In the past few years, philosophy and literature have become foundational to my perspectives as a creator. Nietzsche showed me what it means to be a god, while the Upanishads brought me to a collective self. Dostoevsky showed me the power of love to conquer all suffering, while Camus showed me to love suffering itself. Above all, I have learned that the greatest minds in our collective history valued art as the antithesis of everything wrong in their time. As we move forward, this understanding is ever more valuable in creating solutions that are accessible, everlasting, and human.
(I have also read books on market microstructures, portfolio management, and options trading, but… that’s finance slop)
- Albers, Josef: Interaction of Color
- Aurelius, Marcus: Meditations
- Bahcall, Safi: Loonshots
- Berkeley, George: Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues
- Camus, Albert: A Happy Death · The Fall · The Myth of Sisyphus · The Rebel · The Stranger
- Chomsky, Noam: Chomsky on Anarchism · How the World Works
- Confucius: The Analects
- de Jong, Cees W.: Dieter Rams: Ten Principles for Good Design
- Descartes, René: Discourse on Method and Related Writings
- Dostoevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment · The Idiot · White Nights
- Droste, Magdalena: Bauhaus
- Easwaran, Eknath: Essence of the Upanishads
- Eliot, T.S.: Collected Poems, 1909–1962
- Epictetus: Discourses and Selected Writings
- Gladwell, Malcolm: The Tipping Point
- Guillebeau, Chris: The $100 Startup
- Hume, David: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
- Inwood, Michael J.: Heidegger: A Very Short Introduction
- Kafka, Franz: The Metamorphosis
- Lencioni, Patrick: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
- Loos, Adolf: Ornament and Crime
- Lovell, Sophie: Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible
- Maeda, John: The Laws of Simplicity
- Mollick, Ethan: Co-Intelligence
- Mueller, John Paul: Artificial Intelligence For Dummies
- Munari, Bruno: Design as Art
- Nietzsche, Friedrich: Basic Writings of Nietzsche · The Gay Science · The Portable Nietzsche
- Niven, Larry: Lucifer’s Hammer · Ringworld
- Orwell, George: 1984
- Plato: The Apology of Socrates
- Rilke, Rainer Maria: Letters to a Young Poet · The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
- Rubin, Rick: The Creative Act
- Sartre, Jean-Paul: Nausea
- Satoh, Taku: Just Enough Design
- Schopenhauer, Arthur: On the Suffering of the World
- Seneca: On the Shortness of Life
- Singer, Peter: Hegel: A Very Short Introduction
- Sun Tzu: The Art of War
- Thiel, Peter: Zero to One
- Tolstoy, Leo: The Death of Ivan Ilych
- Voss, Chris: Never Split the Difference
- Vyasa (trans. Eknath Easwaran): The Bhagavad Gita
