COOPER

Library

library

economics and political economy

the argument under the arguments
The Economics and Politics of Race
Thomas Sowell
the comparison nobody runs. groups across countries and centuries, and what actually moves outcomes.
A Conflict of Visions
Thomas Sowell
why two people with the same facts land in different places.
The Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith
read the whole thing, not the butcher line.
The Sovereign Individual
Davidson and Rees-Mogg
1997, and mostly right about the mechanism.
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
shared fictions as infrastructure.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Yuval Noah Harari
the sequel that asks what to do about it.
The Dictator's Handbook
Bueno de Mesquita and Smith
every regime explained by who the leader must keep paid.

capital and building

how the thing actually gets made
Zero to One
Peter Thiel
monopoly as the goal, not the accident.
Principles
Ray Dalio
decisions written down until they become a machine.
Blitzscaling
Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh
when speed is worth more than efficiency.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Ben Horowitz
the part of the job nobody puts in the deck.
High Growth Handbook
Elad Gil
the operator's book, not the founder-myth book.
Creativity, Inc.
Ed Catmull
building the machine that makes the authored thing repeatable.
10x Is Easier Than 2x
Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy
the constraint is the ambition, not the resource.
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Edwin Lefèvre
character before technique. 1923 and still true.
Estée: A Success Story
Estée Lauder
a founder who built the meaning layer and priced it.
The Art of the Deal
Donald Trump
leverage, framing, and the walk-away.
Think Big and Kick Ass
Donald Trump
the one people skip.
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
Eric Jorgenson
leverage, judgment, and specific knowledge, collected.
eBoys
Randall Stross
benchmark from the inside, before the mythology set.
Nail It Then Scale It
Furr and Ahlstrom
the order of operations most founders invert.

systems and organisations

how groups actually behave
The Goal
Eliyahu Goldratt
the constraint is one thing at a time. a novel about a factory that is really about everything.
Scale
Geoffrey West
why cities speed up and companies slow down, with the exponents.
The Score Takes Care of Itself
Bill Walsh with Steve Jamison
the standard of performance. set it, then stop watching the scoreboard.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Patrick Lencioni
short, unglamorous, and correct about why teams stall.
Never Eat Alone
Keith Ferrazzi
generosity as a system rather than a mood.

philosophy

the oldest sources, read whole
Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle
pride as accuracy. the standard for taste and for self assessment.
Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
the emperor, not the account that quotes him.
Letters from a Stoic
Seneca
practical, and better company than the modern versions.
Tao Te Ching
Lao Tzu
the fewest words for the largest idea.
Beyond Good and Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche
if you have read this one, we will know within a sentence.
On the Genealogy of Morals
Friedrich Nietzsche
where the values came from, and who benefits.
Maxims
François de La Rochefoucauld
motive read plainly, three centuries before anyone called it psychology.
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand
the case at full length.
The Fountainhead
Ayn Rand
the authored self, in a novel.
Lives of the Stoics
Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
the practitioners, not the aphorisms.
The Tao of Seneca
Seneca, edited by Tim Ferriss
the letters, packaged for people who will actually finish them.

mind and the future self

the forward half of the method
Think and Grow Rich
Napoleon Hill
definiteness of purpose.
The Power of Awareness
Neville Goddard
the fixed point stated as a discipline rather than a mood.
Be Your Future Self Now
Benjamin Hardy
the future self as the source, worked backward from.
Atomic Habits
James Clear
every action a vote for who you are becoming.
The Obstacle Is the Way
Ryan Holiday
the entry point, then go to the source.
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Dale Carnegie
older than it looks and still correct.
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
Joseph Murphy
the mechanism the rest of this shelf assumes.
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself
Joe Dispenza
the neurology under the same claim.
Personality Isn't Permanent
Benjamin Hardy
against type as destiny, with the research.

consciousness and ideas

where the metaphysics lives
The Self-Aware Universe
Amit Goswami
consciousness as ground rather than product, argued from the physics.
Where Good Ideas Come From
Steven Johnson
the adjacent possible, and why density produces origination.
How to Change Your Mind
Michael Pollan
the science, reported straight, on what shifts a fixed frame.
The Power of Kabbalah
Yehuda Berg
an older account of the same fixed point.

power, story, and taste

how it lands
The 48 Laws of Power
Robert Greene
descriptive, not prescriptive. read it that way.
Story
Robert McKee
having something to say that the world wants to hear, said well.
Our Kind of People
Lawrence Otis Graham
inside the black upper class. the dynasties, the clubs, and who decides.

read for the pleasure of it

no argument, no method
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline
read it fast, for fun, and no other reason.
Eat, Pray, Love
Elizabeth Gilbert
on this shelf on purpose. the edges stay in.

podcasts

the ones I make and the ones I listen to
Pilot Wave
Afsheen Afshar, Arik Oganesian, Cooper
ai and private markets, from inside the portfolio companies.
Token Engineering
Neurometric
ai economics and the cost of thinking. previously inference time tactics.
All-In
Chamath, Jason, Sacks, Friedberg
markets and politics, argued out loud.
The Twenty Minute VC
Harry Stebbings
the venture interview archive, still the deepest one.
The Diary of a CEO
Steven Bartlett
the long form, when the guest actually answers.
How I Invest
David Weisburd
allocators on how the money is actually decided.
TBPN
John Coogan and Jordi Hays
the daily tape of what technology is arguing about.
AI in NYC
AI in NYC
the city’s builders and investors, on the record.

newsletters

worth the inbox
Neurometric
neurometric.substack.com
token engineering, slms, and what inference actually costs.
Pilot Wave AI
pilotwaveai.substack.com
ai rollups and what production-grade deployment looks like in a portfolio.
Investing in AI
Rob May
twice monthly. the market read from someone who has written it for twenty years.

I've always believed that if you stick to a thought and carefully avoid distraction along the way, you can fulfill a dream.

Estée Lauder  ·  Estée: A Success Story, 1985

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essays, papers, and the occasional argument.