Books I've read in 2021

Here are all the books that I've read in 2021

Feline Philosophy - John Gray

Another John Gray book, even if you are not a cat lover (I wasn’t) you can enjoy the book.

The 10 tips for a feline life at the end are must read and should be re-read from time to time.

Death in Venice - Thomas Mann translated by Heim

I really liked this novel, on the second level the story is about how an old artist wants to recover the fire he had when he was young, the Eros that guided his creativity, and in the stress to recover it he only found death.

Disrupting Class - Clayton Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, and Michael B. Horn

I have a company that provides language learning classes with private tutors as a service, so I’m reading all I can on learning. This was a good book from someone who knows a lot about innovation. It reaffirmed some of the ideas that I already had and put them in better words.

The minimalist entrepreneur - Sahil Lavingia

Great book to anyone who wants to start a business. Sahil is a great practitioner and has a very reflective mindset, those qualities usually don’t come together. I will try to write a better summary in the future.

Antifragile (Incerto rereading) - Nassim Taleb

This is the book I gifted most. I cannot say anything that I haven’t already said. This is a must read if you haven’t read it. And please read it slow to enjoy it more.

Black Swan (Incerto rereading) - Nassim Taleb

Every time I reread the Black Swan I find something new. It is a great treatise on epistemology and the limits of our knowledge. It’s a great companion to have if you are feeling certain about an idea.

Fooled by Randomness (Incerto rereading) - Nassim Taleb

I like re-reading the Incerto not only to discover new ideas, but to discover new books to read.

Every time I read it, I add a new book to my reading list. Fiction and non-fiction, the anti-library keeps filing.

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds - Charles Mackay

This are tumultuous times, people are selling their property to buy new assets that prophets promises that they will make them rich. What we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history. Fully recommended this to anyone who wants to buy cryptos and NTFs

The mythical man-month - Fred Brooks

This is a must read for anyone involved into tech. The essays are timeless.

Conceptual integrity, the role of a Tech Manager and Producer, and No Silver bullet are worth rereading.

In fact No Silver Bullet it’s something I keep quoting since I read it in College.

A world beyond physics - Stuart Kaufman

This was a good book and a fast read. The idea that resonates a lot with me is that systems (synthetic or not) which behave like an organic one cannot be predicted, because a change can be enable new things that cannot be thought a prior.

This is a mindset I have when building a tech product, new features (and tech) can be enablers for new things. So planning in long term (> 4 months) it’s pure waste.

The prophet - Kahlil Gibran

This is for reading slow and rereading from time to time. I can’t select any specific idea, what I can say is that when reading it made me feel calm and that’s priceless.

The Black Tulip - Alexandre Dumas

I read this novel because it came to when reading Fooled by Randomness as Nero Tulip means Black Tulip. It’s a good fiction, you can read it fast. But it’s not the great Dumas. You should read The Count of Montecristo.

Histories - Herodotus

I love to read the ancients, they made me feel very small, and give me a lot of perspective.

Herodotus it’s very readable and has a lot of great anecdotes, which most of them are retold by Montaigne. I still prefer Xenophon.

Safe Haven - Mark Spitznagel

This is a great book which I was waiting since I pre-ordered (last year I think)

Mark know very much what he is doing and writes it in a very engaging way.

Ideas that keep resonating:

Better returns don't require higher risk, in fact they need lower risk.

Amor Fati, you have only one path, make sure you love it.

What I learned Losing a Million Dollars - Brendan Moynihan and Jim Paul

This is one of the books that came from the Incerto.

Great read for this tumultuous times, don’t follow the crowd, don’t follow snake oil sellers.

Think for yourself, plan and keep a log of your decisions as emotions can fog your mind.

The birth of the tragedy - Friedrich Nietzsche

This was a pending reading since I read Antifragile.

On first level it’s about greek art, on the second level it’s about the human mind.

Nietzsche writes in great prose the conflict between the rationalistic mind and the emotional mind.

Working Backwards - Bill Carr and Colin Bryar

I like this book very much, it has great insights on how amazon operated in their beginnings.

Great ideas that resonates and I try to apply in my company:

The bar raiser for the hiring process, someone that’s not the hiring manager should have a vote when hiring new people.

New features and projects should be thought a priori and discussed in a writing form. Writing it’s great to clarify an idea, and reflect.

Empowered - Marty Cagan

Having read Inspired I expected too much of this book.

It gave me some ideas on leadership and some templates to apply in my company, but it’s too long and it feels like a compilation of blog posts.

This the usual thing with a lot of “business” books.

Inspired - Marty Cagan

I think this a good book for someone who wants to have an intro into tech products and what capabilities and roles should a product team have.

It’s like “epistemological base” in order to research more about them.

Shape Up (Rereading) - Ryan Singer

This book it’s great. I read it last year and re read it for better applying the ideas.

Ryan it’s a practitioner and also has a great reflective mind. And that makes it worth reading.

It takes some “agile” ideas but grows them defining new the ingredients that are needed for a successful project definition. Bets, Rabbit holes, cycles, Stop losses.

It doesn't have to be crazy at work - Jason Friedman

I read it when the year started, it has some good ideas.

But If I have to pick one I would read Rework.

My Life and Work - Henry Ford

I wanted to read about the concepts of manufacturing process on order to understand the current state of Software building from the beginning.

This was a great insight into the mass production mindset. Which still lives in some software companies.

Toyota Production System - Taiichi Ohno

This is one of the best books I read. And a must read. I think people who talks about lean haven’t read this. Lot’s of ideas.

TPS philosophy it’s about a better way that a group of people can flourish in their craft.

Out of the Crisis - W. Edwards Deming

This a long read, some chapters are boring, but Deming really knows about quality.

I liked very much the idea that individual performance goals are worthless. You should have metrics, but if they become an objective they will be gamed an detriment the whole system.

A great tech lead is someone who remove systemic barriers.

Lean Software Development - Mary and Tom Poppendieck

Another book I’ve read in order to understand better the current state of software building processes.

It’s a very good read. It has some very good template questions that function as triggers to reflect with your team.

Making Things Work - Yaneer Bar-Yam

A great book indeed. Being an information system developer our mindset it’s prepared to think about complexity.

An idea that resonates with me: Complexity profile, the solution should match the complexity profile of the problem in order to be an effective solution. It’s similar idea to Ashby law of requisite variety.

It makes you think about the current state of “AI” and if it can replace a human mind.

Peopleware - Timothy Lister and Tom DeMarco

Excellent read for anyone who is in charge of managing people and teams.

An idea that resonates with me: Rituals vs Working meetings. People are not fully replaceable, learning is limited by an organization’s ability to keep its people.

Notes on the Synthesis of Form - Christopher Alexander

Great read to think about design.

Context - Function - Form. It’s a basic but powerful idea.

Also I liked very much the idea that good design happens when there aren’t any misfits.

Demand Side Sales - Bob Moesta

Great book to think about Jobs To Be Done on the whole process of a business, from the sales perspective and how to build from there.

If you want to learn more about Jobs to be done, this is the book.

Competing Against Luck - Clayton Christensen

The book that defined the concept of Jobs to Be done.

It’s has great insights, and makes you think.

Has great ideas, yes. Could have been shorter, yes.

Team Topologies - Manuel Pais and Matthew Skelton

Good book to think on how to organize teams.

It made me think that mostly every team that creates value (tech or not) should have a “platform” team that thinks about how to improve the processes and the experience of the value creators.

Are your lights on? - Gerald Weinberg

This was a good and funny book.

The most powerful idea is that finding a solution is not the problem, the problem is to know what problems needs to be solved.

On Writing Well - William Zinsser

A book on writing. It states a very powerful idea that good writing it’s rewriting. Similar to software that good quality it’s achieved when refactoring.

I think I expected too much of this book, but hey it motivated me to write more.

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

I liked this novel. It makes you feel dizzy and disgusted with how cruel the human species can be.

Also it makes you think that everything all around you is darker. Powerful writing indeed.

Silence of the animals - John Gray

I like John Gray because it makes you reflect about humans from an outside perspective. It transport my mind above and think very critical of our behavior. This is our place in the world.

Black Mass - John Gray

Another great take by Gray, this makes you think how hungry we are for narratives, and mostly all our political movements behave more like a cult. Reason it’s common behavior for the human species.