I have a goal to read a biography or autobiography every week. I set the goal in April and have been pretty good about it, especially the last two months. But this past week, I didn’t finish the biography I was reading, Master of the Game: Steve Ross and the Creation of Time Warner by Connie Bruck.

I got annoyed with myself when I realized I wasn’t going to finish in time. Looking back, I probably could have if I’d been more strategic with my time earlier in the week. To compensate, I spent extra time reading this past weekend and accepted the failure. It is what it is—but I definitely don’t want this to become my norm. I enjoy reading and have benefited tremendously from this habit since I set my goal in April.

This week is pretty busy, but I want to finish the book I’m reading plus a new one. It’s aggressive, but I think it can be done.

Wish me luck!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs 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: 34
• Total book digests created: 12
• Total blog posts published: 203
• Total audio recordings published: 103

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 0
• Book digests created: 0
• Blog posts published: 7
• Audio recordings published: 0

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Created two book digests using Google AI Studio
• Tested using Google Vertex AI Studio
• Tested ways to improve the quality of book digests AI-generated using Google AI Studio
• Created an MVP that runs locally using Visual Studio Code (a developer friend was a huge help with this)

What I’ll do next week:

• Finish reading the biography about Steve Ross, founder of Time Warner and Warner Communications
• Start reading a biography or autobiography
• Test adding more books to the MVP
• Fine-tune the MVP
• Identify the path to launching MVP publicly so others can test it

Asks:

• None

Week two hundred thirty-nine was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs 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

What I struggled with:

• I’m not technical, so learning and applying the various technologies required to build an MVP for this book project has been frustrating. Some of the technologies built for nontechnical people don’t work as advertised. Luckily, I connected with a gifted engineer who helped me overcome hurdles and get a working prototype I can start testing on.

What I learned:

• Google AI Studio is a good option for non-technical people who want to improve AI responses by adding supplemental data via retrieval augmented generation (RAG). But it’s more restrictive than using RAG by writing code. I was surprised how much AI Studio limits what you can do, decreasing the quality of the AI responses.  
• I learned how to use Visual Studio Code to build an MVP. It’s hosted locally on my computer, and the outputs are significantly better than Google AI Studio’s.
• I learned the limitations of Vertex AI Agent Builder.
• I learned a ton about AI image-generation limitations and the opportunities they create, but that wasn’t related to this project.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs 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: 34
• Total book digests created: 12
• Total blog posts published: 196
• Total audio recordings published: 103

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Book digests created: 0
• Blog posts published: 7
• Audio recordings published: 0

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read a biography about Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr., founder of Advance Publications and owner of famous magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, and The New Yorker
• Obtained digitized copies of two books I’ve read

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography or autobiography
• Create book digests for two books using Google AI Studio
• Explore Google Vertex AI Studio
• Test ways to improve the quality of AI-generated book digests by fine-tuning Google’s Gemini LLM

Asks:

• None

Week two hundred thirty-eight was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs 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

What I struggled with:

• I was frustrated this week with myself and others. I didn’t get some things done that I’d planned, and that got to me. They were my responsibility, so I was disappointed in myself. But I was also annoyed about the things I didn’t have the power to push through to completion.

What I learned:

• I finished reading another biography about Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. this week and recognized a pattern among entrepreneurs who achieve outsize success. Many have a photographic memory and make decisions quickly. Their minds make connections between the information they’ve consumed over the years and the problems in front of them, which allows them to make better decisions faster to solve their problems. In other words, their photographic memory prepares their mind to act decisively when a solution is needed.
• Google AI Studio is a “browser-based integrated development environment (IDE) for prototyping with generative models.” This looks like a good way for a nontechnical person like me to fine-tune the output of Google’s models.
• Some public sources provide scans of books, even older, hard-to-locate books.
• I’ve lived with the problem I’m solving with this book project. I understand it deeply. If I build an MVP that solves my problems, it will likely resonate with other entrepreneurs.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!

I had a great conversation with someone who archives and preserves documents for a living. A big part of their work involves digitizing documents and publications. A few takeaways from the conversation:

• Commercial-grade book scanners are the way to go. They can generate an image or text file, or both, when they scan a book.
• Discoverability is an important consideration. Tagging and metadata are important to enhancing discoverability.
• Ensuring consistency in the information collected across publications is important. Thinking through the metadata schema is an essential upfront exercise.
• Using distinct identifiers, i.e., authority control, helps keep data clean and enhances discoverability.  
• I need to learn what ontology is and how it relates to my project.  
• Open-source digital repository software programs such as DSpace are popular and have active communities.

The conversation gave me a glimpse of what archivists do and how they think about their work. It was helpful regarding my personal project, which is looking more like a data project.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs 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: 33
• Total book digests created: 12
• Total blog posts published: 189
• Total audio recordings published: 103

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Book digests created: 0
• Blog posts published: 7
• Audio recordings published: 0

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read the autobiography of Bennett Cerf, founder of book publisher Random House

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography or autobiography
• Locate a second commercial-grade book scanner locally
• Finalize talking points for the next podcast series

Asks:

• None

Week two hundred thirty-seven was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs 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

What I struggled with:

• Locating a commercial-grade book scanner took some work, and gaining access to one has been more challenging than I expected. I’ll need to get creative and scrappy.

What I learned:

• Large companies store a lot of data, but often it’s not structured or organized. To reap the full potential of AI, companies are realizing the need to structure and organize their data—a massive undertaking.
• Google’s NotebookLM has become very popular in the last two weeks, even though this tool has been out for months. The new feature that sparked this wave of attention is the ability to “listen to a conversation about your sources.” You upload your own documents and NotebookLM creates a podcast conversation between two people. The conversation is an analysis of the content in your uploaded documents. The AI is doing two things. First, it’s synthesizing the content in your documents. But what people are energized about is listening to the synthesis in a storytelling format. Hearing a story is the way most people learn best. This feature leans into that facet of human nature and makes NotebookLM appealing to a broader audience.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs 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: 32
• Total book digests created: 12
• Total blog posts published: 182
• Total audio recordings published: 103

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Book digests created: 0
• Blog posts published: 7
• Audio recordings published: 0

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read a biography about Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr.
• Created a notebook in NotebookLM using a book digest and got feedback from two people on using it

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography or autobiography
• Digitize one biography or autobiography
• Finalize talking points for the next podcast series

Asks:

• None

Week two hundred thirty-six was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs 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

What I struggled with:

• No material struggles this week

What I learned:

• Classifying and categorizing people’s journeys is much more complicated than I realized, which is likely why it hasn’t been done for entrepreneurs. I learned about the Library of Congress Classification system this week and realized I have a lot to learn about taxonomy.
• Feedback this week highlighted that to be valuable to current entrepreneurs, my library of entrepreneurs’ journeys needs to be significantly more useful than existing alternatives. Marginally better isn’t enough. It needs to be 10x or even 100x more useful.
• Building an audience, then a community from that audience, and then a product based on community feedback is a company-building approach that I thought about and discussed with others this week.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!