Updates

  1. Person pages list letters, writing, profiles and links as sortable tables with filters, and show each person's companies as links; Fund letters show each letter's description in its own column.
  2. Experts show a checked job title and a short description of each person; 30 more people have photographs.
  3. Every company, fund, university and publication the experts work for has a page listing the people there.
  4. Fund letters show each letter's thesis and filter by it; 225 person pages list the essays, columns and newsletter issues the person wrote.
  5. Person pages list every essay and newsletter issue a person wrote, and their own books as a table in List view.
  6. Recommends shows the five largest kinds of book and the rest under More; browse pictures load sooner.
  7. Podcasts and talks link the original episode, filter by Audio and video or Press, and list each publisher once.
  8. Pages are wider, Recommends has List and Grid, and a filter clicked again turns off.
  9. Book cards sit in a ruled grid with Open Library and Goodreads links and each book's one-line note.
  10. Funds is now Investors; each investor's styles are buttons that filter the table.
  11. Podcasts and talks on a person's page filter by year and publisher and show as a list or a grid of pictures.
  12. Quotes show only people's own words: 472 summaries written by list sites are gone.
  13. Country pages open from Browse again, and every link on the shelf lands on a page.
  14. Subject and person pages show their sections as tabs, and each book appears once on a person's page.
  15. Book cards show the quote, who said it and the source; grids show five cards to a row.
  16. On a phone, a menu holds the sections, search, Updates, Feedback and dark mode.
  17. Feedback takes a screenshot of the page with no browser prompt, opens a screenshot full size when you click it, and clears itself once sent.
  18. Book cards are centred, search names the topic each book sits in, and any text cut short shows whole on hover.
  19. Search groups its results by kind: people, companies, geographies, subjects, topics, books, funds, fund letters and papers.
  20. The Books table lists who recommended each book by name, and the browser tab names the section you are in.
  21. Feedback can take a screenshot of the page, or one you paste or choose, and opens in the corner beside Updates.
  22. Each rail button reopens its section where you left it, and Browse, Table and People show on every book and subject page.
  23. Filters grey out choices that hold nothing instead of hiding them, and Books › People filters by authors or recommenders.
  24. Feedback takes a subject line and up to three screenshots.
  25. Biographies are grouped by the person they are about: 41 new pages, from Abraham Lincoln to Lee Kuan Yew.
  26. Sport splits into 23 sports, and Religion into one topic per faith.
  27. Book lists show as cards: the cover, one recommendation quote and every recommender by name.
  28. Seventeen subjects that had two or three pages under different names now have one page each.
  29. Every page lists its Experts as authors and recommenders, with a link to them on the Experts tab.
  30. Economics, Financial history, Financial panics and Accounting are subjects of their own, with one page per financial crisis.
  31. Book, person and subject pages open inside the app, so the tabs stay in view.
  32. 996 more book covers, and photographs or logos for 227 more people and companies.
  33. Books › Browse shows every subject as cards, and the rail holds Fund letters, Papers, Experts, Books and Funds.
  34. Every topic over 150 books splits into narrower topics, each with a page of its own.

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Comparative Advantage

Mental models

Ricardo's result that trade pays even when one party is better at everything, because what matters is relative rather than absolute cost. Inside a firm it argues for concentrating people on what they give up least to do. It also explains why supply chains fragment across borders, and what is surrendered when they are pulled back.

Books 10Experts 2Recommenders 32Resources 3

Start here

  1. The Undercover EconomistTim Harford, 2005
  2. Economics in One LessonHenry Hazlitt, 1946
  3. The Wealth of NationsAdam Smith, 1776
The Wealth of NationsThe Wealth of Nations
T1 The Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith · 1776
Open LibraryGoodreads

How the division of labour and free markets make a nation rich.

Recommended by: Naval Ravikant, Patrick Collison and 7 others

On the Principles of Political Economy and TOn the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation
T1 On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation
David Ricardo · 1817
Open LibraryGoodreads

Rent, wages, profit and comparative advantage, reasoned from first assumptions.

Economics in One LessonEconomics in One Lesson
T1 Economics in One Lesson
Henry Hazlitt · 1946
Open LibraryGoodreads

Hazlitt's 1946 distillation of Bastiat's 'broken window' insight: good economic reasoning requires seeing both what is visible and what is made invisible by a policy. A short book that teaches a single analytical habit, and that habit is genuinely useful regardless of your politics.

“I've given dozens of copies of this classic to students... The book should be required reading on every campus.” — Christopher Bloomstran

Source: Semper Augustus 2020 Letter to Clients, 'To Read or Not to Read', p. 57

Recommended by: Christopher Bloomstran, Changpeng Zhao and 3 others

Guns, Germs, and SteelGuns, Germs, and Steel
T1 Guns, Germs, and Steel
Jared Diamond · 1997
Open LibraryGoodreads

Diamond's central question — why did some civilizations come to dominate others over 10,000 years? — is precisely the kind of question that requires long-term thinking to even ask. The answer, rooted in geography and biology rather than culture or intelligence, is a model for how to reason about slow causes and fast effects.

“This is an insightful read on the pace at which societies develop and why.” — Christopher Bloomstran

Source: Semper Augustus 2023 Letter to Clients, 'Worldly Wisdom', p. 81

Recommended by: Charlie Munger, Christopher Bloomstran and 14 others

The Wealth and Poverty of NationsThe Wealth and Poverty of Nations
T1 The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
David S. Landes · 1998
Open LibraryGoodreads

Why some nations grew rich over 500 years, with culture as the deciding factor.

Recommended by: Charlie Munger, Mohnish Pabrai, Jamie Dimon and 1 other

Basic EconomicsBasic Economics
T2 Basic Economics
Thomas Sowell · 1999
Open LibraryGoodreads

Thomas Sowell's deliberately introductory survey of how prices, incentives, and tradeoffs work across housing, labor, international trade, and discrimination. Dense with empirical examples. Its main contribution to this list is showing the gap between policy intentions and policy consequences.

The Undercover EconomistThe Undercover Economist
T2 The Undercover Economist
Tim Harford · 2005
Open LibraryGoodreads

Price theory in daily life: coffee near stations, supermarket tiers and used cars.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Naval Ravikant

The Rational OptimistThe Rational Optimist
T2 The Rational Optimist
Matt Ridley · 2010
Open LibraryGoodreads

Prosperity grows as trade and specialisation let ideas meet and combine.

“…books I've recommended, highlighted to death, or forced on friends.” — Andrew Wilkinson

Source: Andrew Wilkinson's Bookshelf, neverenough.com

Recommended by: Andrew Wilkinson, Bill Gates, Frank Martin and 10 others

The Invisible HeartThe Invisible Heart
T3 The Invisible Heart
Russell Roberts · 2001
Open LibraryGoodreads

Economics argued through a novel; markets and their moral defence

“there is a book called The Invisible Heart which explains basic economics to most people” — Joel Greenblatt

Source: Masters in Business transcript: Joel Greenblatt (2018)

Recommended by: Joel Greenblatt, Mohnish Pabrai

The Power of ProductivityThe Power of Productivity
T3 The Power of Productivity
William W. Lewis · 2004
Open LibraryGoodreads

Sector-level explanation of why productivity differs so much between countries

“on how technology-driven productivity growth improves human welfare and creates more jobs and higher wages” — Marc Andreessen

Source: @pmarca, companion thread to 'It's Time to Build'

Recommended by: Marc Andreessen, Patrick Collison

More mental models

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