Fascinating insider story of how COVID-19 was mishandled by the US government, the CDC, and the WHO. Michael Lewis's tactic that has worked in his pasFascinating insider story of how COVID-19 was mishandled by the US government, the CDC, and the WHO. Michael Lewis's tactic that has worked in his past books (Moneyball, The Big Short) worked great with Dr Charity Dean and others - he went deep into the character of this health worker from Santa Barbara, and through her told the story of ineptitude. My only criticism is I think he could have focused more on the global picture, as it was not just every state in the US fighting this thing differently, it was (and is) every country in the world. Maybe that would be good for a sequel...
Hilarious by the way that Charity Dean started in Santa Barbara, and the book describes her visiting the old age home where my grandmother lives!
One of the big things that at this point is lost on many of us, is that in ~Jan 2020, there was a chance to lock down quick on the virus and contain it. And because of the total lack of leadership, that chance was lost. This book describes how the Bush administration (I had thought it was Obama, but nope), had even put into place a plan, which had a lot of research behind it, for how to handle this very thing. But it was dismantled by the Trump and the CDC.
We also had no shot at containment because we were not fast to have tests. We could have been had there been leadership prioritizing that, but there wasn't. This was really where we lost the game.
I found this quote very interesting - I wonder how the world will react to this? I would bet many countries will now stockpile and/or build in country manufacturing, though that doesn't seem like it should be the answer. Though in country manufacturing for the vaccine has certainly mattered.
An enthralling tale of WWII told through journals of Churchill, his inner circle, and even some of Hitler and Goebbells and some of their circle. I'llAn enthralling tale of WWII told through journals of Churchill, his inner circle, and even some of Hitler and Goebbells and some of their circle. I'll read anything Erik Larson writes - history or historical fiction, as he tells a story really well.
My main takeaway was how strong a case there was for Churchill being "the right man" to be PM during the war. Indeed, he was only PM during the war. But he was a true master of messaging and speeches, and inspiring the British public to not lose faith despite being bombed like crazy during the Blitz for a period of over a year! This was critical, and I think almost entirely due to Churchill and his radio sessions and speeches.
But that poster could easily have been rewritten "Keep calm and wait for the United States" because another impressive bit that shone through in the book is that Churchill knew that England couldn't win otherwise, but that didn't stop him from trying. A tough line to balance as he couldn't appear desperate to his people or to Roosevelt, but he also must have felt desperate at times. Very smart of him to invite Roosevelts man Harriman over and give him so much access.
Highly recommended and it reads nice and fast - my only criticism is that it really skipped through the end of the war (after the US declared) - perhaps another volume is coming?...more
Fascinating telling of the last 20 years of the journalism industry, through in depth looks at four companies: The New York Times, the Washington PostFascinating telling of the last 20 years of the journalism industry, through in depth looks at four companies: The New York Times, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, and Vice. I knew a lot of this having followed and worked on some of it (eg social media rise), but I still learned some things that made the book worth it. I also didn't agree with the way she characterized some of the things I knew about.
The story of the news industry in the last twenty years, is one of managed decline. The Posts revenue was ~30% of what it had been when Jeff Bezos purchased it, and their newsroom had shrunk by almost half. Similar trend for the Times. Print circulation provided all the revenue but it was declining, digital was growing but providing no revenue, and classified advertising, which used to account for ~40% of revenue, was taken almost entirely out by Craigslist, Monster.com and the internet. Shrinkage led to a shortage of young people working there, and a lack of a culture of innovation.
In recent years, the Times, Post, WSJ, and others have finally figured out how to embrace digital and make digital subscriptions work. Maybe people just needed a decade or two before they were willing to pay for online content, or maybe the publishers could have innovated faster, it's a very interesting question - but I tend to think innovation could have been much faster (but not overnight). But as of mid 2020, the NYT has 6 million subscribers, who provide 64% of their revenue.
One of the themes the book talks about a lot is the separation between church and state in a newspaper - the notion that advertisers should have zero influence over what journalists write or cover. Church and state have been separated for a long time for a good reason - if they aren't, the truth can be hidden by paying money. But the declining legacy print business and the loss of classified meant better online advertising needed to be figured out to save the papers. And upstarts like BuzzFeed and Vice led the charge in figuring out what it looked like - basically an in house ad agency that produced fully native advertising. These articles, which were paid for and thus positive, were mostly clearly marked but not in obvious ways. Church and state got intermixed, and the result at Vice and BuzzFeed has been that advertisers can control content. Less so at NYT/Post, but still a tension that you have to believe influences things.
But the biggest issue is that with online, we have ability to measure clicks, and clicks mean pageviews which mean ad dollars. So now we live in a world where editors value content that generates clicks, and a scoreboard can be created. Impressively, at Buzzfeed salaries were tied to how many clicks a writers pieces generated. And while the editors at the Times knew that human judgement mattered more as to what news people should know, even there clicks started to rule the day.
If even the NYT falls to clicks, and BuzzFeed/Vice/HuffPo/etc are all about clicks, this leads us to content that is good at getting clicks. More specifically, content that plays on our emotions, usually fear, anger, outrage. Steven Pinker's book Enlightenment Now talked about this trend. And then things like this can happen, where someone good at making clicks comes along:
I think clicks are the wrong metric. And optimizing for that metric has led our media industry astray. You combine that with a publishing industry that is cutting costs and thus not innovating as well as having to cut quality checks, and it explains a bit why the media is now so polarized and not as trusted as "the newspaper of record" should be.
And it's not just clicks, social media engagement is not the right metric either:
Side note on Vice - I must have not been in the target audience for them, and while I know I have occasionally read things on their website, I was wholly ignorant of their story, or the fact that they had and have a big video arm on YouTube and HBO - I don't think I've ever seen any of their videos! I guess I was never counter-culture... but I was glad to learn their story.
Side note - the author Jill Abramson was accused of lifting some of her passages from magazine articles about Vice/Buzzfeed/etc, and not crediting the original source. It looks like this is true for a few paragraphs at least, but the overall narrative constructed is not plagiarized, so I don't think this is a big deal at all in whether or not to read or trust this book....more
Harari is one of my favorite authors of late, and his books Sapiens and Home Deus are among my favorites. This book builds on those, and is equally faHarari is one of my favorite authors of late, and his books Sapiens and Home Deus are among my favorites. This book builds on those, and is equally fascinating. He is one of those clear thinkers who is able to put together multiple macro trends combined with philosophical perspective. Sapiens is about the past, Deus about the future, and this book purports to be 21 lessons about the present. But it is also rooted in the past, and preparing us for the future.
One of Harari's key themes in Deus and this book is AI and what it will mean for humanity in the future. Many people - thanks to Hollywood - equate AI with machines that achieve consciousness - I tend to not agree with that, as I think it more likely that AI will just be exceedingly smart. But regardless, along with nuclear power and climate change it's one of the great risks to our future. And it is being advanced rapidly. This will have a lot of side affects, the top one of which is what will happen to humans. I think this quote might be one of the most key from the book, and certainly a key theme of Harari's:
He goes on to further explain that our whole economic system is causing us to head in this direction, and to - except for a small number of people who opt to prioritize differently - largely ignore how to improve ourselves.
Another consequence of AI that is fascinating is that it can enable intelligence at a scale we today can't comprehend, which can be dangerous if it is controlled by the wrong people. AI is just a function of the data you put into it, so it follows that who holds the data in the future, will hold the power. I think this is a key concept.
Harari talks about trends in globalization, nationalism, immigration, religion, terrorism, and war. A common theme across these is that many people worry a lot that trends in these areas is a cause for concern and causing decline in our world. However the truth is that in most of them, we have come a long way and made a lot of progress - however because we live in an unprecedented age of information sharing - "media" - people are a lot more aware of even small issues in these areas. Also, our governments are predicated on keeping us safe from political violence, so even small issues like terrorism (small in the sense of how many people die from it each year) can have outsized importance to people.
He talks about the danger of propoganda/fake news and fascism and how in todays technological climate there is more risk of them so its better if everyone understands them. He explained this really well in his TED talk - highly worth watching.
But in the end, the only major recommendation Harari makes is around meditation. He impressively meditates for TWO HOURS per day, and TWO MONTHS per year. That is obviously a *huge* time commitment, and yet one he finds fulfilling. If we are going to invest in ourselves, the biggest way might be to start with our minds, and to stop worrying about all of these trends - because in the end, they don't matter to our ability to have a good, happy, loving life.
A fascinating look at the early part of LBJ’s life and career. This is the first of a four book series covering LBJ’s life. At least 3 extremely smartA fascinating look at the early part of LBJ’s life and career. This is the first of a four book series covering LBJ’s life. At least 3 extremely smart people that I respect told me that this series was one of the best books they’ve ever read. I was also interested in reading about politics and corrupt politicians to get some grounding given the current political climate, and even in volume 1, this didn’t disappoint.
Many biographies spend way too much time on details that are not very relevant, especially in the early life, and this book was no exception - although I found the writing good and story compelling that I finished it rather quickly (also thanks to whispersync with Audible). The book covers Johnsons childhood up through age 32 when he as a congressman lost the race for senate to Pappy O’Daniel. Pappy O’Daniel by the way, sounds like fun character - totally unqualified to be governor or senator but elected b/c everyone knew him from his radio show. In terms of Johnsons childhood, it was oddly interesting to learn about the “Hill Country” of Texas and why those who have lived there have had such rough lives.
I love biographies, as it’s always fascinating to see what motivates successful people - where their drive comes from. With LBJ, Caro paints his motivation as initially coming from not wanting to grow up poor and in debt like his father. But then his motivation shifts to become more “a hunger for power in its most naked form, for power not to improve the lives of others, but to manipulate and dominate them, to bend them to his will.”
Johnson’s raw hunger for power, his desire to be someone, led him to work extremely hard. And not only himself, but also the people who worked for him. It was impressive how hard he worked himself and his small team when he was working as a congressional aide. And all driven by a lust for power. Interestingly to me, he picked exclusively people who were “loyal” to him - meaning he could work them to the bone - over people who were intelligent or experienced in what needed to be done. He was able to pull this off as in the post great depression era, a lot of people had no other way to get a job, or get ahead, and so LBJ had leverage. But LBJ did have a gift in picking and reading men, which was I think key to understanding his success.
And he was not only a reader of men - he could also remember everything about the people he met - he could impressively remember details about a persons son 10 years after meeting them. Great skill for a politician to have! He also had an uncanny ability to make older men look at him like a son - a skill he used with Speaker of the house Sam Rayburn, which greatly helped his career.
Johnson also had no qualms cheating to steal elections - with both his election to school president in college, and the little congress, he cheated.
A fascinating piece of LBJ was that he worked very hard to not commit to a public position on almost anything. He basically told people what he thought they wanted to hear - perhaps a hallmark of a corrupt politician. This gave him a lot of freedom to play both sides. Liberals literally thought he was liberal and conversatives thought he was conservative. Not the most moral of stances, but in that pre-internet age, more possible to pull off and even smart tactically.
“Once, a congressional aide, who had just heard him “talking conservative” with Martin Dies, came across him, “not an hour later,” “talking liberal” with Patman— espousing a point of view diametrically opposite to the one he had been espousing sixty minutes before.”
A hallmark of the New Deal was helping people who needed it, and Johnson did help the poor farmers of Texas. I thought this quote was a powerful representation of the impact he had and why he kept getting elected:
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