Books Recommended by Balaji Srinivasan
Seeing Like a State
James C. Scott
Source: "There’s a sense in which the term 'real name' is a misnomer. A better term is a state name — a name which makes you legible to the state." - Balaji Srinivasan
History Has Begun
Bruno Macaes
Source: "[The author's] thesis is that America is increasingly becoming a virtual society, focused on make-believe above all. I have to agree." - Balaji Srinivasan
The Truth Machine
Paul Vigna
Source: "An accessible explanation of how blockchains allow us to establish certain kinds of truths even in adversarial environments." - Balaji Srinivasan
Netflixed
Gina Keating
Source: "Blockbuster tried to buy Hollywood Video, but the FTC called this off on antitrust (!) grounds. By 2010 Blockbuster was bankrupt and Netflix was soaring." - Balaji Srinivasan
The Little Bitcoin Book
Bitcoin Collective
Source: "Was written in a few days by N people, one chapter each, and then published on Amazon." - Balaji Srinivasan
Working in Public
Nadia Eghbal
Source: "[The author] is very smart and it’s worth reading anything she writes on open source." - Balaji Srinivasan
The Journalist And The Murderer
Janet Malcolm
Source: "Short and well worth reading. Presages much of today's train crash on social media." - Balaji Srinivasan
The Future Is Asian
Parag Khanna
Source: "The American century is ending. The Asian century is beginning." - Balaji Srinivasan
Physics from Finance
Jakob Schwichtenberg
Source: "A lot of fun. Not exactly art, but novel approach with a lot of visual inspiration." - Balaji Srinivasan
The Great Wave
David Hackett Fischer
Source: "Gold from the Americas did flood Europe in the 1500s, which helped cause inflation." - Balaji Srinivasan
End the Fed
Ron Paul
Source: "[The author] was to Bitcoin what Andrew Yang is to startup societies." - Balaji Srinivasan
The Forgotten Man
Amity Shlaes
Source: "Useful as an alternate perspective on the era." - Balaji Srinivasan
The Great CEO Within
Matt Mochary
Source: "[Brian Armstrong] and I used parts of this at Coinbase." - Balaji Srinivasan
Where Is My Flying Car?
J Storrs Hall
Source: "Don't judge this self-published book by its cover, just read it." - Balaji Srinivasan
AI Superpowers
Kai-Fu Lee
Source: "A history of the Chinese tech ecosystem." - Balaji Srinivasan
The Great Influenza
John M. Barry
Source: Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book on Twitter.
The Knowledge
Lewis Dartnell
Source: Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book on Twitter.
From Third World to First
Lee Kuan Yew
Source: Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book on Twitter.
Pandemic 1918
Catharine Arnold
Source: Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book on Twitter.
Flu
Gina Kolata
Source: Balaji Srinivasan recommended this book on Twitter.
