Welcome to the first reading list newsletter! I have loved reading since I was in elementary school. Whether it’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or textbooks, I believe reading provides the most exponential opportunity for improvement and learning. As I’ve gotten older, my focus has shifted toward nonfiction, and business/biographies in particular, but I still sprinkle in fiction books to help turn my brain off before bed.
Not everyone has or makes time to get through multiple books in a month. It’s my hope that this newsletter will turn into a regular suggestion list for those of you looking for one or two great books, and I would also love for it to serve as a springboard for conversations with others who have read these suggestions.
Here are the books I read in January 2024:
Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell
I’ll admit, I had never heard of Tony Fadell. Steve Jobs? Of course. Jony Ive? Yes. But Tony Fadell had built the iPhone twice before he was on a team with either of them. That tidbit opens your eyes and get you interested in what Fadell has to say. The book ends up being part life story and part business philosophy, and he calls it unorthodox because his business philosophy doesn’t include a lot of the perks so many startups offer today. From his time at tiny startups, to his time managing hundreds of people in the world’s most valuable company, Fadell hits on everything from working 90 hour weeks, to making sure the customer comes first, to dealing with different types of board members. Not everything he mentions will have immediate application for your situation, which means it doesn’t have to be read linearly, but it is all valuable information with quality real-life examples.
Hidden Games: The Surprising Power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behavior by Erez Yoeli and Moshe Hoffman
Game Theory is one of those subjects that has always been intriguing to me. Probably because it is easily the coolest sounding subsection of economics. However, the probability theory and statistical analysis one would need to know in order to do it correctly would no doubt take some time to master. The book gets slightly technical in some explanations, but it is more focused on showing how simple game theories can explain so much irrational human behavior. Understanding the simple logic behind why some people can’t let bygones be bygones, or why altruism is much more prevalent than it should be, will lead you to look at many scenarios differently. The book also provides some practical advice on norm enforcement and cooperation that would be very beneficial in building organizational culture. If you’ve read other behavioral economics books like Misbehaving or Nudge by Richard Thaler, I recommend this one.
Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, America’s Black Wall Street by Victor Luckerson
This book is a dry, but necessary read. Similar to Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann and Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King, the main theme is just how destructive white nationalism and racism were in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century. Pre-Depression Greenwood may have been the most successful African-American community in the country based on wealth creation and real estate ownership. And then an all-too-common occurrence happened. A black teenage boy somehow touched a white teenage girl in an elevator, and it ended with hundreds of deaths and an entire community burned to the ground. This book goes into detail about what happened over 48 hours in Greenwood, Oklahoma. It’s horrific and enraging, but then it goes further. It follows Greenwood families through the decades as they fight to rebuild, battling inane “urban renewal” and gentrification. Honestly, I feel it might have been more powerful if it had been written in a historical fiction context, for example Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy, but it remains a stark reminder of the type of hate our country deals with.
CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest by Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra
I have mixed feelings about large consulting firms like McKinsey & Company. Probably because I read The Firm by Duff McDonald several years ago, in which you get a glance at how the company played a role in building the Enron bubble and rode K-mart into bankruptcy. They’re not always right. But there is no doubt that they employ some of the brightest business minds in the world and they have made themselves indispensable to the world’s largest corporations. I could see this book becoming required supplemental reading in MBA programs across the country. Not necessarily for any of the traits they identify in great CEOs, but because of the sheer amount of quotes from quality CEOs about how they think about and approach problems within the company. One thing McKinsey has going for it is access to great minds, and this book is full of their musings!
Books For Next Month:
There are a lot of interesting books that came out in January that I hope to dive into next month. I’ve listed some of my possibilities below. Let me know if you plan on reading any of these as well or if you have other suggestions!
- The Everything Token: How NFTs and Web3 Will Transform the Way We Buy, Sell and Create by Steve Kaczynski
- Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters by Brian Klaas
- Making It In America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the USA by Rachel Slade
- The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy by Nick Romeo
- Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet by Chris Dixon
- The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder by Robert Sutton