September’s Top Books

1. Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal by Naom Chomsky.

I think I don’t need to explain how important Naom Chomsky’s contribution to our intellectual life and society last 50 years. I started to read him while I was in college. The latest book of his is underlying what needs to be done (ASAP) about Climate Crisis before it is too late. Short read definitely interesting (4/5)

2. A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence by Kartik Hosanagar

It is great for starting to understand the basics of AI and Machine Learning. Kartik’s personal contribution to the field definitely makes it interesting. (4/5)

3. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

I am a big fan of Morgan Housel. Whatever he wrote his blog on Collaborative Fund is always interesting to me. I think I highlight a minimum of 40 places in his book. It is fun to learn about the psychology of money. I wish this book was published 10 years ago:) (5/5)

TOP 3 BOOKS ARCHIVE

August’s Top 3 Books

July’s Top 3 Books

June’s Top 3 Books

May’s Top 3 Books

April’s Top 3 Books

March’s Top 3 Books

February’s Top 3 Books

January’s Top 3 Books

Skin in the game & Ralph Nader

Skin in the game term first came across with me Nassim Taleb’s famous book Skin in the Game. Yesterday, I reread my notes from the book I highlighted. I found Nassim dedicated his book to Ralph Nader. I said who is this guy? Did a little bit of research about Ralph Nader and found out who is a famous consumer activist and devoted his life to fighting against giants companies to make ordinary people’s lives better.

Nassim and Ralph both are Lebanese. Ralph’s family came to the USA early 1910s. His entire family (mom, dad, and his sisters) is a civic activist and thinker. I’m going to watch his documentary for sure next following days. That is an amazing life story. Immigrant’s son from Lebanon fought General Motors’ the early 1960s to protect American consumers against the fragile cars which were not safe at all to drive. And saved hundreds of thousands of lives after his efforts last 3-4 decades.

I asked myself What if Ralph’s parents didn’t immigrate to the USA?

Any chance to break the chain?

We are all looking for options. Can’t satisfy what we have. Why?

Why not?

Where is the best place to live? Which school I should send my kids?

Do I really need these people around me? Aren’t we tired of the same thing every day?

Don’t you feel your life is managed by Netflix, AmazonPrime, Youtube, Instagram, and Spotify algorithms?

Any chance to break the chain?

Philz Coffee

As you all know I love Coffee. Especially good ones. Yesterday, Jacob Jaber (Co-Founder & CEO of Philz) and I had good chat about coffee, mobile apps, and the future of Coffee.

He is super passionate about Customer Experience and happiness.

As I always said, Coffee is a great addiction. When you drink, you should feel good:)

What should we eat for dinner?

I have waited until tonight to write this post. Last couple of months my wife and I keep asking the same question each other. “What should we eat for dinner”?

Breakfast is easy for us. I skipped it, she does quick breakfast.

Lunch is either grabbing salad or I can prep some sort of breakfast sandwiches.

Dinner. That is our new nightmare. What did we use to eat? We either cook at home or go out. Now, we are tired of home-cooking also take out. Going out is not the same anymore. So much hustle and bustle.

We miss San Francisco’s different variety of food options. Suburbs are suburb. Very limited section or mediocre restaurants. But, I think it is going to change. New York already changed outdoor dining is now permanent. Technically, American cities turning European cities.

What are you guys eating for dinner?

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Israeli Playbook

As you guys know, Israel is a Startup Nation. 87 Israeli Companies are listed in NASDAQ currently. (Source Robinhood)

They are going global day one (actually day zero(idea stage) because the size of the country is never interesting for them “go local first then global”).

The great majority of Israeli founders surveyed (69%) believe that founders need to relocate to the US office for the expansion to be successful. And for just over half the respondents, the first US-based team member was a founder. For the startups we surveyed, most of the GTM team was based in the US: 63% of CEOs, 60% of CMOs, and 86% of CROs. By contrast, most of these companies kept engineering, product, and finance back in Israel. 91% of CTO’s were based in Israel, together with 66% of CPOs, and 57% of CFOs. (You should definitely check IndexVentures’s Expanding to the US book. Especially Israeli Playbook.

Adaptive minds

Today, We visited San Francisco after a long time for brunch. Somehow, we felt we never lived there after 6 months with this “new normal” routine.

I felt people are so adaptive mentally and physically. If we can’t, we will not survive. I am very optimist we will figure out a lot of today’s problem in the long run. All we should have the right attitude and willingness. Our destiny relays on our belief system.

Ageing

When I was 20 years old, I was saying myself “ I want to get retire in my 30s”

Now, I’m saying “You just started baby. Whatever you have done or accomplished it is just the end of the beginning”.

Every year, month, or day, I’m getting a better version of myself. Yes, I have bad days also boring or not exciting ones. But, overall it is going where I want to go.

My age is on my side. Not the opposite side. Because I control it.

Story vs Idea

We all love stories. Especially good ones with happy endings.

There are no bad or good ideas. There are ideas who are missing stories.

The biggest difference to me with ideas vs stories: Ideas are ingredients of food. You can put those ingredients to a plate and eat one by one or mix it some sort of cooking to feed your audience. Because you and they are hungry. I get that.

However, stories are explaining elaborately:

– why did you start to cook? -where those ingredients come from? -what will be food look like? – how are you going to feel when you eat?

Technically you are eating the same ingredients or food but having different experiences.