Book List
Things I’ve been reading
Books of the year - as I try to forcefully make my way though - credit where credit is due I do think I have gotten better at reading and just focusing - it helps so immensely when you don’t have any hard deadlines for the day. (Also you can see my blog formatting getting rougher as I get more tired haha)
I have unfortunately discovered a flaw in my process - I typically read using my Kobo and borrow libraries from the online app Libby to access the national library. However, it seems that once I return books all the notes and highlights I have taken on my Kobo are gone, even if I borrow the book again. Any tips to workaround this are welcome!
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
I recommend this book for anyone who is embarking on their own gap year! Rather than being a book on toxic productivity, the book provides a unique perspective on our relationship with time and the need for rest. Many of the points resonated with me and helped me to reflect on my sense of anxiety around time. At the end of the book, the author also provides a list of guiding questions to ask of significant decisions in life - e.g. “In which areas of your life are you holding back until you feel like you know what you’re doing? How would you spend your days differently if you didn’t care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition?”. Anything I write here will make it seem like a cliche self help book so definitely go check it out yourself!
A Man for all Markets by Edward O. Thorp
I always find it interesting to read about the recent past - in this case the growth and development of the field of quantitative finance through the experience and life of Edward Thorp. I enjoyed reading about his delinquency and pranks as a child, and how that sense of curiosity and experimentation continued into his future career. The book reminded me of a few things - first, the importance of Mathematics, with probability being used to crack the game of Blackjack. Second, that the ways of the work we do are not set in stone, there are opportunities to innovate and ask questions - the finance world as we know it today is actually very very new. Third, to continue to think and question, something that I actually done much less of in the past few years as I learnt to navigate workplaces and their politics.
Power Metal: The Race for the Resources that will Shape the Future by Vince Beiser
In my previous role, we often talked about the growing need for critical minerals in achieving net zero, and the conflict of that with biodiversity and sustainability. This book allowed me to do a double click into metals, and to gain a better understanding around the supply of copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium.
China mines most of the world’s rare earth ore, processes almost all of it regardless of where it was mined, and manufactures the majority of rare earth-powered permanent magnets that make windmills and electric cars work. China today outsources much of the polluting work of mining to Myanmar, who is now among the world’s top producers of rare earths and supplies nearly half of China’s heavy rare earths.
The world’s current number one producer of raw copper is Chile, which had the world’s biggest reserves and supplies nearly 1/4 of all the world’s raw copper. The new frontier for copper in Central Africa, especially from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Stainless steel consumers the lion’s share of the world’s nickel output, but batteries and gaining fast. Several companies are developing batteries that use even more nickel than earlier generations, because corporations want to cut usage of another key battery metal with an even worse reputation.
More than 70% of the world’s supply of cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Today, nearly 3/4 of all lithium produced worldwide goes into batteries. Concerns around overdrawing of brine (one hundred thousand gallons of brine to produce a single ton of lithium).
The link between these minerals e.g. copper and unrest / violence was new to me. When we talk about power instability e.g. in Africa, my impression had always been that it was due to infrastructure challenges. I never realised it was because copper in grids was being stolen, given the high demand and high price that the metal could fetch. “All mining causes some environmental damage, but copper stands out for the violence that often accompanies it”.
The book went into depth on the environmental and social implications of mining. It also touched on the emergence and issues around deep sea mining, as well as challenges in recycling for a “reverse supply chain”.
On a country basis, China has a strong prominence in the area of critical minerals, and refines most of the world’s cobalt, nickel, manganese and graphite. China also manufactures around 70% of the world’s lithium ion batteries.
Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
This book is a long one and took me quite a stretch of time to complete. I read this book upon my return from South Africa, as I felt it would be important to my understanding of the Apartheid, the country’s history and the important figures that shaped its development - including the man that the Johannesburg airport was named after, Oliver Tambo.
The Culture Map: Breaking through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business By Erin Meyer
This book provided some revelations on my past work experiences. The author plots a unique chart on how different cultures communicate, give feedback, lead and more - across things such as high-context or low-context communication. Interesting point: They found that the largest challenge was when people from two different high context cultures tried to communicate, but there would be misunderstandings as the communication was not direct yet the two parties would not be able to understand each other’s hidden context given their difference in background. In such a case a low-context communication method should be encouraged. The US work culture is the lowest context in terms of communication, and sometimes other cultures can feel annoyed if they perceive the US counterpart of constantly stating the obvious. The chart for this can easily be found online for a quick view!
Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet by Chris Dixon
On blockchain, crypto and the future of the internet. “Two distinct cultures are interested in blockchains. The first sees blockchains as a way to buld new networks. I call this culture the computer. The other culture is mainly interested in speculation and money making. Those of this mindset see blockchains solely as a way to create new tokens for trading. I call this culture the casino because at its core, it’s really just about gambling”. While we hear a lot on the second perspective in the news, the author helped to build my understanding of the computer culture instead. Stepping away from the bitcoin hype, the author describes why blockchain is being developed and why it is needed.
To quote from the author:
The read era of the Internet was defined by the website, which encapsulated information. The read-write era was defined by the post, which encapsulated publishing, making it easy for anyone, not just web developers, to read broad audiences. The internet’s latest phase - the read-write-own era - is defined by a new simplifying concept: tokens, which encapsulate ownership
Money and computer networks are social technologies
Blockchains can make strong commitments about their future behaviour - that any code they run will continue to operate as designed
Blockchain networks turn “Don’t be evil” into “Can’t be evil”. Their architecture provides strong guarantees that their data and code will forever remain open and remixable
The next big thing often starts out looking like a toy. This is one of the main insights of the late business academic Clayton Christensen, whose theory of disruptive technology starts with the observation that technologies tend to get better at a faster rate than user’s needs increase
The way to set the internet back on course is by creating new networks with better architectures. Blockchains are the only credible, known architecture for building networks with the societal benefits of protocol networks and the competitive advantages of corporate networks