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• 2015 Best Books Read

  The end of the year is a time for reflection. These are the best books I read in 2015. Bill Gates listed the 6 best books he read this year. We have one overlap, Mindset. Food I like to eat and this was a pretty good year for books about food.

• Book of the Week: Capital in the Twenty-First Century

  This week I read Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, because I wanted to find out the source of income inequality. Why are other people rich and I’m not and what we can do about it. Thomas uses decades of data to explore the how the relationships between income and capital changed over time. The book is really thick, but it only has a single point. There used to be a lot of income inequality, but then the great depression and the world wars messed that up. We are now returning to a world with a lot of income inequality and the only way to prevent that is a progressive tax on capital. The Economist has a four paragraph summary of the book. Convergence

• Book of the Week: If You Can

  As young people I know enter the workforce and get into investing, I wanted to make an easy primer for them to follow. It was hard for me to write something down that would be short and digestible. Fortunately, William J. Bernstein, author of The Four Pillars of Investing, wrote If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly, which summarizes information and mentions other books for further reading. The ebook is short enough that you should just read it. Portfolio Save 15% of your salary in a 401(k), IRA and/or taxable account and split it equally among 3 funds. Rebalance to maintain 1/3 split once a year.

• Book of the Week: Peopleware

  Peopleware is a book about managing productive software teams that was written over 35 years ago. Some things never change. A lot of the challenges companies face are not technology problems, but how do you get a bunch of people together to solve accomplish a task. Things are different when you deal with knowledge workers that need the proper environment to flourish. There are parts of the book I disagree with, but I don’t have any data to suggest that they are wrong. The Seven False Hopes of Software Management

• Book of the Week: Poor Charlie's Almanack

  This week I read Poor Charlie’s Almanack, which details the wit and wisdom of Charles T. Munger, who is anything but poor. Most people know who Warren Buffett is, but I doubt most people know who is second-in-command is. The poor in the book title is a reference to Poor Richard’s Almanack from Benjamin Franklin of the $100 bill. The book is divided into several sections. Not a book that you read in bed, but more like a coffee table book for people who like Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A).

• Book of the Week: The Art of Raising a Puppy

  There’s a new puppy at work, so that inspired me to read The Art of Raising a Puppy written by The Monks of New Skete, who train German Shepherds for profit. I doubt I’ll get a puppy since they require a lot of care and time, which is in short supply. I do however want to learn how to train a puppy. According to the ASPCA, approximately 1.2 million dogs are euthanized a year. This is sad, because people don’t take responsibility for their animals, by having them spayed or neutered or taking care of them after adopting them. Stages of a Puppy’s Life As the puppy grows up it goes through several stages.

• Book of the Week: The Happiness Hypothesis

  This week I read The Happiness Hypothesis, which was mentioned in another book I read. I didn’t like the book. Most of the happiness books I read tell things up front and go over different research studies. This book does have some research studies, but I’ve read about those studies in other books. What’s different about this book is that it approaches happiness from historical philosophical and religious perspectives. Ancient wisdom isn’t as compelling to me as peer reviewed research that provides concrete information about happiness. It is good to read books that approach happiness from a different angle even though you may not like it. Divided Self

• Book of the Week: High Output Management

  High Output Management is one of the books that is on the reading list for business people. The book was written by Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel (INTC). At first I was turned off by the book since it was directed at middle managers. I have a disdain for middle managers, because they don’t really do anything and add to organizational complexity. They aren’t the ones in the trenches doing things. Then Andy mentioned “know-how managers”, who use their specialized knowledge to influence organizations. A manager’s output is the output of their organization and output of other organizations influenced by the manager. Damn it, I’m a middle manager since my output is not solely dependent on myself. Once I got over that, the book was pretty good and I could see why it is on those reading list. There are three ideas in the book.

• Book of the Week: Liar's Poker

  Before Michael Lewis wrote Flash Boys, he was a bond salesman for Salomon Brothers in London. Salomon Brothers was described in When Genuis Failed, but Liar’s Poker goes into more depth inside the company. Fools

• Book of the Week: Getting Real

  Scott Cook, one of the cofounders of Intuit, recommended Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application by Jason Fried, during his talk at Stanford. I previously read Rework by Jason Fried. If you wanted a different way of building a web application instead of raising tons of VC money and burning it in Silicon Valley, read this. The book was a quick read, because it condensed all the relevant points. Here are a few sections from the book. Start With No It is important to do one thing well than trying to everything poorly. A fork and a spoon is much better than a spork. How often to see sporks in places other than school cafeteria? In order to do the core things well, you need to say no to feature requests. Hidden Costs If a request makes it past you saying no, you need identify all the hidden costs associated with said request. Then you can say no again. Forget Feature Requests If something is important enough, your customers will bring it up again. No need to track and remember stuff. This is why it is important to get users early on. It is impossible to respond to every feature request. From Idea to Implementation

• Book of the Week: Honeybee Democracy

  This week I read Honeybee Democracy by Thomas D. Seeley after it was mentioned in Simple Rules. This book is about how honeybees make decisions when they swarm.

• Book of the Week: When Genius Failed

  When I read the title, When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management, I thought long-term capital management was a concept and not a company. How little I know. They named the company that way for a reason. This book reminds of this XKCD comic: Engineer Syllogism. Long-Term Capital Management Cast