If youāre interested in startup culture then āChaos Monkeys: mayhem and mania inside the silicon valley money machineā is an interesting starting point.
Iād recommend Flash Boys by Michael Lewis. Itās a good read into high frequency trading firms, and puts into context how lucrative it is (thus explaining how Robin Hood offer commission free trades in the US).
The Big Short is also great, but for more relevant reading, you canāt go wrong with Tom Haleās Smarter Investing.
for this one, although you mean Tim Hale
Also, A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G Makiel
Some more recommendations:
- Bryan Cranston - A Life in Parts
- Ta-Nehisi Coates - Between The World And Me
- David Grann - Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI
- Leigh Gallagher - The Airbnb Story: How Three Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions of Dollarsā¦and Plenty of Enemies
- J. D. Vance - Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
- James Bloodworth - Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain
- Yanis Varoufakis - Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism
- Reni Eddo-Lodge - Why Iām No Longer Talking to White People About Race
- John Doerr - Measure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth
- Carlo Rovelli - Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
- Ellen Pao - Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change
- Satya Nadella - Hit Refresh: A Memoir by Microsoftās CEO
- Hans Rosling - Factfulness: Ten Reasons Weāre Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think
- Mark OāConnell - To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death
- Max Tegmark - Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Have fun
Iāve moved your post over to this thread to keep all of the recommendations in one place. I hope thatās ok!
I recently read a book called Atomic Habit - James Clear. Itās about self-improvement and compounding it.
Sure, I was looking for general books too but all seems to be investing haha
Anything by Terry Pratchett, although Hogfather is probably my favourite or Good Omens
Anything by Neil Gaiman, not long finished Norse mythology.
Anything by David Peace - Red or Dead / The Damned Utd for starters then the Red-Riding Quartet.
Goodness, so many books to recommendā¦
If I had to suggest just one it would be āThe Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxyā
Enjoy
Matt
Just got this book - about Jim Simons and his hedge fund Renaissance Technologies. Story of how it all started, trials, tribulations and success. 1/4th through it, great read so far!
Stephen A. Schwarzmanās What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence book is also a great read. He is a Blackstone Group founder. Iām about halfway through. Worth checking out.
Saw this posted elsewhereā¦ Peter Lunchās One Up On Wall Street is available for Ā£0.99 on Amazon Kindle
Donāt know how long the offer will last. Itās a well read and recommended book. Anyway have fun.
Not a trading and investing book as such but one about the whole financial system and the collapse of the economy in 2008. One of my favourite books.
Iām reading the book of Disneyās outgoing CEO.
Remember when all stock brokers decided to go commission-free and then their revenues jumped in 1Q of this year because of the Covid-19 volatility? What worked 5 or 10 years ago may not work now. This book - Only The Paranoid Survive by Andrew Grove (a co-founder of Intel) should be a must read for investors and business people alike.
In the very dog eat dog world companies canāt be complacent because competition doesnāt sleep.
Itās a shame that Intel - post Andrew Groveās leadership - is not longer an innovation giant it once was. If you ever get a chance to visit their museum in the San Jose headquarters, youād notice the āhistoryā section ends before the mobile phone revolution late 00s began - they missed that boat. This doesnāt mean Intel is not a giant - but itās more Walmart and less Amazon-like.
What are Andrew Grove-coined strategic inflection points (SIPs) that usually arrive quickly and change businesses forever? Here are potential fintech SIP examples of today:
- The arrival of neo banking in every region of the world - following another major SIP - the Android OS and iOS and the API echosystems that grew around them.
- The API B2B fintechs making it easier to start other fintech (even helping ease with regulatory stuff.) How long did it take Australiaās trading app Stake to launch US stock trading operations in the UK? And well-capitalised Robinhood missed a window to launch in the UK again (and even do an IPO before the recession).
- The shift to commission-free trading by the old guard - that was unexpected and caught a bunch of trading companies by surprise (and Charles Schwab loved it). We saw massive increases in revenues in 1Q of 2020, while RH and others started showing that doing things at scale is hard.
- Square got hold of a financial license for lending/deposits(?) in the States, began offering stock trading in the US and entered the UK market with CashApp, while RH had to back away from getting a banking license.
- Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs and all the Santanders of the world are ramping up R&D investments in modern apps and entering consumer finance - thus competing with neo banks. They are also working on blockchain tech for more efficient supply chain and payments solutions (and R3 may have a solution to dethrone SWIFT, who knows).
2020-2029 will be awesome. Only the paranoid will survive. Many blockchain and fintech startups will fail, unfortunately.
Synopsis
Under Any Groveās leadership, Intel has become the worldās largest computer chipmaker, the 5th most admired company in America, and the 7th most profitable company among the Fortune 500.Few CEOs can claim this level of success. Grove attributes much of it to the philosophy and strategy he has learned the hard way as he steered Intel through a series of potential major disasters.There are moments in any business when massive change occurs, when all the rules of business shift fast, furiously and forever. Grove calls such moments strategic inflection points (SIPs), and he has lived through several. They can be set off by almost anything - by mega competition, an arcane change in regulations, or by a seemingly modest change in technology. They are not always easy to spot - but you canāt hide from them.Intelās fist SIP was when the Japanese started producing better-quality, lower-cost memory chips. It took Grove three years and huge losses to recognize that he had to rethink and reposition the company to become, once again, leader in its field.Grove extrapolates the lessons he has learned from this and other SIPs - for instance the drama of the Pentium flaw, and the SIP brought on by the Internet - to reveal a unique insight into the management of change.
He recounts strategies from other companies and examines his own record of success and failure.Only the Paranoid Survive is a classic lesson in leadership skills that every manager in every industry will benefit from. Every manager must assume that something will change - very soon.
Is Cityboy good? Iām thinking of reading it.
I have it on audiobook through amazon. had to listen to it for some Uni work, I highly recommend it