Episode · The Peterman Pod · 2025-05-23
Ryan Peterman & Philip Su: books mentioned on The Peterman Pod (May 2025)
OpenAI & Meta Distinguished Engineer (IC9) On Working With Zuck, Carmack & Career Growth | Philip Su
Philip Su grew to Distinguished Engineer (IC9) at Meta and OpenAI. He has a bunch of interesting stories about working with people like Zuck and John Carmack as well as a ton of advice for software engineers.
Philip Su discussed The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby by F.
Discussed“Over time I think I lucked out in that when I started work at Microsoft um in some of the spare time I had, I just started rereading some of the classics, you know, and these are things that in high school when assigned I I really hated them, right?”
Where to get it
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Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard is a Pulitzer Prize-winning work of narrative non-fiction that chronicles a year of intense ecological observation, philosophical reflection, and spiritual inquiry in the Virginian landscape.
Discussed“And so I think first of all is you got to read well, right? And so the types of sentences that someone like David Foster Wallace DFW can put out, the types of sentences um that he can put out are amazing. If you read Alice Monroe short stories, right? The language is beautiful. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, like there”
Where to get it
