A book about the origin story of Ethereum. I read this as a way to challenge my assumption that a) cryptocurrencies are pointless hype and b) that anyone who says 'crypto will revolutionize the world' just uses this as an excuse to speculate in 'get rich.
I understand now that ethereum does have a very interesting core idea: a distributed computer that you can run "code" on, which typically means creating a token that has certain effects when it is bought or sold. Alright, not completely pointless then. I am still not convinced that any of the distributed applications that I've heard of actually need to be implemented that way. Big money speculation seems to be the primary driver, still in 2021. So there is definitely a big hype that still needs to settle down to see what role this technology will play in the future.
In any case, the (audio) book was a pleasant narration of the story and I liked it.
This was the book I needed to take me one step further: From just knowing "how to train a neural network" to a better understanding of "MLOps", including training workflows, aspects of scalable serving, and reproducibility.
The three authors are employed at Google and it shows in many chapters: The example of choice is always a Google Cloud AI offering or a Tensorflow code snippet. They do make an effort to also mention competitor products and open source alternatives. Because their insight from Google provided them with this wide range of best practices, I won't hold any of this against the book.
The book isn't without its flaws, though. This (recent) first edition has a number of distracting errors (such as misleading numbers in figures and weird code indentation), plus the greyscale print makes it hard to read many of the figures. That fact cost the book its fifth star. A 2nd edition will probably catch up once it irons out these issues.
I for one will keep this book on my shelf for future reference. It's a great collection of best practices to move a team and an organization ahead in terms of "AI readiness".
Interesting retelling of the stories surrounding the female US code breakers of WW2. I learned some things about the war in the Pacific that I didn't know before. It was mostly straight-forward though: The stories of how (mostly) women were recruited to break ciphers for the army and the navy, some explanation on basic code breaking principles, embedded in the chronological development of the war and its effect on American society. I didn't like the audio version too much, to be honest. The narration was a little robotic and a bit slow for my taste. In retrospect, I think I would have preferred the paper version.
Der Titel suggerierte bei mir eine Argumentation pro/con Kapitalismus (mit einem Kompromissvorschlag?). Das ist das Buch aber nicht wirklich. Stattdessen ist es eine Geschichte der Ökonomie mit Fokus auf Biografie und Theorien von Adam Smith, Karl Marx und John Maynard Keynes. Vor allem die Lehren Keynes scheinen sich mit denen der Autorin zu decken, sie kommen nämlich ziemlich gut weg.
Wer gar nicht gut weg kommt sind Anhänger der Neoklassik oder (noch schlimmer) des Neoliberalismus. Laut Ulrike Herrmann sind sie heute vor allem so populär, weil es nach dem 2. Weltkrieg zu einem natürlichen "Wirtschaftswunder" gekommen sei - trotz der Lehren des Neoliberalismus; nur dass es gelungen ist, den Neoliberalismus als Treiber dieses Booms zu etablieren. Sie lässt kein gutes Haar an Milton Friedman und Ludwig Erhard und ist gerade in den letzten 2 Kapiteln sehr positionsstark und kritisch. Das steht ein bisschen im Kontrast zu den ersten 80% des Buches, die sich eher historisch beschreibend lesen.
Ein bisschen unsicher bin ich noch, ob die aktuelle Wirtschaftslehre wirklich so hoffnungslos ist, wie die Autorin es klingen lässt. Die Warnung, dass sich seit den 1980ern eine "gigantische Spekulationsblase" aufbläht, klingt ungemütlich ähnlich zu der Schar der Crashpropheten der letzten Jahre. Auch an der Effizientmarkthypothese lässt sie kein grünes Haar (das ist die Grundlage meiner persönlichen Altersvorsorge, wohlgemerkt). Und gleichzeitig ist das Buch keine Brandschrift gegen den Kapitalismus, eher ein Plädoyer für eine Rückkehr zu einem Kapitalismus der Realwirtschaft, nicht einen der entkoppelten Finanzmärkte.
Ich habe sehr viel gelernt (wusste vorher eigentlich nichts über Ökonomie). Ohne Frage habe ich (noch) nicht alles aus den vielen verschiedenen Lehren verstanden, aber viel zum Nachdenken und Weiterlesen mitgenommen.
Endlich mal eine Buffett-Biografie gelesen, beziehungsweise gehört. Die kam erst vor ein paar Monaten raus und war sehr angenehm weg zu hören.
Das Buch bietet einen guten Überblick über Warren Buffetts Leben und Handeln. Ganz nebenbei lernt man auch viel über die amerikanische Geschichte und das Aufblühen des amerikanischen Kapitalismus.
Buffett ist auf jeden Fall ein ulkiger Charakter, der außerdem zu einem der reichsten Menschen der Welt wurde und sich gerade in seiner zweiten Lebenshälfte bewusst für gute Dinge wie Bürgerrechte, Recht auf Abtreibung und universelle Krankenversicherung einsetzt.
Highlighting the gender data gap: The absence of information and mechanisms required to make life fair for both genders.
Caroline Criado Perez shows how "male" is almost always the norm and "female" the exception - from the workplace over the size of smartphones to medical research.
The data she presents draws a sobering picture of inequality across all areas of life. A very important book.
James Clear describes how habits work in your brain (4 stages: cue, craving, response, reward) and how you can use that knowledge to build good habits and break bad ones.
The framework makes sense and it's clearly laid out in the book. His examples gave good context and made the text enjoyable and quick to read.
One thing I didn't like were the many pointers to the website and newsletter. There are even two chapters in the end which are "bonus chapters", meaning you can get them if you sign up for the newsletter. The recommended reading at the end is... a pointer to the newsletter. Would have preferred to have this book be a bit separate from online growth strategies.
In any case, the content was really good and I'm sure I'll make use of this. I've already started implementing some strategies in my life.
As far as I'm aware, this is supposed to be a classic in the field of financial education. I went into it quite sceptical because of the odd cover, and in many ways, you get what you expect: more "marketing" than deeply scientific content, very anecdotal rather than based on studies, a lot of redundancy in the text, which was a bit annoying sometimes. If I had to sum it up in one word, this book seemed very... "American" overall. And yet, it captivated me. The messages Robert Kiyosaki wants to drive home really get you thinking about your own relationship towards money, personal assets and towards work itself. I wouldn't take everything from this book literally, but I think the way he presents the "personal income statement" and its cashflow helped me get a better grasp and what are "good" and "bad" spending habits. I'd say it is a called a classic for a reason.
The story of a former Apple engineer who was part of the team working on the software for the original iPhone -- hence "the golden age of Steve Jobs" as the subtitle of this book (sounds like he's only ever met Jobs 2 or 3 times though).
Interesting details in parts. A little surprising but also calming to read that some/most of hist struggles during work seem familiar from a daily coding experience.
In the book, he tries to sum up the core of what he thinks makes the creative process at Apple be what it is. Interesting to read in parts, but he clearly "only" had the inside view from one engineering team. The overarching meta view including management, marketing, etc is lacking. Still, some insightful anecdotes even though the process he distills in the end isn't completely convincing to me.
One thing that bugs me is the continuous stressing of how much Apple makes decisions driven by "Taste", rather than data-driven (he's throwing out punches at Google all the time). Right in the next paragraph, he tells the story of how ingeniously clever they derived the "perfect" size of an icon on the home screen. Surprise: They do it data-driven by running experiments with a simple app. Inconsistencies like this make the whole argument stumble here and there. Still, an interesting and quick read.
Von der vorherigen Lektüre schon indoktriniert, dass "passives Investieren" das einzig Rationale und Wahre sein kann, habe ich dann doch mal ein Buch aus dem anderen Lager gelesen. Peter Lynch ist irgendwie ein sympathischer Kauz und das Cover sieht einfach zu ulkig aus. Aber es ist wirklich gut zu lesen und spannend. Hat meine Perspektiven etwas erweitert und führt so langsam zu mehr Verständnis, wie Wirtschaft eigentlich funktioniert.
Burton G. Malkiel – A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing (Eleventh Edition)
448 Seiten
Die elfte (!) Auflage. Das Buch gibt es seit 1973, wow. Von der Idee das gleiche wie Kommer, nur aus amerikanischer Sicht. Irgendwie kompakter geschrieben und angenehmer zu lesen.
A book about making decisions under uncertainty and a lot of similar concepts. Written and narrated by a successful poker player, but this is a book about decision making in general. Nothing super surprising in there, but a nice framework nonetheless.