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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Evolution and Selection

Mental models

Variation, selection and retention will optimise a population without anyone designing it, and will keep doing so as the environment moves. It reframes competition as co-evolution: advantage erodes because rivals adapt, not because management got worse. Markets, industries and strategies are all populations under selection rather than machines under control.

Books 19Experts 2Recommenders 33Resources 4

Start here

  1. The Selfish GeneRichard Dawkins, 1976
  2. The Red QueenMatt Ridley, 1993
  3. Adaptive MarketsAndrew W. Lo, 2017
On the Origin of SpeciesOn the Origin of Species
T1 On the Origin of Species
Charles Darwin · 1859
Open LibraryGoodreads

Species change over time as natural selection favours heritable variations.

“may have done more than any, with the exception of the Bible, to shape man's self-perception” — Nick Sleep

Source: Nomad Investment Partnership, Interim Letter for the period ended June 30th, 2009, p. 158

Recommended by: Jim Collins, Mohnish Pabrai, Naval Ravikant and 5 others

The Selfish GeneThe Selfish Gene
T1 The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins · 1976
Open LibraryGoodreads

Selection acts on genes; bodies are vehicles that genes build to copy themselves.

Recommended by: Balaji S. Srinivasan, Charlie Munger and 10 others

The GeneThe Gene
T1 The Gene
Siddhartha Mukherjee · 2016
Open LibraryGoodreads

The gene from Mendel and Darwin to genome editing, beside a family's mental illness.

Recommended by: Bill Gates, Daniel Petre, James Cameron and 1 other

The Eighth Day of CreationThe Eighth Day of Creation
T2 The Eighth Day of Creation
Horace Freeland Judson · 1969
Open LibraryGoodreads

The history of molecular biology from the 1930s to the 1970s, told by its makers.

Recommended by: Naval Ravikant

The Blind WatchmakerThe Blind Watchmaker
T2 The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins · 1986
Open LibraryGoodreads

How natural selection, not a designer, produces the complexity of living things.

Recommended by: Jim Collins, Mohnish Pabrai and 2 others

The Red QueenThe Red Queen
T2 The Red Queen
Matt Ridley · 1993
Open LibraryGoodreads

Sex evolved as a defence against parasites, and that shapes human mating.

“I really highly, highly recommend picking up Genome, The Red Queen, Origins of Virtue, The Rational Optimist, and The Evolution of Everything.” — Naval Ravikant

Source: The Tim Ferriss Show — Naval Ravikant Q&A, full transcript

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Naval Ravikant, Seth Klarman and 1 other

The Beak of the FinchThe Beak of the Finch
T2 The Beak of the Finch
Jonathan Weiner · 1994
Open LibraryGoodreads

Twenty years of watching Galapagos finches show evolution happening in real time.

Recommended by: Sam Altman

The Language InstinctThe Language Instinct
T2 The Language Instinct
Steven Pinker · 1994
Open LibraryGoodreads

Language as a human instinct, and what science knows of grammar and learning.

“He gave me this book called The Language Instinct, written by Steven Pinker... And Pinker proves his point pretty well.” — Charlie Munger

Source: Poor Charlie's Almanack, Talk Two: A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom

Recommended by: Charlie Munger, Mohnish Pabrai and 1 other

The Moral AnimalThe Moral Animal
T2 The Moral Animal
Robert Wright · 1994
Open LibraryGoodreads

Evolutionary psychology explained through Darwin's own life and behaviour.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Ryan Holiday, Morgan Housel and 2 others

GenomeGenome
T2 Genome
Matt Ridley · 1999
Open LibraryGoodreads

Twenty-three chapters, one per chromosome, each using a gene to open a subject.

“I highly recommend Genome as well, to figure out the rational basis behind ethics and the origin of virtue.” — Naval Ravikant

Source: Nav.al — 'Matt Ridley: How Innovation Works, Part 2' (Naval's podcast, edited transcript)

Recommended by: Charlie Munger, Mohnish Pabrai and 2 others

The Origin of WealthThe Origin of Wealth
T2 The Origin of Wealth
Eric D. Beinhocker · 2006
Open LibraryGoodreads

The economy as a complex evolving system rather than one in equilibrium.

Recommended by: Ryan Peterson

Adaptive MarketsAdaptive Markets
T2 Adaptive Markets
Andrew W. Lo · 2017
Open LibraryGoodreads
Who We Are and How We Got HereWho We Are and How We Got Here
T2 Who We Are and How We Got Here
David Reich · 2018
Open LibraryGoodreads

How ancient DNA has rewritten the story of human prehistory and migration.

Recommended by: Balaji S. Srinivasan, Marc Andreessen and 2 others

The Third ChimpanzeeThe Third Chimpanzee
T3 The Third Chimpanzee
Jared Diamond · 1991
Open LibraryGoodreads

Human behaviour read from evolutionary biology; a Munger latticework staple

Recommended by: Charlie Munger, Mohnish Pabrai

River Out of EdenRiver Out of Eden
T3 River Out of Eden
Richard Dawkins · 1995
Open LibraryGoodreads

Genes as a river of digital information; a short Dawkins primer

Recommended by: Ray Dalio

The Origins of VirtueThe Origins of Virtue
T3 The Origins of Virtue
Matt Ridley · 1996
Open LibraryGoodreads

How cooperation and morality evolved from self-interest, via the prisoner's dilemma.

“I really highly, highly recommend picking up Genome, The Red Queen, Origins of Virtue, The Rational Optimist, and The Evolution of Everything.” — Naval Ravikant

Source: The Tim Ferriss Show — Naval Ravikant Q&A, full transcript

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Naval Ravikant, Ryan Holiday

The Sports GeneThe Sports Gene
T3 The Sports Gene
David Epstein · 2013
Open LibraryGoodreads

Talent, training and genetics in elite athletic performance

Recommended by: Bill Miller, Mark Cuban, Michael Mauboussin

BlueprintBlueprint
T3 Blueprint
Robert Plomin · 2018
Open LibraryGoodreads

Behavioural genetics on how much of an outcome is inherited

Recommended by: James Cameron, Michael Mauboussin

Creation: Life and How to Make ItCreation: Life and How to Make It
T4 Creation: Life and How to Make It
Steve Grand · 2000
Open LibraryGoodreads

How a game designer built artificial life from simple rules of biology.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Jeff Bezos

More mental models

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