Latest Posts

• The 4 Types of Software Developers

  A machine learning expert remarked that they are 4 types of software developers and proceeded to describe them all. Here is my fuzzy recollection of the conversation.

• Book of the Week: An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

  This week, I read retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield’s An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination and Being Prepared for Anything. You may recognize Chris from his public outreach efforts when he was on the International Space Station (ISS). If you ever wanted to know how it feels like to be an astronaut (enemas before launch), this book is for you. I’ve read plenty of books about success and happiness, but Chris Hadfield is a person who has lived it. He speaks from personal experience instead of scientific studies. Somehow it seems more real coming from him. Space Oddity Music Video [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo&w;=560&h;=315] Space Burrito with Chef Traci Des Jardins w/ The MythBusters [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8-UKqGZ_hs&w;=560&h;=315] Astronaut

• Book of the Week: Succeed

  Succeed is about how people can reach their goals. The book goes over goals in the context of relationships, parenting, business, health and sports. It breaks down different aspects of goals to compare and contrast them. But the answer to which direction you should lean to is unclear, because it always depends on the situation. This isn’t that helpful if you’re looking for some rule of thumb to follow. The book has bits and pieces, but other books have gone more in depth into each topic. I think this book is probably more accessible if you want to dip your toes into goals and happiness. If you want to be effective, you need to set specific difficult, but realistic goals. Effort versus Talent

• Book of the Week: Misbehaving

  I’m reading Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics this week, because Thaler is a buddy of Robert Schiller, the author of Irrational Exuberance. The book is a chronological journal of Thaler’s adventures in behavioral economics. The book doesn’t linger too long on a subject. It feels like you’re taking a nice stroll with a friend. Supposedly Irrelevant Factors Thaler abbreviates supposedly irrelevant factors as SIFs throughout the book. Traditional economist based their work on the assumption that there is type of person who behaves completely rational,homo economicus. They call this person an Econ for short. SIFs are things that are not supposed to affect decisions an Econ would make. This book is about all of those SIFs and how they do affect how real people make decisions. Real people don’t behave like Econs. The Endowment Effect People value things they already have more than things they could have. This leads to irrational decisions. AcquisitionUtility vs TransactionUtility Acquisition utility is the traditional utility gained minus the opportunity cost. Transactional utility is the perceived quality of the deal, which is is different between price paid and a reference price. It something looks like it is on sale, it will provide utility in addition to the acquisition utility. This leads to people buying stuff they don’t need, because it is on sale. Sunk Cost Money you already spent shouldn’t affect your future decisions. Your gym membership and Amazon Prime membership are sunk costs. They should not factor into whether or not you should go to the gym or buy stuff from Amazon. House Money Effect

• Book of the Week: Mindset

  Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck talks about how there are two mindsets, the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. These mindsets tint how people perceive the world in all aspects of life leading to success or failure in their endeavors. I’ve read about a study saying that you should praise kids for effort rather than being intelligent if you want them to succeed in life. Carol Dweck did that study. The book describes how the growth mindset is better than a fixed mindset and how these differences play out in business, relationships, sports, school, etc. The fixed mindset resulted in Enron. Fixed Mindset versus Growth Mindset This graphic (available for purchase) by Nigel Holmes provides a good summary. The Praised Generation

• Book of the Week: Elon Musk

  This week I read Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. I know most of the events and facts (divorce, asking friends for money, etc.) surrounding Elon since bought Tesla stock (TSLA), but this book fills in a little bit more about the person. How his upbringing shaped his risk tolerance and his personality. If anybody makes me feel like I’m not doing enough with my life, it’s Elon Musk. Africa Some stuff happened that he won’t talk about. Also had a messed up childhood which toughened him up. Paypal

• Book of the Week: The Future For Investors

  In Siegel’s previous book, Stocks for the Long Run, he laid out that nothing beats stocks in terms of long term returns. My problem with this is that past performance is not a guaranteed of future gains. There was a 30 year period where stocks did not have any real gains when adjusted for inflation. This book, The Future for Investors, is about which stocks you should buy. Indexes are okay, but Siegel’s analysis shows that you can do better. Growth ≠ Returns

• Book of the Week: The Effective Engineer

  This week, I read Edmond Lau’s The Effective Engineer since one of my coworkers had a copy of the book and suggested I read it. It’s a book about how to be a more effective engineer. By giving me this book to read, my coworker is implying I’m not effective. What a jerk. As I read the book, I’ve noticed that the author references a lot of other books that I have read. If you’re in silicon valley, there is an implicit school of thought and body of knowledge that comes from books and practices being spread around. You don’t really get this by staying at a company. Edmond migrated around a few companies and interviewed a bunch of people to acquire this body of knowledge. This makes this book a good starting point for a new engineer coming into silicon valley, but seems kind of pedestrian to veterans. But it is still good to be reminded of best practices. If you don’t follow best practices, you wind up with something like burning $292 million for healthcare.gov. Although that also was due to consulting firms milking the government for money. Alternatively, you could have gotten a few unicorns from a venture fund with that money. Leverage The book is about leverage and creating as much value as you can as an engineer. Leverage = Impact Produced / Time Invested. You can increase value you product per unit time by:

• Book of the Week: Venture Deals

  I was inspired to read Venture Deals after reading Heidi Roizen’s delightful blog post about How to Build a Unicorn From Scratch – and Walk Away with Nothing. Very often a new entrepreneur will sign something eager to be finally funded without realizing all the repercussions down the line. Why sometimes it is better to raise less money at a more reasonable valuation to avoid a down round. This book covers how entrepreneurs raise money from venture capital firms and what happens behind the scenes to get the deal done. A must read if you are raising funds. Also read the errata, since there was a error on the term sheet calculations. Term sheets are complicated. The book points out a lot of things to watch out for and tells you how you should negotiate and focus your lawyers. Gender Pronouns I’ve notice a trend that more recent books use the female pronoun “her” when referring to a scientist, an engineer, an entrepreneur, etc. Brad tried writing the book with both genders, but it was confusing, so he stuck with the male pronoun. I would have just used the female pronoun if you make it a point to call it out on your book. It’s like saying, I tried and failed, but I still believe in women. Venture Capital Firm

• Book of the Week: Irrational Exuberance

  This book is about speculative bubbles by Nobel Prize winning Yale economics professor, Robert J. Shiller. Each new revision of the book was close to a bubble that popped. The first edition was close to the stock bubble. The second edition was close to the real estate bubble. This third edition published in 2015 has news sections on the bond bubble. Shiller is known as the great predictor of bubbles. The later edition also comments on the previously predicted bubble that popped. I expect a fourth edition that covers a new bubble with commentary on the bond bubble that popped after the release of the third edition. The book is divided in sections that talk about the structural factors, cultural factors and psychological factors to lead to irrational exuberance.

• Book of the Week: inGenius

  This week, I read inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity, because I wanted to read another book by Tina Seelig, but this one was available. I found the book fairly thin on new content, but full of stories. Stories that I have heard before and some new ones. If you already know of Tina’s creativity class at Stanford, you could probably skip this book. Innovation Engine The inside of the engine

• Book of the Week: On Food and Cooking

  This week I read On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee since it was one of the recommended books for the Harvard class about food on edx, Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science. Harold McGee worked with Thomas Keller at the three Michelin star restaurant, The French Laundry. These guys know their food. The book is over 800 pages long, so I treated it as a reference book and did not read the whole thing. The Four Basic Molecules Food is made up of four basic molecules: water, lipids, carbohydrates and proteins. Water is everywhere. How things interact with water accounts for a lot of the action. How things dissolve in water and how water changes state affect your results. Lipids don’t like water and have high boiling points. Fatty food tastes better. Carbohydrates are mixed with water and show up as sugars and starches. Proteins are sensitive and change a lot depending on pH and temperature. Cooking is manipulating these molecules from their raw form into something delectable and amazing. Harvard I wonder why type of prep school student would take class on food at Harvard. It’s not likely they are going to cook themselves since they’ll be eating at fancy restaurants such as The French Laundry, which doesn’t even do your laundry for you. Some seek knowledge to impress other people rather than the pure pursuit of knowledge. This reminds me of the bar scene from Good Will Hunting and Richard Feynman talking about the name of a bird. Some people try to use their fancy pants knowledge to make others feel less about themselves, so they can feel better. I imagine having dinner with some student who took the course wanting to impress others with their knowledge. On the other hand, maybe a student of the class with pursue baking after getting degree in Applied Mathematics and Economics like Joanna Chang, who started Flour Bakery. Her cookie recipe from Flour got me plenty of compliments. I shouldn’t pick on Harvard. I sat in a seminar on BBQ at a physics conference in Texas. Good food is not reserved for the wealthy. The brisket used to be a cheaper piece of meat that was made edible by cooking it low and slow. Unfortunately, even brisket has been gentrified and now you have people like Franklin Barbecue. Before lobster was food for the poor, so there is no going back. Eggs There is a 50 page chapter on eggs. The chapter talks about the history of eggs, how eggs form biologically, different components of the egg, the chemistry inside the egg, at what temperature do different proteins in the egg solidify, egg dishes, egg safety, egg foams, egg-liquid mixtures, different ways to preserve eggs, how to tell the freshness of the egg, etc. More than what you would ever want to know about eggs. One of the most interesting things I learned is that if you cook an egg for a really long time (7 hours), the glucose in the whites will turn the egg white brown. Ramen I think the book dismissed an entire food group, instant ramen. It has one sentence about it and refers to it as Ra-men.