Updates
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If you stumble across something interesting, send it my way! You can send any recommendations to links@houstonp.com.
Books
One Click by Richard L. Brandt - The story of Bezos and Amazon is a good lesson for everyone. Bezos is a ruthless entrepreneur, but he sticks to his values and intellect. Amazon is talked up as a customer-centric company, and Brandt gives the necessary context to understand how that came to be.
The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 by Paul Krugman - Krugman spent a lot of time on the tools a central bank has in its toolkit to weather crisis – changing interest rates and expanding the money supply. He published the book after QE1, and he ends up getting quite a bit wrong about what happens with QE2 and QE3, but it was still a worthwhile read to understand the Depression Era economics.
Change or Die by Alan Deutschman - Relate. Repeat. Reframe. Deutschman used a catchy title to talk about how people and companies change, but he walks the catchiness back in what ended up being an enjoyable read. I especially liked his example related to IBM. When the insurance industry is constantly getting claims of “disruption,” this book walks through the steps of how a company or person can change their behavior and culture.
David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell - Gladwell has always been hit or miss for me. He tends to boil things down or simplify complicated topics to tell a good story, but this book surprised me. He reframes what it means to be a David or Goliath. His example of a girl's basketball team playing full court press the entire game clearly made his point.
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari - I thought Sapiens by Yuval was great, and when Yuval turned towards the future, it did not disappoint. Society and culture, humans and animals, religion and economics – this book had it all. Highly recommend.
I said last week I don't usually polish off five books in a week, but when I have free time, I usually pick up something to read.
Podcasts
Some extraordinary episodes from this week:
The Dictator’s Playbook - Your Undivided Attention - If you haven't listened to all of the episodes of Your Undivided Attention, you are really missing out. We are in the attention economy era now.
George Rzepecki – Investing in Africa - Invest Like the Best
Microgrids can help us be more energy resilient - Marketplace Tech
The Mind-Bending Ascent of Helium – And Why It's Running Low - Short Wave
Videos
You really should binge all of Bon Appétit.
Great Impractical Ideas in Computer Science: PowerPoint Programming - I've seen some crazy stuff in Excel, but this takes the cake on crazy. Never would I dream of wanting to make a Turing Machine in PowerPoint
What does the Laplace Transform really tell us? A visual explanation (plus applications) - The video is a great explanation of the Laplace Transform. This takes me back to differential equations in college. I haven't used them since, but I always enjoy a good math video.
Articles
Fierce Prioritization - This is a short read. You should read it and then forward it along for others to read as well.
“What are the 30% of your activities that you should spend 100% of your time on?”
The Acceleration of Addictiveness by Paul Graham - Addictiveness is growing. It was written almost a decade ago, but it's as relevant today as ever. There's a lot to think about here with what we as a society value.
Scikit-learn’s Defaults are Wrong - Articles like this are exactly why I advocate for data science practitioners to have a solid grasp of the fundamentals. Not knowing how a model works is negligent. As is the case the article lays out, if you don't understand what the defaults do, you could have completely incorrect results.
Would you notice if your calculator was lying to you? - In a similar vein, black boxes can be traps for those with blind faith.
Modern Data Practice and the SQL Tradition - I tell everyone that is interested in data science that SQL and relational databases are the two most important items to learn for your career. This article focuses more on the data engineering spectrum, but it still applies.
Design better data tables - User interfaces are important for practitioners. When those practitioners are leaning heavily on data, a good UI for data is valuable. I wish more pieces of software took note of this.
Learning Curves: How Simple Splines Help Designers Model Complex 3D Forms - This article reminds me of a lecture I went to in undergrad by an engineer at Pixar. Math is in everything whether you think it or not.
How to Make ‘Self-Care’ Actually Feel Like Self-Care - Self-care is so important. Everyone should heed this advice and take care of themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Avoid Burnout Before You’re Already Burned Out - In a related piece at NYT, burnout is real, and you should do your best to avoid it at all costs.
Voyager 2’s Discoveries From Interstellar Space - I've always been in love with space and astronomy. Both Voyager spacecrafts are achievements of all humanity.
What Shape Is the Universe? A New Study Suggests We’ve Got It All Wrong - There is so much to still figure out about the universe.
How Scientists Got Climate Change So Wrong - Hint: it's worse than they have been predicting. This opinion piece delves a little in to the economic impact of climate change. The economics are harder to argue against for those that oppose doing anything to fight climate change.
Tech and Liberty - This piece by Ben Thompson goes in to the first amendment, technology companies, and the implications of telling a company to censor things. I'd read this before listening to the accompanying Exponent podcast above.
Regulating Big Tech makes them stronger, so they need competition instead - This is exactly what I'm fearful of when it comes to regulating technology companies. I don't know how to address competition when the network effects are so significant, but it needs to be addressed.
A New Digital Manifesto - I agree with most of what is written in this “manifesto.” It's disheartening how often I hear people not taking digital rights in the internet age seriously.
Improbable Probability - Five laws about why improbable events seem to always happen. It's a nice reminder for actuaries and others in finance.
You really can fool some of the people, all of the time - Bias is everywhere. This is always something to be cognizant of because it affects you whether you know it or not.
“According to David Perkins of Harvard University, the brighter people are, the more deftly they can conjure up post-hoc justifications for arguments that back their own side.”
The World Has Gone Mad and the System Is Broken - Dalio brings up a lot of good points in this article. I have his new-ish book on debt crises, but haven't prioritized it until reading about it here.
Decisions, Decisions or Why Baskets of Options Dominate - I would have never thought to apply the concept of call options to project roadmaps, but it works well.
How Andreessen Horowitz Evaluates CEOs -
“1. Does the CEO know what to do? 2. Can the CEO get the company to do what she knows? 3. Did the CEO achieve the desired results against an appropriate set of objectives?”
Time Series Prediction - A short introduction for pragmatists - A solid introduction to time series analysis that goes to show that a regression can get you a pretty dang long ways.
Netflix Culture - Company culture is an important factor in determining whether to work somewhere or how successful an organization can be. Netflix lays out what it values and isn't afraid to say you might not be a good fit. I like that.
Uber Posts $1.2 Billion Loss as Growth Improves and Uber Announces Results for Third Quarter 2019 - I'm always interested how investors react to earnings results and how a company decides to spin its story. I'm bearish on Uber, but it does have some similarities with early Amazon. I wonder though how impatient investors will be with massive losses like this continuing.
This hits almost too close to home.
That's it for this week. Again, if you have anything you want to share or have any comments, shoot me an email at links@houstonp.com.