Book Review: Money for Nothing

Money For Nothing: How CEOs and Boards Are Bankrupting America – by Gillespie and Zweig

I picked up this audio CD from my local library when I was without a book, and had forgotten to put a more popular one on hold. Normally despite being about businesses, I’m turned off by these books that have the potential to be a bit condescending. Checking the Amazon reviews on my smartphone persuaded me to give it a shot, but I can’t recommend it.

The book is what you think it is. It has stories about a bunch of bad things boards have done, plus a bunch of recommendations for how boards should behave. While I’d love to see the authors’ suggestions fulfilled, this is one of those times where it’s not worth my time or money to care about the problem. I hope someone else does though. There’s nothing riveting or particularly amazing about this book. If you *really* want to know about boards, check it out. Otherwise pass.

Book Review: In the Plex

In the Plex: How Google Things, Works, and Shapes our Lives – by Steven Levy

I listened to this audio CD sometime last year, and recently realized I didn’t cover it in a post. I enjoyed the book, but unfortunately won’t be able to give it a thorough review. I notice that Amazon chose it as a book of the year for 2011.

The Google executives gave Steven Levy a lot of insider access to what happens at Google, and it shows in an interesting look at Google from the inside. There seems to be a bit of fiction thrown in (Googlers work several hours after their Friday afternoon meetings… ha!), but it’s easy to sort that out and get an interesting picture of the company.

Some of the history of Google is shared, and I always wish there was more information about what happened in the early days.  Apparently they tried to sell their search engine because they didn’t want to start a company.  Excite was considering buying it, but the CEO said that they didn’t want people to find what they were searching for right away. They wanted people to have to search multiple times. We’re all lucky their algorithm didn’t get wasted on some company that would have squandered it.

The company’s outstanding growth and profitability are as amazing as their ability to search the web. They borrowed the idea of the auction model for ads from another company, but it’s just amazing how profitable that ends up being.

The book makes it clear that Brin and Page, the Google founders, have continually insisted on high engineering quality in their products. One of the early operations engineers was told that he need to write the management software as if they had 50,000 servers, even though they may have only had 50.  They knew it was going to be big.  They also push performance by keeping a keen eye on how long it takes pages to load.  Supposedly they notice how long a page takes to load down to 100ms.

Another thing that impressed me about the company is the Objectives and Key Results commitment system. Products and individuals have OKRs that are shared and committed to. Bonuses are tied to fulfillment of these OKRs.  I got the feeling that this helped the engineers understand how to measure success, and how to prioritize features.  I recently read elsewhere that the job of management is to frame what success looks like.

I recommend the book. If you’re at all interested in the history of Google, its culture, and its decision making, check it out.

Netflix (yet again)

After the last earnings release, and the stock fell to $75, I was wondered if it was a buy. It felt like I was more bullish than management, and I didn’t feel like betting against management, I was thinking that if it fell below $60, I’d buy, but it never did. So now, 3 months after the stock fell 30% in 1 day, the stock is back at the same level? The 150 day MA is going to be quite the resistance.

Book Review: True Enough

True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society – by Farhad Manjoo

I read this Kindle book recently and was pretty amazed by what it contains. Note that this was my first book I’ve read entirely on the iPad, and it was a pretty nice experience. The book covers 4 main principles of how people are largely ignoring facts and objectivity.

1. Selective Perception: When people perceive reality, they see things the way they want to see them rather than objectively. In football, he refs are helping out the other team.
2. Selective Exposure: When people seek out information, they tend to seek out information from sources that corroborate their preconceptions. Republicans watch Fox News.
3. Fake Experts: People tend to trust “experts” who are agreeable and trustworthy, whether or not they deserve trust. Trustworthiness can be greatly persuaded by personality. Due to the amount of data available, it’s easy for non-experts to both be fooled by a piece of data they don’t understand (keep in mind point #1), and to fool the general public.
4. End of Objectivity in the News: Media is becoming even more polarized, and more polarizing in response to #2. Experts who take extreme positions generally lie by what they won’t say. They cherry pick the data that looks questionable, and ignore the real experts.

The book explores these principles by diving deep into several stores that are quite amazing. The Swift Boat veterans cast doubt on Kerry enough to help Bush win the 2004 election. They just made claims that could not be substantiated. 

Other fake experts found “evidence” that there was voting fraud in 2004. True Enough completely destroys the credibility of the book Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? by Steven Freeman. Yet the book has stellar reviews on Amazon, (see point #2).  It appears to be full of misusing numbers to fabricate a story of election fraud. Pollsters and election experts found no evidence of fraud.

In the JFK assassination, people wished there were more recordings to get a more accurate picture of what happened.  However after 9/11, there are all sorts of conspiracy theories about missiles and controlled demolitions. More data does not get rid of the conspiracy theories.

The book is well written, and an entertaining read. It makes me sad for the future of the country (world?) since it’s moving farther away from objectivity.

• Interesting: Medium
• Informative: Medium
• Engaging: Medium

Book Review: Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs – by Walter Isaacson

I listened to the abridged CD of this book, which was still 7 CDs long, so while it felt very substantial, I can imagine that it was missing a lot of detail.  The thing that struck me most about the book was Jobs’ attention to detail, and his stubbornness in only producing products of the highest quality.

The more I read books about entrepreneurs, I realize how important it is to be able to convince people to work hard for you, and convince people to buy your products. This is perhaps the area where Jobs excelled most, despite his rude temperament. And his temper sure came across in the book. It’s amazing how much of a jerk he could be.

Malcom Gladwell, author of several books, including a favorite, Outliers, commented on Steve in a recent post calling him a Tweaker. It’s worth reading, but in short, Jobs wasn’t an innovator, but instead he fixed the problems with other people’s innovations. I could really relate to this, because I generally don’t think of myself as an innovator, but I sure can tell when something’s not right, and can recommend a few tweaks to get the usability back on track. Jobs probably wouldn’t have gone anywhere without a great design team, but it’s really rare to have an executive so focused on design, and able to focus their efforts in the right ways.

One story that stuck out to me from the book was how he decided to make the iPod advertising budget really big because he thought it would help sell Macs as well, since they work so well together. He said that he spent maybe 100x more than anyone else trying to sell iPods, and I think it’s clear to see that the iPod’s success did spill over unto Mac computers, paving the way for the amazingly profitable iPhone.

As an aside, that this last quarter, iPhone sales surpassed all of Microsoft’s sales. Just to be clear, the iPhone is so profitable because Apple can sell it by itself, online and in stores, and it’s certainly the most sought after phone.  So Apple can go to carriers and say, we’ll sell you a customer with a 2 year agreement for ~$400, and the carriers agree. You see those little cell phone stores and kiosks all over because carriers will pay a ton of money to get people to sign up. A guy at work says the way to make the most money is to sell a customer who will buy a long-term subscription to a company.

The book was definitely worth reading, but not the best book I read all year (goes to Switch, which somehow I forgot to do a post on… I’ll reread it later.)

Scores:

• Interesting: High
• Informative: Medium
• Engaging: Medium

Book Review: Moonwalking with Einstein

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer

So I picked up this Audio CD based on the title at the local library (and a quick Bing Vision scan of the UPC to check Amazon reviews). Let me just say that the title, and subtitle are nonsense. It should read: Memory Champion: My year-long journey to win the US Memory Championships.  OK, so don’t hire me to market your book.

The author writes about his experience of covering the world memory championships and training for a year to win the US championship. Generally mental athletes use techniques to recharacterize abstract concepts into images that are easy to remember. As an example, it was demonstrated that we’re very good at remembering images. If you flip through a stack of pictures, you’ll be able to remember which ones you’ve seen before later.

So, the trick they use to memorize, is to convert whatever you want to remember into memorable images. For example, if you memorize the Ace of Spades as Michael Jackson moonwalking on a tightrope, then you might take 3 cards in a row, and take the person from the 1st card, the action from the 2nd card, and the object from the 3rd, and memorize that. Perhaps the author moonwalking with Einstein is one 3 card combination? You take that memorable image and picture it vividly. The author talks about how they create memory palaces, which are memorable locations such as their childhood home, where they place the images they’re trying to remember. That way they can walk through their home, putting the images in the correct order. Using this technique the author broke the US record by memorizing a deck of cards in 1 minute 40 seconds. The world record is like 30 seconds.

That’s the technique, but the purpose of the book isn’t to teach you how to do it, or very much about the art or science of it. He talks about his journey and the experience. So while it’s not what the title suggests, it is fairly interesting. Not interesting enough to recommend, but it was a generally enjoyable way to spend my commute.

• Interesting: Medium
• Informative: Low
• Engaging: Medium

Note, my book notes are probably more for my own benefit than yours. This just provides a summary of content as a way to remember what I learned

Book Review: Endgame

Endgame: The end of the debt supercycle and how it changes everything by John Mauldin and Jon Tepper

I read Endgame earlier this year, and I think it’s one of the most important and topical books regarding what’s going to happen in the world over the next several years. The book covers how most major governments are saddled with an extraordinary amount of debt. It was written last year, before things really started unwinding this summer.

Mauldin writes a weekly email that you should subscribe to, and the book isn’t that different than most of the articles he writes. The first part of the book covers the setup to how deficits were created, especially as governments bailed out the economy from the credit crisis. I tried to read the book This Time It’s Different earlier this year, but it was too technical. Endgame summarizes the book in a chapter, which is well worth it.

The second part of the book covers most major governments and the mess they’re in. It was pretty interesting that some people were more concerned about the US than many other countries because of all the the state and private debt. PIIGS countries are pretty messed up, and he doesn’t really offer many solutions. The UK isn’t in good shape, but at least they can inflate it out.

The book concludes with some advice about how you should invest if we see inflation and how if we see deflation. Since they’re effectively opposites it’s not particularly useful. I’m betting on inflation. So, if you’re into thinking about the debt crisis situation, I recommend  the book. I wish I could be more specific in the recommendation and takeaways, but really I think I liked just taking the time to think about the debt situation in a structured way.

• Interesting: Medium
• Informative: Medium
• Engaging: Medium

Note, my book notes are probably more for my own benefit than yours. This just provides a refresher of content as a way to remember what I learned