Books
Energy and Civilization: A History by Vaclav Smil
Vaclav Smil does interdisciplinary research in the fields of energy, environmental and population change, food production, history of technical innovation, risk assessment, and public policy. He has published more than 40 books and about 500 papers on these topics. He is actually one of Bill Gate’s favorite authors and I discovered Vaclav because of Bill Gate’s open appreciation for his work. Needless to say, the book is quite dense, but incredibly informative and a fun read all in all. I re read it before diving in to Bill Gate’s newest book (see below).
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates
I am not finished with the book, but so far so good!
Lectures
2020 Virtual Economic Outlook - Peter Zeihan
Peter Zeihan is quickly becoming one of my favorite thinkers. He is one of the foremost thought leaders on geopolitics - which combines data from geography, populations, and global politics to understand economic trends and make predictions. He has a very interesting, and contrarian, bearish view on China in this century. You could argue against this view, and some of his global trade predictions, but his summary of the world order, and the United State’s relatively strong position from a geopolitical angle, are very hard to argue against.
White Paper
Something of Value by Howard Marks
Arguably one of his better memos. A great read capturing the Value vs. Growth debate, and how we may have been thinking about things incorrectly by not re evaluating how technology has changed the game for the value investor (due to a decrease in information asymmetries) and for growth companies (due to the increase in scale and the low marginal costs associated with software)
TV Shows
WandaVision
It was unbearable at first, and then became awesome. I actually went back and watched Avengers:Age of Ulton again and enjoyed it even more. I won’t go down a rabbit hole but Ultron had the potential to be one of the greatest villains ever. In conclusion, Disney+ continues to deliver for Marvel nerds all around the world and anticipation is high for The Falcon and The Winter Soldier this month.