Episode · This Week in Startups · 2026-02-21
Books mentioned on We Asked 3 Experts How to Get More Value out of OpenClaw | E2253
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Jason Calacanis recommended The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis, and discussed Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and others, Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis, and American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Working Backwards
Discussed“And so then people started anticipating that person's questions and they said in the book working backwards which is the Amazon book that everybody's game got really higher because they knew that person was prepared had looked at the numbers and would always ask the question how did you come to that number”
Where to get it
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The Shards
Recommended“Um, what was the name of it? He serialized it on his podcast. Um, gosh, he serialized his new thriller. Is it The Shards? the Shards, which was fantastic. He serialized it and reads it on his podcast and they have it all there on Patreon.”
Where to get it
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Lunar Park
Discussed“Oh, that's he does questions from his audience. It's like Lunar Park. It's like meta because it's like semi-autobiographical, but then it takes like and it's LA in the 80s.”
Where to get it
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American Psycho
Bret Easton Ellis's controversial 1991 satirical novel about a wealthy Manhattan investment banker leading a double life as a serial killer remains a potent cultural touchstone.
Discussed“remember he had his book American Psycho banned. He was like this, you know, bad boy in the 80s. But anyway, he is respected deeply by other artists and orurs.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (2) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing Clean Code
“And um if anyone's here is familiar with agile it's a methodology that uh you know the the the Bob Martin uh author of clean code came up with uh 2001 and it was basically to help teams become more and more efficient in how they're releasing code.”
Passing Less Than Zero
“author of, uh, American Psycho Less than Zero.”