Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and investors 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: 136
• Total blog posts published: 1,007

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 10/11/26 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Reread Psychology of Intelligence Analysis by Richards J. Heuer Jr., a framework book that explains how analysts think, why they make mistakes, and how they can improve their decision-making in complex and uncertain situations

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Week three hundred forty-one was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Below, I share content I consumed and learned from last week. I spent time doing general learning about a variety of topics.

What I consumed last week and what I learned from it:

• Calculating risk in everyday decisions with the Kelly Criterion – YouTube interview with Kris Abdelmessih, entrepreneur and founder of volatility intelligence platform Moontower. This was an interesting interview that helped me understand how to use the Kelly Criterion to think about assuming risk in everyday life and investing. His simple slide on how to increase or decrease Kelly sizing if you’re making or taking odds clicked with me. His example of determining the right amount of risk to assume based on your home value and portfolio size helped me understand how to use Kelly in everyday decision-making.

That’s what I learned from what I consumed last week.

A new habit of mine this year is being intentional about rereading books. I try to reread at least one book a month, so my objective is three new books a month and one reread. That’s working pretty well, and I’m happy with it.

What I’m not happy with is my inconsistency around synthesizing books (see this example). I’ve tried a few times to get consistent, but I haven’t cracked it yet. My big takeaway is that synthesizing every book I read won’t work. I don’t have enough time and bandwidth, and also I’ve realized that not all books are worth synthesizing. Some books are good, and some are great. I want to synthesize only the great ones. Partly this is a way of making sure important concepts stick, and partly it’s a way to make it possible to read through the most important concepts in a fraction of the time.

Thinking about the book I’m rereading this week, I decided it’s a great one and I’d like to use this week to not only reread it but also synthesize it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that might be the missing habit that will make me synthesize the best books I read more consistently.

So, this week I’m experimenting with this. Hopefully it works out and I can kill two birds with one stone by rereading and synthesizing the same book this week.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and investors 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: 135
• Total blog posts published: 1,000

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 10/4/26 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Read The King of Oil by Daniel Ammann, a biography about commodity entrepreneur and fugitive Marc Rich. Rich created today’s spot market for oil, and for decades his firm was the main conduit through which many nations bought and sold oil. Interesting backstory on Iran and Israel’s relationship.

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Week three hundred forty was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Below, I share content I consumed and learned from last week. I spent time doing general learning about a variety of topics.

What I consumed last week and what I learned from it:

• Building a $90M YouTube channel – YouTube interview with Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, entrepreneur and founder of WatchMojo, which has a popular YouTube channel. This is a great interview that highlights how YouTube and other platforms are empowering niche media entrepreneurs to create fortunes. His logic around how he decided to bet on YouTube when he started his company was interesting. He thought like a social scientist and challenged himself to figure out what the next MTV would look like. His epiphany was that geek culture was going to take over pop culture, and he leaned into that belief as a content strategy.

That’s what I learned from what I consumed last week.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and investors 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: 134
• Total blog posts published: 993

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 9/27/26 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Read Yes! by Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert Cialdini, a book about tilting the odds of someone saying yes to you by leveraging 50 tactics based on several core persuasion principles

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Week three hundred thirty-nine was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Below, I share content I consumed and learned from last week. I spent time doing general learning about a variety of topics.

What I consumed last week and what I learned from it:

• Druski: his decade of failure and greatness – YouTube interview with comedian Druski. Great interview about the work ethic and drive of one of the new generation of social media–first comedians. Making people laugh and developing the ability to read rooms quickly are coping mechanisms for dealing with trauma he experienced at the hands of his father. It’s interesting that he lived through multiple years of failure and dropped out of college to figure out what he wanted to do in life. His drive to be great and take the no-plan-B approach reminds me of the burn-the-ships mentality I’ve read about in biographies of great founders. Even though he’s focused on making people laugh, at heart he’s an entrepreneur with a strong work ethic who’s never content.

That’s what I learned from what I consumed last week.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and investors 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: 133
• Total blog posts published: 986

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 9/20/26 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Reread The Little Book of Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager, a framework on the core psychology principles that elite public-market investors used to execute their investing strategies and generate outsize returns over long careers

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Week three hundred thirty-eight was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Below, I share content I consumed and learned from last week. I spent time doing general learning about a variety of topics.

What I consumed last week and what I learned from it:

• Colin Kaepernick on his NFL settlement – YouTube interview with former NFL quarterback turned rights activist Colin Kaepernick. His explanation for why he wasn’t able to pursue his lawsuit against the NFL in federal court and why he settled was eye-opening. His $150 million in lost wages is a staggering amount but believable for a Super Bowl quarterback. His insights on being conditioned as an athlete to be competitive and go after people who go after him, but learning to temper that for a bigger goal, caught my attention.
• Billionaire blue-collar mindset and $14B Amazon mistake – YouTube interview with investor, founder of private equity firm Carlyle Group, and owner of the MLB Baltimore Orioles David Rubenstein. His acknowledgement that he’s still afraid of failure was surprising, but I guess it’s true that only the paranoid survive. His story of turning down a 20% stake in Amazon and selling stock early that would now be worth $14B was shocking. I also found it interesting that he raised only $5 million from four investors, but it wasn’t a fund: On a deal-by-deal basis, they found deals and then went out to pitch investors to raise the funds. It was also interesting to learn that he was buying stock in publicly traded companies when he first started.  

That’s what I learned from what I consumed last week.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and investors 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: 132
• Total blog posts published: 889

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 9/13/26 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Reread A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young, a framework book detailing a five-step formula for idea generation

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Week three hundred thirty-seven was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!