Category: Business / Finance

Rating: 6.9/10. Real Estate Investing in Canada: Creating Wealth with the ACRE System by Don R. Campbell Book about how to get rich investing in real estate and renting it out to others. By following a methodical strategy, you can achieve your “Personal Belize” — grow wealthy enough to retire in the Caribbean and do…

Rating: 7.8/10. Book about the creation and growth of Instagram, one of the largest social networks based on photo sharing. Instagram was founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in 2010. Systrom had an interest in photography and wanted to appeal to users’ desire to look good, so the app provided filters that improved low-quality…

Rating: 8.0/10. Business book that teaches you the basic mental models you need to run a business. The author argues that MBA programs are overpriced and teach you outdated and over-specialized knowledge that’s irrelevant to most businesses, and building good mental models is more useful practically. The book is organized as short sections of advice…

Rating: 8.0/10. Tells the story of the rise of Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos. The company was founded in 1994 when Bezos realized the potential of the internet, and quit his hedge fund job to start an online bookstore. He chose books as his starting point because they were commodities (quality wasn’t important) and…

Rating: 8.0/10. Summary Handbook on propaganda written by the “father of public relations” Edward Bernays in 1929. The word “propaganda” did not always have a negative connotation, it used to be neutral like “marketing” and only acquired its negative connotation after WW1. Bernays created a number of influential propaganda campaigns, and in fact, nearly all…

Rating: 6.0/10. Business book about how businesses should think more long-term. An infinite game is one with no endpoint, so there’s no such thing as winning, the objective is to keep on going. A business should have a “Just Cause” — a fundamental reason for existing, beyond growth or profit. Examples include a seed bank…

Rating: 9.4/10. Summary This is a personal finance book, but runs contrary to most advice in this genre. A lot of people save a large chunk of their money, but never get around to spending it, and any money that’s still unused when you die is “wasted”, since it represents hours that you put in…

Rating: 8.0/10. Second book I’ve read about negotiation; compared to the first book (Getting to Yes) which focused on finding mutually beneficial options, this book gives a more comprehensive view of all aspects of negotiation. Different negotiation styles are appropriate for different types of negotiations: Transaction negotiation is when stakes are high, and the deals…

Rating: 6.8/10. A bunch of quotes by famous investor Warren Buffett about principles of investing. They follow a few basic motifs, like invest based on fundamental long-term value, avoid speculation, keep control of your emotions. [redacted] got this from the bookstore and I decided to read it too. Most of the advice is trivially true…

Rating: 5.7/10. This is the third Taleb book that I’ve read, and it was recommended by [redacted]. I’m disappointed in this book, and felt it was downhill from Black Swan, then to Antifragile, then this book. Compared to the previous two books, it’s a lot less structured, and he kind of throws out a mix…

Rating: 8.5/10. This book tells you how to negotiate more effectively. A common negotiating mistake is to use positional negotiation, which is each side picking an arbitrary position (eg: buy the car for $5000), and going back and forth until you’re tired and agree, or you both walk out. Positional negotiation is highly arbitrary, and…