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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Game Theory and Nash Equilibrium

Mental models

Formal analysis of situations where your payoff depends on what others choose, with equilibrium as the point at which no player gains by deviating alone. It explains why rational competitors settle into outcomes none of them wanted, from price wars to underwriting cycles. The practical use is to model the other side's incentives rather than their stated intentions.

Books 13Experts 1Recommenders 27Resources 4

Start here

  1. Thinking StrategicallyAvinash K. Dixit, Barry J. Nalebuff, 1991
  2. The Evolution of CooperationRobert Axelrod, 1984
  3. Theory of Games and Economic BehaviorJohn von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern, 1944
On WarOn War
T1 On War
Carl von Clausewitz · 1835
Open LibraryGoodreads

Clausewitz introduces friction, fog, and the political nature of conflict as irreducible elements of strategy. His insistence that war is a continuation of politics by other means is the foundational challenge to anyone who wants a purely technical theory of winning.

Recommended by: Ryan Holiday, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman

The Art of WarThe Art of War
T1 The Art of War
Sun Tzu · 1900
Open LibraryGoodreads

The original text on strategic positioning. Sun Tzu's core insight — that winning without fighting is the highest form of strategy — runs through everything that followed. Short enough to read in an afternoon, dense enough to argue about for a career.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Evan Spiegel, Fred Wilson and 4 others

Theory of Games and Economic BehaviorTheory of Games and Economic Behavior
T1 Theory of Games and Economic Behavior
John von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern · 1944
Open LibraryGoodreads

The founding of game theory: expected utility and strategy among interacting players.

The Strategy of ConflictThe Strategy of Conflict
T1 The Strategy of Conflict
Thomas C. Schelling · 1960
Open LibraryGoodreads

Conflict as bargaining: commitment, credible threats and focal points.

Recommended by: Naval Ravikant

The Evolution of CooperationThe Evolution of Cooperation
T1 The Evolution of Cooperation
Robert Axelrod · 1984
Open LibraryGoodreads

Computer tournaments of the prisoner's dilemma show why tit-for-tat wins.

Recommended by: Patrick Collison, Naval Ravikant

Thinking StrategicallyThinking Strategically
T1 Thinking Strategically
Avinash K. Dixit, Barry J. Nalebuff · 1991
Open LibraryGoodreads

Game theory without maths: look forward, reason back, and make threats credible.

Finite and Infinite GamesFinite and Infinite Games
T2 Finite and Infinite Games
James P. Carse · 1986
Open LibraryGoodreads

Finite games are played to win; infinite games are played to keep playing.

Recommended by: Nat Eliason, Daniel Gross, Derek Sivers and 8 others

Prisoner's DilemmaPrisoner's Dilemma
T2 Prisoner's Dilemma
William Poundstone · 1992
Open LibraryGoodreads

Von Neumann, game theory and the prisoner's dilemma in nuclear strategy.

The Art of StrategyThe Art of Strategy
T2 The Art of Strategy
Avinash K. Dixit, Barry J. Nalebuff · 2008
Open LibraryGoodreads

Game theory without maths, with new examples: commitment, signals, bargaining.

When Everyone Knows That Everyone KnowsWhen Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows
T2 When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows
Steven Pinker · 2025
Open LibraryGoodreads

Common knowledge, where everyone knows that everyone knows, and what it does.

Recommended by: Bill Gates

NonzeroNonzero
T3 Nonzero
Robert Wright · 2000
Open LibraryGoodreads

History read as an expanding series of non-zero-sum games

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Ev Williams, Nick Thompson and 1 other

Rational RitualRational Ritual
T3 Rational Ritual
Michael Suk-Young Chwe · 2001
Open LibraryGoodreads

Common knowledge and coordination; why rituals and advertising work

Recommended by: Mark Zuckerberg

Rational DecisionsRational Decisions
T3 Rational Decisions
Ken Binmore · 2008
Open LibraryGoodreads

Binmore on when Bayesian decision theory applies and when it does not

Recommended by: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

More mental models

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