Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to “lead”, influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations.
If you are going to do, do it. Recounting a life of pursuit, drive, and relentless optimism.
To categorize this book under self-help would infuriate Arnold. He views the label of a self-made man as a charming myth. In reality, he got a lot of help from hundreds of people. This is especially true for his parents raising him right despite their flaws. Arnold found support in Munich, not far from Austria, where he was able to pump iron and get his first experience with running a fitness business. Joe Weider, a bodybuilding entrepreneur before bodybuilding was an industry, invested in Arnold by facilitating opportunities that would allow Arnold to prove his drive, realize his dreams, and demonstrate his astute business acumen. He admits he would have never made it if it wasn’t for the kind help and support from others. Perhaps, this philosophical viewpoint lays the foundation for the book “Be Useful” – to others and the world at large.
I have not read any other Schwarzenegger books, but I have seen plenty of his movies. Ironically, it was a stand-up comedy special that put Arnold’s life story on my radar. In “Be Useful” he chronicles aspects of his journey without too much detail on the actual history, but with in-depth access to his mindset at the time. It is no surprise that Arnold’s foundation for all of his success is a simple and clear vision. In German, you can describe this as “Fernweh”, a deep convulsing desire for experiences never had, sensations never felt. Arnold describes his childhood as filled with dreams of America. This faraway land of the free, home of the brave where nothing is impossible. His advice on this is simple: don’t be afraid to look yourself in the eyes and really see. The idea of starting with a broad vision, zooming in, and making space for deep reflection isn’t inherently new. David Goggins is known for his Accountability Mirror. Steve Jobs stated
“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? ‘ And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”
Deep, critical reflection and introspective moments have become a rare form of leisure experience in our modern world full of instant gratification and consumerism. If I lose my mind tomorrow, I hope to retain (or relearn) the idea of facing myself and envision what could be.
A cultural phenomenon I seem to share with Arnold is a healthy ignorance of naysayers. He describes this attitude as a need for doubt and laughter of others because his upbringing in Austria involved plenty of negative reinforcement. Germans and Austrians are often viewed as harsh and mean characters with little patience for tomfoolery and lollygagging. Embracing opposition and adversity with a smile allowed him to reinforce his vision and confidence so that he could throw all his drive behind it. He writes
“If millions of European immigrants can come to America with nothing but a suitcase and a dream and make life for themselves, why couldn’t I?”
The most intriguing part of “Be Useful” is the glimpse into his finances at the time of his arrival in the United States. The entire sequence is closely tied to actual historical events playing out in his favor. Arnold already had earned some income in Europe as a fitness instructor and from competition rewards when he moved to the United States. While living on the couches of friends in Venice, he would sell bodybuilding booklets. The distribution deal was a cleverly constructed advertising agreement where he would volunteer for photo shoots in exchange for ad space. At the same time, he enrolled in business, language, and acting classes knowing each of these studies would expand his horizon and field of opportunities in America. When he wasn’t lifting weights, selling his booklet, or studying, he would work as a bricklayer. Arnold had no background or experience in masonry but thought laying bricks would be a good workout in between workouts. To his luck, his business catered to Americans interested in European-style houses at an economic time when the housing market was in a bubble.
Undoubtedly, the man found himself in an opportune time. But more importantly, he had the wits to recognize the times and the drive to take advantage of it. In his words, those days felt so full and rich because he was always switched on. He was energized and excited because he just spent two hours moving closer to achieving his vision. Isn’t this experience, the near flow state something we as a people call “a perfect life ” and we all aspire to experience?
While reading Arnold’s guidance on life, I couldn’t help myself but hear his iconic accent ring through my head as I thought through each sentence. It was a unique, fun reading experience. Arnold Schwarzenegger has attracted many critics, but whatever one might think of him, his unwavering drive in pursuit of his goals is inspiring. Should you pay $28 for it? No.
Reading a book takes time, immersion, and reflection. For anyone interested in learning more about “Be Useful” without investing this much money, I can recommend the Jocko Podcast episode with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
As a little “Schmankerl”, I mentioned a stand-up comedy special earlier. Comedian Bill Burr created “You People Are All The Same” in which he describes the stupendous odds a person needed to overcome to achieve what Arnold has achieved in his lifetime. Viewer discretion is advised.
Sometimes the answer lies in doing what is necessary, not what is easy.
Ben Horowitz first published his book “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” about ten years ago. Yet most of his content couldn’t be more relevant today. Starting with his personal background and upbringing in the People’s Republic of Berkeley, the book quickly gets into the nitty-gritty of his experience running Netscape and Loudcloud, which would later morph into Opsware. That’s where the book lives. Most leadership advice throughout this book are distilled lessons from his experience at these three companies.
When reading past the first three chapters, the reader will come to an imminent refreshing realization: the author’s notion that “there are no easy answers” is the answer to great leadership. A great leader of a business lives with the relentless struggle between deciding a bad and a terrible situation. Moreover, a great leader recognizes the adversity to utilize its downward energy and turn it into something productive. In essence, it is a book on functional business leadership. How to function as a leader when your business is faced with layoffs, raising capital, restructuring, hiring the right people, promoting the right people, and many more real-life business scenarios.
I like the rather simple structure of medium to short-length chapters that describe a situation infused with his hindsight knowledge. It’s to the point, crisp, and without fuzzing around the reality of the situation, which is often a choice between terrible and horrific, but a choice that has to be taken nevertheless. Understanding that the leader of the company is ultimately alone in making those hard decisions with imperfect information at a fast pace is a baseline for great leadership. There is obviously so much more to unpack here. Read it for yourself. You can buy the book on Amazon.
My only quibble with the book was including quoted rap lyrics in almost every chapter. It created distractions to my reading flow when my brain was trying to think through for example his account of selling Opsware to HP, but the chapter opens with Kanye West’s lyrics to “Stronger” and its catchy tune immediately infiltrated my thought process.
I would recommend this book to business owners who are ambitious and whose businesses are already employing double-digit staff. It’s a fun read when you run a small sub-10 employees startup, but not really applicable just yet. It’s also a great book to keep on your desk and randomly pick up for guidance on a certain situation. My main takeaway is likely found in the chapter on the most difficult CEO skill to master and it is very simple: don’t quit.
“Power Play” by Tim Higgins chronicles the inception and scaling of Tesla Motors. The book explores the history and challenges faced by Tesla, its growth as a company, and the impact it has had on the automotive and clean energy sectors. It delves into the business strategies, controversies, and innovations that have defined Tesla’s journey, as well as the broader implications of its success for the future of transportation and sustainable energy.
A strong focus of the author is on the leadership decisions, behavior, and actions of Elon Musk. He is depicted as a complex, stubborn, and erratic micromanager who is also a visionary entrepreneur and romantic futurist. Musk’s relentless drive to perform ultra hardcore all the time and his asking the same of his employees is a common theme throughout the book. This mindset seemingly allows Musk to deliver on promises that traditional automakers thought to be impossible. But it also creates an adversarial environment between him and his employees and supporters; testing the depth and longevity of those relationships and – unsurprisingly – churning through most. The complex order of historical events in conjunction with the author’s writing style, jumping from crisis to peacetime to crisis, creates unwanted contradictions about Elon Musk making it harder to follow the events as they unfold.
Personally, I found it an intriguing account with a neutral depiction of a leader who attempts the impossible. As an entrepreneur or startup founder, I can relate to the everlasting moments of despair Musk must have experienced. The book is inspiring to the extent that it conveys a sense of urgency and survival for Tesla and its leaders in an environment that is rooting against them.
The hardcover book is currently priced at $30 on Bookshop. While a very large online platform offers a discounted price on the book, I found $30 too expensive for a subject so very much in the public eye of our times. If you Musk (see the pun there), start with Ashlee Vance’s account of Elon Musk titled “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.” I read it a while back and still fondly remember how energized I felt after reading it.
Initial criticism of the book called out Higgins’s depiction of Elon Musk as a business leader is unsubstantiated since he had no access to internal communications – or the man himself. However, works of non-fiction are often written with information derived from former employees and accounts close to the business. His notes indicate he relied plenty on interviews but does not disclose with whom and when the interview took place. It’s not a negative sign, but a possible canary in the coal mine that this book, too, is somewhat riding on the media interest around Elon Musk. In a note from the author, Higgins relays a response from Elon Musk: “Most, but not all, of what you read in this book is nonsense.” Elon Musk later posted on X about the book “Higgins managed to make his book both false *and* boring 🤣🤣”
What is the end goal of “X” formerly known as Twitter? A recent article about a cryptic tweet by Elon Musk tries to make a case for a platform that centralizes mankind’s shared cultural beliefs and values, and, the authors argue that it will not be “X”.
tl;dr On August 18th, 2023, a thought-provoking tweet by the visionary entrepreneur, Elon Musk – owner of “X” (formerly known as Twitter), set the stage for public contemplation and attention. That tweet forms the basis of this article which examines the captivating ideas that have sprung from that fateful Friday tweet.
The authors focus the article on a post by Elon Musk that reads: “𝕏 as humanity’s collective consciousness”. They start defining the term humanity’s collective consciousness with a historical review of the works of French sociologist Emile Durkheim and Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Those works responded to industrialization, which influenced contemporary viewpoints and connected collective consciousness to labor. The authors define it as “shared beliefs, values, attitudes, ideas, and knowledge that exist within a particular group or society. It is the sum of an individual’s thoughts, emotions, and experiences of people within a group, which combine to create a common understanding of the world, social norms, and cultural identity. It is also the idea that individuals within a society are not only influenced by their own thoughts and experiences but also by broader cultural and societal trends.” The authors continue to review a possible motive for Elon Musk. They refer to the name change earlier this year from Twitter to “X, the everything app”. Elon Musk defended the decision by providing the scope planned for “X”. He stated Twitter was a means for bidirectional communication in 140 characters or less – and nothing more. “X” on the other hand allows different types of content, at varying levels of length, and it plans to allow users “to conduct your entire financial world” on “X”, implying similar features as WeChat. The authors interpret Elon Musk’s statements as “X” becoming a mirror for the world’s thoughts, believes and values at any given point in time. The authors continue to review comments and reactions from users concluding humanity’s collective consciousness must be free from censorship and oppression. Moreover, it requires digitization of human content, which in and of itself is a challenge considering the influence of artificial intelligence over human beliefs and values. This leads the authors to explore spiritual and religious motives asking “Does Elon Musk intend X to play the role of God”? They then ask the true question “Can X achieve to truly influence cultural norms and traditions” but conclude it to be a mere means to an end of humanity’s collective consciousness.
Evaluation
At first glance, this article is missing a crucial comparison to other platforms. The elephant in the room is, of course, Facebook with more than 3 billion monthly active users. WhatsApp is believed to be used by more than 2.7 billion monthly active users. And Instagram is home to approximately 1.35 billion users. This makes their owner and operator, Meta Platforms, the host for more than 7 billion users (assuming the unlikely scenario that each platform has unique users). “X” by contrast is host to around 500 million monthly active users. Any exploration that concerns a social network or platform could become or aims to be humanity’s collective consciousness must draw a comparison.
The authors do conduct a historical comparison between “X’s” role in shaping social movements, revolutions, and cultural shifts and the Enlightenment Era and the Civil Rights Movement. They correctly identify modern communication as being more fluid and impacted by dynamic technologies allowing users to form collective identities based on shared interests, beliefs, or experiences. Arguably, the Enlightenment era and the Civil Rights Movement were driven by a few, select groups. In contrast, modern movements experience crossover identities supporting movements across the globe and independent of cultural identity as demonstrated in the Arab Spring of 2011, the Gezi Park Protests of 2013, or Black Lives Matter. It can be interpreted that humanity’s collective consciousness is indeed influenced by social networks, but the critical miss, again, is the direct connection to “X”. Twitter did assume an influential role during the aforementioned movements. But would they have played out the way they did – soley on Twitter – without Facebook, WhatsApp, and other social networks?
The authors make a point about “X’s” real-time relevance arguing information spreads on “X” like wildfire often breaking news stories before traditional media outlets. However, the changes to the “X” recommendation algorithm, the introduction of paid premium subscriptions, and some controversial reinstatements of accounts that were found to spread misinformation and hate speech have made “X” bleed critical users, specifically journalists, reporters, and media enthusiasts.
Lastly, the authors conclude that “X” has evolved from a microblogging platform to an everything app. They state it has become a central place for humanity’s collective consciousness. Nothing could be further from the truth. To date, “X” has yet to introduce products and features to manage finances, search the internet, plan and book travel or simply maintain uptime and mitigate bugs. Users can’t buy products on “X” nor manage their health, public service, and utilities. WeChat offers these products and features and it doesn’t make a claim to be humanity’s collective consciousness.
Outlook
A far more interesting question around social networks and collective consciousness is the impact of generative artificial intelligence on humanity. While the authors of this article believed a (single) social network could become humanity’s collective consciousness, it is more likely that the compounding effect of information created and curated by algorithms is already becoming if not overriding humanity’s collective consciousness. Will it reach a point, at which machine intelligence will become self-aware, independent of its human creators, and actively influence humanity’s collective consciousness to achieve (technological) singularity?
This is my personal shortlist of classic and modern Air Force literature. Titles are selected by Air Force history, ongoing conflicts, and their relevancy to the future of aerial warfare, as well as leadership lessons, strategy, and tactics in aviation. Titles are ordered by their original publication date.
Ballistic Books is a series to present literature of interest. Each edition is dedicated to a specific topic. I found it challenging to discover and distinguish good from great literature. With this series, I aim to mitigate that challenge.
(2021) The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War by Malcolm Gladwell
“In Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history.
Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,” asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal? In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion.
In Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?” Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.” I read this book when it was first released. It still ranks high on my list of favorite books.
(2021) Call-Sign KLUSO: An American Fighter Pilot in Mr. Reagan’s Air Force by Rick Tollini
“Eagle pilot Rick “Kluso” Tollini’s life has embodied childhood dreams and the reality of what the American experience could produce. In his memoir, Call Sign KLUSO, Rick puts the fraught minutes above the Iraqi desert that made him an ace into the context of a full life; exploring how he came to be flying a F-15C in Desert Storm, and how that day became a pivotal moment in his life.
Rick’s first experience of flying was in a Piper PA-18 over 1960s’ California as a small boy, and his love of flying through his teenage years was fostered by his pilot father, eventually blossoming into a decision to join the Air Force as a pilot in his late twenties. Having trained to fly jets he was assigned to fly the F-15 Eagle with the “Dirty Dozen,” the 12th Tactical Fighter Squadron, at Kadena AB, Japan before returning Stateside to the 58th Tactical Fighter Squadron “The Gorillas.” Throughout training, Reagan’s fighter pilots expected to face the Soviet Union, but Rick’s first combat deployment was Desert Storm. He recounts the planning, the preparation, and the missions, the life of a fighter pilot in a combat zone and the reality of combat. Rick’s aerial victory was one of 16 accumulated by the Gorillas, the most by any squadron during Desert Storm.
Returning from the combat skies of Iraq, Rick continued a successful fulfilling Air Force career until, struggling to make sense of his life, he turned to Buddhism. His practice led him to leave the Air Force, to find a new vocation, and to finally come to terms with shooting down that MiG-25 Foxbat in the desert all those years before. Most importantly, he came to a deeper understanding of the importance of our shared humanity.”
(2019) Top Gun: An American Story by Dan Pedersen
“When American fighter jets were being downed at an unprecedented rate during the Vietnam War, the U.S. Navy turned to a young lieutenant commander, Dan Pedersen, to figure out a way to reverse their dark fortune. On a shoestring budget and with little support, Pedersen picked eight of the finest pilots to help train a new generation to bend jets like the F-4 Phantom to their will and learn how to dogfight all over again.
What resulted was nothing short of a revolution — one that took young American pilots from the crucible of combat training in the California desert to the blistering skies of Vietnam, in the process raising America’s Navy combat kill ratio from two enemy planes downed for every American plane lost to more than 22 to 1. Topgun emerged not only as an icon of America’s military dominance immortalized by Hollywood but as a vital institution that would shape the nation’s military strategy for generations to come.
Pedersen takes readers on a colorful and thrilling ride — from Miramar to Area 51 to the decks of aircraft carriers in war and peace-through a historic moment in air warfare. He helped establish a legacy that was built by him and his “Original Eight” — the best of the best — and carried on for six decades by some of America’s greatest leaders. Topgun is a heartfelt and personal testimony to patriotism, sacrifice, and American innovation and daring.”
(2019 Tomcat Fury: A Combat History of the F-14 by Mike Guardia
“For more than three decades, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat was the US Navy’s premier carrier-based, multi-role fighter jet. From its harrowing combat missions over Libya to its appearance on the silver screen in movies like Top Gun and Executive Decision, the F-14 has become an icon of American air power. Now, for the first time in a single volume, Tomcat Fury explores the illustrious combat history of the F-14: from the Gulf of Sidra…to the Iran-Iraq War…to the skies over Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror.”
(2017) Desert Storm Air War: The Aerial Campaign against Saddam’s Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War by Jim Corrigan
“The air campaign that opened the Gulf War in January 1991 was one of the most stunning in history. For five weeks, American and other Coalition aircraft pounded enemy targets with 88,000 tons of bombs. Sorties—more than 100,000 of them—were launched from bases in Saudi Arabia, from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and even from bases in the United States. The skies over Iraq and Kuwait were filled with a dizzying array of new and improved weapons—Tomahawk and Hellfire missiles, stealth aircraft, and laser-guided smart bombs—and the results were impressive. The Coalition swiftly established air superiority and laid the foundation for the successful five-day ground campaign that followed. The results were also highly visible as the American people watched the bombings unfold in grainy green video-game-like footage broadcast on CNN and the nightly news.
The overwhelming success of the Desert Storm air campaign has made it influential ever since, from the “shock and awe” bombing during the Iraq War in 2003 to more recent drone operations, but the apparent ease with which the campaign was won has masked the difficulty—and the true achievement—of executing such a vast and complex operation.
Using government reports, scholarly studies, and original interviews, Jim Corrigan reconstructs events through the eyes of not only the strategists who planned it, but also the pilots who flew the missions.”
(2012) Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat by Dan Hampton
“First into a war zone, flying behind enemy lines to purposely draw fire, the wild weasels are elite fighter squadrons with the most dangerous job in the Air Force
One of the greatest aviation memoirs ever written, Viper Pilot is an Air Force legend’s thrilling eyewitness account of modern air warfare. For twenty years, Lieutenant Colonel Dan Hampton was a leading member of the Wild Weasels, logging 608 combat hours in the world’s most iconic fighter jet: the F-16 “Fighting Falcon,” or “Viper.” He spearheaded the 2003 invasion of Iraq, leading the first flight of fighters over the border en route to strike Baghdad. Earlier, on 9/11, Hampton’s father was inside the Pentagon when it was attacked; with his dad’s fate unknown, Hampton was scrambled into American skies and given the unprecedented orders to shoot down any unidentified aircraft.
Viper Pilot is an unforgettable look into the closed world of fighter pilots and modern air combat.”
(2002) Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram
“John Boyd may be the most remarkable unsung hero in all of American military history. Some remember him as the greatest U.S. fighter pilot ever — the man who, in simulated air-to-air combat, defeated every challenger in less than forty seconds. Some recall him as the father of our country’s most legendary fighter aircraft — the F-15 and F-16. Still others think of Boyd as the most influential military theorist since Sun Tzu. They know only half the story.
Boyd, more than any other person, saved fighter aviation from the predations of the Strategic Air Command. His manual of fighter tactics changed the way every air force in the world flies and fights. He discovered a physical theory that forever altered the way fighter planes were designed. Later in life, he developed a theory of military strategy that has been adopted throughout the world and even applied to business models for maximizing efficiency. And in one of the most startling and unknown stories of modern military history, the Air Force fighter pilot taught the U.S. Marine Corps how to fight war on the ground. His ideas led to America’s swift and decisive victory in the Gulf War and foretold the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
On a personal level, Boyd rarely met a general he couldn’t offend. He was loud, abrasive, and profane. A man of daring, ferocious passion and intractable stubbornness, he was that most American of heroes — a rebel who cared not for his reputation or fortune but for his country. He was a true patriot, a man who made a career of challenging the shortsighted and self-serving Pentagon bureaucracy. America owes Boyd and his disciples — the six men known as the “Acolytes” — a great debt.
Robert Coram finally brings to light the remarkable story of a man who polarized all who knew him, but who left a legacy that will influence the military — and all of America — for decades to come”
(2001) The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security by Grant Tedrick Hammond
“The ideas of US Air Force Colonel John Boyd have transformed American military policy and practice. A first-rate fighter pilot and a self-taught scholar, he wrote the first manual on jet aerial combat; spearheaded the design of both of the Air Force’s premier fighters, the F-15 and the F-16; and shaped the tactics that saved lives during the Vietnam War and the strategies that won the Gulf War. Many of America’s best-known military and political leaders consulted Boyd on matters of technology, strategy, and theory.
In The Mind of War, Grant T. Hammond offers the first complete portrait of John Boyd, his groundbreaking ideas, and his enduring legacy. Based on extensive interviews with Boyd and those who knew him as well as on a close analysis of Boyd’s briefings, this intellectual biography brings the work of an extraordinary thinker to a broader public. The paperback will retain the original publication date as it is the same book but different format.”
(1999) Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden
“On October 3, 1993, about a hundred elite U.S. soldiers were dropped by helicopter into the teeming market in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take an hour. Instead, they found themselves pinned down through a long and terrible night fighting against thousands of heavily-armed Somalis. The following morning, eighteen Americans were dead and more than seventy had been badly wounded. Drawing on interviews from both sides, army records, audiotapes, and videos (some of the material is still classified), Bowden’s minute-by-minute narrative is one of the most exciting accounts of modern combat ever written—a riveting story that captures the heroism, courage, and brutality of battle.”
(1995) Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing (Tom Clancy’s Military Reference) by Tom Clancy
“Tom Clancy’s explorations of America’s armed forces reveal exclusive, never-before-seen information on the people and technology that protect our nation. Here, the acclaimed author takes to the skies with the U.S. Air Force’s elite: the Fighter Wing. With his compelling style and unerring eye for detail, Clancy captures the thrill of takeoff, the drama of the dogfight, and the relentless dangers our fighter pilots face every day of their lives- showing readers what it really means to be the best of the best. This is the ultimate insider’s look at an Air Force combat wing-the planes, the technology, and the people…with Tom Clancy behind the stick.”
(1994) Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed by Ben R. Rich
“From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, Skunk Works is the true story of America’s most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation’s brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed’s legendary Skunk Works is a drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds. Here are up-close portraits of the maverick band of scientists and engineers who made the Skunk Works so renowned. Filled with telling personal anecdotes and high adventure, with narratives from the CIA and from Air Force pilots who flew the many classified, risky missions, this book is a riveting portrait of the most spectacular aviation triumphs of the twentieth century.”
(1992) Cleared Hot! The Diary of a Marine Combat Pilot in Vietnam by Col. Bob Stoffey
“Many pilots never made it out of ‘Nam. This one did. Highly decorated Col. Bob Stoffey– a Marine Corps pilot for over twenty-five years, who served multiple tours in Vietnam– has seen and done it all. Cleared Hot! is his story– a fast-paced, high-casualty flight into heart-stopping danger.
Full of vivid detail, this combat diary uncovers the real heroes of the Vietnam War, the behind-the-scenes Marine Corps pilots who helped our boys return home…then went back for more.”
Writing this review didn’t come easy. I spent five years helping to mitigate and solve Facebook’s most thorny problems. When the book was published, I perceived it to be an attack on Facebook orchestrated by the New York Times, a stock-listed company and direct competitor in the attention and advertising market. Today, I know that my perception then was compromised by Meta’s relentless, internal corporate propaganda.
Similar to Chaos Monkeys, An Ugly Truth tells a story that is limited to available information at the time. The book claims to have had unprecedented access to internal, executive leadership directly reporting to Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. It is focused on the time period roughly between 2015 and 2020; arguably it was Facebook’s most challenging time. Despite a constant flow of news reporting about Facebook’s shortcomings, the book, for the most part of it, remains focused on the executive leadership decisions that got the company into hot waters in the first place. Across 14 chapters, well-structured and perfectly written, the authors build a case of desperation: in an increasingly competitive market environment, Facebook needs to innovate and increase its user statistics to beat earnings to satisfy shareholders. Yet, the pursuit of significance infiltrated the better judgment of Facebook’s executive leadership team and eventually led to drowning out the rational voices, the protective and concerned opinions of genuine leadership staff over the self-serving voices of staff only interested to progress at any cost.
To illustrate this point, the authors tell the story of former Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos, who persistently called out data privacy and security shortcomings:
Worst of all, Stamos told them (Zuckerberg and Sandberg), was that despite firing dozens of employees over the last eighteen months for abusing their access, Facebook was doing nothing to solve or prevent what was clearly a systemic problem. In a chart, Stamos highlighted how nearly every month, engineers had exploited the tools designed to give them easy access to data for building new products to violate the privacy of Facebook users and infiltrate their lives. If the public knew about these transgressions, they would be outraged […]
His calls, however, often went unanswered, or, worse invited other executive leadership threatened by Stamos’ findings to take hostile measures.
By December, Stamos, losing patience, drafted a memo suggesting that Facebook reorganize its security team so that instead of sitting on their own, members were embedded across the various parts of the company. […] Facebook had decided to take his advice, but rather than organizing the new security team under Stamos, Facebook’s longtime vice president of engineering, Pedro Canahuati, was assuming control of all security functions. […] The decision felt spiteful to Stamos: he advised Zuckerberg to cut engineers off from access to user data. No team had been more affected by the decision than Canahuati’s, and as a result, the vice president of engineering told colleagues that he harbored a grudge against Stamos. Now he would be taking control of an expanded department at Stamos’s expense.
Many more of those stories would never be told. Engineers and other employees, much smaller fish than Stamos, who raised ethical concerns of security and integrity were routinely silenced, ignored, and “managed out” – Facebook’s preferred method of dealing with staff refusing to drink the kool-aid and toe the line. Throughout the book, the authors maintain a neutral voice yet it becomes very clear how difficult the decisions were for executive leadership. It seemed as though leading Facebook is the real-world equivalent of Kobayashi Maru – an everyday, no-win scenario. Certainly, I can sympathize with the pressure Mark, Sheryl, and others must have felt during those times.
Take the case of Donald John Trump, the 45th President of the United States. His Facebook Page has a reach of 34 million followers (at the time of this writing). On January 6, 2021, his account actively instigated his millions of followers to view Vice President Mike Pence as the reason for his lost bid for reelection. History went on to witness the attack on the United States Capitol. Democracy and our liberties were under attack on that day. And how did Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg respond on behalf of Facebook? First, silence. Second, indecision. Shall Trump remain on the platform? Are we going to suspend his account temporarily? Indefinitely? Eventually, Facebook’s leadership punted the decision to the puppet regime of the Oversight Board, who returned the decision power due to a lack of existing policies that would govern such a situation. When everybody was avoiding the headlights, Facebook’s executive leadership acted like a deer. Yes, Zuckerberg’s philosophy on speech has evolved over time. Trump challenged this evolution.
Throughout Facebook’s seventeen-year history, the social network’s massive gains have repeatedly come at the expense of consumer privacy and safety and the integrity of democratic systems. […] And the platform is built upon a fundamental, possibly irreconcilable dichotomy: its purported mission is to advance society by connecting people while also profiting off them. It is Facebook’s dilemma and its ugly truth.
The book contains many more interesting stories. There were a wealth of internal leaks to desperately influence and return Facebook’s leadership back to its original course. There were the infamous Brett Kavanaugh hearings, which highlighted the political affiliations and ideologies of Facebook’s executive leader Joel Kaplan, who weathered the sexual harassment allegations against Brett Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey-Ford despite an outrage of Facebook’s female employees. Myanmar saw horrific human rights abuses enabled by and perpetrated through the platform. The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and Bay Area representative since 1987, Nancy Pelosi was humiliated when Facebook fumbled to remove a deepfake video about a speech of hers that was manipulated to make it sound slurred. And the list goes on and on and on and on.
The book is worth reading. The detail and minutiae afforded to report accurately and convincingly are rich and slow-burning. That being said, Facebook has been dying since 2015. Users leave the platform and delete Facebook. While Instagram and WhatsApp pull the company’s advertising revenue for the time being with stronger performances abroad, it is clear that the five years of the executive leadership of Facebook covered in this book point towards an undefiable conclusion: it failed.
NPR’s Terry Gross interviewed the authors Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang on Fresh Air. It further demonstrates the dichotomy of writing about the leadership at one of the most influential and controversial corporations in the world. You can listen to the full episode here.
Everything in life is a negotiation. Everyone alive is a salesperson.
Sales are the backbone of any enterprise. Sales establish trust and rapport between the company and its customers. Sales directly influence crucial financial metrics. Therefore, a company’s ability to compete against stiff competition. Yet, sales isn’t really a subject in our basic education. Mastering the art of sales, however, can make the difference between a good life and a great life. In an effort to learn more about the art of salesmanship, I bought three more or less fundamental books about the process of selling.
How To Master The Art Of Selling By Tom Hopkins
Tom Hopkins learned early on that sales is “the highest-paid hard work — and the lowest-paid easy work.” It can be an easy endeavor without much effort to make ends meet or it can be the greatest adventure and highest reward ever experienced. It is entirely up to the salesman. But, it requires craft, skill, and expertise to be honed frequently and stress-tested often. Buy Hopkins at ThriftBooks.
Sell It Like Serhant By Ryan Serhant
Ryan Serhant made a splash on Million Dollar Listing New York. In his book, he argues that anybody can become a salesman. Furthermore, anyone can get lucky and accomplish one huge sale. But can you repeat the sale? Can you consistently sell at a high profit margin? Sales is not about one sale; it’s about every sale you make. Buy Serhant at Barnes & Noble.
Zig Ziglar’s Secrets Of Closing The Sale
Hillar Hinton “Zig” Ziglar was a college dropout turned salesman who would redfine the art of selling. He described himself as a pack rat taken copious notes from many great salesman over a lifetime of sales. In “Closing The Sale” Ziglar outlines fundamental strategies to take the sales pitch from zero to one. From psychological sales aspects that differ when it comes to closing the sale to the necessity of objections and resistance when you’re in the eye of the hurricane; the toughest part of any sales negotiation, Ziglar structured his book as a manifesto, ready to read rather than a cover-to-cover liaison. Buy Ziglar at (the) BookDepository.
Ballistic books is a series to present literature of interest. Each edition is dedicated to a specific topic. I found it challenging to discover and distinguish good from great literature. With this series, I aim to mitigate that challenge.
Meditations is an afternoon conversation with a ruler of the Roman Empire: intimate, ethical, and full of wisdom.
Timeless is another adjective to describe this translated compendium of the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius. Gregory Hays, associate professor of classics at the University of Virginia, translated the delivered writings of Aurelius in the most concise, clear manner available without diluting its original tone. Hays recommends that the reader familiarizes themself not only with Stoicism but also with the underlying role of philosophy in ancient life. While Meditations isn’t really a meditation per se, I found myself in agreement with Hays. Aurelius created his works throughout the course of his life. It’s nearly perfectly detached from historical events. And it overwhelmingly omits names and locations of Aurelius’ present time. Grasping the full context almost mandates an ancient philosophy deep dive as a prerequisite to reading Meditations.
From the beginning, it becomes clear that Aurelius’ main theme revolves around: (1) the present moment and (2) death. These two main themes reoccur more often than others which gives Meditations a melancholy with urgency. It is almost as if Aurelius saw human suffering, experienced pain for himself, and took to the paper to find the means to cope with it. Hays writes in his introduction on the book of Marcus:
“If you desire to master pain Unroll this book and read with care, And in it find abundantly A knowledge of the things that are, Those that have been, and those to come. And know as well that joy and grief Are nothing more than empty smoke.”
Philosophy is art. Perhaps you can classify it as an art of life. This makes it futile to investigate patterns or factual statements. For it is up to the reader to interpret and extrapolate meaning. Meditations does that like no other book I’ve read recently. Its concise, to-the-point paragraphs offer a situation, an interpretation, and a solution. For example
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
—Book 2.11
These two sentences convey a powerful urgency hard to emulate with inspirational, motivational, or modern hustle-porn content. Yet it was written 200 decades ago. It makes me want to drop writing this post and return to the important things in my life. But Aurelius doesn’t stop at mere urgency. He connects it with the interpretation of time and that we, as humans, are often overly obsessed with what was or what will be despite having zero power over either. In his words:
“Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small–small as the corner of the earth in which we live it. Small as even the greatest renown, passed from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant alike of themselves and those long dead.”
—Book 3.10
As we live our lives in our corners, I often observe the indescribable urge to compare with others of similar lifestyles, circumstances, and heritage. It’s a natural urge and nothing worthy to suppress, but the act of comparing is the thief of joy. Aurelius learned this throughout his life and condensed it into:
“The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.”
—Book 5.16
It’s a call to set your mind free from comparison or worry about what others may think. It directly ties back into his two main themes: the present moment and death. Lastly, I found this short list of remembrance to be powerful and worthy to mention here, so I can come back and reread it when I need to have clarity in life:
“Remember: Matter. How tiny your share of it. Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate. How small a role you play in it.”
This provocative new book on religion and work in the technology sector will make you see life in a different light.
According to 4 U.S.C. §4 the United States is one Nation under God. H.R. 619 (84th) passed and approved by President Dwight D. Eisenhower mandates the official motto of the United States “In God We Trust” to appear on all currency issued by the Federal Government of these United States. Without a doubt, religion and spirituality are deeply rooted in this country. Hence it comes as no surprise when Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley Carolyn Chen posits “Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley” in her new book Work Pray Code.
“Today, companies are not just economic institutions. They’ve become meaning-making institutions that offer a gospel of fulfillment and divine purpose in a capitalist cosmos.”
The colorful, borderline-sacred language of this statement illustrates Chen’s ambitions to base the premise of this book on the workplace is replacing religious needs. At her core argument, Chen reasons companies create a meaningful work experience by emulating religious themes, omitting the spiritual or discriminating aspects of faith, which is becoming a substitute for exercising religion outside of work and with the community.
“Religions and companies are collective enterprises. They are ‘faith communities’, communities that support the act of faith. On one level, faith communities do this by articulating the articles of faith– the doctrines, creeds, and sacred texts and teachings. For most companies, and many other organizations, these articles of faith are their mission statement and statement of core values.”
Taken at face value, Chen makes it appear that companies’ mission statements emulate or are synonymous with religious beliefs. However, a closer look reveals that the mission statements of neither Google, Meta (née Facebook) nor Microsoft purport articles of faith. Taking it a step further, if Chen defines religions as collective enterprises, I’d argue companies may as well be independent organizations each governed by unique financial and economic goals, limited by available budget and human resources. A number of technology companies operating out of Silicon Valley engage in eco-friendly sustainability to power data centers and other parts of the organization, but is the water supply division of Meta truly vested in the intricacies of reviewing python code to reign in inauthentic behavior and other automated malicious behavior on Instagram? Could each division link the other’s efforts back to the mission statement? Whose division will shut down first to protect the integrity of the mission statement? I have doubts.
“In the Silicon Valley workplace, work and life are no longer separate and opposing spheres because life happens at work. In fighting the notion that work and life occupy distinct spaces and times, tech companies are reviving a much older way of organizing society. In agrarian societies, work and life were integrated for both women and men. The farm was both home– where people ate, slept, and played– and workplace– where people labored and participated in the economic system. Industrialization began to impose stark boundaries between work and life, particularly for men. Work became confined to a particular space, time, and logic– the factory, with its rhythm governed by the values of efficiency and productivity. Life– defined as activities that don’t contribute to production– happened outside of the factory in the home, church, neighborhood, bowling alley, baseball diamond, saloon, hair salon, and so on. […] Today’s tech company is returning to the undifferentiated spheres of its preindustrial predecessor, however, by making life a part of work.”
This paragraph resonated with me for its accuracy and insight. Coming from a farmer’s family, I experienced some variation of an undifferentiated sphere where work and life all took place at the same time. Somewhere along the road, it all separated into standalone parts of our day. As a technology company, an unrelenting global market of competition for highly-skilled talent as well as pushing products directly to the consumer in real-time is an incentive to maximize productivity and workforce utilization by ensuring a highly-skilled employee is 100% focused on its division’s roadmap and driving execution of it.
I cannot make up my mind about this book. On one hand, Chen makes a valid point by stating technology companies emulate religious characteristics in order to alleviate their employee’s spiritual needs. Moreover, I subscribe to the general argument of mindfulness in conjunction with corporate materialism appears to create an industrial-technology complex that emanates virtues and exercises characteristics of religions. On the other hand, however, I fail to identify a link between a technology company using methods and characteristics developed to further religious beliefs resulting in a replacement theory that Chen appears to offer in her introduction. I view these efforts as motivated by raw capitalism: to benefit its workforce and increase productivity, utilization, and retention as a side effect. Furthermore, her focus is exclusively on technology companies located in Silicon Valley. In reality, however, technology companies are located all over the United States with varying numbers of full-time employees. Limiting her research on the technology sector alone appears to be a flimsy base for a solid argument too. For example, 3M, General Motors, Kraft Heinz, and even Exxon Mobile have a history of wide-ranging benefits similar to Silicon Valley. Setting aside economic motives, Chen missed out on exploring these other sectors including academia, which is known for its fraternal, cult-esque exclusivity, and the almighty military, which is known for strict indoctrination and behavioral codes.
Altogether I learned a lot about the perception and correlation of both religion and Silicon Valley. Whether it applies to the modern workplaces as Carolyn Chen weaves it together remains to be discovered by the reader. Perhaps concluding with more critique than praise for Work Pray Code is a good thing for it forced me to reflect on some preconceived notions about religion. Chen devoted an entire chapter to the art of reflection and I found Lin Chi’s quote to question more perfect to end: “if you meet the Buddha, kill him.” But before you do, read this book.
Do you have what it takes to be a leader? Probably not. But that’s all right. In her mid-twenties, Julie Zhuo answered the call for leadership when she became a manager at Facebook. In her book, she compiled her mistakes, lessons, and strategies to lead people and create better organizations – so you can learn to become a leader.
What do you do when everyone looks to you for guidance and leadership? Some thrive in the spotlight. Others crumble and fail. Julie Zhuo went from being the first intern “at this website called Facebook” to becoming a Vice President of Product Design in her 13.5 years at the social network. Her career is not a career of an outlier but a results-driven, hard-working individual. Managing people is no different. Managers are made, not born.
The Making of a Manageris a field guide for growth. First, I read it cover-to-cover. Then I realized how powerful each chapter is by itself and started keeping it near my desk to calibrate my thinking against experiences at work. Zhuo describes her growth through a forward-leaning approach to people management. Most notably, her approach seeks to stress test her own leadership protocol to fail – only to allow her a chance to improve it. It’s hard work. Dedication. And (my personal favorite) thoughtful questions directed at peers, partners, reports, but perhaps most importantly herself. After all, leadership starts with managing yourself.
Any entrepreneur will benefit from her early experience at a company that would grow to redefine how people connect with one another. Any employee in a large organization will relate to her tactful yet challenging questions during individual and group meetings. Zhuo’s relatable and empathetic writing style reels in any reader contemplating a career in people management. That being said, the market for business books is quite saturated with leadership or self-improvement books and to some, her experience might be too far from reality given her unique circumstances coming up at Facebook. To this day, I truly enjoy reading her posts or notes and the general public can do so too on her blog The Looking Glass, or on her website at https://www.juliezhuo.com/
