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Hi friends,

Greetings from Utrecht!

A warm welcome first of all to Myrna and Tj'ièn, who joined the newsletter last week.

Last year, I set myself the goal of reading at least 16 books in 2021. I had picked up reading in August after an 18 month break from reading pretty much anything -- I blame the chaos of early fatherhood and a bit of information burnout from the MBA program I finished in 2019. Sixteen books felt like a reasonable goal to get back into the habit: 4 books per quarter, a little more than one per month. Seems doable.

Somehow, I managed to hit that goal last week.

For me, getting back into a reading habit was fairly easy with the right ingredients: keep a book on my bed stand at all times, keep a list of interesting books to read next, and read with the intent of sharing the most valuable content on the website. I'm glad it's turned out this way, as more books means more book notes to share, and inspiration and input for more essays. Let's see if I can make it to 32 by the end of the year!

Here's what I want to share with you this week:

​Book notes - Business Adventures: Recommended by both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett as the best business book they’ve read. The chapters in this book are like little case studies, highlighting various aspects of the business world. I thought some were interesting, while others were more descriptive than insightful.

​Book notes - Book of Secrets: A friend recommended this to me as his favorite book. It didn't really do it for me. The book is hard to follow, and there's a whole lot of pseudo-science. There's a couple of interesting passages, but I can't recommend the book as a whole. I still took a bunch of notes if you're interested, just know that they're a bit of a mess. I intend to review these in a couple months to distill the bits of true value, and chuck out the rest. On the same topic, I'm currently reading Kapil Gupta's Direct Truths, which is a lot easier to recommend. It's much clearer, much more straightforward, and nowhere near as pushy or self-important.

The Best Bits

Inside: t's hard to overstate just how brilliant Bo Burnham's latest comedy special is. It's hilarious, but it's also raw, layered, and personal. It's fragmented, but somehow everything meshes together perfectly. I really recommend you watch it for yourself. It's on Netflix, give it a try!

Wardley mapping: Wardley mapping is a way of visualizing a company strategy. I found out about it last week, and it's been stuck in my mind since. It's fairly complex and I'm still trying get my head around it, but there's something about this method that feels like it's able to unlock a whole new dimension of strategy and business modeling. If you want to know more, check out Wardley's book, or have a look at this introductory video.

See you in two weeks!

Martijn

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