What is the book about?
What is the book about?The Coming Wave is an inside look into the far-reaching implications of the mass AI rollout currently underway. The democratization of knowledge and power, with its many benefits, also has the potential to cause catastrophic harm.
Why do you recommend it?
Today technology is the largest sector in the US stock market. Its growth as well as returns on the huge AI infrastructure investments being made will be key to driving efficiency across the global economy.
“Put simply: most technology is made to earn money. The coming AI wave represents the greatest economic prize in history.”
What is the book about?
What is the book about?The Art of Learning explores how to achieve excellence by developing a deep, resilient, process-oriented approach to learning. In this book, Waitzkin shares personal stories and mental models he developed as he transitioned from elite chess to Tai Chi Push Hands competition, ultimately becoming a world champion in both.
Why do you recommend it?
This book offers powerful conceptual frameworks, training techniques and emotional strategies that lead to mastery in any field—whether it’s sports or investing. Key ideas like “investing in loss” (learning from errors), and “process over results” resonate deeply with long term investing.
“The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity.”
What is the book about?
What is the book about?This Time Is Different is a deep dive into centuries of sovereign defaults, banking collapses and currency crashes. Reinhart and Rogoff combine narrative history with extensive charts to show that “this time” almost never ends differently.
Why do you recommend it?
At a macro level, I loved how the book captured the nature of modern capitalism as being both crisis prone and yet deeply resilient. The content on domestic crises in developed countries was the most relevant and also the most palpable, as the book was written just after the 2008 financial crisis.
Key takeaway
My core takeaway is that leverage “gets out of hand” in ways that are conceptually preventable but also very hard to stop, which is why debt crises are so widespread.
What is the book about?
What is the book about?The LEGO Story is the biography of the LEGO Group – tracing its journey from a small Danish woodworking shop in the 1930s to becoming one of the most beloved and successful toy companies in the world. The book follows four generations of the Kristiansen family, from the carpenter who made wooden toys during the Great Depression, to the invention of the iconic LEGO brick, its near collapse in the early 2000s to staging a remarkable comeback with decisions like LEGO Star Wars and film/media expansion.
Why do you recommend it?
It’s an inspiring story of creativity and resilience. The book reveals the human decisions, values and mistakes behind the brand.
“Children who ‘play well’ become enterprising and active adults.”
What is the book about?
What is the book about?Quality Investing provides invaluable insights into investing in those rare, very high-quality businesses that are able to earn excess economic returns over the long term. Throughout the book there are many case studies on these compounders and the variety of business models that are durable and can stand the test of time.
Why do you recommend it?
This is a great book for understanding the many kinds of economic moats that only a subset of businesses possess. It is an enjoyable read given it ties the lessons to real-world businesses and it helps develop pattern recognition as an investor for potential competitive advantages.
“While premiums are paid for shares of such [quality] businesses, they are frequently insufficient […] Stock prices tend to undervalue quality companies.”
What is the book about?
What is the book about?The book portrays modern corporations, markets and governments as runaway “unaccountability machines” that route responsibility into “accountability sinks” — dense rulebooks, algorithms and committees that allow disasters to unfold while no-one takes the blame.
Why do you recommend it?
A “must read” book for anyone who is wondering why everyone has lost their minds, and what to do about it. Behold the “accountability sink,” the hidden plumbing in every modern corporation and public agency that lets blame swirl away unnoticed. It’s a razor-sharp crash course in fixing these black-box behemoths so institutions can finally hear—and answer for—their own insanity.
“What you have is an outcome that nobody wanted, but that the system was specifically designed to produce.”
What is the book about?
What is the book about?The book was written by the founder of Advent Capital, Tracy V. Maitland. Prior to founding his own firm, Maitland was a Director of Capital Markets at Merrill Lynch. His time there spanned a period through the 1980s and 90s where the firm became the dominant investment bank in convertible securities. This book provides a clearly written and extensive overview of convertibles including discussions on convertible strategies, early history, key sectors and indices, hedging and valuation.
Why do you recommend it?
The book illustrates the unique investment opportunities that convertibles provide given their positive asymmetry relative to equities. This characteristic allows them, in certain cases, to capture a lot of the upside of stocks while losing less on the downside.
Favourite quote
The forward is written by Howard Marks who became a major client of Maitland’s during his time at Merrill Lynch and who Maitland describes in the book as a visionary in convertible investing at the time. In reference to his own early career, Marks wrote: “It’s often in areas that are affected by ignorance and prejudice that bargains can best be found, and for me that meant convertibles”.
What is the book about?
What is the book about?How to Build a Car is the autobiography of Adrian Newey, the legendary Formula 1 designer behind championship-winning cars for Williams, McLaren and Red Bull. Blending technical insight with personal storytelling, Newey reveals how innovation, precision engineering and risk management drive performance at the highest level of motorsport. For institutional asset managers, the book offers compelling parallels to investing — from process-driven decision-making and iterative improvement to the importance of culture and talent in building a sustainable edge.
Why do you recommend it?
I recommend How to Build a Car because it offers a rare inside look at how disciplined innovation, risk management and team dynamics create sustained competitive advantage — principles that directly parallel active investment management. Investors and professionals alike will enjoy Newey’s blend of engineering brilliance and candid reflections on leadership, failure and high-performance culture.
Key takeaway
A compelling quote from the book is: “You learn more from the things that go wrong than the things that go right”. This captures a core truth shared between Formula 1 and investing — real progress comes from analyzing failure, adapting your process and continuously refining your approach to achieve long-term success.
What is the podcast about?
What is the podcast about?Hosted by Steven Bartlett, the podcast features insightful interviews and the exploration of business, personal growth and success.
Why do you recommend it?
Bartlett has the unique ability of disarming his guests in interviews leading to a more personal conversation. He has interviewed many leaders in technology, business and science providing useful insights and examples.
Favourite episode
The recent podcast on June 9th, 2025 with record executive Scooter Braun was a raw and open conversation.
What is the book about?
What is the book about?Mauboussin provides six to 12 long form research paper annually. One of his pieces that I find pertinent to today’s environment is Looking for Easy Games: How Passive Investing Shapes Active Management.
Why do you recommend it?
The paper discusses the draw from the investment market to switch from active management over to passive. Passive management benefits from active management, pricing the market while charging less fees. Passive gets to benefit from diversification and close-to-efficient valuations of the underlying securities assuming that active management does its job of pricing the market effectively. But what happens when the mix between passive and active becomes overly lopsided towards passive? What happens when there aren’t enough active managers pricing the market? Would we see valuations of the largest blue-chip companies, like the Mag7, run away to extreme highs due to their almost universal inclusion in every passively managed fund? Would we see large inefficiencies in under covered areas like small cap equities? Those are interesting questions to ponder in today’s market for those wondering if active management has an outsized opportunity to add value in underserved parts of the active management landscape.
“Sophisticated investors should seek active managers in asset classes with high dispersion.”
What is the book about?
What is the book about?Sonia Lupien, a Quebec neuroscientist known for her work on stress and the brain, mentioned these two books in a podcast. What stood out for me was a point she made about “the stress of work” vs “stress at work” meaning it’s not always the job itself that’s stressful, but the way we work now: constant notifications, attention switches and the pressure to be “always on” are taxing our brains in ways we don’t even notice. That sent me straight into these two books, which together help connect the dots between stress, focus and productivity.
Why do you recommend it?
These books are a great pairing: Attention Span explains how our attention is being fragmented by the way we work and live, and Deep Work gives a clear game plan for how to take that focus back. If you’ve ever finished a day feeling exhausted but unsure what you actually got done, read these.
Key takeaway
Realizing that deep work i.e. the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task, is like a superpower in today’s economy. Gloria Mark notes, it takes 25 minutes to refocus after an interruption.
What is the book about?
What is the book about?Foolproof shows how misinformation can bypass a person’s normal filtering against false information by latching onto certain mental hooks that effectively lower the receiver’s guard against narratives that would otherwise be viewed more skeptically. Some of these techniques involve presenting very angry and often profane arguments, whose shock value tends to register emotionally with readers and viewers. Van der Linden also highlights the simplicity of misinformation narratives, which are often easier to digest than the nuanced dialogue of factual reality. Much of the book addresses the issues of how we guard ourselves and our communities against misinformation. A key technique identified in this respect is “pre-bunking” or sharing in advance a small does of what the misinformation agents might be pushing and then clearly laying out the factual correction.
Why do you recommend it?
Defending oneself against misinformation is a useful modern skill upon which everyone can improve. Geoff Castle While there are clear applications in the realm of public affairs, anyone who operates in a world of investment idea “spinners” will appreciate the decomposition of strategies that can also be used against us in this business sphere.
“We are not defenseless in the fight against misinformation. The first step to countering it lies in your ability to spot and neutralize [its devious techniques].”
What is the podcast about?
What is the podcast about?Graham and Angus cover a wide variety of health and fitness topics in an entertaining and relatable manner. Their focus is on diet, exercise and lifestyle to live better, particularly as we age.
Why do you recommend it?
Graham is a Managing Director in equity sales for Goldman Sachs in London. In his mid 50s he’s in the best shape of his life after connecting with Angus as his personal trainer a few years ago. They provide practical advice on approaches to achieve fitness goals and live a better life. The podcast is both entertaining and motivational.
“If a diet isn’t sustainable long term, you are unlikely to meet or sustain your goals.”
