Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and investors and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 119
• Total blog posts published: 798

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 6/14/26 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Reread Think Twice by Michael Mauboussin. This is a framework book about improving decision-making in complex and uncertain environments by recognizing and avoiding common mental mistakes.

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• No ask this week

Week three hundred twenty-four was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Continuing with my new protocol, here I’m going to share content I consumed and learned from. This week, I spent time doing general learning about a variety of topics.

What I consumed this week and what I learned from it:

• From veterinarian to investing billions and beating the S&P for decades – YouTube interview with Chris Davis of Davis Funds, a Berkshire Hathaway board member. I read a book about his family and always enjoy his interviews. Great info on how he thinks about executing his value-investing strategy in today’s AI environment. The average earnings multiple of his portfolio is 14x, which is much lower than the current market multiple. His biggest mistakes were around selling great companies too early. He bought Amazon around 2002 and sold it in 2004. Culture is also one of the biggest things he considers when he evaluates a financial company.  

That’s what I learned from what I consumed last week.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and investors and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 118
• Total blog posts published: 791

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 6/7/26 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Read The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al Ries and Laura Ries. This is a framework marketing book that describes the 22 core principles of branding. It distills the truths that make effective branding work and gives examples of brands that have adhered to, and that have broken, each of the 22 laws.

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• No ask this week

Week three hundred twenty-three was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Continuing with my new protocol, here I’m going to share content I consumed and learned from. This week, I spent time doing general learning about a variety of topics.

What I consumed this week and what I learned from it:

• The learning science on how to become an expert – YouTube interview with Joe Liemandt, founder of Trilogy Software and ESW Capital. Joe is reinventing K-12 education as the principal of Alpha School, an AI-driven teaching program and school. Joe shared that their students spend only two hours a day learning and the rest of the day engaging in other activities such as sports, yet they learn ten times faster than in traditional school. Learning science combined with generative AI allows kids to learn in two hours what normally takes six hours, plus homework. The first hour is spent reading to become an expert on a topic. The second hour is spent summarizing what they’ve read. This works because it leverages the learning science “depth of knowledge” concept, a hierarchy that Liemandt described as follows:
  
  • Level 1 – Do you know facts
  • Level 2 – Can you summarize the facts
  • Level 3 – Can you look at summaries and facts to identify new insights
  • Level 4 – Creating new insights that other people don’t have

        Reading and summarizing help students reach levels 1–3, allowing them to learn much faster.

That’s what I learned from what I consumed last week.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and investors and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 117 (I reread a book this week)
• Total blog posts published: 784

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 5/31/26 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Reread Psychology of Intelligence Analysis by Richards J. Heuer Jr., a 45-year veteran of the CIA. I’d finished this book, and it was so eye-opening that I read it again. I wanted to start using the framework immediately and make sure I understood the concepts. The “Analysis of Competing Hypotheses” framework helped me realize that something I thought was an important development pertaining to an important decision actually wasn’t important at all. I’ll definitely keep this book close to refer to it as I embrace this framework more.

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• No ask this week

Week three hundred twenty-two was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Last week, I was chatting with someone about books and how I think about reading. I used to pick up random books to read, but now I’m more intentional about why I read. Before I choose a book, I write down what problem I’m trying to solve or what roadblock I’m currently facing. The more painful the problem, the more motivated I am to solve it. I then go find books written by people who have solved the problem, often biographies or framework books.

I use a synoptical reading approach to consuming the books. I’m not looking for the answer in any single book. I’m looking for patterns, and I’m comparing and contrasting ideas in the various books. The idea is to understand the problem and possible solutions from different perspectives so I can come to my own conclusions about how to solve the problem.

I found out about synoptical reading when I read How to Read a Book in 2023. I synthesized what I learned from that book here. It took a little bit of effort to embrace this approach, but I’m glad I did. It’s one I hope I can keep up for many years.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and investors and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 116
• Total blog posts published: 777

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 5/24/26 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Read Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, by Richards J. Heuer Jr., a 45-year veteran of the CIA. This book details how to make sense of complex situations using a structured intelligence analysis methodology. Heuer outlines “Analysis of Competing Hypotheses” (ACH), an eight-step framework grounded in cognitive psychology, decision analysis, and the scientific method. ACH requires analysts to identify all plausible hypotheses and test each against the available evidence instead of evaluating one favored explanation in isolation. The hypotheses that can’t be disproved by evidence are allowed to survive.

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• No ask this week

Week three hundred twenty-one was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Continuing with my new protocol, here I’m going to share content I consumed and learned from. This week, I spent time doing general learning about a variety of topics.

What I consumed this week and what I learned from it:

• Social media channels are information maps – YouTube interview with Chris Camillo, an investor who turned $80k into $50M by spotting trends early on social media. Camillo got on my radar when I read Jack Schwager’s latest book, Unknown Market Wizards. Chris thinks differently, and his insights are often thought-provoking. He’s made a career out of being ahead of the crowd. In this interview, he explains that social media platforms began as contained social grids, meaning you didn’t have access to what existed outside your “friends.” These platforms have evolved into open information maps where you can now see in real time what everyone in the world is talking about as they talk about it. He goes on to say that agentic AI will ultimately help people make sense of the growing amount of conversational data. This concept stuck with me and reinforced my belief that X is a valuable tool for bottom-up research. Later in the interview (see here), he reinforces what I’ve heard many entrepreneurs and investors say (in different ways): the biggest trap is making big decisions right after you have a big win. Your worst decision or investment comes right after you’ve had a massive win because you’re overconfident and you’re flush with cash, so you don’t adhere to the strict decision-making and execution process that led to your big win.
• Pace of insight to action determines success – Interview with Taylor Holiday, founder and CEO of ad agency Common Thread Collective. Holiday caught my attention when he said that the amount of time between an insight being identified and action being taken based on that insight is a critical component of achieving your goal. This ultimately determines the speed of course correction, which is important when you’re doing something that doesn’t have a clear path, especially if it’s hard. People who have superior decision-making skills act quickly when they learn new information that changes the situation or connect dots that lead to new insights.
• Customers care about their problems, not what you’re selling – Interview with Donald Miller, marketing entrepreneur and author of Building a StoryBrand 2.0. This is a great interview on the psychology of customers and how entrepreneurs should communicate to customers the reasons they should buy their product or service. The gist is that you should talk about the customer’s problem and how you’ll make them a hero by helping them solve their problem. His analogy is that if you go on a date with someone who talks about himself or herself the whole time, that’s a bad date. Customers have similar feelings about companies that talk about themselves instead of the customer’s problem.

That’s what I learned from what I consumed last week.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and investors and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 115
• Total blog posts published: 770

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed in the week ending 5/17/26 (link to the previous week’s commitments):

• Read Screw It, Let's Do It, by Richard Branson, a memoir in which Branson shares nine life lessons and stories from his life that illustrate each lesson and why it’s important

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• No ask this week

Week three hundred twenty was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Continuing with my new protocol, here I’m going to share content I consumed and learned from. This week, I spent time learning mostly direct-to-consumer and marketing strategies.

What I consumed this week and what I learned from it:

• TikTok Shop goldrush is changing marketing – YouTube interview with Rob the Bank. I’ve been learning more about TikTok Shop and its popular affiliate program. Rob explains how the affiliate strategy works and how he used it to scale his ecommerce brands. Rob does a good job of explaining why this strategy is effective and how to execute it.
• ButcherBox founder turned a hobby into a $600M-a-year business – YouTube interview with ButcherBox founder Mike Salguero. Mike and his friends acquired their first company, and it did well until they raised VC funding, which led to the company losing its way. He left that start-up and started a passion project involving quality meats. Very candid interview with transparency around numbers, which I really enjoyed. One interesting figure he shared is that they have 3% monthly churn, which is 36% annual churn. His success with a barbell strategy of hiring people who are very young or out of retirement caught my attention, too. His hack of reverse engineering someone’s influencer database was smart. Mike recently acquired a media company to drive growth and retention. Hormozi’s content strategy around using free content that’s demonstration-oriented (not selling-oriented) to retain customers while simultaneously driving top of funnel for new, high-intent customers who are preconditioned with how they’ll use your product when they purchase stuck with me.
• Howard Marks builds institutional knowledge through lifetime analyst positions – YouTube interview with Oaktree Capital co-founder Howard Marks. Interesting interview. He incentivizes analysts to build up excellence, which creates institutional knowledge, and to stay in that position throughout their careers. The company gets decision-making stability during periods of extreme ups and downs of the market, which has led to superior returns for the firm. Counterintuitive, given that many organizations are essentially up or out, which decays institutional knowledge.

That’s what I learned from what I consumed last week.