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
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
- Moneyball by Michael Lewis
- Faster, Higher, Stronger by Mark McClusky
- The Sharing Economy by Arun Sundararajan
- A Culture of Growth by Joel Mokyr
- Apple in China by Patrick McGee
- Breakneck by Dan Wang
- The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan
- Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman
- So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
Erik Torenberg has hosted and co-hosted numerous discussions on the a16z Podcast, engaging with founders, authors, and technologists about history, economics, and emerging technology. Throughout his time on the podcast, Torenberg has frequently recommended insightful non-fiction books that draw parallels to modern industry and society. He highlighted Arthur Herman's Freedom's Forge to draw historical connections between World War II industrialists and modern builders of war machines. To illustrate social phenomena, Torenberg recommended Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed, noting its lesson that those who survive cancellation are the ones who continue speaking out. He has also plugged Chris Hayes's The Sirens' Call at the end of an episode, and endorsed Joel Mokyr's A Culture of Growth and Arun Sundararajan's The Sharing Economy for their rigorous research and insight into the modern world. In addition to direct endorsements, Torenberg has discussed books in conversation with guests, referencing Robin Hanson's The Age of Em in discussions about artificial superintelligence, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game to illustrate the concept of an all-knowing audio companion, and Jimmy Soni's The Founders to examine PayPal's historical impact.
Books recommended by Erik Torenberg
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Snow Crash
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is a seminal cyberpunk science fiction novel that famously anticipated the rise of virtual reality, the metaverse, and modern digital culture.
Discussed“reminds me of Snow Crash from 30 years ago where I'm reminded of when people went to the metaverse in that book, they could show up as a better version of themselves”
Where to get it
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Moneyball
Moneyball by Michael Lewis is a celebrated nonfiction book documenting how the Oakland Athletics baseball team leveraged analytical models and statistical data to gain a competitive edge.
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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Faster, Higher, Stronger
Discussed“the premise of the books are that there's been massive improvement in athletic performance due to our better understanding our body and how they can be trained as best I can tell”
Where to get it
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The Sharing Economy
The Sharing Economy by Arun Sundararajan explores the profound economic and societal transformations driven by digital platforms, peer-to-peer commerce, and decentralized labor markets.
Discussed“and the other reason we're gonna stick to it is because it happens to be the title of a runes new book which is called the sharing economy the end of employment and the rise of crowd-based capitalism”
Where to get it
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A Culture of Growth
A Culture of Growth by Joel Mokyr is a historical examination of the cultural and economic changes that drove technological progress and the Industrial Revolution in the West.
Discussed“you have this newest book talking about the drivers and the cultural that drove the cultural progress of this you know unprecedented Industrial Revolution”
Where to get it
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Apple in China
Apple in China by Patrick McGee is a detailed examination of Apple's manufacturing footprint and supply chain evolution 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 bestselling book exploring China's engineering-driven quest for the future and offering a comparative look at the political economies of the United States and China.
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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The Network State
The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan presents a blueprint for how online communities and social networks can leverage cryptocurrency to build independent economic structures and ultimately establish new sovereign entities that bypass traditional democratic states and medical regulations.
Discussed“I also read your book recently which is what we're going to be talking about today this idea of the network State”
Where to get it
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Freedom's Forge
Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman details the remarkable industrial mobilization that allowed the United States to manufacture the war machine necessary to win 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 is a non-fiction book by Jon Ronson that investigates the devastating phenomenon of internet cancel culture and social media outrage.
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 examines the modern battle for human attention and how constant digital stimulation has turned focus into an endangered resource.
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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Digital Gold
Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper is a history of Bitcoin that chronicles its origins, early community, and fundamental mechanics.
Discussed“I agree and I think it's interesting because the entire theme of what you've been talking about and in your book as well is about the role of people and the players behind this ecosystem”
Where to get it
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Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is a science fiction novel about a gifted boy recruited into an advanced military academy to prepare for an alien invasion through simulated space battles.
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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Essence of decision
Essence of Decision by Graham T.
Discussed“In 1971, Graham wrote this essay which was subsequently turned into a book called Essence of Decision, explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, which remains one of, if not, the most widely read pieces in government among senior national security leaders.”
Where to get it
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Exponential Organizations 2.0
Discussed“but here we are in 2023 and both of you felt the need to come back and say you know what we want to discuss exponential organizations 2.0”
Where to get it
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Lean In
Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg is a prominent corporate manifesto that examines the structural barriers women face in the workplace and encourages female leaders to pursue professional ambition assertively.
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 by Carlota Perez is an economics book that examines the historical cycles of technological surges, economic bubbles, and 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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Termination Shock
Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson is a near-future science fiction novel exploring the drastic consequences of rogue geoengineering and global climate change.
Discussed“but you've also done this across a myriad of your books right so so you've been involved in kind of the early stages of fintech and we've talked about crypto you've now written a book termination shock about carbon removal”
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 the gripping chronicle of PayPal and the ambitious entrepreneurs who ultimately shaped the modern technology landscape of 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
The other 5 books Erik Torenberg recommended or discussed, ranked
- The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
- The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson
- Walden by Henry David Thoreau
- Where good ideas come from by Steven Johnson
- Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick J. Deneen
Appearances
Other mentions (31: passing, ad reads, own books), the 30 most recent
“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”
“those two guests are Peter D Mendes and Saleem Ismail co-authors of exponential organizations and coming very soon exponential organizations 2.0”
“you guys wrote this book originally in 2014 right and maybe we could just close out with one question”
“you might recognize Jason as the longtime editor-in-chief at Entrepreneur magazine the host of several popular podcasts and the author of his recent book build for tomorrow”
“no more so than his foreshadowing novel of snow crash a groundbreaking piece of literature that I imagine the metaverse avatars and AI powered assistants long before their existence”
“not to mention his countless other books like kryptonomicon touching on digital currencies if you haven't already guessed I'm talking Neil Stevenson”
“and today we brought him in to discuss his best-selling book the network state”
“if people are interested they can go to what the networkstate.com and um also tutor.com so it's free online and you can also get it on Kindle”
“I'm here today with nathaniel popper New York Times journalist and the author of the book just out today digital gold Bitcoin and the inside story of the misfits and millionaires trying to reinvent money”
“he's just written a book faster higher stronger brought people around here like books like this because it looks a little bit like Ben Horowitz his book”
“we're here also with Christopher Schroeder who wrote a really interesting book last year called startup rising and has been documenting and facilitating the phenomenon that's happening right now in the Middle East”
“Brad Feld VC at founder group in Colorado and the author of the book startup communities and who has written a lot about the power of networks over hierarchies”
“well starting to think that like hey we know we all just read the Martian or watched a movie”
“and in doing that he's been one of the most successful evangelists for Bitcoin but in doing that he's also himself influenced the story of Bitcoin that's great well thank you Nathaniel and that's the Daniel popper from The New York Times and the author of digital gold”
“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”
“Today's episode features Chris Dixon, now a general partner on a16z crypto, interviewing Elad Gil, the author of a new book just out called The High-Growth Handbook, Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 people.”
“today's episode features Marc Andreessen Ben Horowitz and author Steven B Johnson who's written numerous magazine articles 11 books so far including where good ideas come from and also hosted the PBS series”
“Today's episode, based on an internal lunch series conversation, is moderated by a16z policy team partner Matt Colford and is with the author of the new book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape the Thucydides Trap?”
“We're really here to talk about your new book about the state of the US-China relationship, particularly around international security issues.”
“today's episode is based on an event with dr. Christine Darden one of the mathematicians hidden figures was based on in conversation with general partner Jeff Jordan about her career and experience at NASA”
“talk about what it means you know to have this concept of mobile first design which I think was the title of your book”
“I mean talk about a culture of growth it's an origin of the modern economy happening right now in a weird way even though it's a very ancient society”