Wiser Than Yesterday: Educational Book Reviews and Summaries

Hooked - how to build habit-forming products by Nir EyalHow do successful companies create products people can't put down? Why do some products capture widespread attention while others flop? What makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit? Is there a pattern underlying how technologies hook us? Nir Eyal answers these questions (and many more) by explaining the "Hook Model" - a four...

Obviously AwesomeApril Dunford extracts from her own 20+ years of real-world tech marketing experience a basic positioning framework that actually works, because she sees that positioning is often misunderstood, and can be really powerful, especially for saas startupsDefinition: Positioning is the act of deliberately defining how you are the best at something that a defined market cares a lot abou...

The High Growth HandbookGlobal technology executive, serial entrepreneur, and angel investor Elad Gil has worked with high-growth, tech companies like Airbnb, Twitter, Google, Stripe, and Square as they've grown from small companies to global enterprises. Across all of these breakout companies, a set of common patterns has evolved into a repeatable playbook that Gil has now codified in High Growth...

The Messy middle by Scott BelskyMost startup stories describe the most romantic parts of a venture, from starting in a garage or college dorm to successfully doing a multi-billion dollar IPO. Scott Belsky, who is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, Chief Product Officer at Adobe, and product advisor to many of today's top start-ups, goes about it differently. He dedicates this book to the messy mi...

The Hard thing about hard thingsA valuable book for tech entrepreneurs, The Hard thing about hard things helps throw light at the challenges a CEO goes through. Ben Horowitz launched Loudcloud in 1999, just before the dotcom bubble. Their company offers enterprise SaaS to tech clients. Then the trouble began* Because of the dotcom bubble, many of their customers went out of business* Had to IPO to...

The Lean Startup by Eric RiesA startup is a grand experiment = "a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty"Too many startups begin with an idea for a product that they think people want. They then spend months, sometimes years, perfecting that product without ever showing the product, even in a very rudimentary form, to the prospective c...

Shoe Dog is a memoir by Nike co-founder Phil Knight. The memoir chronicles the history of Nike from its early struggles to its evolution into one of the world's most recognized and profitable companies. It also highlights certain parts of Phil Knight's life. This book is a great insight into the world of business and how a huge company and brand is made from humble begginings. It highlights the am...

We (Sam and Nico) look back at what we read on the show in 2020.We both choose our top three books from the year that we discussed on the show and share what the biggest lessons were that really stuck with us. Looking back with hindsight at the most powerful lessons was a great tool to really show what the absolute best books were which can be less obvious in the moment. We also had one wildcard b...

Written in Greek by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Mar...

The Stoic writings of the philosopher Seneca offer powerful insights into the art of living, the importance of reason and morality, and continue to provide profound guidance to many through their eloquence, lucidity and timeless wisdom. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves—and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and r...

The RepublicWhere Plato lays down his ideas of an ideal state and its rulers. Plato's Utopian state is one which is just and his ideal rulers are philosophers. Presented as a series of dialogue between Socrates and Plato's brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon, in eleven parts Plato step by step forms his ideal state (Part I and II), its rulers (Part IV and Part VII), their education, women's position (...

EpicurusEpicureanism is powerfully and refreshingly relevant, offering a straightforward way of dealing with the issues of life and death. The chapters in this book provide a changeable of contemporary opinions about Epicurus' teachings. Key to happiness:Don't fear godDon't fear deathWhat is good is easy to getWhat is bad is easy to endureThis doesn't mean Epicururs pleaded for overindulgenceHe ma...

EnchiridionEnchiridion means handbook: practical guide for lifeStarts with the dichotomy of control;* Some things are in our absolute control, our thoughts, decisions, actions, likes/dislikes* Some things are not in our control; our body, what others think, our position in life, property …Only things that are in our control are good or bad, everything outside of our control is indiffeerent. We sho...

The Confessions of Saint Augustine The book starts off with his early childhood, where he reflects on the inherent violence of children, caused by original sin (chrisitan belief that man is sinful). There’s a parallel with other philosophies. Most philosophies/religions realize that on this basis, humans are flawed. These flaws seem to follow from how we evolved. And so a big part of what these ph...

The Last Days of SocratesA Philosophy book by Plato that is divided between 4 partsEuthyphroTakes place just before Socrate's trial is about to beginThe ApologyPlato uses his dialogues to tell the story of the trial of Socrates as he energetically defends himself against the charges of heresy and corruption of youthCrito - Socrates friendCrito, has come to help him escape and Socrates counters cri...

We are very grateful for the chance to read and discuss the books this season on the show. As a hot topic we also listened and read a lot of other content we didn't have time to do a full show on but felt it was worth discussing other sources of information and discussing our learnings from a step back. Racism and inequality in the modern world is a hard to understand topic and reading one book is...

Nonviolent Communication is based on the assumption that all human beings have capacity for compassion and empathy and that people only resort to violence or behavior harmful to others when they do not recognize more effective strategies for meeting needs. The purpose of Nonviolent Communication is to help us connect to ourselves and others in a way that makes being compassionate natural. It is no...

A searching re-examination of the assumptions, and the evidence for and against, current approaches to issues of economic and other disparitiesDiscrimination and Disparities challenges believers in such one-factor explanations of economic outcome differences as discrimination, exploitation or genetics. It is readable enough for people with no prior knowledge of economics. Yet the empirical evidenc...

How to Be an Antiracist is a 2019 non-fiction book by American author and historian Ibram X. Kendi. The book discusses concepts of racism and Kendi's proposals for anti-racist individual actions and systemic changes. AuthorAt the time of authorship, Ibram X. Kendi was an assistant professor of African-American History at the University of Florida. He previously worked at the American University, w...

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism A 2018 book written by Robin DiAngelo about race relations in the United States. An academic with experience in diversity training, DiAngelo coined the term "white fragility" in 2011 to describe any defensive instincts or reactions that a white person experiences when questioned about race or made to consider their own race. I...

The moment you've all been waiting for. Two white guys read the most talked about book on race and attempt to understand our amazing foolishness in a humble manner. Yes we probably mess things up. But it's better to try, make mistakes, learn, and improve, than to just runaway from our own fragilities. About'Every voice raised against racism chips away at its power. We can't afford to stay silent....

Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of radicals at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them--and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environ...

Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life, is a 2018 nonfiction book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a former options trader with a background in the mathematics of probability and statistics. Taleb's thesis is that skin in the game -- i.e., having a measurable risk when taking a major decision -- is necessary for fairness, commercial efficiency, and risk management, as well as being necessary...

Nassim Nicholas Taleb present a blueprint of how to live in a 'Black Swan' world. He begins the book:"Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifrag...

Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote some of his favourite maxims and ways to think in life into a book. This is a great hand book for nuggets of wisdom to ponder upon. Thus ponder we do on some of our favourites. Some examples include* What fools call “wasting time” is most often the best investment.* A man without a heroic bent starts dying at the age of thirty.* The difference between slaves in Roman an...