Miha Rekar
After No Rules Rules I was so interested in Netfilx I wanted to learn more. So I got recommended this. It's a memoir by the person with the original idea and the first CEO. It neatly describes the entire history from how he was throwing around ideas, how they landed on “mailing DVDs”, and the many many struggles of a early-stage startup. He exited the Netflix almost immediately after it went public. This, to me, tells a lot about a person. To me, this book highlighted the (power) dynamic between Reed and Randolph. Reed gets the work done, while Randolph is the idea guy who with every 1000 ideas sometimes strikes on a good one. But he doesn't know the difference, Reed does.
It's a well written book, and it reads nice, if you're into this sort of things. But there are next to 0 lessons in it that you could take and apply to your life/business.
The central idea of the book is solid and there's a lot to be liked about the win to the 6th way of running a business. The point being caring about everyone related to the business, not just pursuing the profits. Everyone being: customers, employees, suppliers, investors, community, and the environment. Making decisions with all these parties in mind will create a better and more sustainable business.
But all this is based about constant self-praise in the form of Whole Foods being the best of the best. Which would be fine if the subtitle of the book was “and how we implemented it in Whole Foods”. But it's not. It's saying it's about business and it's “heroic spirit”. There's also a lot of hand-wavy cherry-picked statistics trying to prove his points which just leads to a lot of face palming and screaming in the void while reading.
All in all, I agree with Mackey - capitalism isn't great but it's best we got so far. The main problem is pursuing profit for profit's sake. Or growth for growth's sake. Conscious Capitalism tries to give an alternative view and persuade you that this is the way of all the great companies and that all others will fall in line and follow this model eventually. This is where we disagree since I see the future as far more bleak.
It's a “Whole Foods is the best” book camouflaged as business book. It's not bad, but feel free to skip it and read Let My People Go Surfing which is more honest about what it is and also provides you with more actionable ways to run your business.
It is worse, much worse, thank you think.
That's how the book begins. It paints a much bleaker picture than How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates which I read before this one. It includes a lot of current scenarios and best-and-worst future prediction. All of which are very scary. It's as scary as any of the dystopian science fiction post-apocalyptic novel you'd ever read. The scariest part is that I don't think that's an alarmist view, but a realistic one. And it seems like not nearly enough people are aware or taking action.
The near future sketched in the first half of The Uninhabitable Earth is one of a planet tortured by epic wildfires, rising sea levels, megadroughts, famines, acidifying oceans, polluted air, and rising temperatures amidst which hundreds of millions of climate refugees wander a planet in the throes of collapsing economies and emerging conflicts. In short, Wallace-Wells would like you to know that, unless urgent action is undertaken to combat climate change, we are all royally fucked.
We've doubled the amount of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere in just the last 25 years. I'm like. I've remembered that entire time. I'm 33. The last 25 years is all me. That's all us. This wasn't something that just accumulated slowly since beginning of the industrial revolution.
The first half of the book explains Reed's experience with leading teams prior to Netflix and then taking those learnings and applying them to Netflix culture. He talks about how to apply same or similar culture in your own team/company and why you should do so.
The second half of the book is basically Culture Map v2 on the examples of Netflix. So that's a recommended pre-reading although not necessary.
Overall a good book with many interesting points. But, as usual with this kind of books, could easily be 90% shorter without compromising the main points.
TL;DR: Trust your employees and be hones with them.
No matter what you think of Gates and him fudging numbers to boost impressions of progress they've been making, there is no doubt he's a very smart and well researched man.
This book is a great overview of main contributors of CO2 emissions. There are a ton of surprising facts and figures and good examples to reevaluate your worldview on climate change. Global warming is getting progressively worse and we have to speed up taking steps getting to 0 emissions. And no, not using plastic straws is not helping the planet one bit. Changes need to be much bigger and more structural and they have to start rolling out yesterday. We should start with tripling down investment in clean (not necessarily renewable) energy, and efficient massive energy storage.
If you're even vaguely interested in the topic (and you should be since it's endangering existence of humans) I can really recommend reading this.
Favorite book I read in 2020. It's so, so good. Hilarious, yet sobering. I had to stop running several times because I was laughing so hard. Truly showcases how it is to live with severe mental disorder(s). Jenny is a spectacularly good writer and I can't wait for her new book while I'm listening to her first one right after this one
Wow. What a story. David was there since before TV was a thing and he is now on Netflix. Essentially being there for the whole birth, rise, fall, and death of linear TV. And from day 1 he was providing amazing life on earth content. I can not recommend this book enough, and especially in audio form. Attenborough wrote it and narrated it. What more could you wish for. Spectacular.
Well written and full of great insight into one of the best CEOs of our time. I've heard about him from multiple other sources (Jobs' bios, Creativity inc,...), and it's super interesting to hear the same stories from Bob's perspective.
The book has many businesses advices but mostly it's a story of how great mentors can get you wherever you want to go. And Bob tries to be the mentor for the reader of this book.
Highly recommended!
A very dry but accurate depiction of the internet era. Not much new if you followed/lived this era, but will be very useful for young/future generations and everyone not yet familiar with the history of the internet.
Can recommend if you have gotten an interest in this topic recently, but if you've been following this closely all your life, feel free to skip it.
The star rating I gave is misleading. Do I want everyone to read this book? ABSOLUTELY. Do I agree with the author? Eh, somewhat. He makes several excellent points and the core of the book is pure gold. But he also thinks all medicine is useless, mental diseases are made up, and many other bizarre claims. Also it's funny how he accuses researchers cherry-picking cases, to make examples, while he's doing the exact same thing. But overall, the book is truly worth a read. Especially at times like now (I'm writing this amidst COVID-19 pandemic) we see how fragile our modern world really is and how often we would benefit by making things a bit less optimized, and a bit more redundant, making them robust if not antifragile.
If you like podcasts, you'll love this one. It's not a normal audiobook but more like a heavily produced long form podcast episode. Similarly if you're into Gladwell you will enjoy this very much. It's him at his best. Connecting the dots, making the stories, the whole shebang. But it's not particularly usable or applicable in real life. Listen to it as an entertainment not a self-improvement and you'll love it.
Absolutely fantastic book. It should be a required reading for everyone. Mongols were so far ahead of their time it's hard to believe. Equality and coexistence of religions, nationalities, races,...everything was standard under Genghis and even more under Kublai. European image of them could not be more wrong. While we were burning witches they had an open debates (with lots of alcohol) amongst Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists. Mind blowing.
Absolute must read! I've ran much longer runs because I didn't want the book listening to end. Maybe there's too much of his “life story” and too little of his “uncoverings”, but it's a phenomenal book nonetheless. World is in a better place because of him, but we're still far off from good.
Fav quote goes something like: saying we don't need privacy because you've got nothing to hide is like saying we don't need free speech because you've got nothing to say.