Person
Every book Erik Torenberg recommended on podcasts
Across 2 podcasts. Every show Erik Torenberg appears on, in one place — not just one.
Erik Torenberg’s most recommended books
- Moneyball by Michael Lewis
- Apple in China by Patrick McGee
- Breakneck by Dan Wang
- Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman
- So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
- The Sirens' Call by Chris Hayes
- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
- Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg
- Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital by C. Perez
- The Age of Em by Robin Hanson
Erik Torenberg is a technology investor, podcast host, and entrepreneur who is actively involved in the startup and tech commentary space. During various appearances on the a16z Podcast, Torenberg recommended several notable books and discussed others with his guests. He recommended Arthur Herman's Freedom's Forge to highlight historical parallels between current industrialists and the builders of the American war machine during World War II. He also brought up Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed to illustrate how people who survive being canceled are those who continue speaking out rather than retreating, and he plugged Chris Hayes's The Sirens' Call at the end of an episode. In addition to his recommendations, Torenberg discussed several books with various guests, including Robin Hanson's The Age of Em in a conversation about mind uploads and artificial superintelligence with Nick Bostrom, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game to illustrate the concept of an all-knowing audio-only companion, Jimmy Soni's The Founders in the context of PayPal's historical impact, and Dan Wang's Breakneck to congratulate the guest on its bestseller status and discuss the conversation it hopes to create.
Books recommended by Erik Torenberg
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Moneyball
Moneyball by Michael Lewis is a groundbreaking non-fiction book that explores how the Oakland Athletics baseball team leveraged advanced statistical analytics to compete against wealthier franchises with larger payrolls.
Discussed“so in Moneyball they they showed the war between the the old but seat-of-the-pants Scouts and the new quants is that happening in the NBA”
Where to get it
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Apple in China
Apple in China by Patrick McGee is an investigative business book that chronicles Apple's complex manufacturing footprint, supply chain dependencies, and operational history in Asia.
Discussed“So uh we're here to talk about Apple. We're here to talk about you inspired by the book Apple in China.”
Where to get it
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Breakneck
Breakneck by Dan Wang is a comparative study of political economy that examines the contrasting trajectories of the United States and China, famously framing the difference through the lens of a lawyer-dominated society versus an engineer-driven state.
Discussed“Dan, the book is Breakneck. It's a New York Times bestseller in just under two weeks. Congratulations. Thank you. Um, what is the conversation that you hope to to to create with the book?”
Where to get it
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Freedom's Forge
Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman is a historical non-fiction book chronicling the massive industrial mobilization and the American corporate leaders who successfully built the wartime manufacturing machine during World War II.
Recommended“There's a book actually that that's very interesting on the kind of building of the war machine by the industrialists which won us World War II, no question.”
Where to get it
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So You've Been Publicly Shamed
So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson is a non-fiction exploration of internet culture, modern outrage, and the severe consequences of public shaming on social media.
Recommended“There's this great book, So You Think You've Been Shamed, and it chronicles the stories of a number of people who've gotten canceled over the past like 15 years and that's basically the the takeaway is that the the people can't who are truly canceled are the ones who shut up.”
Where to get it
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The Sirens' Call
The Sirens' Call by Chris Hayes explores how human attention has become the world's most endangered and exploited resource in the digital age.
Recommended“I know you gota run. So, thank you so much for coming on on on the podcast. The book is The Sirens Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource. Thanks so much for coming on the show.”
Where to get it
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Ender's Game
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is a military science fiction novel following a gifted child trained through brutal war games to fight an alien species.
Discussed“I think people, you know, I mean, the vision of sort of Jane from Ender's Game was all about this sort of all-knowing audio-only companion.”
Where to get it
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Lean In
Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg is a prominent corporate and feminist manifesto that examines women's leadership in the workplace and the systemic barriers they face in achieving professional success.
Discussed“and she actually didn't think she was ready to be CEO until she read Sheryl Sandberg's book lean in which actually inspired her to go ahead and take the CEO job”
Where to get it
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Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital
Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital is an economic history and finance book that explores the recurring cycles of technological surges and market bubbles driven by financial capital.
Discussed“you refer to a great book here by Carly de Prez the technological revolutions and financial capital where she talks about the phases of great surges in technology essentially and there's the installation phase in the deployment period”
Where to get it
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The Age of Em
The Age of Em by Robin Hanson is a speculative nonfiction book exploring a future where human minds are emulated on computers and rule the earth.
Discussed“Do you have any disagreements with Robin Hansen's age of M on this topic yeah I mean I guess the most obvious is that it doesn't look like we will be getting M's before we have super intelligence artificial super intelligence”
Where to get it
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The Founders
The Founders by Jimmy Soni is a narrative history chronicling the creation of PayPal and the ambitious entrepreneurs who helped shape modern Silicon Valley.
Discussed“there's been you know a book came out founders recently there's been sort of a lot of uh you know revisiting of of of PayPal both in its impact”
Where to get it
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The Little Engine That Could
Discussed“There's a reason we all read our kids. You know that what is it? The little red jing. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. That's in America. You can believe you can.”
Where to get it
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The Sovereign Individual
The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg is a provocative economic and political study exploring how the shift toward a digital information economy empowers individuals at the expense of the nation-state.
Discussed“what biology is most influenced by is is the sovereign individual which is this sort of idea it's a book and the main thesis is that...”
Where to get it
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Where good ideas come from
Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson is an insightful exploration of the patterns and environments that foster innovation and creativity.
Discussed“when stephen johnson in his book where good ideas come from i mean the tldr of that book is it comes from a marketplace of ideas”
Where to get it
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Why Liberalism Failed
Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick J.
Discussed“what i'm more sympathetic to is this idea that patrick dineen's argument of why liberalism fails which is basically that it becomes a victim of its own success”
Where to get it
Appearances
Other mentions (11: passing, ad reads, own books)
“You may know him as the author of Superintelligence, of Deep Utopia, of a lot of work that coined or framed the ideas that we take for granted today in the discourse.”
“You may know him as the author of Superintelligence, of Deep Utopia, of a lot of work that coined or framed the ideas that we take for granted today in the discourse.”
“He's a seed investor, author of the Substack, and the book, Hardcore Software.”
“You plus an agent can keep basically three Harry Potter books in your head.”
“I'd love to get into to mobilize, but first why did you decide now is the time to sort of write the write the canonical book of what needs to happen in America and then maybe we can talk about sort of the the sort of fundamental thesis too.”
“So um the first question I'll I'll start off is uh is is from your book uh but it's I think relevant um to this this conversation in part because you know when when you wrote that in technology business is you rarely know everything up front and we're sitting in this massive AI wave right now where we're it's”
“Yeah, that's actually goes back to when I what I started um this webinar with your quote from the hard thing about hard things in technology businesses you rarely know everything up front.”
“The book is Breakneck. Dan, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.”
“so people look back you know this movie appenheimer that just swept the Oscars which is of course extraordinary movie”
“well starting to think that like hey we know we all just read the Martian or watched a movie”
“ready player one is a very famous via our book which is nasty is two of us making two movie and I think they're gonna do right”