Doug’s book recommendations

The reading list

1. 01

   Life After Google

   George Gilder

   Fantastic descriptions of how today’s internet is fundamentally broken, and information is no longer reliable.

   This book discusses why the future will be dominated by “the cryptocosm”: the architecture of blockchain and its derivatives.

2. 02

   The Bitcoin Standard

   Saifedean Ammous

   More than just a book about Bitcoin. It goes deep into economics, human behavior, and the history and future of money, through ideas such as “sound” and “unsound” money. Sound money is what allows trade and the effective movement of value across time and space. It describes how Britain adopted the gold standard from 1717 to advance trade across its empire, and how gold had to be centralized, falling prey to government control and a loss of individual sovereignty.

   The book posits that Bitcoin will be the future standard on which other currencies are based. Just as gold was used for centuries, the author believes Bitcoin has the best chance of providing the sound, stable, reliable base for all other forms of money, because every fiat currency is controlled, and to a greater or lesser extent manipulated, by a government.

3. 03

   Blockchain Revolution

   Don and Alex Tapscott

   A comprehensive description of blockchain technology, cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, and how these technologies will fundamentally change the internet and global commerce.

4. 04

   Wikinomics

   Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

   Built on four powerful ideas: openness, peering, sharing and acting globally. A new age in which people participate in the economy like never before, through open sourcing, global outsourcing, co-creation and peer production. The new business rule: harness the new collaboration or perish. “Wiki” is Hawaiian for quick, and here it is a metaphor for a new era of collaboration and participation.

5. 05

   The New Age of Innovation

   C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan

   Driving co-created value through global networks: N=1 and R=G. Interaction with customers as individuals (N=1), and resources drawn from global networks of uniquely skilled individuals (R=G). Value is based on the unique, personalized experiences of consumers, and on access to resources rather than ownership of them.

6. 06

   The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

   Kevin Kelly

   Much of what will happen in the next 30 years is inevitable, driven by technological trends already in motion. Kelly offers an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes, from virtual reality in the home to an on-demand economy to artificial intelligence in everything we manufacture, can be understood as the result of a few long-term, accelerating forces.

7. 07

   Ego Is the Enemy

   Ryan Holiday

8. 08

   The Go-Giver

   Bob Burg and John David Mann

9. 09

   The Trusted Advisor

   David H. Maister

10. 10

    The Future of the Professions

    Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind

    Technology is driving fundamental shifts in the business model of every profession. This book may scare you, or it may motivate you to use technology to change the business model of whichever profession you practice: medicine, architecture, law or accounting.

11. 11

    The Cuban Affair

    Nelson DeMille

12. 12

    Beneath a Scarlet Sky

    Mark Sullivan

    Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager, obsessed with music, food and girls, but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.

13. 13

    1984

    George Orwell

14. 14

    The Secret

    Rhonda Byrne

15. 15

    The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

    Mark Manson

16. 16

    Brave New World

    Aldous Huxley