designed or directed by any one person or organization, but shaped by many players. Each of these participants are pursuing their specific passion and building on previous breakthroughs but not necessarily setting out to “advance technology”. But onward it marches nevertheless. It’s like it has a mind of its own.
I wrote an expanded piece on the book here.
3. Creativity, Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration — Ed Catmull
I listened to this on audiobook and really enjoyed that format — perhaps because it was narrated by the author himself.
Creativity, Inc tells the story of two Pixars: the highly ambitious startup that could barely survive and almost died a few times, and the animation juggernaut that has broken all the box office records with its strings of successes. Ed Catmull is honest and transparent and goes into a great deal of detail in telling the story of his own leadership journey as he went from technologist to a leader of technologists. He also gives his reflections on what kind of culture and discipline nurtures the creative process in an organization — worthwhile reading for leaders in technology and creative arts.
He dedicates a good amount of time to talking posthumously about Steve Jobs and the crucial role he played in ensuring Pixar’s survival when it was in dire straits and few believed in the vision. Catmull paints a rather different (human) picture of Steve Jobs — and perhaps this was his intention — almost casting him as the godfather of what we now know as the animation industry.
4. Coined: The Rich Life of Money and How its History has Shaped Us — Kabir Sehgal
“Money is like blood,” Kabir Seghal, a Vice President at JP Morgan, writes. “You need it to live, but it isn’t the point of life.”
Seghal sets out to answer the question “what is it about money that makes the world go round?” He comes out with an expansive, multi-disciplinary presentation of the history and nature of money. He draws on anthropology, evolutionary economics, neuroscience, philosophy and his Wall Street experience to argue that, just like exchange is the basis of plant and animal life, it is also the force that has led to the creation of money in all its forms through history.
The book is split into three parts: “Mind” looks at the “why” of money. This is where he makes the argument from biological exchange. “Body” describes “what” — the physical, and non-physical, forms that money has taken through time (grains, metals, fiat money, cryptocurrency, mobile money, etc). Here he argues that debt, rather than barter, is the precursor to money — much along the lines of David Graeber’s argument in his book Debt: The First 5000 Years. “Soul” is about the “how” of money. How we interact with it, how it changes us, how it blindsides us and how the ancient religious traditions all have very similar guidelines for helping us relate well to money.
A fun and enlightening read.
A well-written guide to the world of cryptocurrency, majoring on Bitcoin but giving ample space to its precursors and to other emerging cryptocurrencies. I picked this book up because I have been following the space semi-closely without really delving in to the details. I even wrote up an article based on conversations with two experts here.
I found the ideas easy to follow, at least at a conceptual level, and can say it’s a thorough introduction to the topic for newbies. While the authors claim not to be making predictions about where this goes, they are clearly bullish about the potential for wide adoption of blockchain (the public ledger of cryptocurrency transactions) technology for driving distributed “trustless” commerce. They are less bullish on the adoption of a bitcoin-like global currency, but see it as an important technology for the internet age.
Although this is written as a leadership book and it dispenses a lot of leadership wisdom from the inimitable Sir Alex Ferguson, I mostly read it for the behind-the-scenes commentary on the football news that I had read in newspapers over the years ((sorry NFL fans: I only know one kind of football!) What, for example, really happened when David Beckham left Manchester United? Was he pushed or did he jump? What about Sir Alex’s fractious relationship with the press, what was going on there? How did he organize his day?
I wasn’t disappointed: he is full of personal anecdotes when he is relating the leadership lessons! His leadership style strikes me as very common-sense, detail oriented, flexible, and hyper-focused on building the right team and incentives to ensure success.
The crux of his message is encapsulated in this quote from a segment on delegation. He says:
I slowly came to understand that my job [as a leader] was different. It was to set very high standards. It was to help everyone else believe they could do things that they didn’t think they were capable of. It was o chart a course that had not been pursued before. It was to make everyone understand that the impossible was possible. That’s the difference between leadership and management
7. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I struggled with his style, like I did with The Black Swan in 2010. However I felt like I grasped the big idea better this time, especially since he rehashed a lot of the ideas in this volume. Black Swans are unpredictable or unforeseen events, typically with extreme consequences (think 2008 financial crisis). Black Swans can affect you in one of three way depending on whether you are fragile, robust, or antifragile. You either break, withstand the stress, or get better because of it.
One of the big take-aways is barbell strategy for antifragility: on the one hand be extremely risk averse so as to be robust against negative Black Swans (e.g. keeping most of your assets in cash), and at the same time extreme risk-seeking to have exposure to positive Black Swans (seeking out low downside, high upside opportunities). In that order.
This book is worth ploughing through for the great insights.
Honorable mentions:
Work Rules! by Laszlo Bock — A beneath-the-covers description of Google’s culture and the people management philosophy behind it. This book is worth reading just for seeing how rigorously Google usea data for making decisions that, in many other organizations, may at first glance look “too soft” for a data-driven approach.
Essentialism by Greg McKeown — A book about accomplishing more by doing less. Big idea: A relentless focus on doing only the few things that really matter leads to more and better results and greater meaning. I read the book at the beginning of 2015 and I feel like I need to go back to it as I begin 2016! Time has a habit of chipping away at the most well-intentioned changes in outlook!