The Good Books I Read in 2023

#1. Fiction
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

I rarely reread and I almost never read fiction, but I revisited All the Pretty Horses after Cormac McCarthy died this year. Partly in his honor and because i remember it as my favorite. 

Cormac McCarthy was a complicated man. He went into the desert and abandoned his wife and children, in pursuit of the empathy required to tell good stories of the American west. They’re violent, unforgiving, honest. His dedication to craft, unparalleled since perhaps Walden. 

From the first sentence, it sounds like he’s talking to me in my head and I enjoy reading this book out loud. His stories also include native people, which I’m grateful to have to read. 

In the end, he rests in peace and the book tops my book list. 

#2. Professional Psychology

Changing on the Job by Jennifer Garvey Berger

When I first wrote this, I called this book, The book with the two fishes”. It’s a memorable cover, not for a good reason, and a forgettable title, but I wont hold her publicist against her, because the content is transformational.

Recommended by my executive coach, Alan, it helped me understand the evolution of the mind, why most people have a linear perspective from black to white and gave me solace that I’m not f’ing crazy living my life in multiple dimensions. It’s apparently a sequel and I read the first book second. Not sure if it’s one of those times where you like the first one you see best, or if the second attempt was just better, but I felt like this one was the must read. Chose your own adventure. 

#3. Product and corporate culture

Setting the Table by Danny Meyer

Perhaps the best product and founder book I’ve read (build was pretty good too but it’s west coast vibes, and I’m an east coast b). The first 50 pages are mostly self-centered, typical New Yorker, but the meat of this one was worth the wait. Quite literally the biggest lesson I learned is to consider every part of the customer experience, even the wait, as part of the experience. 

#4. Self-help wisdom

The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

Prophetically and like the sage she is, my cousin recommended this book to me over the best ice cream sandwiches of my life. The next week I took some time off in the desert by myself, and this book was on the nightstand of the Airbnb. I devoured it. It’s in the genre of the Four Agreements (an old fav, but a good one) so if you’re getting older and looking for a few more agreements, this it’d be it. 

What’s the point of AI anyways?

There’s far too many referees, not enough players speaking up on the subject of AI.

To see congressional first drafts of legislation is a joke. They’re so unprepared and lack a fundamental understanding of AI, that we can not leave it in their hands. We are rightfully terrified of the inequality, oppression, and violence that will come from AI left in the hands of men, Tech Barrons. Yet, because regulators understand so little, intimidated or stupefied, they’re handing the keys right back to Tech Barrons to keep driving.

And all the while humans have enormous potential to be caring, generous, and compassionate.

So, what’s the point of AI anyways? Why should we want AI? What are we optimizing for?

In the first wave of AI, we saw models that optimize for productivity — speed, accuracy, and efficiency. Think robotics in operating rooms and language models to connect you to the right support in a chat bot.

In the second wave of AI, we’re refining for profitability. Think about models that use the Youtube video you watched or the book you recently purchased to target advertisements at the right time.

In the third wave of AI, there is an opportunity to refine models for quality. I build AI to improve the human condition that promotes free-will. My work at LOOP, uses AI to finally eradicate redlining from insurance. Let’s call it egalitarian-AI, one that presupposes access to opportunity as a right, not predetermined by gender, age, race, or starting economic circumstance. 

These truths we hold to be unalienable, that all men are created equal. What if the math could also prove that, identify where inequality creeps in — whether that be where you live and your access to things like high quality education or environmentally non-hazardous conditions (e.g., lead in the water). And pinpoint ways to correct for this and create a more perfect union with policy, with investment, and with the entrepreneurial community. 

Orienting models to improve quality is a little fuzzier because ‘quality’ it’s a matter of personal taste, and requires a tactful artist to produce. Its loose definition leaves it open to and vulnerable to exploitation. But there are people in the world (myself included) that are making extremely good, high quality models. People who can conceptual and create AI (the dangerous) have an opportunity to share this gift for the betterment of society, but we have to chose to create these models and share high quality work with the world (the generosity).

The third wave, of egalitarian, generous AI is possible if we orient our ambition to it.

What you wont hear from AI Tech Barrons in Congress this week...

I have great hope about the potential for AI to save the world - inclusive of my own work to rebuild a more inclusive financial services sector - and heal the planet from it’s current climate crisis. I think a more data literate population will understand political polling and vote more. And I think the economy becomes much more inclusive, as we see new faces participate and become successful.

But I think we first need to focus on the very important task at hand — how to regulate AI — as this will dictate this future, which is not guaranteed.

The Tech Barrons being consulted (Musk, Zuckerberg, Altman, Thiel) do not have egalitarian interests (believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities). They bring aging politicians with flip phones celebrity cache and bankroll a large percentage of jobs. They’re all white men and the technologies they’ve created has brought about unchecked inequality, oppression, and violence.

What you won’t hear them say this week is — break up the big companies and give people the right to own their own data — even though these are the most important places to start a conversation on what regulation is appropriate and needed.

As I advocated in my open letter on AI, the three focus areas should be: 1. antitrust - data companies, like every other company, can not get too big and become monopolies. 2. consumers need to gain a new ability to supervise how data are being used and provide or remove consent. 3. how to prioritize peace and prolong the American Democratic experiment.

I want to expand on these topics because they’re nuanced. I’ll take on the first two in this blog and #3 separately…

1.

Antitrust law is simply the most important place to start / to pay attention to. Without competition, consumer choice becomes a construct, not a reality. Without competition, consumer prices increase, as companies extract and consolidate profits into monopolistic organizations. Without competition, the monopolist grows tired of innovation and doesn’t invest in it. Progress and productivity slow and the cool stuff gets a lot more boring and mundane. Without competition, nationalistic and fascists who govern without the will of the people, enrich themselves or impose (often more extremist or religious) world views.

Big data companies are already too big. It’s tempting because more data generates better results, but only to an extent. We must fight this temptation and justification to preserve choice, free will, and ownership. I’ll remind you that the same Tech Barrons that are speaking before Congress are also fighting in court to gain free access to copywritten material, so we must legislate anti-trust laws because monopolies are not interested in self-regulating.

2.

Consumers need to gain the ability to consent and opt out. The word “gain” is accentuated purposefully to acknowledge, we do not currently have an enumerated right to our data. We should. We should also know when we are interacting with a machine and have the opportunity to speak with a human for important decisions. The technology and infrastructure to do this is minimally disruptive to businesses. But again, the Tech Barrons have elected to harvest data, sell it, profit from it, and do so without your knowledge or consent aren’t policing themselves, so regulation is necessary.

We can not prevent China from creating a surveillance-based economy, but with regulation, we can chose not to become one. We’re at that turning point that people buy thousands of dollars worth of home surveillance equipment to allow a private company to view your front door, and your coming and goings; our vacuum cleaners know the interior floor plans of our homes, and we give our biological DNA — our personal, custom code to our lives itself — to private companies. Consumers do not appreciate that there are no limits imposed on these companies — how they obtain, use, resell your data without your knowledge or consent, necessarily.

FICO credit, for example, is a private company that compiles financial transaction histories. Maybe it makes sense to use their algorithm to qualify people for a loan, but do you know they also sell these data to car insurance companies, who turn around and discriminate low-credit drivers because they are unlikely to have additional assets to insure? That’s not how I want my data to be used! In China, a similar social caste algorithm is making a multitude of life-changing decisions, limiting free-enterprise and imposing a computational value to an individuals worth and potential.

My idols

I’ve read thousands of books and none was an autobiography about a woman founder. None have been about female artists.

Nicole Nadeau (@nicolenadeau) a sculptor and creative sage, has this rad t-shirt ‘I’ll give you a Kiss if you can name 10 Female Artists.’

I’ll wait.

I can never mentally get to 10 all the way in my head, even when I include Nicole Nadeau.

So I figure I should write down my playlist. I’m going to start with 1 and keep building out, revisiting this list until it’s gotten far longer than 10. Donations welcome.

My definition of “artist” is broad, actresses, business leaders, painters, data scientists. Only pre-requisite is that they live life in the spirit of an artist and not as a man.

1.

It’s a weird place to start, but I have to be honest, Jamie Lee Curtis was the inspiration for writing this post. So, I’m going to start with the legendary, Academy Award Winning Best Actress in a Supporting Role, True Lies Sex Icon, and Women’s Gut Health Advocate, the incomparable, Jamie Lee Curtis.

This woman is our head cheerleader. She shows us how to act in triumph. And this photo of JLC supporting Michelle Yeoh as she wins a Best Actress Award is iconic.

But then also, this article, written by Zoe Williams of the Guardian really got me…

I’ve been this person:
Yeoh is covering her face with her hands, which is the smart move in these situations: triumph has no acceptable expression. It’s not a lovable emotion to begin with, and it can tip so easily into something even less endearing: smugness, fakery, know-me-by-the-lamentations-of-my-inferiors. Way better to keep all the key features submerged under fingers.

I’ve masked insecurity about elevating myself and compromised displaying my excellence to accommodate others’ comfort. I’ve put more work into helping others, as an outlet for an inner desire to celebrate myself.

But I’ve also been this person for others:

Curtis, standing to the side, has never been more expressive in her 44-year film career. Both arms are punching the air like “early man wins world cup final”. Her mouth is open in what can only be called a roar, and the constellation of feelings, while only she can truly know them, looks something like: “I am overjoyed for my best friend”; “If this hadn’t happened, I could have cheerfully killed someone over it”; “Come on, try me”.

When an endeavor is important enough to succeed, you can chose to show up as JLC / the Head Cheerleader for yourself. Freely celebrate how successful you are and how proud you are of yourself — what you’ve built and the legacy you will leave behind for others.

“We’re all in this bullshit together.” — JLC @ Variety Interview

15 minutes of inspiration from JLC.