I love this, man. Your point about chaos masquerading as innovation is spot on. Too many teams confuse motion with momentum. But I think the thread running through these books is less about systems or strategy and more about courage. Courage to say no to bloated processes, to trust your people over policies, to design for trade-offs rather than perfection. I’ve been rereading Antifragile by Nassim Taleb lately, and it complements your list beautifully: systems that thrive aren’t just robust, they’re antifragile... gaining from disorder. We can design organizations to embrace uncertainty, like Kleppmann’s data systems embrace latency. But how do we cultivate the discipline to build invisible systems without losing the spark of creativity? And how do you pick which books to read every month? What's your selection process like?
First of all- great observation about courage, it truly is the source of good leadership.
Taleb's Antifragile is one of my favorite books ever, I've read through the whole Incerto series this year and I intend to revisit them at some point. I agree it does tie in nicely with these themes!
I think that, counterintuitively, building resilient systems means putting just the minimum viable process into them and constantly monitoring if you haven't added too much. This way there aren't that many parts that can break when Black Swans come 🙂
And lastly, when it comes to my reading choices- I have a huge list of recommendations and interests from different sources. I pick usually from that list based on vibes and mood 😄 though this month I intentionally tried to pick up more engineering books just to invest more on the technical side.
This was an awesome read! I really loved what you mentioned with the nudge book you brought up. I feel like that’s what AI is slowly trying to take us away from—ignoring the subtle details that could do so much to shape an outcome. It requires being more attentive and AI is sort of messing that up. Huge lesson to always remain attentive.💪❤️
Great reading list! Loved the curation! Strategy-as-theater and engineering-as-chaos show up everywhere, especially when success gets confused with velocity.
These recaps are awesome! Thank you for doing them.
I’d like to hear more about “fire your workaholics”, for obvious reasons haha
Thank you! Honestly "Rework" is a great book, I might so a deeper dive because I agree with sooo much of it it's unbelievably
Please do!
I love this, man. Your point about chaos masquerading as innovation is spot on. Too many teams confuse motion with momentum. But I think the thread running through these books is less about systems or strategy and more about courage. Courage to say no to bloated processes, to trust your people over policies, to design for trade-offs rather than perfection. I’ve been rereading Antifragile by Nassim Taleb lately, and it complements your list beautifully: systems that thrive aren’t just robust, they’re antifragile... gaining from disorder. We can design organizations to embrace uncertainty, like Kleppmann’s data systems embrace latency. But how do we cultivate the discipline to build invisible systems without losing the spark of creativity? And how do you pick which books to read every month? What's your selection process like?
First of all- great observation about courage, it truly is the source of good leadership.
Taleb's Antifragile is one of my favorite books ever, I've read through the whole Incerto series this year and I intend to revisit them at some point. I agree it does tie in nicely with these themes!
I think that, counterintuitively, building resilient systems means putting just the minimum viable process into them and constantly monitoring if you haven't added too much. This way there aren't that many parts that can break when Black Swans come 🙂
And lastly, when it comes to my reading choices- I have a huge list of recommendations and interests from different sources. I pick usually from that list based on vibes and mood 😄 though this month I intentionally tried to pick up more engineering books just to invest more on the technical side.
That's interesting. Taleb is a genius. Skin in the Game is another masterpiece. As well as The Bed of Procrustes
This was an awesome read! I really loved what you mentioned with the nudge book you brought up. I feel like that’s what AI is slowly trying to take us away from—ignoring the subtle details that could do so much to shape an outcome. It requires being more attentive and AI is sort of messing that up. Huge lesson to always remain attentive.💪❤️
Nudge is a great book! Really makes you look at reality and society and how can we shape it through a different lens
Great reading list! Loved the curation! Strategy-as-theater and engineering-as-chaos show up everywhere, especially when success gets confused with velocity.
Thank you! Oh yes, success getting confused with velocity happens way too often
Great reading list, thanks for sharing !
Thank you! Glad you've found it useful