I will (and believe can) summarise Insight Selling by Mike Schulz and John Doerr with a few quotes.
I managed to get halfway through the book. Concurring with Naval Ravikant who does not read business books as ‘they are very simple ideas wrapped up in a lot of pages’. I also agree to not read books that are not keeping your attention.
Jelle Brandt Corstius fietst naar de Middellandse Zee met een koffiekopje van de as van zijn vader in zijn fietstas.
Onderweg kijkt hij terug op het Opperlands universum van zijn vader, Hugo. Hij leert fietsen. Hellingen beklimmen. Leest ondertussen de gedetailleerde wereld van Knausgård. (Wiens vader ook van alles blijkt te verzinnen.) Maakt zich steeds zorgen over de gevoelloze lul die hij na elke dag fietsen in zijn broek vind. Geeft een lesje klimmen voor beginners.
“Het klimmen kun je beter in een rustig verzet beginnen, om daarna de berg te ‘voelen’. Op een gegeven moment heb je een een ritme waarvan je weet dat je dat een half uur kunt volhouden – langer is zelden nodig. Over het algemeen hebben bergen een redelijk constante hellingsgraad, behalve helemaal aan het eind: daar komen de haarspeldbochten. Daar moet je je laatste energie voor bewaren.”
Jelle vertelt over de continue pesterijen van zijn vader. Dat dit niet alleen in diens columns aan de orde was maar dat dit door ging in zijn dagelijks leven.
Over het plezier dat zijn vader beleefde aan burgerlijke ongehoorzaamheid, hoe hij dit zich als doel op zich leek te maken.
Het eigen Malle Hugo universum van zijn vader. Waar waarheid en fictie doel elkaar lopen. Waar wereldvreemdheid en publieke figuur met elkaar in gevecht zijn. Waar onverklaarbare zaken werden afgedaan met de uitleg: “Pirelli”. Waar kinderen kunnen weglopen en naar huis terugkeren zonder dat vader iets in de gaten heeft gehad.
Maar die ook een vader is die zijn kinderen leert te overleven door ze naar spartaanse zomerkampen te sturen.
Opperlandse Taal en Letterkunde stond bij ons thuis in de boekenkast. Ik vond het een heerlijk voorbeeld van zinloze wetenschap. Toch fantastisch dat iemand zoveel tijd besteed om met zoveel precies de meest onwaarschijnlijke taalwereld te scheppen.
Jelle heeft ook zijn universum, en lijkt de denken dat zijn universum de normale wereld is.
Het is een universum van een vriendelijke vervreemde reiziger, verdwaald in de echte wereld. Waar hij zich verwonderd over mondaine zaken, maar waar hem net als zijn vader vreemde zaken overkomen omdat hij vreemde zaken onderneemt.
“Waarom trek ik toch altijd dit soort mensen aan? Zijn het de vragen die ik stel? Of is het andersom? Ben ik zelf op zoek naar dit soort mensen?”
Het is een universum dat ik ook vind in Murakami. Maar in Murakami overkomt het de protagonist echt.
Jelle is een zelfverkozen Murakami-karakter met een eigen wil, omringt door gekken. Geen gevaarlijke gekken, maar vriendelijke gekken.
I wrote about the darkness of suppression of a totalitarian regime and how that influences the lives of people, when I discussed The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes and Jonathan 
Doerr’s All The Light We Can Not See.
Purity by Jonathan Franzen is the third book I recently read that is dominated by the totalitarian overcast. In this case the dictatorship is the DDR, East Germany during the times of the iron curtain.
All The Light We Can Not See by Anthony Doe
rr is one of the 3 books I recently read in which the tyranny of a totalitarian regime shapes the life of the main characters.
The other books are The Noise Of Time by Julian Barnes and Purity by Jonathan Franzen.
All The Light is is V-shaped book. The legs of the V are the lives of the two protagonists. A German boy grows up under the Nazi regime. A French, blind girl lives in Paris. The story develops, we follow there lives and finally they meet. As if their lives we only meant for that one special occasion.
I somewhat randomly bought the The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes. Barnes is one of the writers on my ‘read anything they write’ list (another one is Haruki Murakami, yet another Douglas Coupland).
So I did buy the book for its main topic – a fictionalised biography of Dmitri Shostakovich. Actually, as I had not read any review of the book nor its cover, it took me a couple of pages to reach the point where I realised this was about Shostakovich. Or probably more precisely, about his moral struggle with the Soviet government.
The beginning breathes the dark brown stifling atmosphere of Kafka’s The Trial. Desperate, helpless, surrendering to untouchable power of bureaucratics.
Barnes writes how Shostakovich becomes famous as a composer but is not able to enjoy his success. He gets to visit the United States, but as a total puppet of the USSR politics. He holds speeches drenched with political statements, but including nothing of his own vision. The composer seems to half realise what he is doing, and seems to justify it for his family. So the story turns to Shostakovich courage, or lack thereof, his cowardness, betrayal, moral shame.
Barnes describes wonderfully how the oppression permeates every hole in the life of Shostakovich. It makes me wonder how he was still able to write such wonderful music.
Who does art belong to? The people? The state? The ‘big goal’?
Music in the USSR is played ‘as meant by the artist’, or ‘ strategic’ – meaning in accordance with the norms of socialist art.
But in music there is an purity. Something that can not be washed away by norms, politics, ethics, violence. A purity that stands the Noise of Time. Eternal. Context free. An undebatable truth.
And this purity in music probably explains how Shostakovich was able to continue to make his wonderful music, while being oppressed by this totalitarian regime.
Of course Tom Peters doesn’t need an introduction. He wrote In Search of Excellence with Bob Waterman, a monumental book from 1982 reporting on the key characteristics of
successful companies. I would summarize it as: well-run businesses don’t bullshit around.
In 2010 Tom Peters gathered his thoughts in 163 categorized topics, The Little BIG Things. I reread all the Things recently. It has been a fun read again, and here’s a list of the things I like so much about this book.
Not sure where I dug up the reference to Tim Kreider’s We Learn Nothing, but I am sure it was a reference from a self help book.
So when I began with this book I was quite confused. It was like taking a sip coffee, expecting the bitterness of a black coffee but testing the sweet creamy flavor from the choice of you friend opposite you with your cup and a disgusted frown on his forehead after tasting yours.
So this is not a self-help book. They are essays about the strangeness in Tim Kreider’s life. Just to mention a few:
Annoying: pages 237 through 240 are shuffled in my print of The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul. Though not entirely surprising, the crumbly paper was an indicator of a sloppy edition. Maybe it is a collector’s item now. Mail me and you can have it.
I bought it about ten years ago, and recently reread Rudy Rucker‘s The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul It is a very interesting book, although it smells odd here and there.
Rucker writes about Alan Turing that Turing ‘apparently was given to bringing home sexual partners he met in the streets.’ What does he mean with that phrasing? For historical facts on Turing, I prefer to rely more on Turing’s biographer Andrew Hodges who wrote the respectable biography Alan Turing: The Enigma. Hodges pictures Turing as naive in confessing his homosexuality (for that time), but also describes him to be rather restraint in getting involved in sexual relationships. What I am sure I haven’t read anywhere is that Turing would go skimming the streets looking for ‘sexual partners’ (sexual partners – is that really correct English?).
Also the idolizing references to Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science are unnecessary. Wolfram generously takes care of that himself.
Also, Rucker’s habit of regularly quoting his own Science Fiction stories to illustrate his theories begins to annoy me at some point. I understand his frame of reference, but he is not very scientific in this way of providing ‘proof’.
But, as said, the book offers a number of very interesting ideas and visions. I realize I sound so negative, but I really enjoyed the book.
Rucker confirms that Artificial Intelligence – the discipline in Computer Science – has not achieved a lot. After my personal introduction to scientific AI, I became very suspicious. I found it odd that AI was dealing with decision rules, (fuzzy) logic, and the like. And used this awful programming language Prolog. Wasn’t there anything better to focus on in Artificial Intelligence? Cognitive is hot these days, but is it really Artificial Intelligence? A step forward, probably.
Rucker describes the life box—a device that captures every aspect of your life. I’m not sure if he invented the concept, but it is the first time I saw it described in such a realistic, predictive way.
This book has become history. The lifebox is there. People like Cathal Gurrin are walking around with cameras and devices recording everything they do all day.
It has been staring at me for months, Limit from Frank Schätzing this fat bodied eco thriller. A gift. So thick I had to bring myself to starting it, knowing I could not get let go until I had finished it.
Abundance is the word that comes too mind. Almost too much for me.
The first half is a slow starter and introduces the reader to (semi) science. I was waiting for the action. The second half is a thriller.
An English space company Orley has build a space station attached to earth. Invite billionaires of earth to invest. The Chinese and the US want to join. China and US are in a sort of cold war. They do no seem to have a balancing economic dependency any more, like there is today, where is it gone?
Funny references: a Fernando Botero figure? Had to look that up.
The Truman show. Not named but a reality show of people that do not know they are actually in a reality show.
A sketch of Russia after Putin and Medvedev.
The future fantasies of Erich von Däniken.
A scene from Tomorrow Never Dies. Spectre. And a media concern that wants to dominate the world’s media very much like the Carver Media Group Network (CMGN).
A sketch of future living on planets, very much like the ideas of Peter Diamandis? Mankind live in space ships, mine planets for raw materials but do not live on these planets.
David Bowie performs Space Oddity for the guests in the space station. Age 78.
Partially a detective. A Chinese dissident girl is on the run for the Chinese government. Being chased by her father’s detective and another unknown entity has hired a hunter. She is Internet specialist, a hacker. Lives in Shanghai.
An unclear relation to the space story.
In the story some interesting forward looking views on what life on earth will look like in 2025. Cities are massive and rural areas empty. Some parts of cities are forgotten and have become worlds in themselves. Virtual reality has become mainstream to a point where people get addicted to living in cyber worlds.
Interspersed with thrillerlike pursuits and shootings. Limbs are lost.
Second Life has developed into a parallel universe. Artificial intelligence is developing it further. Singularity there, at last.
A post-oil era where electricity is now dominant, generated by helium 3 excavated on the moon, name made accessible by the new space station.
Political views of post oil situation.
A race on the moon. I recently watched The Martian and reminded me of this book. Human trying to make a living in space.
In the end the bad guys are the oil industry. The Prize comes to mind.
I am supersaturated. My stomach feels like I have eaten a 3 pound steak. I must lie down.
The Hard Thing: probably best book for business founders from practical perspective. Together with Zero To One by Peter Thiel. And Shapiro’s Hot Seat.
Not one of these simple concept much blabla books but very practical and illustrative on many aspect of being the leader in a growing startup.
About the CEO as decision making machine, making decisions with little information. Against odds and diverse interests.
About hiring the right team.
Breathes humility. No blasé BS.
Horowitz was the CEO of Netscape, the company that was one of the first to free us from Microsoft’s hold on the computing industry.
Someone writing new functionality for computers no longer wrote for Microsoft’s proprietary platform. Instead, they wrote to the Internet and World Wide Web’s standard interfaces. Once Microsoft lost its grip on developers, it became only a matter of time before it lost its monopoly on operating systems. Along the way, Netscape invented many of the foundational technologies of the modern Internet, including JavaScript, SSL, and cookies.
Horowitz disagrees with the thinking that companies should ask customers what they want. Like Steve Jobs he disagrees, and is convinced companies themselves are responsible. This contrasts strongly with current views in larger companies that define the customer’s input as the most valuable for the determination of the way forward with products.
But as Steve jobs said people don’t know what they want until you show it to them, Horowitz holds a similar opinion.
It turns out that is exactly what product strategy is all about—figuring out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.
…
The customer only knows what she thinks she wants based on her experience with the current product. The innovator can take into account everything that’s possible, but often must go against what she knows to be true. As a result, innovation requires a combination of knowledge, skill, and courage.
Horowitz provides very practical advise, hates badly run organisations and has clear views on how to improve.
In good organizations, people can focus on their work and have confidence that if they get their work done, good things will happen for both the company and them personally. It is a true pleasure to work in an organization such as this….
In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting, and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not.
He goes into very practical matter like how to hire execs and other staff. how to manage the sales.process. How to execute performance evaluation.
Often companies defer putting performance management and compensation processes in place. This doesn’t mean that they don’t evaluate employees or give pay raises; it just means they do so in an ad hoc manner that’s highly vulnerable to political machinations.
I would add cynically that in sick organisations there is no grantee whatsoever this will be different when a formal process is in place. In my experience this can still be turned into bureaucratic BS, fulfilling only the goal to tick boxes.
Therefore, you must have a formal, visible, defensible promotion process that governs every employee promotion
Promoting people above there competency is not only a danger to watch out for – the famous Peter principle. But also if f you unjustly promote someone to a title that is crappy person he will become the reference – the Law of Crappy People.
… the Peter Principle holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent
“The Law of Crappy People states: For any title level in a large organization, the talent on that level will eventually converge to the crappiest person with the title.
He quotes Zuckerberg who wants engineers at same level as business
Next, he finds that businesspeople often carry inflated titles versus their engineering counterparts. While he recognizes that big titles help them out externally with getting meetings, he still wants to have an organization where the product people and engineers form the cultural core, so he strives to keep this in check as well.
Horowitz warns for short the term thinking that may lead management in making business decisions too much.
While it may work to have individual employees who optimize for their own careers, counting on senior managers to do all the right things for all the wrong reasons is a dangerous idea.
…
“technical debt” is now a well-understood concept. While you may be able to borrow time by writing quick and dirty code, you will eventually have to pay it back—with interest. Often this trade-off makes sense, but you will run into serious trouble if you fail to keep the trade-off in the front of your mind. There also exists a less understood parallel concept, which I will call management debt. Like technical debt, management debt is incurred when you make an expedient, short-term management decision with an expensive, long-term consequence. Like technical debt, the trade-off sometimes makes sense, but often does not. More important, if you incur the management debt without accounting for it, then you will eventually go management bankrupt.
What to read next:
Peter Thiel – Zero To One.
What to listen to.
a16z podcast.