Business

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter Bernstein is a book about man’s constant battle against the forces of fate. This is a fight that has existed for millennia, and in each epoch, influenced by the dominant ideology of the time, we have dealt with risk differently. Bernstein outlines the evolution of … Read more

Risk Aversion Think of your wealth as a pile of bricks with large bricks as the foundation and with smaller bricks the higher you go. A brick that is removed from the top will be larger than the next brick you can add to the pile. The pain from losing a brick is greater than … Read more

Gambling Human beings have always been infatuated with gambling because it puts us head-to-head against the fates, with no holds barred. Should you refrain from acting in the hope that time will shift the probabilities in your favor? Hamlet complained that too much hesitation under uncertainty is bad, because overdeliberation will ruin spontaneity, but once … Read more

In the spirit of The Checklist Manifesto, I will keep this summary short. High stakes mean that margin of error is low. Surgeons and pilots must minimize error because of high stakes. They love checklists. If your work doesn’t save lives, it’s okay. You can still improve the quality of what you produce. Use checklists … Read more

Human Incompetence In The Glass Cage, Carr warns about a near future that is dominated by artificial intelligence – he argues that the problems that come with advanced artificial intelligence go beyond the loss of jobs for some people the way technology always had. He thinks that at some point, because of the ease with … Read more

The 50th Law by Robert Greene and Curtis Jackson (50 Cent) is about overcoming fear. The ten chapters of the book each focus on a common fear between people – this may be a fear of change, or death, or of leading from the front, or of being patient. The virtues that lead to success … Read more

The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith was written at a time when Mercantilism was the dominant economic policy. Those who advocate mercantile policies think that for any country, imports are bad while exports are good. But what Adam Smith argued for, was that the key to growth and prosperity, was not to engage in … Read more

Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence is a book about gaining control over your attention. It’s getting harder to focus because there is more information and more ways to access this information. But what is important is to think of attention as a muscle, that, if worked on, will get stronger. What you decide to … Read more

The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson is the story of how money developed throughout history- and how the world was shaped and reshaped by the many financial innovations that accompanied our dependence on money. There have been countless failures in finance, but the general trend has consistently been upwards. The Foundations of Finance In … Read more