Category: Book Club

For April’s Book Club we read Semiosis by Sue Burke. I really enjoyed this novel. We have been alternating between fiction and non-fiction this year, and I thought this novel (Ms. Burke’s first) was well-researched across botany, physics, psychology, and most-importantly self-consistent with the dynamics she created even though there were unexplained elements of the societal rifts that I would have loved to see explored more deeply.

On its face Semiosis is a First Contact-Whodunnit-mashup following the story of human refugees from Earth colonizing a planet which they name Pax. The compact they create is one that encourages peace, valuing life and equality, but the struggles of the novel do not enable these noble edicts to persist for long. Intriguingly, there isn’t one protagonist in this novel, or one antagonist. Initially at least you are rooting for the human colony as they wrestle with the planet’s flora and fauna.

Burke evokes an ecology that is alien but familiar with an inventive population of predators and prey: vicious ground-eagles, giant toxic slugs and the fun, easily domesticated fippokats. As the generations on the planet evolve, the slow and stealthy ways of the plants are realized. These are not the flora and fauna of Earth with millennia of additional evolution. These plants can nourish and support the humans or poison and attack them. Plants which have learned over millennia how to domesticate and recruit the animal-life of the planet for their ends. They too are colonists, engaged in turf wars which can turn vicious.

Humans have to take sides determining who to ally with in the plant wars. Octavo the botanist is the first to realize the compromises involved in survival: “We wanted (to) find a happy niche in another ecology. Instead we found a battlefield.”

But the battles aren’t limited to humans and plants. As the generations evolve and adapt to the planet, they increasingly rebel and we go from plants attacking humans to humans attacking one another. This part of the novel could have benefited from more psychological development. The way the community evolves into aggression from such an extreme initial commitment to peace and equality in just one generation is hard to imagine, but there is a strong undercurrent of control, manipulation, and dishonesty, which make the children determine that to survive they must move past the initial generation and their false compact of hope and peace.

As interesting as the humans and their generational evolution is, the most fascinating character is the giant bamboo plant that comes to dominate the lives of the colony from generation 2 onward. So crucial is it to the humans’ survival, they name it after an early colonist: Stevland. In return for their ‘gift-centers’ or latrines and their irrigation labour, it provides an array of fruit and plant tools.

As is the case on Pax, Stevland can alter human physiology and behavior by way of chemicals. It communicates with colonists, and earns its own passages of narration. Initially Stevland’ s voice is clinical, arrogant, and dry. Think Hal the computer-plant, “With the burn of light comes glucose to create starch, cellulose, lipids, proteins, everything I want… In joy, I grow leaves, branches, culms, stems, shoots, and roots of all types. Water flows through the repaired foreigners’ pipes like veins in leaves, freeing me from rains and seasons so I may develop at will.”

I found this voice disturbing at first, with its insistent ‘I’. But that monstrous ego grows on you. Stevland has I would argue the most interesting character arc where ‘he’ faces crises and changes. When a human ‘moderator’ scathingly advises him to grow a sense of humour, he takes it literally. By year 107, its ‘humour root’ enables ice-breaking jokes and sarcasm, which makes his initial interactions with Sylvia and Tatiana almost unrecognizeable. During one tense passage, Stevland communicates with surrounding lesser plants:

‘”Pests.” “Bad.” “Bad.” “Bad.” “Bad.” “Bad.” “Bad.”, they answer one by one. My humour root observes that they have little to say but are talkative nonetheless. I am glad I grew the humour root. I can endure unpleasant situations better.’

Moral ambiguity, aggression, tribalism, and peace are found throughout the novel, but I was particularly struck by Stevland’s journey on this. He is arguably the novel’s most cunning and manipulative antagonist: a plant that out-thinks humans and knows it is better. Stevland the bamboo is initially an enemy who domesticates the humans to their greatest ally trying to defend and protect them, while still having his own agenda and objectives.

Despite the colonists’ quest for Pax, this novel is punctuated by violence, murder, and war, but even with that the novel maintains a strong sense of hope. It’s neither dystopian, nor utopian, but as complex as the business of life. The community’s idealism energizes the narrative as they struggle with the messiness of both human nature and alien beings. First Contact isn’t one breathless moment but a challenge that unfolds over decades, much like the relationships explored. Unpredictable, urgent, occasionally bloody, the story is page-turning with characters and themes that embed themselves deeply in one’s consciousness. I highly recommend even if you aren’t a sci-fi person.

For Book Club in March we read Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell. It was an interesting narrative, picking up on themes from his original book, the Tipping Point, but updating it to cover the Opioid Epidemic, Medicare fraud, teenage suicide, bank robberies and a slew of other maladies that have infected society.

While I deeply prefer to get my scientific research from peer-reviewed journals, Gladwell has a way of creating mass appeal on topics, and assuming it is done to invite learning, inquiry, and debate, I’m for it. Far too many narratives are seeking to tell folks who to blame for troubles in life, and I find those kinds of books appalling.  

Fundamentally, Gladwell tries to imply causality from data he cherry picks out of various stories, and sometimes he may have a grain of truth in there, but the research is not particularly thorough. I found in a pulp fiction sort of way that the novel was eminently readable. I found nuggets and factoids about our collegiate admissions processes and the Opioid Epidemic fascinating, and I’m not at all sorry I read the book, but I would have loved a more detailed and thorough analysis so that the conclusions and insights would have more weight.

Anyway, it was a quick read and won’t disappoint in giving you dinner table trivia to discuss for fun debates with friends, but there are definitely better researched books out there.

For book club in February we took a total left turn and read a science fiction novel written by a friend of one of our club members. The novel, Deus v. Machina written by Dave Cullen is clearly part of a new series based on a private investigator, Cody Stockton, in the near future (2045). It was fun to have a book club discussion in support of a new author, and I found the book genuinely engaging (even my kiddos enjoyed it, stealing it from my nightstand and reading it in just a few nights on their own).

Without giving too much away, the novel has a backstory that humanity had given over operations of the planet to AI systems, the AI then annihilated more than 10% of the population, an uprising against the AI (referred to as the AI War in the novel) occurred, and eventually humanity won, shutting down the AI system, and returning to human rule. Because of this the society seems very close to current day technology (as if we “undid” many of the areas where AI is starting to profoundly change business and political decisions), and there are serious concerns around equality and wealth distrubution (much like our current society). Due to these challenges, the society leaders are contemplating reinstating the AI systems to help manage society, and that backdrop leads to many of the challenges within the novel.

I personally found this backstory requires a prequel I want to read. Not having more detail about it makes it hard to understand why certain technology is still so prevalent 20 years from today, and also why there is such hatred and fear of AI. It also made me question the resurgance of faith in 2045 when we see so many people moving away from faith in modern society. I think that novel will be very interesting. That being said this novel focuses on Cody Stockton, a private investigator in Las Vegas in the year 2045, and his investigation of an accident that he quickly realizes is a murder involving a dangerous Satanic cult.

For a first novel, being willing to take AI, God, and Satan in fewer than 300 pages is lofty! While many sci-fi novels touch on religion, few do it without creating a divergent world and religion. Mr. Cullen brings Jesus to Earth, and pits faith directly against AI. I can poke at anachronisms that were unexplained (USB wall plugs for phones, or numeric passwords, when clearly these things will be wildly different in 2030 let alone 2045), but the narrative between Cody and his girlfriend, as well as Father Briggs around faith, and the challenges that make Cody a believer by the end of the novel are the beauty of the story.

I look forward to a prequel that explains the AI war, the state of technology in 2045, and more of Cody’s evolution as an individual.

For Book Club in January we returned to more of a “business book” theme and read Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure by Timothy Hartford. This book was a fast and fun read (good historical references and story-telling, though maybe fewer conclusions for a reader to take away, which was less trite, but likely more realistic).

Adapt was written in 2012, and while the historical references are still relevant, many of those stories seemed a bit aged given current events. Mr. Hartford walks through changes in military decision making, budgeting and autonomy that led to positive outcomes in region-specific campaigns in Iraq vs. the command and control approaches of the pre-Petraeus regime, as well as the culture of innovation and rapid experimentation that the most successful companies at the time: Google, Facebook, etc. were actively pursuing. Fast forward 10 years and there are no more 20% projects at Google, and many of the free-wheeling innovation projects have been descoped and defunded in an environment of layoffs, and strategic growth initiatives.

And maybe that is the point in some ways: adapt or die. A key nugget I took away was a story early in the book. Mr. Hartford uses The Toaster Project to illustrate the interdependence in the supply chain as well as the vast complexity of manufacturing even simple components in the modern world.  Basically one man tried to build a toaster from scratch and realized the insane levels of complexity required to produce a heating element, the plastic casing, etc. The point of the story is that our modern world is stunningly complex, but we are so engulfed in this complexity that we take it for granted. We are blind to it. We overestimate the impact any one person or leader can have because we fail to see how complex the problems are that current leaders face.

Because the system we live in is far too complex for any one person to understand, even experts in a particular area aren’t as insightful as you might expect because of the interrelatedness of things with many areas about which they know nothing. He uses ample research across many expert groups (analysts, hedge fund managers, etc.) whose expertise did not beat general market averages or predict outcomes better than non-expert groups.

His conclusion is the reason companies don’t stay at the top is often because they were relying on factors beyond their control to achieve their success. When those external factors change good management cannot sustain growth. One has to keep innovating, keep looking at the signals of success, and be tolerant to failure, rather than assume the people or initial thesis will persist. He calls that inability for people to continue to innovate once they achieve success survivorship bias.

So how do you avoid survivorship bias? You have to immerse yourself not just in your success, but you have to see all the failures that led to the eventual success, and you can never stop seeding new innovation. Optimizing cost models works well when everything is growing, but when markets contract, you need to evolve. Evolution strikes a balance between discovering the new and exploiting the familiar. The evolutionary mix of small steps and occasional wild gambles is the best possible way to search for solutions. Evolution produces ongoing “works for now” solutions and then builds upon those ideas.

What kills innovation: overthinking your ability to project perfection. See earlier comments about complexity of our modern era. Those who iterate quickly on many ideas, analyze the data to understand the successes, weed out the failures, and keep moving win.

It was a great discussion at book club, and a good break from the current rhetoric to remember that there are domains where brilliant people can drive impact and innovate. Some of the best companies of our modern era came from previous downturns and market contractions. I am excited to see what new innovative companies will spring up with AI tooling and the available talent pool. I would love to see Mr. Hartford do a revision of this book and see if his thoughts around decision modeling and analysis change given modern AI. It would be a fascinating read.

I cannot believe how far behind I am in posting. As usual, the end of year was busy. For November’s book club we read The Night Watch by Jayne Ann Phillips. I knew it was a historical fiction novel based on the aftermath of the Civil War in America, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, so I assumed it would gripping and meaty. What I did not expect was the lyrical, almost dream-like quality of the writing. The lack of punctuation made following the prose difficult at first, but the characters were intriguing and uniquely voiced so eventually my brain could map who was “speaking” and follow the story.

What I found most brilliant about this story was the inversion in common tropes. One might assume a story in the post-Civil War era framed in a mental asylum would be part Red Badge of Courage and part One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but in fact the war scenes detail brutality measured with honor, brotherhood, and purpose, and the asylum seems more like a modern day health resort than a mental institution (aside: the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the book really did exist as did Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride it’s founder. Dr. Kirkbride was a physician who advocated for compassion in treatment of the mentally ill and helped many families heal after the Civil War.)

The scenes of horror in this novel were counternarratives–stories often skipped in epic novels, those of domestic violence, rape, child abuse, and abandonment. This is a novel that tells what happened to the women and the children left behind when the men went away to war, and it is heart wrenching, but speaks of community, strength, and healing.

I found the characters in the novel complex, the weaving of history with fiction beautifully executed, and the counternarrative to be brilliant. It is not a quick or easy read, and will absolutely require you to engage your mind in the interwoven tales between timelines, characters, and locations, but if you are interested in reading a poetic account of bravery, love, magical realism, and hope despite the odds, and to learn a little bit more about the Civil War than what happened on the battle fields, this book will not disappoint.

For October, we read The Ministry of Time, a debut novel by Kaliane Bradley. While most people in our club liked at least some part of the book, the consensus was not unanimous. The book centers on a top-secret project where figures from the past have been rescued from certain death in their own time periods and transported to the future. At the beginning the narrator, a civil servant of Cambodian-English heritage, has the opportunity to interview for a prestigious role in a new and top-secret branch of the government. She decides to take the role and becomes the bridge (a roommate, companion and observer) of Commander Gore, an explorer who historically died on a failed expedition to the Arctic during the Victorian era.

Right off the bat, the narrator waves aside the science of HOW time travel was invented/discovered by the British government for the formation of the Ministry of Time, and that of course annoyed me. I would have loved to see a bit of due diligence invested in the science here. Still Commander Graham Gore was a real person and it seems the author did do her research on him (as well as for the other “expats” described in the novel). I would have happily read a whole story centered on their adjustment to the modern era. Where they grappled with concepts that were totally unfamiliar and where they found joy was a wonderful thought experiment, and is a testament to the creativity of Ms. Bradley. There are so many funny and engaging moments, the wonder and occasional disdain that they found in modern technology and morays was hilarious and insightful.

In this section, a beautiful if hard-to-imagine relationship between the narrator and Commander Gore spawns. It is written with tension and allure, creating a backstory that seems to explain why a man who comes from an era where people who were not of British or at least European descent were clearly not valued, might fall in love with a person of mixed-Ethnicity despite himself. While forced in places, and maybe indicative of feelings of misbelonging from the author herself, it does describe a mutual love affair bordering on obsession. Ms. Bradley’s writing style comes across in this section with some expressive phrases, “humor can slide ideas under the door” and “you can’t trauma-proof life, and you can’t hurt-proof your relationships. You have to accept you will cause harm to yourself and others.” There are others which feel a bit over-the-top, but I love poetry, so I found her phrases often lingered in my head.

I struggled with the end of the novel because the science and the story did not progress logically to me. I did not like the inconsistency in tone from start to finish (one so charming, one so jarring and painful). I did not feel it was true to human nature that a love affair would end the way it did (if one truly felt so strongly, then hate and not indifference would be more logical). Mostly though I did not find the science tolerable (even the narrator’s own ark violates the notion of a time paradox).

It was like a dystopian novel was jammed in at the end of what generally felt like a historical romance. I can step back and say “the author decided to engage in a thought experiment about bringing a British commander forward from the Victorian era, and what the future would have looked like if that form of British “exceptionalism” had been allowed to carry forward through the 21st century–the inevitable impact to other nations.” But of course that isn’t what happened, and while the world is certainly not fair and equal among nations, the notion that one country could exist simply for the exploit of another would be shunned world wide in our era.

Again, I don’t want to seem naive that we live in a time of equality, and every piece of fiction is a thought experiment one either resonates with or does not. We do see resource exploitation more heavily in industrialized nations, but also increased consciousness and a desire to reduce consumption. Like many debut novels it felt like her own personal struggles around being of mixed heritage where others couldn’t fully see her, and maybe her guilt over being someone who could “blend in” making her more compliant than others to inequality in systems was where she was trying to go with the book. These were all potentially powerful reflections that could have been written in without the non-scientific sci-fi thriller portion, but I felt that the way she took characters who were so vibrant in the beginning of the novel and reduced them to caricatures by the end to make her point made the novel much less compelling.

All in all I was glad I read it, but it felt like it was two novels mashed together, and the first one was far more creative.

For Book Club in September, Rachael helped select our book, and Chip Conley’s Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age was the winner.

Chip Conley is the founder of The Modern Elder Academy, and at times the book feels a bit like lead gen for that organization, but generally he manages to maintain a call to action and not devolve into an ad campaign. Mr. Conley was early at AirBnB where he was considered their “wise elder” since before that he had been a boutique hoteliere. The book starts with his personal midlife crisis, and evolves into a treatise on why midlife is a time to savor wisdom, self-knowledge, and joy. 

The midlife crisis is the butt of so many jokes because the stastics are real: suicide, mental health crises, illness, loss of friends, spouses, jobs, parents, financial stress, and so much more often hits in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. The book tries to reframe our thinking about the natural transition of midlife not as a crisis, but as “a chrysalis—a time when something profound awakens in us, where we shed our skin, spread our wings, and pollinate our wisdom to the world.”

Of the 12 reasons he lists for why life gets better with age, two really resonated with me:

1. My appearance doesn’t define me

I grew up performing (dancing and singing), and appearance was critical to landing a part (often more important than my skill). Then when I entered engineering, my appearance was also defining and not in a good way. I didn’t “look” the part, and I got to experience all the cliche moments one might predict: being propositioned, asked if I could get folks coffee when I was actually teaching the class, etc.

As I get older, appearance matters less to me: how others perceive me and how I judge myself. I am just grateful to be able to move, dance, run, sing, and HOW I do it matters so much less than the fact that I still can. Whether I match someone’s mental model of an engineer or not is their problem. What matters to me now is helping other people who aren’t the norm find their place in this profession because ultimately that will lead to better solutions and systems. Getting through the shock of being an outlier requires a mental and emotional energy beyond just the day-to-day effort of investing in one’s real work: I want to help people who are experiencing that weather the challenges and reassure them that people care a whole lot less than they think they do.

2. Letting go of our emotional baggage, mindsets, and obligations that no longer serve us

Much like the above, there are modes of operation that get you to a certain point in your career and life journey, but if you are not willing to find your reason and seek a greater purpose than your own success, you likely won’t be very happy. Whether that is music, family, religion, or community, much of the joy of being in this life phase is saying “I have enough” and “I am enough.” We push so hard to prove ourselves through school, landing a job, getting the next promotion, finding our partners, building our families, etc. At some point we have to transition to a place of enjoyment in what we have, and not just the next mountain we are seeking to climb: this is your life! It is a gift to not need someone else to validate you. To see feedback as a signal of how people are perceiving you, and choose to adapt your behavior if they are important to you, but not to take it personally. Being able to step back from that baggage is absolutely a gift of experience, self-assurance, and wisdom.

There are definitely some good nuggets in this book, and getting to share it at Book Club with so many of my former colleagues making major life changes (retirement, entrepreneurship, empty-nesting, managing health and wellness scares, etc.) led to deeply meaningful conversations. If you are going through a transition and feeling like you are the only one: you aren’t alone, and maybe this is a good book to pick up. Happy reading!  

For August book club, we tried something new thanks to a former co-worker and college friend’s recommendation. Gifted and Distractible is a book that helps elucidate why a child can excel at math and yet lose it over having to execute mundane tasks. Ms. Skolnick explains a concept I had never heard of before: twice exceptional (2e) children, and highlights that even experts disagree about how to support them. (Not to bury the lede, but I found this moderately depressing.) 

First she delves into terminology. Gifted signifies having the capability to perform at a high level cognitively, creatively, academically, or artistically compared to peers. Gifted children make connections others miss, show intense curiosity about topics, or demonstrate advanced reasoning skills. She also describes “distracted” in reference to learning differences like ADHD, dyslexia, anxiety, and sensory issues that make learning challenging. These differences or disabilities can affect children’s motivation, behavior, comprehension, and skill development so it’s important to identify where and why a child is struggling. “Twice exceptional” refers to a child who is gifted and also has a learning difference, making their needs more complex. The magnitude of their strengths and weaknesses make them difficult to identify and serve. 

Next she goes into three experiences that can provide insight if one has a twice exceptional child. 

First she describes asynchronous development. Gifted children often develop unevenly across the spectrum. They may be advanced in math but struggle with speech, fine motor skills, or social behaviors. Gifted children may also have splinter skills, which are skills they don’t generalize across other situations, and are highly advanced compared to their overall abilities.

The second experience is perfectionism. 2e kids often fixate on flaws others don’t notice. They may need help letting go and building self-esteem when things aren’t perfect. Perfectionism (which can happen in any kind of kid, and let’s be honest across many of the high-achieving adults with whom I’ve worked) can be driven by a desire for control or fear of failure. Finding perspectives on perceived imperfections can help. She tries to focus on ways to assist these children in building resilience, and the number one technique (also referred to often in Angela Duckworth’s wonderful book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance) is to praise effort and growth, not outcomes.

The third experience 2e children often have is overexcitability. Whether it’s intellectual, emotional, imaginational, sensory, or psychomotor, many 2e children crave stimulus. This intense trait isn’t a deficit, but a sign of potential that requires nurturing. For example, a child with psychomotor overexcitability may struggle to sit still and choose to run around the room while listening to a teacher. It’s important to recognize that by running, this child is exercising a choice to cope with their seemingly conflicting needs to listen and move. While it may not be an appropriate choice for the classroom, recognizing the child’s attempt to cope will be more fruitful than just demanding that they sit down.

Ms Skolnick discusses how knowing the background of 2e children, and understanding how they experience the world is crucial when it comes to advocacy, but I think her narrative is relevant for understanding many of the gifted coworkers we all have. Few people are high achievers in every access, but the asymmetries we all have are often what leads to genius in domains critical for companies. Understanding how to proactively improve environments for neuro-diverse employees is an increasingly important skill for managers. To create a path forward, we all need to understand more about how to unlock the creativity and success of these individuals. 

Ms. Skolnick talks about how giftedness can be assessed through IQ and achievement testing, grades, and teacher observations. Learning differences can be evaluated through psychoeducational testing, developmental history, and specialist analysis. Since gifts can mask disabilities, and vice versa, she talks about how comprehensive testing is vital to uncover the dual needs. Recording observations at home, and partnering with experts to gain a holistic view is the combination that tends to work best. I found this advice somewhat frustrating: as a mother of two little boys in the current American medical system, getting assessments and the time of experts with two working parents has been nearly impossible. Working through the challenges of our medical system and being a full-time advocate for my children would be a full time job (in fact, from her bio, it does seem this may have been Ms. Skolnick’s path into her current profession). 

I hope that this may be an opportunity for AI in the future: assistive and even adaptive technology for education which adjusts to the interests and requirements of the child, modified assignments or assessment techniques that are better at finding the strengths and weaknesses of our children, and more adaptive enrichment opportunities will hopefully help teachers more objectively understand a child’s strengths and needs. I find while my husband and I are deeply involved in our childrens’ education, we as their parents can sometimes be more triggering than successful in assisting them, and so improving mechanisms to personalize education in the classroom seems like a strong win for parents, teachers, and all children, 2e or otherwise.

Other advice offered by the author is to seek out 2e communities. While I have little doubt that connecting with those facing similar challenges provides validation, I come back to the, “does this process sound overwhelming?” thread. The answer for me is yes. She encourages parents to start with their own insights and observations, and find the expertise as needed. Again, I deeply appreciated the concepts in this book, most specifically not focusing on the weaknesses, but rather doubling down on the strengths of our children to help them find the path to thrive. 

For July book club we read The Pixar Touch by David Price. This book is a fun piece delving into three major phases of Pixar: the formaltion of the company (including a brief history of computer graphics as a field), Pixar under Steve Jobs, and the era of Disney’s acquisition.

My favorite section by far was the first, providing fantastic insights into the early phases of the computer graphics and computer animation industry. There were references to companies where I worked including Silicon Graphics, and SIGGRAPH demos that are absolutely legendary throughout the industry. Sharing this at Book Club where friends were at Apple while Jobs was CEO of both Pixar and Apple, and others were involved in the development of early graphics chips led to great personal stories and reflections. In this section you really hear about the evolution of compute graphics as an industry, the titans of that era, like Evanston Sutherland, the creation of the company, originally as a division of Lucas Films, and the early interactions of Lassater and Catmull.

The second section on the Pixar purchase by Steve Jobs, detailed much of the struggle between being a hardware company offering software and services for computer animation and graphics, and being an animation shop. What ostensibly started as a way to demonstrate the Pixar Image Computer capabilities quickly became the primary passion of the Pixar cofounders (to the point that they rarely and soon didn’t USE the Pixar Image Computer for the animation they shared at SIGGRAPH). There are clear power struggles, and some shady activities around stock for employees that happened during this time, but it also becomes an important era, since it details the initial distribution deal with Disney, which entirely changed the trajectory of the company. In some ways this begins my least favorite part of the book since the behavior of a lot of business leaders I have long admired that is described in the book was shoddy at best. My favorite part here was the creative vision of Catmull and how he evolved that style within Pixar. That was a true highlight and made me want to rewatch all the older films to see the evolution in technique.

The last section is really about the Disney acquisition and how it set up the long term success of the company. While other books detail the history of Disney’s journey far better (Storming the Magic Kingdom and Ride of a Lifetime to name a few) it does share the impact of the personal relationships and power struggles on the fate of Pixar, and how the company ended up being such a wildly expensive acquisition, but also wildly successful in reinvigorating the brand. In this section the best part was reading about a successful acquisition. So rarely do large scale acquisitions yield continued (and in fact enhanced) success of both brands, and this is one of those rare cases worth delving into.

I am a complete sucker for these kinds of books: history of computing stitched in with suprising heroes and ultimately success, so I definitely recommend it, but I would say that the author glosses over much of the impact of the wars between Eisner and Jobs, and how it negatively effected the employees of Pixar. Ultimately, it is more a love affair with the creative vision and journey than a true exposé on how Pixar evolved, but it was still a very fun read.

For June’s book club we read Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou. The book and investigation behind it are gripping tales of how the glorified “fake it ’till you make it” entrepreneurial culture can backfire on humanity in the hands of a sociopath. (Yes, I have strong feelings.) I had heard of Theranos, and certainly lived here in the Silicon Valley as the events of this book unfolded, but even hearing about the controversy through the media at the time, the depth and scope of the scam that was perpetrated by Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Sunny Balwani illustrated in the book is astonishing.

I won’t summarize the story since it was well reported in situ by the Wall Street Journal and the results of her 2020 trial and conviction for defrauding investors (mind you not for harming people with her faulty medical devices nor her harrassing employment practices) are all widely available. There is even a documentary on Netflix. I will instead summarize our book club commentary. We had a split among folks believing that she was a brilliant and misguided young woman, nobel in her fantasy, and naive in her approach, and those of us who believe she was essentially a con woman, willing and wanting to mislead others in order to become the next Steve Jobs, and there was nothing and no one she would allow to stand in her way.

Let’s be clear: some of the most interesting and innovative solutions of our time have come from entrepreneurs and MANY of the most respected ones overstated the value and/or readiness of their products at the time of launch (Larry Elison, Steve Jobs, etc.) I would argue this is quite typical and framed as “marketing” or “vision” when the company or product ultimately meets with success. The difference is that most of the entrepreneurs who make it are actually operating from a baseline of skill in the domain where they are innovating, and that the implications of software being less high quality or fully featured than the marketing is far less dire than when medical devices fail to accurately diagnose real issues. Elizabeth Holmes, as a college dropout, really had no basis for building a company around a technology domain in which she had no depth, and the flimsiness of her claims became obvious quickly to experts as soon as the media picked up the story. Most blood tests just cannot work on such tiny samples, so while lots of folks really do suffer from blood draws (e.g. cancer patients with collapsing veins), we have not yet solved the real challenges of testing accurately without larger samples.

As someone who has spent my career in semiconductor and systems engineering, I have always found overstated marketing moderately appaling. In hardware if you overstate what your chip or system can do, someone else can purchase it, benchmark it, and prove you are wrong. Legally compaies are required to publish the exact conditions of the experiment they ran to yield those results (and if they don’t they can be sued). So it is likely not surprising that I find a lot of software and services marketing to be fluffy at best, and morally repugnant at worst.

I think this background is why I found the claims of Elizabeth Holmes so horrifying. America relies on our enforcement agencies to protect us from con women and men like Holmes and Balwani. That entreprenurial mania could somehow allow politicians, investors, and enforecement agencies to ignore the facts is a real testimony to how the world glorifies these individuals at the expense of common people, their health, and wellness. We are obsessed with the stories of entreprenuers, and arguably many of the most valuable companies raising America’s GDP come from these lightening rod individuals, so maybe there is a basis for it. Still, nearly half of jobs in America come from small businesses, not the massive multinational corporations the 1 in 10,000 entrepreneurs eventually create. We should not ignore the collateral damage many entrepreneurs leave in their wakes while we glorify the companies some of them have been able to build. This book is a cautionary tale of what happens when we don’t do our due diligence and we let the story eclipse reality.