— Topic
Books
Books read as instruments rather than retold as summaries: what holds up, what does not, and where it bites at work.
13 articles
You Are Not a Fact in Your Own Life
Wittgenstein's Tractatus ends by telling you to throw it away. Before that it takes apart the question everyone asks wrongly: not how much you know, but which side the answer could even be on. It is not the side made of facts. With three drawn scenes that run as you scroll.
Buy the Books You Will Never Read
An unread book is not a failed read. It is a purchased option on a question you do not have yet. Why a shelf does something no folder, no store account and no chat window can do. With two drawn scenes to scroll through.
The Smartest Guys in the Room: why the smartest guys are always the last to notice
Enron didn't die of fraud. It died of a company that had trained itself out of hearing the word no. A reading note on Jeff Skilling as Achilles. And on what that has to do with Nvidia's $42 billion and the memo nobody wants to write.
The Sense of Beauty — Beauty Is Pleasure Objectified (and Your Feed Knows It)
In 1896 George Santayana wrote the most uncomfortable definition of beauty: it isn't in the thing — it's your pleasure, which you pin on the thing. A reading note from someone who builds exactly that for a living. With an interactive test.
The Picture of Dorian Gray — and Whether a Book Can Be Immoral
Wilde's only novel argues with itself: 'There is no such thing as an immoral book' — and then damns its hero anyway. A reading note on beauty without a conscience, from someone who builds surfaces that never age for a living.
When Things Go Too Well — Thoughts on Morgan Housel’s Psychology of Money
The book isn’t the subject — a question is: why do people fall hardest right after they’ve made it? On wealth that eats itself, from the lone speculator to family businesses to Fukuyama’s “End of History.”
1984 by George Orwell — What the Classic Says About Technology Today
Re-read with a tech lens. Why 1984 is less a prediction than a tool — and where the parallels to today hold up, and where they don't.
The Algorithm by Jon McNeill — Tesla’s Hypergrowth Formula, Translated for Smaller Companies
A former Tesla President distills Musk’s five-step algorithm. Compelling — but how much of it actually transfers to a normal company, without Musk’s budget and risk appetite?
Hybris by Krause & Trappe — How Ancient DNA Rewrites the Story of Origins and Hubris
An archaeogeneticist tells human history from ancient bones: constant migration, constant mixing — and a sober warning about “Homo hybris.”
Time of the Magicians by Wolfram Eilenberger — Four Thinkers, One Decade, and the Limits of Language
Eilenberger tells the decade 1919–1929 through Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer and Heidegger. Why Wittgenstein’s line about language is the one that won’t let me go.
On the Genealogy of Morals by Nietzsche — Where Our “Self-Evident” Values Come From
Nietzsche’s polemic on the origin of good and evil, guilt and bad conscience. An uncomfortable, often-abused book — and why its method still matters.
The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse — The Most Beautiful Warning About the Ivory Tower
Hesse’s last great work about a perfect intellectual game — and why its master walks away from it in the end. A reading note for anyone who builds elegant systems.
Brave New World — and the Unease That Mustapha Mond Is Right
Huxley’s dystopia threatens you not with the boot but with comfort. A reading note from someone who removes friction for a living — and realizes he’s on the wrong side of the book.