The Great American Divorce: Why Our Country Is Coming Apart—And Why It Might Be for the Best


David Austin French - 2020
    

The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties


Paul Collier - 2018
    As these divides deepen, we have lost the sense of ethical obligation to others that was crucial to the rise of post-war social democracy. So far these rifts have been answered only by the revivalist ideologies of populism and socialism, leading to the seismic upheavals of Trump, Brexit, and the return of the far-right in Germany. We have heard many critiques of capitalism but no one has laid out a realistic way to fix it, until now.In a passionate and polemical book, celebrated economist Paul Collier outlines brilliantly original and ethical ways of healing these rifts—economic, social and cultural—with the cool head of pragmatism, rather than the fervor of ideological revivalism. He reveals how he has personally lived across these three divides, moving from working-class Sheffield to hyper-competitive Oxford, and working between Britain and Africa, and acknowledges some of the failings of his profession.Drawing on his own solutions as well as ideas from some of the world’s most distinguished social scientists, he shows us how to save capitalism from itself—and free ourselves from the intellectual baggage of the twentieth century.

Big Data: Does Size Matter?


Timandra Harkness - 2016
    It can help us do things faster and more efficiently than ever before, from tracking wolves through Minnesota by GPS to predicting which crimes are likely to happen where. Mega data has led to scientific and social achievements that would have been impossible just a few years ago. But being too dazzled by the scale, the speed, and the geeky jargon can lead us astray. It's big, but it's not always clever.Timandra Harkness cuts through the hype to put data science into its real-life context using a wide range of stories, people, and places to reveal what is essentially a human science--demystifying big data, telling us where it comes from and what it can do. BIG DATA then asks the awkward questions: What are the unspoken assumptions underlying its methods? Are we being bamboozled by mega data's size, its speed, and its shiny technology?Nobody needs a degree in computer science to follow Harkness's exploration of what mega data can do for us--and what it can't or shouldn't. BIG DATA asks you to decide: Are you a data point, or a human being?

Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives


Nicholas A. Christakis - 2008
    Your colleague's husband's sister can make you fat, even if you don't know her. A happy neighbor has more impact on your happiness than a happy spouse. These startling revelations of how much we truly influence one another are revealed in the studies of Dr. Christakis and Fowler, which have repeatedly made front-page news nationwide. In Connected, the authors explain why emotions are contagious, how health behaviors spread, why the rich get richer, even how we find and choose our partners. Intriguing and entertaining, Connected overturns the notion of the individual and provides a revolutionary paradigm-that social networks influence our ideas, emotions, health, relationships, behavior, politics, and much more. It will change the way we think about every aspect of our lives.

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future


Peter Thiel - 2014
    In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things. Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique. Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies


Nick Bostrom - 2014
    The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. If machine brains surpassed human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become extremely powerful--possibly beyond our control. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on humans than on the species itself, so would the fate of humankind depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence.But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed Artificial Intelligence, to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation?

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World


Jeff Goodell - 2017
    With each crack in the great ice sheets of the Arctic and Antarctica, and each tick upwards of Earth's thermometer, we are moving closer to the brink of broad disaster.By century's end, hundreds of millions of people will be retreating from the world's shores as our coasts become inundated and our landscapes transformed. From island nations to the world's major cities, coastal regions will disappear. Engineering projects to hold back the water are bold and may buy some time. Yet despite international efforts and tireless research, there is no permanent solution--no barriers to erect or walls to build--that will protect us in the end from the drowning of the world as we know it.The Water Will Come is the definitive account of the coming water, why and how this will happen, and what it will all mean. As he travels across twelve countries and reports from the front lines, acclaimed journalist Jeff Goodell employs fact, science, and first-person, on-the-ground journalism to show vivid scenes from what already is becoming a water world.

As Many Reps as Possible


Jason Khalipa - 2019
    Jason lets his actions and accomplishments speak for themselves: devoted father, world champion, global businessman. After years of rigorous training, Jason earned the title of Fittest Man on Earth and finished first in the 2008 CrossFit Games. Hard work and insatiable drive paid off, and his company, NCFIT, grew to success.Jason thought he had overcome insurmountable obstacles throughout his career, but nothing prepared him for the moment when his daughter, Ava, was diagnosed with leukemia. For the first time, Jason was tasked with facing what felt like the unfaceable. He had two choices: succumb to overwhelming anger, or jump headfirst into the fight. He chose the latter.

Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It


Scott Kupor - 2019
    That's where you'll find the biggest names in venture capital, including famed VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, where lawyer-turned-entrepreneur-turned-VC Scott Kupor serves as managing partner.Whether you're trying to get a new company off the ground or scale an existing business to the next level, you need to understand how VCs think. In Secrets of Sand Hill Road, Kupor explains exactly how VCs decide where and how much to invest, and how entrepreneurs can get the best possible deal and make the most of their relationships with VCs. Kupor explains, for instance:- Why most VCs typically invest in only one startup in a given business category.- Why the skill you need most when raising venture capital is the ability to tell a compelling story.- How to handle a "down round," when startups have to raise funds at a lower valuation than in the previous round.- What to do when VCs get too entangled in the day-to-day operations of the business.- Why you need to build relationships with potential acquirers long before you decide to sell.Filled with Kupor's firsthand experiences, insider advice, and practical takeaways, Secrets of Sand Hill Road is the guide every entrepreneur needs to turn their startup into the next unicorn.

The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite


Daniel Markovits - 2019
    Even as the country divides itself at every turn, the meritocratic ideal - that social and economic rewards should follow achievement rather than breeding - reigns supreme. Both Democrats and Republicans insistently repeat meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we are. It sustains the American dream.But what if, both up and down the social ladder, meritocracy is a sham? Today, meritocracy has become exactly what it was conceived to resist: a mechanism for the concentration and dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations. Upward mobility has become a fantasy, and the embattled middle classes are now more likely to sink into the working poor than to rise into the professional elite. At the same time, meritocracy now ensnares even those who manage to claw their way to the top, requiring rich adults to work with crushing intensity, exploiting their expensive educations in order to extract a return. All this is not the result of deviations or retreats from meritocracy but rather stems directly from meritocracy's successes.This is the radical argument that Daniel Markovits prosecutes with rare force. Markovits is well placed to expose the sham of meritocracy. Having spent his life at elite universities, he knows from the inside the corrosive system we are trapped within. Markovits also knows that, if we understand that meritocratic inequality produces near-universal harm, we can cure it. When The Meritocracy Trap reveals the inner workings of the meritocratic machine, it also illuminates the first steps outward, towards a new world that might once again afford dignity and prosperity to the American people.

Break 'em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money


Zephyr Teachout - 2020
    This book is a blueprint for that organizing. In these pages, you will learn how monopolies and oligopolies have taken over almost every aspect of American life, and you will also learn about what can be done to stop that trend before it is too late." —From the foreword by Bernie Sanders.A passionate attack on the monopolies that are throttling American democracy.Every facet of American life is being overtaken by big platform monopolists like Facebook, Google, and Bayer (which has merged with the former agricultural giant Monsanto), resulting in a greater concentration of wealth and power than we've seen since the Gilded Age. They are evolving into political entities that often have more influence than the actual government, bending state and federal legislatures to their will and even creating arbitration courts that circumvent the US justice system. How can we recover our freedom from these giants? Anti-corruption scholar and activist Zephyr Teachout has the answer: Break 'Em Up.This book is a clarion call for liberals and leftists looking to find a common cause. Teachout makes a compelling case that monopolies are the root cause of many of the issues that today's progressives care about; they drive economic inequality, harm the planet, limit the political power of average citizens, and historically-disenfranchised groups bear the brunt of their shameful and irresponsible business practices. In order to build a better future, we must eradicate monopolies from the private sector and create new safeguards that prevent new ones from seizing power.Through her expert analysis of monopolies in several sectors and their impact on courts, journalism, inequality, and politics, Teachout offers a concrete path toward thwarting these enemies of working Americans and reclaiming our democracy before it’s too late.

Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day


Gina Trapani - 2006
    The 88 "life hacks" -- clever shortcuts and lesser-known, faster ways to complete a task -- in this book are some of the best in Lifehacker.com's online archive. Every chapter describes an overarching lifehacker principle, then segues into several concrete applications. Each hack includes a step-by-step how-to for setting up and using the solution with cross-platform software, detailed screen shots, and sidebars with additional tips. Order your copy today and increase your productivity!

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers


Ben Horowitz - 2014
    His blog has garnered a devoted following of millions of readers who have come to rely on him to help them run their businesses. A lifelong rap fan, Horowitz amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs and tells it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, from cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.His advice is grounded in anecdotes from his own hard-earned rise—from cofounding the early cloud service provider Loudcloud to building the phenomenally successful Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm, both with fellow tech superstar Marc Andreessen (inventor of Mosaic, the Internet's first popular Web browser). This is no polished victory lap; he analyzes issues with no easy answers through his trials, includingdemoting (or firing) a loyal friend;whether you should incorporate titles and promotions, and how to handle them;if it's OK to hire people from your friend's company;how to manage your own psychology, while the whole company is relying on you;what to do when smart people are bad employees;why Andreessen Horowitz prefers founder CEOs, and how to become one;whether you should sell your company, and how to do it.Filled with Horowitz's trademark humor and straight talk, and drawing from his personal and often humbling experiences, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures.

The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate And The Corruption Of Science (Independent Minds)


A.W. Montford - 2010
    From the earliest attempts to reproduce the Hockey Stick graph, to the explosive publication of McIntyre's work and the launch of a congressional inquiry, The Hockey Stick Illusion is a remarkable tale of scientific misconduct and amateur sleuthing. It explains the complex science of this most controversial of scientific findings in layperson's language and lays bare the remarkable extent to which climatologists have been willing to break their own rules in order to defend climate science's most famous finding. Already acclaimed by experts in the field, The Hockey Stick Illusion is an indispensable guide for anyone wanting to assess the credibility of global warming science.

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses


Eric Ries - 2011
    But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on "validated learning," rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it's too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.