Best Reads from 2023
my favorite books and essays from 2023
Every year I write a list of the best books and essays I read over the year. I used to do it privately, then I did it on Twitter, and last year I did it on Substack. Will be sending this as my book recommendations list for the next 12 months.
Without further ado, here are some of the best things I read this year.
Essays
What’s going on here with this human.
Great essay from a legendary investor on recruiting and evaluating great talent. The stuff on reference checks is especially golden.
Byron Wien’s 20 Life Lessons
Concentrate on finding a big idea. Treat everyone you meet as a friend. Every year, do something you’ve never done – and more lessons from a lifetime of hard-won wisdom.
Great wisdom from another respected investor who died earlier this year.
James Currier on fundraising
I’m cheating because this isn’t one blog post, but James Currier from NFX has several great posts on fundraising that I found helpful while preparing for fundraising for my company.
The 23 Rules of Storytelling For Fundraising (the 4 narrative archetypes he outlines in this piece were especially helpful for me)
History of Payroll Essay Series
Founder these posts by Thomas Otter on the history of the Payroll industry to be fascinating.
My Lifetime Reading Plan
Great views on how reading compounds, lifelong learning, and viewing knowledge compounding as grand strategy.
Heat Death: Venture Capital in the 1980s
Fascinating history of VC in the 1980s. Jerry Neuman’s entire blog is worth reading.
Navigating the Unpredictability of Everything
Another great blog rabbit hole by Jason Cohen. So much of entrepreneurship is steering through uncertainty. This is one of the best essays I’ve read on the topic from someone who’s clearly been there and done that.
Subtle Differentiation (or why there are no 10x products in fintech)
This post articulated something I’ve believed for a long-time, that 10x products are rarer than people think and that being 10x better isn’t the right framework for competing in established industries.
Further Thoughts on the Sea Change
Howard Marks is a legend. Few people have his level of context on financial markets and different market cycles.
Books
Who: the A Method for Hiring
Great read on talent, hiring, and recruiting. Not everything is applicable (depending on your company’s stage), but there are some great universal truths and frameworks in there.
Becoming Steve Jobs
There are a lot of great books on Steve Jobs. Most of them are pure hero worship or paint him as some kind of visionary asshole. This one captures the nuance of how he grew and transformed throughout his career.
The Confident Mind
Great read on building and maintaining the foundations of confidence by a performance coach and psychologist that’s worked with military operators, athletes, and execs.
Elon Musk
Walter Isaacson might be deeply overrated, but I still enjoyed this book.
How the Internet Happened
If you’re a nerd about software and internet history, you’ll enjoy this one.
Behind the Cloud
The rise of Sales Force by Marc Benioff. I liked this one a lot more than I expected to.
Software
Biography on the rise of Larry Ellison and Oracle.
Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire
As you can see, I got really into software and tech history this year. Probably my favorite book I’ve read on the rise of Microsoft.
The Man Who Solved the Markets
Great read on a fascinating topic. I was blown away by the sheer amount of adversity and failure Simons had to push through to eventually crack the puzzle.
Status and Culture
Status is one of the most taboo topics in the western world. It’s everywhere, but we hate talking about it. When we do, it’s always in the abstract. Worth studying and this book was a fascinating exercise in that study.
Complexity
Deep dive into the fascinating world of complexity science and the founding of the Santa Fe Institute.
Billy, Alfred, and General Motors
Spent some time reading about the rise of the auto industry. This book was my favorite from that deep dive. I had no idea that General Motors was essentially a roll-up.
Americana
Fascinating dive into the history of American Capitalism.
The Myth of Artificial Intelligence
Great read on the history of AI research and development.
The Three-Body Problem Trilogy
I finally made it through the entire three-body problem trilogy and loved it. If you’re like me, the best thing to do before reading this trilogy is to appropriately set your expectations. It develops slowly but the concepts will blow your mind.
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect
Easy, fast read with crazy concepts about what happens if we achieve the singularity.
A Fire Upon the Deep
One of my new all-time favorite sci-fi series. Great space opera stuff and big ideas about the future of science and humanity.
House of Suns
Deeply underrated standalone sci-fi read. The book plays with some fascinating concepts around time.
To reading more interesting things in 2024.
Andrew