book / recommends
Three Men in a Boat
“It's a tough one for me, because I just read an enormous amount of books and then I can't remember which ones I've read. I sometimes often joke that there's a classic British comedy from the late 19th century called Three Men in a Boat, which is like my I Ching. We're having trouble hanging a picture. Well, there's a section about that. We're having trouble doing this. Oh, well, there's a story about that, all of which are hilarious. So Three Men in a Boat is my I Ching. There's a book by, I think William Cronon, about the Economic History of Chicago, which is fascinating and actually very relevant to technology, because it's talking basically about standardization and packetization, and logistics, and channel conflict, and network dynamics, and network neutrality. So, when the meat packers of Chicago reach the point that it's cheaper to ship a cow from New York to Chicago, kill it, pack it, and then ship it back to New York than to kill it in New York, and the pricing of refrigerator cars, and it's exactly like reading about broadband. It's all the same kind of... So those kinds of business issues, which is fascinating. What else have I read? I don't know. Read books, read different books, generally read books for grownups. Please read something other than Lord of the Rings, if you're going to name another company. I saw this one and what was the latest Peter Thiel company. I was like, "Read another book." Everything is named after a character from this one book. There's more than one book in the world. There is more than one book than all about science fiction. Read about different things, read about things you don't know about.”