OM
Partner emeritus @Trueventures I was a reporter once. I write about tech @ https://t.co/bsm7q5FzIT My Tumblr: https://t.co/V3CysXbJnu. Subscribe to my FREE Newsletter: https://t.co/DlJUkufF1R
10+ Book Recommendations by OM
Aesthetic Science
Alexander Wragge-Morley
"The scientists affiliated with the early Royal Society of London have long been regarded as forerunners of modern empiricism, rejecting the symbolic and moral goals of Renaissance natural history in favor of plainly representing the world as it really was. Alexander Wragge-Morley challenges this interpretation by arguing that key figures such as John Ray, Robert Boyle, Nehemiah Grew, Robert Hooke, and Thomas Willis saw the study of nature as an aesthetic project. In fact, they practiced a science that depended on harnessing the embodied pleasures and pains that arise from sensory experience. Aesthetic Science reveals how judgments of taste and pleasures played a central role in the formation of consensus in scientific communities and the emergence of what we now understand as scientific objectivity"--This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends
Nicole Perlroth
From The New York Times cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth, the untold story of the cyberweapons market-the most secretive, invisible, government-sponsored market on earth-and a terrifying first look at a new kind of global warfare. Zero day: a software bug that allows a hacker to break in and scamper through the world's computer networks invisibly until discovered. One of the most coveted tools in a spy's arsenal, a zero day has the power to tap into any iPhone, dismantle safety controls at a chemical plant, and shut down the power in an entire nation-just ask the Ukraine. Zero days are the blood diamonds of the security trade, pursued by nation states, defense contractors, cybercriminals, and security defenders alike. In this market, governments aren't regulators; they are clients-paying huge sums to hackers willing to turn over gaps in the Internet, and stay silent about them. For decades, the United States was the only player in this market. Now, it is just the biggest. Our primary adversaries are now in this market too, each with its own incentive to exploit the Internet's vast security holes for their own spy operations, or all-out cyberwar. This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends is cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth's discovery, unpacked. A intrepid journalist unravels an opaque, code-driven market from the outside in-encountering spies, hackers, arms dealers, mercenaries, and a few unsung heroes along the way. As the stakes get higher and higher in the rush to push the world's critical infrastructure online, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends is the urgent and alarming discovery of one of the world's most extreme threats.The Victorian Internet
Tom Standage
The New Builders
Seth Levine
Despite popular belief to the contrary, entrepreneurship in the United States is dying. It has been since before the Great Recession of 2008, and the negative trend in American entrepreneurship has been accelerated by the Covid pandemic. New firms are being started at a slower rate, are employing fewer workers, and are being formed disproportionately in just a few major cities in the U.S. At the same time, large chains are opening more locations. Companies such as Amazon with their "deliver everything and anything" are rapidly displacing Main Street businesses. In The New Builders, we tell the stories of the next generation of entrepreneurs -- and argue for the future of American entrepreneurship. That future lies in surprising places -- and will in particular rely on the success of women, black and brown entrepreneurs. Our country hasn't yet even recognized the identities of the New Builders, let alone developed strategies to support them. Our misunderstanding is driven by a core misperception. Consider a "typical" American entrepreneur. Think about the entrepreneur who appears on TV, the business leader making headlines during the pandemic. Think of the type of businesses she or he is building, the college or business school they attended, the place they grew up. The image you probably conjured is that of a young, white male starting a technology business. He's likely in Silicon Valley. Possibly New York or Boston. He's self-confident, versed in the ins and outs of business funding and has an extensive (Ivy League?) network of peers and mentors eager to help his business thrive, grow and make millions, if not billions. You’d think entrepreneurship is thriving, and helping the United States maintain its economic power. You'd be almost completely wrong. The dominant image of an entrepreneur as a young white man starting a tech business on the coasts isn't correct at all. Today's American entrepreneurs, the people who drive critical parts of our economy, are more likely to be female and non-white. In fact, the number of women-owned businesses has increased 31 times between 1972 and 2018 according to the Kauffman Foundation (in 1972, women-owned businesses accounted for just 4.6% of all firms; in 2018 that figure was 40%). The fastest-growing group of female entrepreneurs are women of color, who are responsible for 64% of new women-owned businesses being created. In a few years, we believe women will make up more than half of the entrepreneurs in America. The age of the average American entrepreneur also belies conventional wisdom: It's 42. The average age of the most successful entrepreneurs -- those in the top .01% in terms of their company's growth in the first five years -- is 45. These are the New Builders. Women, people of color, immigrants and people over 40. We're failing them. And by doing so, we are failing ourselves. In this book, you'll learn: How the definition of business success in America today has grown corporate and around the concepts of growth, size, and consumption. Why and how our collective understanding of "entrepreneurship" has dangerously narrowed. Once a broad term including people starting businesses of all types, entrepreneurship has come to describe only the brash technology founders on the way to becoming big. Who are the fastest growing groups of entrepreneurs? What are they working on? What drives them? The real engine that drove Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs. The government had a much bigger role than is widely known The extent to which entrepreneurs and small businesses are woven through our history, and the ways we have forgotten women and people of color who owned small businesses in the past. How we're increasingly afraid to fail The role small businesses are playing saving the wilderness, small towns and redlined communities What we can do to turn the decline in entrepreneurship around, especially be supporting the people who are courageously starting small companies today.Klara and the Sun
Kazuo Ishiguro
"From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara--an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities--watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara she is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous tale, Klara and the Sun, Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?"--Moon Shine
Rachel Boillot
Moon Shine features photographs from Appalachia's Cumberland Plateau. This work is inspired by the musical traditions native to this soil. From this point of inquiry, a lyrical portrait of place emerges.- Today, there is nothing easy about creating a brand name that sells. It takes more than creativity and marketing acumen. It takes clear thinking and unflinching resolve to invent something new and useful. This small book was written to pass on to readers some of the insights we have gained by working on some of the most challenging assignments with some of the most talented clients across the globe. Over the years, we have sought to apply a coherent set of ideas in extraordinarily different ways. One of the great beauties of brand development is that each time it is like starting over again.
Cool Gray City of Love
Gary Kamiya
"A kaleidoscopic homage both personal and historical . . . Kamiya's symphony of San Francisco is a grand pleasure." --New York Times Book ReviewDeadline Artists
John P. Avlon
The Art of Stillness
Pico Iyer
Explores why modern-day technology is making people more likely to retreat into solitude and quiet, with growing numbers of people practicing yoga, meditation and tai chi and even taking an “Internet Sabbath” where online connections are shut down for a day. 50,000 first printing.