What are you reading?
For the new year, Sarah and I instituted a no “random laptopping” after 10pm rule. That means if we’re not doing productive work we shut the laptops and move on to something else. Right now there’s some debate about whether Scrabulous constitutes random laptopping, but for me, at least, the rule has resulted in a lot more reading (a good thing because I picked up a pile of books over the holiday).
I loved Warren Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist. He’s a fantastic example of the benefits of independent thinking. Obviously he’s been amazingly successful financially. However, if you read the book you’ll see he also created an amazingly fun job (for him). Compare that to the unhappy millionaires of Silicon Valley, the only place where “single-digit millionaire” can be used as a pejorative.
Born Standing Up, the Steve Martin autobiography, has been a big hit around the house. Sarah’s mom read it in two days. I charged through it in three days. If you want to borrow it you’re going to have to get in line behind both Sarah and my mom. The thing that I find so interesting about comedians is how much time they spend bombing while developing new material. You could also see that in Jerry Seinfeld’s documentary, Comedian. The entire profession has taken the mantra “fail fast” to heart.
I’ve moved on to The Science of Success by Charles Koch. He’s the CEO of the world’s largest privately owned company. I’m not far enough in to say if I can recommend it.
If you’re looking for more reading material, I just ran across this Personal MBA reading list. I love the descriptions and there are some real gems in this list. The guy has put together a DIY MBA program. Some people like to knock traditional MBA programs for being a waste of money but I can’t say one approach is clearly better than the other. Sarah is in school at the Berkeley Haas MBA program, loves it, is learning a lot, and is building a great network. I’m in the school of hard knocks, love it, am learning a lot, and am building a great network. One thing I can say, is that in year one the school of hard knocks is definitely not cheaper. I gave up way more in salary than Sarah gave up in tuition.
So, what are you reading?
Tags: books
January 15th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I’m reading “Tree of Smoke” by Dennis Johnson about a CIA intellgicence opperative in Vietnam. It is really well written and the parallels to Iraq are unmistakable.