Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 90
• Total blog posts published: 595

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 11/23/25 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Read Einstein of Money, a biography of Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing, the only boss Warren Buffett ever had, and one of Buffett’s most influential mentors
• Finished my latest weekend project. I tested and updated every book image and confirmed and updated all links to Amazon.com. I’ll share more details in the coming days.

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• No ask this week

Week two hundred ninety-five was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• No material struggles related to this project

What I learned:

• The pain entrepreneurs experience when they make a material mistake is immense. That pain leads them to reflect, which in turn leads to insight and a valuable lesson. Entrepreneurs want to hear other entrepreneurs’ stories to fully understand the mistakes that led to insights and lessons learned. This is best done through conversation so questions can be asked.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last week.

Today I looked at the calendar and realized that Thanksgiving is next week. I feel like it snuck up on me. In 2023, I challenged myself and set an aggressive reading goal: read an 800-page book during that break (see here). I enjoy these holiday challenges. Even though I sometimes make them too aggressive, it’s definitely something I want to keep doing.

That said, I need to figure out what my 2025 Thanksgiving challenge will be. I haven’t thought about it at all and have no clue what I want to do this year. I do know it won’t be reading an 800-page book!

I’ll spend some time thinking about it this weekend so I can go into next week with a clear goal.

Today I had a debate with a friend about the AI bubble narrative and the financial media. He said the debt issued by AI companies would be a problem. I asked him to prove it, and he showed me an article from a financial publication. I promptly rejected it and told him I wanted to see first-source data and for him to walk me through his analysis and conclusion based on that data.

I have no opinion on whether we’re in an AI bubble in public markets. But when I’m evaluating something, I aim to come to my own conclusions. I try not to rely on interpretations from people who aren’t deeply knowledgeable or involved in the situation. For that reason, I’m a fan of finding first-source data so I can see the facts for myself, analyze them, and come to my own conclusions.

When someone is trying to convince me of something I have no opinion on or knowledge of, I want to understand their conclusions and how they arrived at them. If they cite interpretations of others (especially the media), it’s often a sign they haven’t looked at the first-source data or done their own analysis to come to their own conclusion. Naturally, I’m more skeptical in those situations. Conversely, when someone has looked at first-source data and can articulate why they reached their conclusion based on it, I’m much more inclined—even if I disagree—to listen intently with an open mind.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 89
• Total blog posts published: 588

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 11/16/25 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Read The Checklist Manifesto, a framework for improving how you think and act by reducing errors of omission—missing critical steps under pressure—and errors of ineptitude—failing to apply what you already know

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• No ask this week

Week two hundred ninety-four was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• No material struggles related to this project

What I learned:

• Some people learn best in group settings, while others learn best when they have time to reflect alone. Entrepreneurs seem to tilt more toward the former. They build on each other’s insights to accelerate their learning. Conversely, investors tend to be in the latter camp, which makes sense when you think about it. Their goal is to get above-average returns. If they do what everybody else is doing, their results will be average, by definition.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last week.

I looked at the books I’ve read over the last few months and realized it’s been mostly framework books. That’s likely a reflection of two things: I was trying to understand or solve something, and I went down a rabbit hole when one framework book led me to a related one. This is especially true of Michael Mauboussin’s books—I read four of them in five weeks.

I got a ton out of these framework books, but I do want to get back to reading more biographies and autobiographies because of the personal stories in them. Personal stories are what make these books special.

The year will be over soon, and I want to read more personal stories before it ends. I’ve decided that I want at least half the books I read in the next few weeks to be biographies or autobiographies.

Since reading The Success Equation, I’ve been thinking about how I can improve my chances of future success. Understanding where the things I’m thinking about fall on the luck-skill continuum has changed both how I think about them and my expectations. A lot of things I want to accomplish as an investor and entrepreneur are materially influenced by luck, so I need to hone my decision-making process to increase the chances of getting the outcomes I want.

I’ve also been thinking about past outcomes—both good and bad—to determine how much luck and skill factored into them. When an outcome was good, I generally assigned too much weight to skill. The truth is that skill played a role, but factors outside my control heavily influenced many outcomes. I couldn’t predict that things would happen the way they did. But they did, and I benefited from them. I’ve had more luck on my side than I’ve previously acknowledged when outcomes were good.

When an outcome was bad, I assigned too much weight to luck. In reality, it’s been a mix of skill and luck. In some instances, I didn’t have sufficient skills to get the outcomes I wanted and thus failed. In others, luck just wasn’t on my side.

It’s interesting to think about outcomes in terms of the influence of skill and luck. I’m glad I read this book and can’t wait to use its analysis to evaluate future decisions.

I’ve started on my new weekend project: cleaning up the images of all the books that I’ve uploaded to this site. Several issues need to be resolved, including these two:

• Load time – It takes too long for the page listing all the books I’ve read to load. This causes the list of returned books to be incomplete, the count to be wrong, etc. Part of the issue is that some book cover images are too large.
• Social sharing – When a link to a book page is shared via text message or social media, the link should load the book cover image. That isn’t happening consistently. I know of two reasons for this: an improper file type and a too-small file size.

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To fix these and other issues, I’ve been going through all the book cover images and changing the file type, renaming the file, compressing the file, etc.

I should complete this project by the end of November at the latest. I’ll provide more details on what I’m doing and my progress in later posts.

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Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 88
• Total blog posts published: 581

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 11/9/25 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Read The Success Equation, a framework for improving your decision-making by understanding how luck and skill impact outcomes

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• No ask this week

Week two hundred ninety-three was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

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