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Latest Read: The Hard Thing About Hard Things

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz. Even though leading a startup is the focus of this book, lessons are for leaders regardless of organization type. Ben is the cofounder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley–based venture capital firm.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz

Ben certainly provides insightful stories with his experience joining Marc Andreessen at Netscape, then leading Loudcloud, and Opsware as CEO.

There are certainly rich experiences regarding Ben’s roles at Netscape, CEO at both Loudcloud and Opsware. Hence there are more than casual boasting of accomplishments. Nevertheless, Ben delivers insights to all the ups and downs experienced by struggling startups.

Ordinarily, many startups have only one client driving almost 90% of the company’s revenue. Therefore many lessons apply to all moving into any startup’s culture. Ben’s efforts at Loudcloud are driving those lessons and the single client model.

There is also a good section for managers relating to 1-on-1 management meetings with their direct reports. Otherwise, Mark Horseman’s Manager Tools series provides much deeper insights for managers and leaders to capitalize their 1-on-1 time.

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Education Reading

Latest Read: The Great Influenza

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry. Examining the 1918 Influenza, John addresses one of the worst pandemics in history. The 1918 pandemic surpasses COVID-19 in so many horrible ways.

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Plague in History is a 2004 nonfiction book by John M. Barry

As World War I raged across Europe, American soldiers unknowingly took influenza to the battlefields. Yet US military commanders well understood the risks before they ordered them abroad.

Barry’s work is a sobering reading. The 1918 flu killed 500 million people. John certainly begins strong for readers diving into the 1918 pandemic.

However, chapters three to thirteen review in great detail the history of medical education item United States, Germany, and France at the turn of the century. Do not lose interest. John’s lessons for COVID come into focus slowly.

Death itself could come so fast. Charles-Edward Winslow, a prominent epidemiologist and professor at Yale, noted, “We have had a number of cases where people were perfectly healthy and died within twelve hours.” The Journal of the American Medical Association carried reports of death within hours: “One robust person showed the first symptom at 4:00 P.M. and died by 10:00 A.M.”

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At the same time, Barry, history, and medical documentation can now identify the source. Yet, it would not be Madrid or Barcelona as the source. Epidemiological evidence confirms the influenza virus originated in Haskell County Kansas, where an army cook at Camp Funston took ill on March 4, 1918. The camp was built to train and deploy solider to France. The domino effect of sending soldiers to European battlefields would only accelerate a global spread that we fully understand today.

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Education Reading

Latest Read: Incognito

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by neuroscientist David Eagleman. One cannot help but ponder how interesting a class on neuroscience and cognitive behavior would be if taught by David Eagleman? He is an adjunct professor at Stanford University.

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman

There are certainly several instances throughout the book where I was catching myself laughing out loud. Yet, there are segments where the dark side of the brain’s human behavior is brought into light. Indeed, it is like experiencing a David Lynch movie.

Likewise, David provides deep insights to various parts of the brain and has selected a worthy collection of stories.

I found the fourth chapter, “The Brain Is a Team of Rivals” certainly the most fascinating of the book. In this chapter David is addressing the brain under duress. Subsequently multiple unique experiences resulting in the brain’s changing state of processing reactions. For this reason I find the book such a refereshing read.

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Education Reading

Latest Read: Breath

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor. Did you ever consider you are breathing incorrectly? I never would have considered this myself. On the surface, most would certainly cast aside the notion that we breath incorrectly. Yet, this book could change your life.

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

For example, we take 670 million breaths over the span of our life. Breathing is certainly finite. Yet how you breath unquestionably impacts how many breaths you have left.

Do you consider yourself healthy? Then consider this book for your loved ones: parents, family, friends, and coworkers. Do you know anyone afflicted with ailments such as scoliosis, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, or type 1 diabetes? Those conditions certainly impact not only how well anyone can breath, but also impacts how they perform daily basic tasks.

Part One – The Experiment

James is effective in communicating how since the dawn of time tribes around the globe have been focusing on breathing to increase their life, cure ailments, and even keep straight teeth. On the other hand, in American today sleep apnea, diabetes, high blood pressure and more ailments may be slowed, reversed or greatly reduced by simply breathing correctly.

For this purpose, Swedish researcher Anders Olsson joined James for a fascinating breathing study. Jayakar V. Nayak, MD, PhD tested their breathing over two, ten-day experiments. In just ten days of incorrectly breathing directly impacts your health. At the same time, lingering health issues can further deteriorate.

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Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: The Elephant in the Brain

The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler. It is very intriguing when any author indicates their book is about being selfish. Yet, The Elephant in the Brain explores deep insights to self-deception and hidden motives in human behavior.

The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler.

Indeed readers may reflect and find themselves acknowledging their own motives. Certainly we do not want others to know about them. Therefore we avoid talking or even thinking about our own selfishness. This is Robin’s theme within The Elephant in the Brain.

Yet, Robin’s discovery of stroke victims and split brain patients is completely fascinating. For example, some stroke victims suffer from a disability denial. This is a rare disorder. While it is common for a victim to have lost muscle control of an arm. Yet some patients actually deny anything is wrong with their arm, even though they cannot control any movement.

In addition, a type of hidden behavior demonstrated by patients of corpus callosotomy, patients who for medical reasons undergo the surgical severing of the nerves that connect the left and right hemispheres of their brain. The research of these patients points directly to our collective unconscious behavior.

Part 1: Why we hide our motives

Robin suggests rather accurately that human beings are primates and there is a link to primates being political animals. Fun example of chimps that share social grooming: direct and to the point. Subsequently, as the title then is suggesting, our brains do move beyond ‘hunter/gather’ and is driving us to succeed socially by using deception, knowingly or unknowingly.

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