Here are the three books that will be in my Santa sack this year (apart from Barefoot Kids, of course):
Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
By Charlie Munger
The world lost an investment legend this year when Charlie Munger passed away at age 99. For the uninitiated, Charlie was Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, and together they spent decades running the world’s greatest compound interest machine, Berkshire Hathaway.
Charlie was rich enough to say whatever the hell he wanted, which he did – railing against the greed of Wall Street, Bitcoin Bros (he famously called crypto ‘rat poison’), and giving wise advice on living a decent life. Despite being a multi-billionaire, Munger – like Buffett – chose to live in the same humble home for 70 years.
“There are answers worth billions of dollars in a $30 history book”, writes Munger.
And this is one such book.
Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity
By Peter Attia
I didn’t want to like this book.
After all, I’m highly cynical of best-selling how-to books (hello, Barefoot Investor).
Surely it couldn’t be as good as everyone says it was?
Actually, it was better.
Attia is a super-smart quack, and he’s produced the definitive guide to living a long, healthy life. Yet what sets this book apart from other health and diet books is that I gave it to my editor, Wally, a man who knows his way around a sausage roll, and it totally changed the way he approaches his health.
Much like the shoeless book, it’s good because it works.
The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century’s Greatest Dilemma
By Mustafa Suleyman
So this one comes with a warning: it totally stressed me out. And not just me. A member of my unofficial book club told me he couldn’t get past the third chapter: “It was just too scary, I couldn’t cope.”
Suleyman isn’t some blow-hard author trying to sell some books by frightening the pants off us. He’s totally got the chops, having co-founded one of the world’s most successful artificial intelligence (AI) companies, Deepmind Technologies, which was bought by Google a decade ago for $750 million.
AI is going to fundamentally change the world, and sooner than we think.
He writes about the latest ‘litmus test’ for AI, which is to give it the instruction to “make me $1 million selling stuff on Amazon”. The AI bot will scan Amazon for the most profitable products, have it made in China, list it online, write all the ad copy, manage fulfilment and customer service … and then deposit $1 million into your bank account.
Crazy, huh?
In the coming decade AI will infiltrate our lives, driven by the fact that it will get smarter and faster, and it won’t get drunk and make an arse of itself at the office Christmas party.
This bloke knows what’s coming down the tunnel. Read it to find out what (maybe) happens next.
Tread Your Own Path!