Balaji Srinivasan's Book Recommendations

"We've all read Grove."

"A history of the Chinese tech ecosystem."

"If you take all the people who could understand the Feynman Lectures, they could probably appreciate Hamlet. But not conversely."

"[Brian Armstrong] and I used parts of this at Coinbase."

"Useful as an alternate perspective on the era."

"One of the best books on Bitcoin for a broad audience."

"Was written in a few days by N people, one chapter each, and then published on Amazon."

"A good read for crypto people."

"What the Soviet Union was actually like."

"Balaji Srinivasan mentioned this book on Twitter."

"Balaji Srinivasan mentioned this book on Twitter."

"Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book on Twitter."

"Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book on Twitter."

"Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book on Twitter."

"Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book on Twitter."

"Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book on Twitter."

"I love [this] book!"

"Blockbuster tried to buy Hollywood Video, but the FTC called this off on antitrust (!) grounds. By 2010 Blockbuster was bankrupt and Netflix was soaring."

"Balaji Srinivasan mentioned this book on Twitter."

"Short and well worth reading. Presages much of today's train crash on social media."

"An accessible explanation of how blockchains allow us to establish certain kinds of truths even in adversarial environments."

"Balaji Srinivasan mentioned this book on Twitter."

"A lot of fun. Not exactly art, but novel approach with a lot of visual inspiration."

"The American century is ending. The Asian century is beginning."

"Gold from the Americas did flood Europe in the 1500s, which helped cause inflation."

"[The author's] thesis is that America is increasingly becoming a virtual society, focused on make-believe above all. I have to agree."

"[The author] was to Bitcoin what Andrew Yang is to startup societies."

"There’s a sense in which the term 'real name' is a misnomer. A better term is a state name — a name which makes you legible to the state."

"Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book on Twitter."

"Don't judge this self-published book by its cover, just read it."

"The US military has a perfect record in its war games with China. China has won every round."

"I put it up there with the top five books I recommend."

"One may have to set aside ego to read it."

"Makes the case that Xi could be felled by his internal enemies (possible!) and that this will lead to democratization (IMO implausible)."

"Useful for anyone trying to bootstrap a new community or network, which is virtually every founder these days."

"Decent book — by a central banker! — on the lack of legitimacy of central banking and the regulatory state writ large."

"In terms of just packing a punch per page I really enjoyed this back in the day."

"Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book in "The Almanack of Balaji Srinivasan."

"Teaches you how to test things that are bigger than just a simple function."

"Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book in "The Almanack of Balaji Srinivasan."

"How tech founders always had to fight against the establishment, just like the present day."

"If you want to find startup ideas here’s the book."

"People get really amped about a technology, then you try to actually do it, you find it’s actually hard, most people get demoralized and they quit."

"Tackles the problem of modern distraction by empowering us to break the bad habits at the root of the issue."

"The brief argument is: our true history is written in our genes."

"The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away."

"How today’s America resembles the Dutch and British empires of the past in terms of its monetary overextension."

"How a cyclic theory of history forecasts a serious American conflict in the 2020s (written in the mid-1990s)."

"Reminds us that the tech era is very new, only really about 10 years old, and only began in earnest with iPhone adoption."

"A broad survey of Western historical anomalies, with a focus on the 19th and 20th centuries."

"How quantitative methods can identify recurrent cycles."

"It’s amazing how many people have studied accounting or something, but you just give them Schaums and ask them to do the first 10 problems in accounting, they struggle."

"Requires more energy to read, but it keeps you sharp."

"Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book in "The Almanack of Balaji Srinivasan."

"I’ve always liked compendium."

"Fun book proposes plotting all complex functions as colored contour plots. Kind of an obvious idea, but it's carried through systematically here."

"Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book in "The Almanack of Balaji Srinivasan."

"Talks about how the invention of fire allowed humans as species to outsource our metabolism to the fire and allocate more of our scarce calories to the brain."

"Most people don't really hear bad things about the FDA. This book taught me why."

"Anyone working on NFT collections should understand the history of the Freemasons. Many of their rituals could be usefully updated for the digital era."

"All about enforcement discretion."

"How the Soviet Union actually worked."

"How different groups of capitalists funded the communist revolution."

"How different groups of capitalists funded the fascist revolution."