Shelf
Books, films, and essays that have shaped my thinking.
75 books
Engineering & Architecture
Clean Architecture*
The Pragmatic Programmer*
Clean Code*
Domain-Driven Design*
Test-Driven Development: By Example*
The Mythical Man-Month*
Cracking the Coding Interview
Cloud & DevOps
Cloud Native Go
Terraform: Up & Running
Observability Engineering
Implementing Service Level Objectives
Accelerate*
Programming Languages
Learning Go
The Go Programming Language
Python Tricks
Databases & Systems
Database Internals*
Designing Data-Intensive Applications*
Management & Leadership
The Manager's Path*
Extreme Ownership
Measure What Matters
Productivity & Focus
Deep Work*
So Good They Can't Ignore You
Hyperfocus
Ultralearning
Atomic Habits*
The Compound Effect
Getting Things Done
Flow
Business & Startups
Founders at Work

Work Rules!

Valley of Genius

Crushing It!

Start with Why

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

Psychology & Decision-Making
Thinking, Fast and Slow*

The Book of Why

Fooled by Randomness

The Black Swan*

Range

Algorithms to Live By

Finance & Money
Money Wise

Money Works

The Psychology of Money*

The Intelligent Investor*

Coffee Can Investing

The Big Bull of Dalal Street

The Parable of Dalal Street

Philosophy & Life
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

Bhagavad Gita As It Is

The Daily Stoic

The Obstacle Is the Way

Ego Is the Enemy

The 5 AM Club

Meditations*

Life's Amazing Secrets

Health & Wellness
The 4-Hour Body

Biographies & Memoirs
Greenlights

Tuesdays with Morrie

Communication & Social Skills
How to Speak Effectively to People

Never Split the Difference

Self-Improvement
Relentless

Die Empty

Soft Skills

Fiction & Literature
The Dark Forest

The Three-Body Problem*

Death's End

The Midnight Library

Conversations with Friends

The Bartimaeus Trilogy

Technology & Society
Coders

Enlightenment Now

Medical & Healthcare
Better

Crime & True Crime
Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia

Career & Professional Development
Tough Interview Questions: 301 Smart Answers

Love + Work

12 films
2025
The Amateur*
Black Bag
Ripley*
BlackBerry*
Ford v Ferrari*
Ocean's Eleven*
Ocean's Twelve
Ocean's Thirteen
TV
The Blacklist*
The Spy*
Loki*
Barry*
7 essays
- The essay that launched a thousand creator economies. Still the clearest articulation of how the internet changes who can make a living from their work.
- Everything is corporate now, everything scales, everything's optimized. Robin makes the case for digital things that feel like home. Small, personal, maybe a little janky.
- The most honest thing ever written about running paid subscriptions. Craig just tells you everything: The money, the feelings, the weird guilt.
- A foundational essay for anyone building software. The innovation tokens concept changed how I think about technical decisions.
- A satirical but oddly accurate analysis of corporate dynamics through the lens of The Office.
- A profound exploration of coordination problems and the forces that drive civilizations toward suboptimal outcomes.
- Life advice on Sam's 30th birthday. Simple but resonant wisdom.
Tracks from my playlist that I keep coming back to.
Ritual
WRABEL
Nobody Like You
Kaskade
Is That For Me
Alesso, Anitta
Particula
Major Lazer
Let Me Go
Hailee Steinfeld, Alesso
Ride
Twenty One Pilots
Young Dumb & Broke
Khalid
Silence
Marshmello, Khalid
Without You
Avicii, Sandro Cavazza
Never Let You Go
Kygo, John Newman
The Spectre
Alan Walker
Unstoppable
The Score
Never Be the Same
Camila Cabello
River
Eminem, Ed Sheeran
Let Her Go
Passenger
Meant to Be
Bebe Rexha, Florida Georgia Line