Readings
It’s been a while and definitely have been infobese (i.e. reading much more than writing), so I decided to infoshare some great reads from this year so far:
Construction Physics by Brian Potter - this is my favorite newsletter. A mix of engineering, materials science, business strategy, and management history into story-packed deep dives on how we could build faster, cheaper, and better. His writings are rich and always leaves you smarter.
Why Nothing Works by Marc J. Dunkelman (2025) - A book on how America turned government into a vending machine of vetoes. Eye-opening on why tunnels, wind farms, and even basic housing projects drown in red tape and how to fight the “vetocracy.” Best takeaway: problems pile up when every stakeholder gets a brake pedal anc nobody gets a steering wheel.
Chip Wars by Chris Miller (2022) - maybe I’m a bit late reading this book given the AI revolution, so if you’re in AI and haven’t yet read about the AI infrastructure I’d recommend this dense book. Though a documentary format would be easier to digest given all these different players, it would be nice to have a face attached to each one of them.
Foundational Papers in Complexity Science edited by David Krakauer from the Santa Fe Institute - this is a collection of all the publications that shaped complexity science that we study today. I have 2 of the 4 volumes sitting on my personal desk that I casually open from time to time for inspiration. It’s a reminder to revisit first principles and an inspiration that everything can be traced to the laws of physics. Also, they have the best book spine design I’ve ever seen (resembling time and # of papers):
How to Make a Few Billion Dollars written by serial entrepreneur Brad Jacobs-he turned eight different start-ups into public companies worth billions by buying and stitching together hundreds of small operators inside dull but gigantic markets like solid waste or equipment rentals, then layering tech and culture on top. He calls this playbook industrial-scale value creation, and in the book he distills it into mental habits such as “run toward problems,” “stay humbly paranoid,” and “treat M&A as one tool, not the mission.” It’s a bit different than how you’d think a billion dollar company would be built. To be honest he makes it look easy haha.
Another book would be The Global War on Internet Governance by Laura DeNaris, it gave a good landscape of who controls what in the internet, and a good refresher on events I forgot (e.g. SOPA/PIPA blackout day in 2012 where many websites turned black for a day, and where GoDaddy was left in an embarrassing position after publicly endorsing the policies then taking back their stance after the backlash they faced), but frankly the book can be dry and just a bit outdated.
Last but definitely not least: Ego is the Enemy. I think everyone should read it. At the lows of failure and heights of success, ego plays a role that needs to be tamed. Self-importance < humility + resilience + purpose.
Most of my readings are academic papers/essays mainly in AI - and nowadays I’m just reading a lot of textbooks and technical guides on AI and software engineering. But I hope you enjoyed the list above.
Thanks for sharing and glad to hear from you ❤️ I will def pick up “Why Nothing Works” as both my husband and I are very interested in this topic. Cheers!