Book Reviews

69th book of 2020: An elegant turd. After being in the business of ‘managing’ for about two years, it feels like I’ve learned enough to write a book. I have the scars, fines, and wrecked relationships, to prove the tuition paid for becoming a better manager. Will Larson takes a similar experience at Uber and in ‘An Elegant Puzzle’ actually turns it into a book. Unfortunately, both Will and I have no business writing so much about a subject we know little about. This isn’t to say that the lessons in the book are wrong, but that they are not presented in a way that is absorbable, or useful to any reader that cannot tie a list of bullet points back to their own experience. The lessons are presented more in a way of ‘here’s how I do things’ without a thoughtful examination of the alternatives and ways in which separate strategies could work. No subject is covered in any reasonable depth, and many of the sections felt like reading a bullet list. The 3 pages spent on what it means to be a PM I found amusing but not informative. The most memorable takeaway I have is that “A deeply flawed system can’t be saved by bandaids, but can easily absorb your happiness to slightly extend its viability.” but you can save yourself a few hours and just read the blog post (https://lethain.com/doing-it-harder-and-hero-programming/) itself. The second most useful takeaway was the list of book and paper recommendations. I plan to go read: The Goal, Accelerate, 5 dysfunctions of a team, and will revisit the list of papers if I become more engineering focused. Yet if the highest recommendation of a book is its bibliography, maybe better to just look elsewhere.

68th book of 2020: We all work on the phoenix Project Using fiction as a means to teach the audience can be dicey, and while part of me wishes there was a non-fiction version of the book, the narrative structure means that it will be hard to forget the simple lessons that the author was trying to imbue. * Brent - The hero who has trouble setting boundaries and inevitably makes themselves the bottleneck for the entire team. I have one on my staff for my real estate company. * Chris - The middle manager who prioritize their own organization goals above top business objectives. I work with these folks every day, and am also at risk of becoming a Chris with my work on metrics in the day job. * Sarah - The nemesis executive that prioritizes personal gain over company objectives, and is able to use personal relationships to subvert standard attempts at process. The plot has all the subtlety of an Ayn Rand novel, but by giving characters arcs that are not impossible, it provides an easy starting point for the key concepts: * Minimize Work in Process - The more work in process the slower everything goes. * Constraint Theory - The system can only move as fast as its weakest link. * Align Services with Business Objectives - Otherwise certain functions will add negative business value. I’ve found myself using the lessons almost immediately, putting Phoenix Project in the company of ‘The Lean Startup’ and ‘High Output Management’.

三年一个代沟: In China, a common expression holds that every three years brings a generation gap. When I lived in Beijing in 2011, you could see the buildings from the early 2000’s still easily habitable, but quickly worn down and somehow forgotten among all the recent construction that has dwarfed pre-olympic growth in the city. Maybe because by 2020 China’s present feels markedly different than 2006 China, making Oracle Bones an examination of an already bygone era that I didn’t experience and have only seen secondhand, making it hard to feel nostalgia for. Got about 30% in but found myself drawn to other topics. I’m going to set this one down, and maybe come back if/when I spend more time with the 七零后 (70’s) generation.

** 67th,61st books of 2020: Civilization is Just Another Tale… ** **Arabs: a 3000 year journey. “Ink is thicker than blood” ** What does it mean to be an Arab? Western ideology is so enamored with the idea of a nation-state, that it has become difficult for us to imagine the world split on orthogonal axes. Nobody ever speaks of ‘pan-romanism’ as an influence in modern affairs, or the ‘Romantic speaking world’. Without nations, peoples, or states to fall back upon, and unable to write histories without the enforced separation of church and state western historians are often lost when trying to understand العالم العربي ’the Arab world’. ...

** 51st book of 2020 Science of Newborns Says: It’ll probably be all-right. ** After finishing Expecting Better, it’s natural to read the science of infants and toddlers, by our national economist-mom Emily Oster. The best value I found in this book is the ability to not stress out about a bunch of things that others will inevitably have strong opinions on. Knowing that many cultural norms are not supported by science, and a few studies are the best thing that I’ll have in order to work with my wife and chart a course towards politely declining grandmotherly advice (if it comes to that). As Oster says, “You have choices, not control” and I for one want to understand the science before making choices. ...

Kids and career are going to be tough. While there are a lot of books on how to be a good * parent * there are fewer on how to maintain a career while doing it. To plan for it, I will definitely read some lessons from somebody that quit their job, sued their employer and has then researched and written a book on the best strategy for surviving family and the American business world. Learned a lot: ...

5th trimester is a reasonable book about the first few months coming back to work after taking maternity leave. While not as good as Here’s the Plan, still a decent amount to be learned. “Kids don’t remember what you try to teach them, they remember who you are“ Plan your first year of childcare, and treat it like the work it is. Start early with childcare, and think about visiting daycares while pregnant. Have an oncall plan for the baby - who takes over if your primary caregiver cannot? Write up a job description for the nanny, it’s work afterall. When ramping back to work ...

Happiest Baby is a simple formula and brings a decent number of anecdotes, a substantial amount of confidence and a fair amount of detail for dealing with crying babies. While the book felt a bit dogmatic, people swear by it, so it’s a reasonable place to start. Colic tends to resolve itself at about 12 weeks, and 90% of the time is normal. 10% of the time it’s due to underlying medical issues. My notes: ...

** 67th,61st books of 2020: Civilization is Just Another Tale… ** **Arabs: a 3000 year journey. “Ink is thicker than blood” ** What does it mean to be an Arab? Western ideology is so enamored with the idea of a nation-state, that it has become difficult for us to imagine the world split on orthogonal axes. Nobody ever speaks of ‘pan-romanism’ as an influence in modern affairs, or the ‘Romantic speaking world’. Without nations, peoples, or states to fall back upon, and unable to write histories without the enforced separation of church and state western historians are often lost when trying to understand العالم العربي ’the Arab world’. ...

60th book of 2020. ** If Caesar hadn’t crossed the rubicon, would it matter? ** As an upstanding member of western civilization, one cannot help but pick up fragments of Caesar’s story. It’s easy to think that Caesar was the person who brought about a step-change in Roman politics, from the initial years of republic to the later millennium of empire that only fell with Constantinople. But after reading this book, I’m not sure why Caesar is considered such a pivotal figure in history. Were you to put Pompey or Cicero in his place, the result may have been the same, with the only substantial difference being the names on the board rather than the board itself. Even if Caesar lost the civil war, the wheels of history seem perfectly content to grind forward towards empire with a different leading cast. ...