Introduction to InvestingWe live in a capitalistic society, where everything revolves around adding value. Adding value can be anything: farmers, bakers, architects, artists, teachers, athletes. When you go to school, you are being trained to bring value to society. After you finish school and start working, you are being paid for creating value. In this episode, we will lay down the groundwork for the rest of the book that we will be reading in this season. We will also discuss why should every...
Nov 15, 2021•39 min
Recap of the human body books that we have readIf Our Bodies Could Talk: A Guide to Operating and Maintaining a Human Body - James HamblinWhy We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams - Matthew WalkerBreath: The New Science of a Lost Art - James NestorLifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don't Have To - David SinclairGut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ - Giulia EndersBurn: New Research Blows the Lid Off How We Really Burn Calories, Lose Weight, and Stay Healthy - Herma...
Oct 27, 2021•36 min
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never SeenBy Christopher McDougallInspiration for reading this book came when Nico's friend came for dinner wearing these weird-ass shoes. Naturally - he asked him about it, cause Nico love weird stuff, and told him that humans have evolved to walk and run barefoot, and that cushioned shoes are the reason why so many people have issues in their knees, hips and backs, both from running but also from daily life.And the...
Oct 13, 2021•33 min
Death by Food Pyramid: How Shoddy Science, Sketchy Politics and Shady Special Interests Have Ruined Our HealthBy Denis MingerDenise Minger shares her personal story about how she got convinced to go all-out raw vegan at a pretty young age. She initially saw tremendous health improvements, but after a while she started losing a lot of weight. She decided to stop eating vegan after her dentist told her that he/she had never seen such bad teeth in someone her age. She exposes the forces that overro...
Sep 29, 2021•33 min
Burn: The Misunderstood Science of MetabolismBy Herman PontzerWe burn 2,000 calories a day. And if we exercise and cut carbs, we'll lose more weight. Right? Wrong.the Hadza, who every day move around for ~4 hours and 15,000 steps, use the same amount of energy as couch-potato North Americans.Exercise doesn't increase our metabolism. Instead, we burn calories within a very narrow range: nearly 3,000 calories per day, no matter our activity level.Our extremely effective "metabolic compensation" sh...
Sep 15, 2021•32 min
Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organby Giulia EndersFor too long, the gut has been the body’s most ignored and least appreciated organ, but it turns out that it’s responsible for more than just dirty work: our gut is (literally and figuratively) at the core of who we are. The book starts with a voyage through our full digestive tract, discussing the pain-killing powers of our saliva, the shape and structure of our intestines, and the best position to sit on the toilet. The s...
Sep 03, 2021•30 min
Lifespan: why we age - and why we don’t have toBy Dr. Savid Sinclair#1: Aging is a disease: We must move away from treating age-related diseases and focus on their root. Reclassifying aging as a disease is a critical first step in this shift in approach.Sinclair believes we’re wasting money and time on what he calls “whack-a-mole” medic“There is nothing more dangerous to us than age. Yet we have conceded its power over us. And we have turned our fight for better health in other directions.”ine.F...
Jun 30, 2021•44 min
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James NestorNo matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you're not breathing properly.The missing pillar in health is breath, it all starts thereNestor finds that the science of breathing really is a lost art, and discovers more in ancient burial sites and secret Soviet facilities than in modern science labs. Points to antifragility.Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustme...
Jun 23, 2021•38 min
Why we sleepWritten by Matthew WalkerAmazing breakthrough - science has discovered a new treatmentLive longerEnhances memoryMore creativeLook more attractiveMakes slimLowers food cravingsProtects cancer and dementiaWards off colds and the fluLowers risk of heart attacks and stroke and diabetesYoull even feel happier, less depressed and less anxiousNeglecting sleep undercuts your creativity, problem solving, decision-making, learning, memory, heart health, brain health, mental health, emotional w...
Jun 16, 2021•38 min
If Our Bodies Could Talk: A Guide to Operating and Maintaining a Human Bodyby James HamblinDoctor turned journalistLaunched a series of videos for the atlantic in 2014explores the human stories behind health questions that never seem to go away—and which tend to be mischaracterized and oversimplified by marketing and news media.He covers topics like:DietSleepAging• Can I “boost” my immune system?• Does caffeine make me live longer?• Do we still not know if cell phones cause cancer?• How much sle...
Jun 09, 2021•45 min
Recap of the business books that we have readShoedog: Autobiography of Phil Knight, founder of NikeThe lean startup, Eric Ries:How to build a startup, the antifragile wayBen Horowits The Hard thing about hard things helps throw light at the challenges a CEO goes through.The Messy Middle - Scott Belsky: Talks about stuff between the most romantic parts of a venture, from starting in a garage or college dorm to successfully doing a multi-billion dollar IPO.Obviously Awesome - April Dunfordposition...
Jun 02, 2021•37 min
Good strategy, bad strategy: The difference, and why it mattersBy Richard RumeltKey insightsStrategy =/= ambitious goal setting, vision, charismaAround the 60’s, many authors started ascribing leader’s success to their vision, combined with their charisma. This has resulted in a lot of bad strategy, based on ambitious goal setting. Example: 20/20 plan - 20% growth with 20% profit margin. Often a goal or a vision can be a perfectly fine starting point for a strategy. However, the strategy itself ...
May 19, 2021•42 min
Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason MendelsonEver thought about getting investments for your startup? Ever thought about investing in a startup?Whether you are an entrepreneur, an investor, a lawyer or just a stakeholder in the venture capital market, this book is for you!In it, renowned investor Brad Feld addresses some topics within the Venture Capital ecosystem, explaining in a practical and didactic way how things work. You'll understand a bit more about raising money, how to get away from ...
May 12, 2021•38 min
Hooked - how to build habit-forming products by Nir EyalHow do successful companies create products people can't put down?Why do some products capture widespread attention while others flop? What makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit? Is there a pattern underlying how technologies hook us?Nir Eyal answers these questions (and many more) by explaining the "Hook Model" - a four steps process embedded into the products of many successful companies to subtly encourage customer beh...
Apr 27, 2021•38 min
Obviously AwesomeApril Dunford extracts from her own 20+ years of real-world tech marketing experience a basic positioning framework that actually works, because she sees that positioning is often misunderstood, and can be really powerful, especially for saas startupsDefinition: Positioning is the act of deliberately defining how you are the best at something that a defined market cares a lot about.When customers first encounter your product they look for "signals" to try to understand what box ...
Apr 21, 2021•30 min
The High Growth HandbookGlobal technology executive, serial entrepreneur, and angel investor Elad Gil has worked with high-growth, tech companies like Airbnb, Twitter, Google, Stripe, and Square as they've grown from small companies to global enterprises.Across all of these breakout companies, a set of common patterns has evolved into a repeatable playbook that Gil has now codified in High Growth Handbook. In this definitive guide, Gil covers key topics, including:* the role of the CEO* managing...
Apr 14, 2021•33 min
The Messy middle by Scott BelskyMost startup stories describe the most romantic parts of a venture, from starting in a garage or college dorm to successfully doing a multi-billion dollar IPO. Scott Belsky, who is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, Chief Product Officer at Adobe, and product advisor to many of today's top start-ups, goes about it differently. He dedicates this book to the messy middle, the middle stretch, which is the least talked about, but probably the most important part of a...
Apr 07, 2021•33 min
The Hard thing about hard thingsA valuable book for tech entrepreneurs, The Hard thing about hard things helps throw light at the challenges a CEO goes through. Ben Horowitz launched Loudcloud in 1999, just before the dotcom bubble. Their company offers enterprise SaaS to tech clients. Then the trouble began* Because of the dotcom bubble, many of their customers went out of business* Had to IPO to survive, during hard times* After going public, they pivoted to become OPSware, a radically differe...
Mar 31, 2021•27 min
The Lean Startup by Eric RiesA startup is a grand experiment = "a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty"Too many startups begin with an idea for a product that they think people want. They then spend months, sometimes years, perfecting that product without ever showing the product, even in a very rudimentary form, to the prospective customer.Scientific management has been used to optimize processes at the beginning of the 20th centu...
Mar 12, 2021•34 min
Shoe Dog is a memoir by Nike co-founder Phil Knight. The memoir chronicles the history of Nike from its early struggles to its evolution into one of the world's most recognized and profitable companies. It also highlights certain parts of Phil Knight's life.This book is a great insight into the world of business and how a huge company and brand is made from humble begginings. It highlights the amazingly stressful and difficult trials of an entrepreneur and the mistakes and lessons along the way....
Mar 05, 2021•31 min
We (Sam and Nico) look back at what we read on the show in 2020.We both choose our top three books from the year that we discussed on the show and share what the biggest lessons were that really stuck with us. Looking back with hindsight at the most powerful lessons was a great tool to really show what the absolute best books were which can be less obvious in the moment.We also had one wildcard book each that we read outside of the show but was really worth a mention.The top listJoint first(Yes ...
Feb 03, 2021•35 min
Written in Greek by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe.While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that ...
Jan 23, 2021•39 min
The Stoic writings of the philosopher Seneca offer powerful insights into the art of living, the importance of reason and morality, and continue to provide profound guidance to many through their eloquence, lucidity and timeless wisdom.Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves—and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives—and dest...
Dec 26, 2020•29 min
The RepublicWhere Plato lays down his ideas of an ideal state and its rulers. Plato's Utopian state is one which is just and his ideal rulers are philosophers. Presented as a series of dialogue between Socrates and Plato's brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon, in eleven parts Plato step by step forms his ideal state (Part I and II), its rulers (Part IV and Part VII), their education, women's position (Part VI) and the position of art and poetry (Part X) in the new state.Plato’s ideal republic;No demo...
Nov 20, 2020•23 min
EpicurusEpicureanism is powerfully and refreshingly relevant, offering a straightforward way of dealing with the issues of life and death. The chapters in this book provide a changeable of contemporary opinions about Epicurus' teachings.Key to happiness:Don't fear godDon't fear deathWhat is good is easy to getWhat is bad is easy to endureThis doesn't mean Epicururs pleaded for overindulgenceHe made a hierarchy of desiresNatural and necessary desiresNatural and non-necessary desiresVain desiresNa...
Nov 16, 2020•21 min
EnchiridionEnchiridion means handbook: practical guide for lifeStarts with the dichotomy of control;* Some things are in our absolute control, our thoughts, decisions, actions, likes/dislikes* Some things are not in our control; our body, what others think, our position in life, property …Only things that are in our control are good or bad, everything outside of our control is indiffeerent. We shouldn't worry about them.Example: Epictetus had a lame leg.Takeaways:Don’t get so upset about things ...
Oct 19, 2020•26 min
The Confessions of Saint Augustine The book starts off with his early childhood, where he reflects on the inherent violence of children, caused by original sin (chrisitan belief that man is sinful). There’s a parallel with other philosophies. Most philosophies/religions realize that on this basis, humans are flawed. These flaws seem to follow from how we evolved. And so a big part of what these philosophies try and solve is exactly how to overcome our basic urges. Don't Forget to leave a comment...
Oct 12, 2020•23 min
The Last Days of SocratesA Philosophy book by Plato that is divided between 4 partsEuthyphroTakes place just before Socrate's trial is about to beginThe ApologyPlato uses his dialogues to tell the story of the trial of Socrates as he energetically defends himself against the charges of heresy and corruption of youthCrito - Socrates friendCrito, has come to help him escape and Socrates counters crito's arguments choosing to stay in prison and accept his fatePhaedoPlato uses Socrates to espouse hi...
Sep 25, 2020•35 min
We are very grateful for the chance to read and discuss the books this season on the show.As a hot topic we also listened and read a lot of other content we didn't have time to do a full show on but felt it was worth discussing other sources of information and discussing our learnings from a step back.Racism and inequality in the modern world is a hard to understand topic and reading one book is not nearly enough. Hopefully hearing some of the things that helped us and ways of thinking will be h...
Sep 19, 2020•48 min
Nonviolent Communication is based on the assumption that all human beings have capacity for compassion and empathy and that people only resort to violence or behavior harmful to others when they do not recognize more effective strategies for meeting needs.The purpose of Nonviolent Communication is to help us connect to ourselves and others in a way that makes being compassionate natural. It is not about making people do what we want, but by creating connections with others so that everyone’s nee...
Sep 14, 2020•30 min
