Episode · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2023-01-25
Books mentioned on #651: Legendary Investor Bill Gurley on Investing Rules, Finding Outliers, Insights from Jeff Bezos and Howard Marks, Must-Read Books, Creating True Competitive Advantages, Open-Source Strategies, Adapting Mental Models to New Realities, and More
Brought to you by Protekt's REST sleep supplement, Athletic Greens's AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Shopify global commerce platform providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business. Bill Gurley (@bgurley) has spent more than 20 years as a general partner at Benchmark.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Competitive Strategy
Competitive Strategy by Michael E.
Discussed“Michael Porter's book Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, which you have described I believe as the most efficient short-form MBA that one can find.”
Where to get it
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One Up On Wall Street
One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch and John Rothchild is a classic investment guide that teaches everyday people how to find profitable market opportunities using knowledge from their own daily lives.
Recommended“You can read Peter Lynch's One Up On Wall Street.”
Where to get it
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A Random Walk Down Wall Street
Burton Gordon Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street is a widely read finance book that advocates for the efficient market hypothesis, arguing that stock market prices completely reflect all available information and that active investing cannot consistently outperform a simple index fund.
Recommended“A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel.”
Where to get it
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The Rational Optimist
Matt Ridley's influential work "The Rational Optimist" explores the long-term history of human progress, arguing that prosperity fundamentally arises when ideas are shared and combined.
Discussed“And I think Bruce had just read The Rational Optimist, which is a Matt Ridley book.”
Where to get it
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Think twice
Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition is a compelling book by Michael J.
Discussed“Did he write a book called Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition, or is that a different Michael?”
Where to get it
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The Innovator's Dilemma
The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen is a foundational business and management book explaining why successful, well-run companies often fail when confronted with disruptive technological changes.
Recommended“The two books that I would put for the venture community, for the startup community that I would put as next level right on top of Competitive Strategy or Innovator's Dilemma, which does an amazing job of describing why startups can compete with big companies.”
Where to get it
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Startup
Startup is a book by Jerry Kaplan that offers an insider account of the founding and early struggles of GO Corporation, providing a vivid narrative about Silicon Valley startup culture during the early 1990s.
Recommended“There's a book I love called Startup by Kaplan.”
Where to get it
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Build
Build by Tony Fadell provides practical frameworks, mentorship insights, and hard-earned lessons on entrepreneurship, product design, and leadership from a veteran tech innovator.
Recommended“And on Tony, I'd read his new book, Build.”
Where to get it
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Shoe Dog
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight chronicles the founding and growth of Nike, offering an unfiltered look at the grueling realities of building a global enterprise.
Recommended“I would mention Shoe Dog.”
Where to get it
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How Innovation Works
How Innovation Works by Matt Ridley is an accessible examination of how human ingenuity, technological progress, and economic prosperity develop over long historical spans.
Recommended“For kind of high-tech macro, if there is such a thing, I think Ridley's two books, The Rational Optimist and How Innovation Works, they're just fantastic and spectacular.”
Where to get it
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Snow Crash
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is a classic cyberpunk science fiction novel known for its prescient exploration of virtual reality, the metaverse, and digital culture.
Discussed“Years ago, I read Snow Crash when it came out.”
Where to get it
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Complexity
Complexity by M.
Recommended“The first one that I've gifted the most is called Complexity by Mitchell Waldrop, which is about the rise of the Santa Fe Institute.”
Where to get it
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Range
Range by David J.
Recommended“And the book that I've been fascinated with the past five years, four or five years is Epstein's Range.”
Where to get it
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The Sports Gene
David Epstein's insightful exploration of athletic performance and human genetics has earned widespread praise and discussion among podcast hosts and guests.
Discussed“Yeah, he wrote The Sports Gene.”
Where to get it
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Thinking, Fast and Slow
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is a seminal psychology book that explores the dual systems of human thought, detailing how cognitive biases, heuristics, and systematic errors shape judgment and decision-making.
Discussed“All the books that have been written on bias and all the Kahneman [inaudible] and Thinking, Fast and Slow, and all the Nobel prizes for that stuff.”
Where to get it
