Normally I'm a one book at time kinda guy. Since I'm a completionist that means I wait until I finish one book until I start the next one.
At least that's how I've read books up until now. Recently I've noted that many people seem to read multiple books at a time. USV's Albert Wenger is the only name that comes to mind now, but there's more - trust me ;)
Also I recently received my annual bulk book purhases, and there are a ton of tempting titles just begging to be read. So I've decided it's time for a change.
I am in the middle of reading three titles now: Rene Gerard's 'Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World', Ron Chernow's 'Washington: A Life', and James Surowiecki's 'The Wisdom of Crowds'. All three are incredibly engrossing and interesting.
Gerard's work is where I am concentrating the bulk of my attention and I'm reading it during my morning and evening commutes. As for the latter two, I am reading one to two chapters each before tucking into bed.
So far so good.
2018년 8월 21일 화요일
2018년 2월 19일 월요일
The Autonomy & Dao of the Korean People
No other book in my life has come close to having as large an impact on both my personal growth and my intellectual development as this book has.
Its title is "The Autonomy & Dao of the Korean People."
I came across it serendipitously as I was browsing a random Korean bookstore just as I was beginning my university studies in Korea.
This book has given me so much. Not only did it help me gain a firm understanding of Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism (better than any English-language material I've ever come across) that worked a type of therapy on the way I view life, but it introduced me - via footnotes - to the two other major intellectual influences in my life: Lewis Mumford and Martin Heidegger.
I have read and re-read this book so many times that the original binding fell apart. Luckily I took it to a local copy store that re-bound it for me. It is full of my marginalia, notes and underlines.
It is my treasure.
Unfortunately, this book has been out of print for years now, and most Koreans aren't even able to read it anyways because of all of the Chinese characters in it. Of course there is no translation available, but I have translated a few passages throughout the years on this blog that may be of interest to some.
Check out those writings via this link, and I recommend you start with 'Dao and Study'.
2018년 2월 6일 화요일
Risk as a Function of Perception
I am just about to wrap up Brad Stone's "The Everything Store," his book on Jeff Bezos and the inception, initial rise followed by hard times, and ultimate success of Amazon.
Usually biographies humanize their subjects, but in this case, Bezos has essentially become a god in my eyes. An angry god to be sure, and one that knows the devil is in the details.
Beyond Bezos though, what really struck and stuck with me, was how the book perfectly captured the anxiety and fear that permeated the markets during the bear cycle and ultimate dot.com bubble pop back in 2000.
At that time Amazon's stock fell to less than $10, losing hundreds of millions of dollars for shareholders and employees. And they were getting *trashed* in the media.
Amazon's then treasurer summed up the fear and anxiety perfectly: "The most anxiety-inducing thing about [the Wall Street bears and negative media] was that the risk [of going to zero] was a function of perception and not the reality."
The real danger was that the negative media might turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that strain of bearish thinking actually took hold for awhile. Large numbers of people illogically thought the Internet revolution and all its invention would just disappear.
It feels like this history is rhyming again today as the crypto sector has just lost hundreds of billions off its network value virtually overnight.
The bears and perma-critics are smugly declaring defeat for cryptocurrencies. Many retail investors probably didn't know anything about the underlying tech so they probably think crypto dead too.
But just as Amazon and its cohort of other dot.com bubble survivors have shown, these sorts of revolutions have a way of upending short-term criticism over the long run. As the internet continues to prove, it has had an extremely powerful non-linear impact on every single other sector.
Amazon used the power of the internet to provide customers - end users - with a level of instant, personalized satisfaction that was impossible before it. That in turn has helped it become a real contender to become the everything store for the whole freaking world.
The seeds carried by the sudden deluge of blockchain and cryptocurrency speculation have just been laid. Already flowers are starting to appear giving a preview of what may be possible soon for end users. It's amazing how quickly they have taken root, and I am sure that there will be an Amazon (or ten or hundred) that'll bloom and grow atop this new technology soon.
Usually biographies humanize their subjects, but in this case, Bezos has essentially become a god in my eyes. An angry god to be sure, and one that knows the devil is in the details.
Beyond Bezos though, what really struck and stuck with me, was how the book perfectly captured the anxiety and fear that permeated the markets during the bear cycle and ultimate dot.com bubble pop back in 2000.
At that time Amazon's stock fell to less than $10, losing hundreds of millions of dollars for shareholders and employees. And they were getting *trashed* in the media.
Amazon's then treasurer summed up the fear and anxiety perfectly: "The most anxiety-inducing thing about [the Wall Street bears and negative media] was that the risk [of going to zero] was a function of perception and not the reality."
The real danger was that the negative media might turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that strain of bearish thinking actually took hold for awhile. Large numbers of people illogically thought the Internet revolution and all its invention would just disappear.
It feels like this history is rhyming again today as the crypto sector has just lost hundreds of billions off its network value virtually overnight.
The bears and perma-critics are smugly declaring defeat for cryptocurrencies. Many retail investors probably didn't know anything about the underlying tech so they probably think crypto dead too.
But just as Amazon and its cohort of other dot.com bubble survivors have shown, these sorts of revolutions have a way of upending short-term criticism over the long run. As the internet continues to prove, it has had an extremely powerful non-linear impact on every single other sector.
Amazon used the power of the internet to provide customers - end users - with a level of instant, personalized satisfaction that was impossible before it. That in turn has helped it become a real contender to become the everything store for the whole freaking world.
The seeds carried by the sudden deluge of blockchain and cryptocurrency speculation have just been laid. Already flowers are starting to appear giving a preview of what may be possible soon for end users. It's amazing how quickly they have taken root, and I am sure that there will be an Amazon (or ten or hundred) that'll bloom and grow atop this new technology soon.
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