Peter Thiel Jul 10, 2026
How to Build a Creative Monopoly
Avoiding undifferentiated competition, finding durable startup advantages, and thinking from first principles about markets that can compound.
startups strategy
Collections
Books, talks, articles, and ideas I keep coming back to.
Tom DeMarco Jul 9, 2026
Slack
Brian's Notes summary of Tom DeMarco's case for healthy slack time: fewer burnout loops, less busywork, more room for reinvention, and better customer response.
management systems
Chad Jones May 21, 2026
A.I. and Our Economic Future
Even if AI can write all the software, GDP may still stay near its historical 2% growth path when the binding constraints shift to real-world bottlenecks software cannot scale.
ai economics
Russell McGuire Mar 24, 2026
The Algorithm
Jon McNeill's five-step operating framework from Tesla: question every requirement, delete unnecessary work, simplify and optimize, accelerate cycle time, and automate last.
startups systems
Bret Taylor Mar 10, 2026
AI agents, outcome-based pricing, and the OpenAI board
Bret Taylor discusses building AI agents at Sierra, why outcome-based pricing changes software incentives, and lessons from serving on the OpenAI board.
ai agents startups
Geoffrey Huntley Feb 8, 2026
Fundamental knowledge SWE's in 2026 must have before I will even consider hiring them
Geoffrey Huntley on the baseline knowledge, workflows, and agent-era engineering fundamentals he expects software engineers to understand in 2026.
agents
Operations Insider 2026
Operations Insider
Practical learning on operational excellence: Lean language, management, production systems, books, tools, and templates.
operations management systems manufacturing
Michael DeForge Jesse Balmer Dec 18, 2025
Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake Artists
Instagram profiles for Michael DeForge and Jesse Balmer, artists whose cartoon and illustration work connects to Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake.
cartoon creativity
Steph Ango Jul 1, 2023
File over app
File over app is a philosophy: if you want to create digital artifacts that last, they must be files you can control, in formats that are easy to retrieve and read. Use tools that give you this freedom.
primitives
Thomas A. Limoncelli Mar 14, 2018
Manual Work is a Bug
Thomas A. Limoncelli argues for an always-be-automating mindset: turn each manual task into documentation, reusable commands, and eventually self-service systems that reduce errors and future toil.
automation engineering systems collaboration
Will Gompertz Apr 12, 2016
Think Like an Artist: and Lead a More Creative, Productive Life
A practical guide to thinking more creatively, drawing lessons from working artists on curiosity, confidence, productive failure, and turning ideas into meaningful work.
creativity art entrepreneurship
V8 team Sep 2, 2008
V8
Google's open-source JavaScript and WebAssembly engine powers Chrome and Node.js. Its name is a playful nod to the powerful V8 engines of classic muscle cars—an association Ford helped popularize by bringing its flathead V8 to the mass market in 1932.
javascript webassembly engineering open source
Richard Hamming Mar 7, 1986
You and Your Research
Richard Hamming's Bellcore talk on doing first-class work: choose important problems, build prepared courage, keep a larger map of the field, and shape your career with intent.
research career
Richard P. Feynman & Ralph Leighton Jan 1, 1985
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Richard Feynman's memoir of curiosity, mischief, physics, safecracking, and independent thinking, drawn from conversations with Ralph Leighton.
physics memoir
T.O.C. Institute 1984
The Goal
The Goal is one of three books that Jeff Bezo requires his top management team to read. In fact, he uses it as a framework for sketching out the future of Amazon.com.
startups manufacturing systems
Douglas R. Hofstadter Apr 1, 1979
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
A playful exploration of how meaning, minds, and intelligence emerge from formal systems, recursion, self-reference, art, and music, paired here with a free MIT course.
ai systems creativity
Quotes
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.