Category: Business Books
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VC: An American History (2019) by Tom Nicholas
The United States is, beyond doubt, the most innovative economy in the world and has been for decades, if not centuries. There is no simple explanation or formula for this remarkable and enduring success, but I’m convinced that America’s uniquely large and risk-embracing venture capital ecosystem has played an important role. In VC: An American…
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Quantum Computing for Everyone (2019) by Chris Bernhardt
According to mathematician Chris Bernhardt, quantum computing represents “a beautiful fusion of quantum physics and computer science.” His book, Quantum Computing for Everyone (2019), offers a remarkably accessible primer on a technological revolution that now seems just over the horizon. Bernhardt focuses not on the engineering challenge of building quantum computers, but on the theory…
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The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest (2022) by Edward Chancellor
Some books are good, fewer are great, and only a rare handful amount to an education. These are the works that fundamentally reshape how you see the world—how you understand the past and imagine the future. The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest (2022) by Edward Chancellor is one of those rare books.…
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Paying with Plastic: The Digital Revolution in Buying and Borrowing (Second Edition) (2004) by David S. Evans and Richard Schmalensee
Paying with plastic – especially now using our smartphones to tap-and-pay – is so easy and ubiquitous that it’s almost hard to imagine a time before credit cards transactions. Perhaps the most incredible part of the process is how fast and relatively secure it is when you consider all the moving parts and various players…
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The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket (2020) by Benjamin Lorr
Life is short, and the list of worthwhile books is inexhaustibly long, so it pays to exercise some due diligence when choosing what to read. I picked up The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket (2020) by Benjamin Lorr for two reasons. First, Confluent’s Startup of the Year was a…
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Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology (2022) by Chris Miller
In Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology (2022) historian Chris Miller delivers a comprehensive and urgent account of how the semiconductor has become the most critical – and contested – resource in the modern world. His central insight is that microchips are not merely the foundation of the digital economy but…
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Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers (1986) by Richard E. Neustadt
As an avid reader of history, I’ve long struggled with putting my learning to use in day-to-day situations, whether that be in evaluating critical business decisions or in helping me better observe and understand the world around me. On the one hand, there is the familiar aphorism attributed to George Santayana that those who ignore…
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Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster (2007) by Dana Thomas
The early twentieth century anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski studied the yam-based culture of the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea. Villagers conspicuously displayed their yam harvest in front of their huts as a sign of wealth, but also power and prestige. At roughly the same time Norwegian-American economist Thorsten Veblen famously argued that people in the…
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The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger (2006) by Marc Levinson
Like most inhabitants of earth, I never gave much thought to intermodal shipping. It wasn’t until I served as an economic development officer in southern Afghanistan and began looking into ways we could more efficiently export the high value fruits and nuts grown locally to the lucrative markets of the Middle East that I discovered…
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