⭐⭐⭐ The Technological Republic by Karp

I had been vaguely aware of these kinds of opinions being held by the Palantir guys for quite some time — I recall some sort of story on Karp back all the way when I originally was considering working at the company out of college (2015). In general, they’re are mostly preaching to the choir with me; I’m already generally sold on their views that we should spread democracy and that folks should be comfortable supporting the US government within the context of their work.

I found the book to be overall pretty disappointing, though. One thing is that it could have really used a professional co-author (or at least a heavier-handed editor) — the structure of Technological Republic is confused where in one chapter you’re hearing about how Silicon Valley initially developed, another it’s how universities decide how to teach history, and then in the next is an explanation of why Palantir gives new employees a book about improv. It makes Technological Republic feel authentic to the authors, but also more of just a collection of the different thoughts that Karp and Zamiska have rather than a cohesive work of art.

I did enjoy quite a few points made by the book. Perhaps the best point is that AI represents a capability / weapon on the level of the atomic bomb. I don’t know if I had really thought about it this way, but in general buy into the concept. Another is that the cultural shifts of the 1960s and 70s kicked off a change in how we teach history (or, in other words, indoctrinate our youth and ensure we have a cohesive culture). The latter in particular I’d like to learn more about; I’ve heard Closing of the American Mind deals with this, so perhaps I’ll pick that up next.

Ultimately I think that I wouldn’t recommend this unless you are pretty enmeshed in the culture wars and/or care about Silicon Valley. Otherwise, you probably get most of the vibe from the current cultural shift that the country seems to be going through.

March 10, 2025 Book Reviews

⭐⭐⭐ Kaput by Münchau

As a long-time reader of Münchau via UnHerd as well as via commentary on Hospodářské noviny, I had high expectations of Kaput. Unfortunately, I came away fairly disappointed.

For one, I think the book is far too short and doesn’t really go into much more depth than you could glean from a collection of the essays Münchau has previously put out on the web. But two, in the cases where he does go into more depth, the format is confused: sometimes, he repeats the same point only a few pages after making it; other times, he introduces so many concepts at once that it’s hard to keep them in your head.

The latter issue is particularly problematic: as a book that seems targeted to audiences not super familiar with the German context (which we can derive from the author’s explanation of basics of German history), I found it surprising that he didn’t spend more time “setting the stage.” The chapter on the structure of the banking system suffers probably most seriously from this: it seemed like honestly quite an interesting story that could be told in a fashion that is far easier to follow than Münchau accomplishes. At the end, I came away feeling like I understood his thesis in the chapter but could not support it based from the historical context he tried to draw upon on.

More positively, it was interesting to hear about the challenges Germany has faced and the parallels it bears to the US: the confused immigration system that seems to prioritize attracting low-wage labor over skilled labor, or the vision (and failure) of liberalization of Russia / China via trade. In some ways it was nice to hear that it’s not just us that are struggling with these issues.

But ultimately, I’m not sure who this book is for. It doesn’t feel like it’s for laypeople, those familiar with the basics of German politics, nor truly politically-engaged Germans. Would not recommend — you can get most of the value from talking with an LLM about the rough history of post-unification Germany and then reading a few of Münchau’s columns on Eurointelligence or UnHerd.

March 6, 2025 Book Reviews

⭐⭐ 5 Types of Wealth by Bloom

I read this on the recommendation of Bill Ackman, mostly based on the fact that he also recommended Outlive, which I loved. I don’t necessarily think it’s horrible, it’s just that I am surprised that people would find the stuff that’s discussed here all that insightful. I think I’m simply not in the target audience — this would likely speak to folks that have over-invested in their career, at the detriment of other areas. Still, I feel the recommendations here are limited and don’t cover everything that you’d want to consider when ‘reorienting’ your life. For a more complete treatment, I’d recommend something like Vermeer’s 8760.

March 1, 2025 Book Reviews

R1 1776

A week ago, Perplexity released a version of DeepSeek R1 that is un-censored. The examples in their blog post are pretty compelling. I had previously been using R1 via OpenRouter, but was always uncomfortable with using such a censored model. 1776 likely still has a good amount of censorship in it (after all, they only targeted things known to be censored by CCP), but it’s clearly much better.

It’s good enough to become the third default slot in my Msty “Thinking” split chat, alongside OpenAI’s o1 and Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental. (Msty itself is worth mentioning as an excellent UI for both remote and local models!)

How I interact with AI for all but the most basic of questions

February 25, 2025 AI

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Genius Factory by Plotz

I read this on the recommendation of Gwern, who gave the book four stars. I agree with his assessment. As someone who recently went through freezing his own sperm (thank you Legacy, Carrot, and Stripe benefits!), this was an interesting companion piece that not only discusses this specific sperm bank but also goes over a brief history of banks in general. Learning about the history of Robert Graham, as well as a few of the donors to the bank that Plotz was able to uncover (and meet with!) was very cool. And despite it currently being trendy to say the opposite, the book further convinced me that nurture is more important than nature.

The book also does a good job of weaving some narrative elements that focus on specific families and their relationship with the donors they are able to uncover. As a short read, I think I’d recommend it to most.

February 24, 2025 Book Reviews

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Developer Hegemony by Dietrich

I was recommended this book a couple of times over the years but only got around to reading it now. The read was quite an engaging one; I thoroughly enjoy mental models of how we can think of power structures in the modern workplace. In this tome, Dietrich leans heavily on the structures as described in Rao’s Gervais Principle, re-naming them Opportunists, Idealists, and Pragmatists (terminology that I prefer to Rao’s). I thought at first that this would be one of the structures he peruses, but actually, it ends up being the only one discussed in the book. This reliance makes the work primarily derivative and less original.

Dietrich’s insights later in the book, on how to ultimately become an Opportunists from the other two classes, are his primary original contribution. I thought that there were some interesting ideas here, but I didn’t fully buy into his concept of “efficiencer firms” whos primary purpose is automation. Sure, this can be applied to many businesses that one might start after formal employment (especially in the consulting space). However, I don’t think this framing fits businesses that sell a service / product very well. This was tough for me because that’s the direction I am most interested in.

Some of the other concepts would have been groudbreaking to stumble upon in college / early employment, but not so revolutionary for me at this stage of my life (mid-career technologist). I thought of many parallels to Fisker’s Early Retirement Extreme, which I actually did read shortly after graduating college. They have some cool overlaps.

Ultimately I still think this book deserves quite a good rating, and believe that most software engineers (and knowledge workers in adjacent categories) would benefit from reading it.

February 17, 2025 Book Reviews