Patrick Collison

Billionaire, Entrepreneur, Executive, Inventor

Patrick Collison is an Irish billionaire entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Stripe, which he started with his younger brother, John, in 2010. He won the 41st Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2005 at the age of sixteen.

Patrick Collison's 217 Book Recommendations

• Art of Doing Science and Engineering
• Organizing Genius
• Freedom's Forge
• The Beginning of Infinity
• Perspective on McKinsey
• Electronic Payment Systems for E-commerce
• A Shot to Save the World
• The Infidel and the Professor
• Scientific Freedom
• Spastic Diplegia--Bilateral Cerebral Palsy
• Reasons and Persons
• The Inner Game of Tennis
• Masters of Doom
• The Enlightened Economy
• A Culture of Growth
• Tuxedo Park
• Wittgenstein's Vienna
• How Asia Works
• Scramble for Africa...
• The Paris Review Interviews (Boxed Set) I-IV
• Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics
• The Intelligent Investor
• The Myth of the Machine
• The Rise and Fall of American Growth: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Nixon Agonistes: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Wind, Sand and Stars: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Journalist and the Murderer: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Stories of Your Life and Others: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Stuff Matters: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Plato at the Googleplex: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Toward a Theory of Instruction: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Planet Remade: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Cowshed: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Feminine Mystique: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Arabs: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Big Score: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Quantum Computing Since Democritus: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• River Town: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• On Lisp: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Dracula (Original Edition)
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
• Modern Operating Systems
• If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Metamagical Themas: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Anthropic Bias: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Expert Political Judgment: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Matterhorn: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Moral Mazes: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Foucault's Pendulum: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• China Airborne: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• A Course in Mathematical Analysis: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Men, Machines, and Modern Times, 50th Anniversary Edition: “From the flight-home-reading-material-dept., [Men, Machines, and Modern Times] and [The Mind-Body Problem] were 💯.”
• Asimovs Gt Science
• The Long Way: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Science: A History, 1543-2001: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism: “From Counterculture to Cyberculture -- Stewart Brand and his surrounding milieu.”
• Genentech: “Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech -- the definitive history of Genentech.”
• Skunk Works: “Skunk Works. The Lockheed Martin facility behind the U-2, SR-71, etc.”
• Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970: “Making Silicon Valley -- there aren't many books that say a lot about the Valley pre-Shockley; this one goes back to the 30s.”
• Show-Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft: “There's a closely-related genre of great books (like Masters of Doom and Show-Stopper) that cover important projects in the industry's history.”
• Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century: “(Also worth reading Endless Frontier. Broader influence of NDRC is underestimated, as far as I can tell.)”
• The Idea Factory: “The Idea Factory. The definitive book about Bell Labs.”
• Return to the Little Kingdom: “The Little Kingdom -- the early days of Apple Computer and the Macintosh.”
• Revolution in The Valley: “Revolution in The Valley -- a hundred stories from the early days of the Mac, collected by one of its creators.”
• Swimming Across: “Swimming Across -- Andy Grove's memoir.”
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb: “The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Book about the Manhattan Project.”
• Sidewinder: Creative Missile Development at China Lake: “Sidewinder. A history of the development of the Sidewinder missile and of the China Lake Navy research lab.”
• Doing the Impossible: George E. Mueller and the Management of NASA's Human Spaceflight Program: “Doing the Impossible. How George Mueller managed the Apollo Program.”
• Middlemarch: “For me the clear standouts are Middlemarch, Bleak House, Karenina, and Life and Fate. I would enthusiastically reread any of them. If I had to choose just one to go to again, I would probably select Middlemarch.”
• Bleak House: “For me the clear standouts are Middlemarch, Bleak House, Karenina, and Life and Fate. I would enthusiastically reread any of them.”
• Anna Karenina: “For me the clear standouts are Middlemarch, Bleak House, Karenina, and Life and Fate. I would enthusiastically reread any of them.”
• Life and Fate: “For me the clear standouts are Middlemarch, Bleak House, Karenina, and Life and Fate. I would enthusiastically reread any of them.”
• The World of Yesterday: “I feel like I gained much more understanding of historical Vienna and of the emotions around WWI from reading Zweig's memoir than from any direct history of the period.”
• Titan: “Titan is an impressive work, clearly the product of prodigious research.”
• Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age: “I *highly* recommend @LeslieBerlinSV's new history of Silicon Valley”
• The Alchemy of Air: “Very highly recommend both of these Thomas Hager books ... A+.”
• The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug: “Very highly recommend both of these Thomas Hager books ... A+.”
• The Power Law: “Agree; by far the best book I've read on the sector.”
• Capitalism without Capital: “Yes, great book”
• Superintelligence: “Nick Bostrom's new book is excellent”
• Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations: A Story of Economic Discovery: “Warsh's book is indeed really good.”
• The Coddling of the American Mind: “@JonHaidt's excellent 'The Coddling of the American Mind'”
• How the Scots Invented the Modern World: “turns out Herman's book is great”
• Napoleon: A Life: “Vacation over. Top book picks”
• Zero to One: “just released a very good book”
• Capital in the Twenty-First Century: “Highly recommended”
• Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein: “Yes, exactly! That is a great book.”
• The Secret of Apollo: Systems Management in American and European Space Programs: “they'd conclude that this one is the best”
• Smalltalk-80: Bits of History, Words of Advice: “great book!”
• Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom: “Cory Doctorow wrote a great book about Dogecoin in 2003”
• Mathematics and Climate: “I highly recommend”
• The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium: “The book itself is well worth reading.”
• Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World: “An excellent new book ... Run, don't walk!”
• Victorian Pumping Stations: “I enjoyed”
• The Book of Kells: Unlocking the Enigma: “I've been enjoying”
• Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit: “one of the best books I've read on financial services regulation. Recommended!”
• Nuclear War: A Scenario: “Have been thinking about this book a lot since I read it.”
• Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy: “it's a very good book”
• The Pentagon: A History: “a very engaging book about project management”
• The Zoning Rules!: The Economics of Land Use Regulation: “A very good book about why houses are expensive.”
• Poetry Notebook: Reflections on the Intensity of Language: “this one is a gem”
• Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle: “If you want to wrap your head around what Larry Ellison accomplished, this is the book”
• Europe's Growth Champion: Insights from the Economic Rise of Poland: “I really enjoyed your book about Poland”
• Kelly: More Than My Share of It All: “(See also: Kelly Johnson's 14 Rules, Kelly Johnson's own memoir, Augustine's Laws, Boyd, and National Defense.)”
• Augustine's Laws: “(See also: Kelly Johnson's 14 Rules, Kelly Johnson's own memoir, Augustine's Laws, Boyd, and National Defense.)”
• Boyd: “(See also: Kelly Johnson's 14 Rules, Kelly Johnson's own memoir, Augustine's Laws, Boyd, and National Defense.)”
• Moby Dick: “I listened to much of the book, and thought the narration by William Hootkins was just fantastic.”
• The Perversity of Things: Hugo Gernsback on Media, Tinkering, and Scientifiction: “Two nice recent books”
• Whole Earth Field Guide: “Two nice recent books”
• Are Prisons Obsolete?: “important, excellent rec from @annawiener”
• Chronicle of the 20th Century: “I love that book”
• Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation
• A Time of Gifts: “best travel book ever written”
• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt: “I just read the Roosevelt book. Man, what a story. 💯”
• The Computer and the Brain: “I really like that Von Neumann book, too.”
• From Third World to First: “I love that book...”
• Scaling People: “Full of specific prescriptions ("how to run a good offsite") rather than high-level waffle. It's going to be 💯.”
• Working in Public: “IMO the first great book on one of the most important aspects of modern software development.”
• Nuclear War Survival Skills: “I did find this book very interesting (albeit macabre).”
• All Will Be Well: “I still often think about John McGahern's "All Will Be Well". A beautiful book.”
• High Growth Handbook
• An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management
• Pure Grit: Stories of Remarkable People Living with Physical Disability: “Mum's new book!*”
• Jane Eyre: “This year, I read ten important historical novels: Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, To The Lighthouse, Bleak House, Portrait of a Lady, Anna Karenina, Life and Fate, Heart of Darkness, Madame Bovary, and The Magic Mountain.”
• To the Lighthouse: “This year, I read ten important historical novels: Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, To The Lighthouse, Bleak House, Portrait of a Lady, Anna Karenina, Life and Fate, Heart of Darkness, Madame Bovary, and The Magic Mountain.”
• The Portrait of a Lady: “This year, I read ten important historical novels: Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, To The Lighthouse, Bleak House, Portrait of a Lady, Anna Karenina, Life and Fate, Heart of Darkness, Madame Bovary, and The Magic Mountain.”
• Heart of Darkness: “This year, I read ten important historical novels: Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, To The Lighthouse, Bleak House, Portrait of a Lady, Anna Karenina, Life and Fate, Heart of Darkness, Madame Bovary, and The Magic Mountain.”
• Madame Bovary: “This year, I read ten important historical novels: Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, To The Lighthouse, Bleak House, Portrait of a Lady, Anna Karenina, Life and Fate, Heart of Darkness, Madame Bovary, and The Magic Mountain.”
• The Magic Mountain: “This year, I read ten important historical novels: Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, To The Lighthouse, Bleak House, Portrait of a Lady, Anna Karenina, Life and Fate, Heart of Darkness, Madame Bovary, and The Magic Mountain.”
• Replay: “Read Replay, by @jmechner, this weekend. It's great.”
• National Defense: “Military procurement turns out to yield interesting management reading—scrutinized from multiple perspectives; lots of pathologies to analyze; R&D a major factor. Recommend: - Boyd (Coram) - National Defense (Fallows) - Augustine’s Laws (Augustine)”
• The Three-Body Problem: “Three Body Problem also very good! Sequel is worth reading too.”
• Finite and Infinite Games: “This very good post from @danielgross reminds me of Finite and Infinite Games. Recommend both!”
• Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape: “Chart inspired in part by [Infrastructure], which John and I really enjoyed reading over the break.”
• The Martian: “Top-notch Christmas reading: [The Martian]. Robinson Crusoe meets Robert Zubrin.”
• The Mind-Body Problem: “From the flight-home-reading-material-dept., [Men, Machines, and Modern Times] and [The Mind-Body Problem] were 💯.”
• Get Together: How to Build a Community With Your People
• Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals
• The Making of Prince of Persia: Journals 1985–1993
• Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One
• Where Is My Flying Car?: A Memoir of Future Past
• Poor Charlie's Almanack: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• A Pattern Language: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Democracy in America: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Mindstorms: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Dream Machine: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Out of Mao's Shadow: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Hard Landing: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green. (Flagged green on his bookshelf page.)”
• Amusing Ourselves to Death: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Count of Monte Cristo: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Whole Earth Discipline: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Midnight's Children: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Old Way: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Sum: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Nixonland: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Medieval Technology and Social Change: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Business Adventures: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Dealers of Lightning: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• On the Shortness of Life: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• On Intelligence: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Plagues and Peoples: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The City in History: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Postcards from Tomorrow Square: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Orality and Literacy: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Longitude: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Pacific: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Ocean of Life: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Man Behind the Microchip: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Hunters: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Nature of Mathematical Modeling: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Technics and Civilization: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Chip: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Season of the Witch: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Popper Selections: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Spacetime and Geometry: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Ocean Flying: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (Great Discoveries): “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Justice as Fairness: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Feynman Lectures On Computation: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Global Catastrophic Risks: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• I Didn't Do It for You: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Computer Lib: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• A Vast Machine: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• A Great Leap Forward: 1930s Depression and U.S. Economic Growth: “I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue. (Flagged light blue on his bookshelf page.)”
• Eugene Braunwald and the Rise of Modern Medicine: “Very good. (And Eugene Kleiner's first cousin!)”
• The Billion-Dollar Molecule: One Company's Quest for the Perfect Drug: “Thought this was great. Lots about entrepreneurship, science, pharmacology, risk, importance of work ethic, management practices, fundraising, and the impressive depth of US capital markets.”
• Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future: “I'm late, but I finally got around to finishing Generations. It's excellent: exceptionally data-rich and comprehensive.”
• A Decade of Research: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 1970-1980
• Built to Grow: A Handbook for High-Performance Sales Teams
• The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, 2019–2025
• Pieces of the Action
• The Paris Review Interviews, I
• The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream: “The Complacent Class. I highly recommend it.”
• The C Programming Language: “Paradigms of AI Programming by Norvig and Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and you know K&R C and books about operating systems, the Tanenbaum book... in aggregate those like hugely shaped me.”
• Richard II: “I happened to read Moby Dick alongside Shakespeare, specifically Richard II”
• Kaput: The End of the German Miracle: “is interesting and useful, though I'm not sure that it really gets at the root issues, and the neomercantilist diagnosis isn't super convincing.”
• The Brothers Karamazov: “I confess that I did not love it.”
• War and Peace: “War and Peace is a honking doorstopper. The explanation appears to involve a heartwarming tale of vertical integration. With the confidence provided by early career literary success, and spurred by the indifferent response to early serialized excerpts, Tolstoy decided to self-publish War and Peace, contracting a printer, and adopting the financial risks as his own. In so doing, he excised the role of “external editor”, and asserted independence from meddling oversight. In fully liberated auteurship, we get multiple epilogues, multi-chapter philosophical asides, and a ludicrously sprawling cosmos of characters. Like a Substacker unshackled from tyrannical newspaper restrictions on length and form, Tolstoy wallows delightedly in his prolix freedom. War and Peace combines history, novel, and philosophical treatise. The philosophy, however, is wrong: Tolstoy attempts a misguided refutation of the heroic conception of history. Instead of, say, granting Napoleon’s European success as an interesting exception to a general tendency, Tolstoy unapologetically adopts a tendentious and implausibly maximalist position. “Napoleon’s influence on the course of these events is purely external and fictitious.” It certainly seems possible that the importance of history’s heroes tends to be overstated relative to structural factors and the deliberate effects of single individuals, but “purely external and fictitious” is stretched beyond credibility. How exactly does one deterministically derive events which occurred under Lenin, Hitler, Atatürk, Mao from the broad tenor of the masses? Tolstoy immodestly adopts the robes of Newton and even the infinitesimals of calculus as analogs for his case, but his position is of course the antithesis of anything the scientific revolution represents, and his “science of history” is de facto the opposite. Where Newton enabled specific prediction, and rendered supernatural explanations unnecessary, Tolstoy places us in the position of mystics: whatever ensues is structurally determined by unknowable forces far larger than us. His famous religious transformation was not announced for some years to come, but in War and Peace we already see his sympathies. He was only 35 when he started to work on War and Peace, and he was supposedly irritated by hagiographic histories, such as that of Adolphe Thiers. Maybe he was just too young. – Tyler agrees that the philosophy is wrong, but argues that War and Peace best reflects just how much detail can be in a single grain of history. (The novel arguably even contradicts the treatise.) Even though Tolstoy’s explicit argument is that humanity as a whole is a kind of teeming hive (“history, that is, the unconscious swarmlike life of mankind, uses every moment of a king’s life as an instrument for its purposes”), the novel demonstrates the infinite intricacy of society and relations, integrating both private and the public domains. When asked which major novel has the most named characters, ChatGPT ranks In Search of Lost Time ahead of War and Peace, but places it nonetheless in the top 5. The obvious comparison for War and Peace is Grossman’s Life and Fate. Both span multiple families, military conflict, personal relationships, and major figures of the age, with Grossman’s work of course explicitly modeled on Tolstoy’s. As works of fiction, they're somewhat comparable: sprawling and compelling tapestries. As evocations of the human condition, however, Grossman quite clearly gets the better of Tolstoy. Grossman understands the moral and spiritual significance of freedom, and he uses Tolstoy’s architecture to contest Tolstoy’s outlook. Tolstoy purports to show that enlightenment comes from acceptance. Pierre’s valiant efforts (to free his serfs, to assassinate Napoleon) come to nought; his peace arrives when he encounters Karataev, who simply accepts the larger forces that determine our outcomes. Prince Andrei, similarly, seeks worldly achievement (military glory, reform), but instead achieves happiness on his deathbed by viewing death as an awakening and transcending the idea of specific love in favor of something more diffuse. (Again, we can already see Tolstoy the mystic.) For Grossman, this acceptance is in error, for human agency is the flame. Ikonnikov, the prisoner, refuses to build the gas chamber. This is an act of self-assertion that costs his life, but for him there can be no meek submission, and even totalitarianism can’t extinguish the ability to choose. Grekov, commanding House 6/1, cuts the line connecting him to his superiors, so that he may execute his own autonomous strategy. Again, a rejection of the swarm. In signing the letter of denouncement, Shtrum does accede to larger forces of history. Where Pierre finds serenity in capitulation, it is catastrophic for Shtrum: an irreconcilable fracturing of the soul. Grossman acknowledges this disparity. In the book, we encounter the comment: “Chekov brought Russia into our consciousness in all its vastness—with people of every estate, every class, ever age… More than that! It was as a democrat that he presented all these people—as a Russian democrat. He said—and no one had said this before, not even Tolstoy—that first and foremost we are all of us human beings.” Tolstoy misses the importance of human agency in the macro and devalues it repeatedly in the micro. – If we had to steelman the Tolstoy position in a contemporary context, maybe we could look at AI. It’s not a war, but it’s consuming a lot of society’s resources these days. Here, it’s not clear how much heroic individuals exercise meaningful control. Nick Land wrote (in 1993, no less) that “what appears to humanity as the history of capitalism is an invasion from the future by an artificial intelligent space that must assemble itself entirely from its enemy’s resources.” Despite the stated desire of many to avoid race dynamics, has there ever been a more vivid demonstration of the machinic determinism of “techno-capital” than 2025’s perfervid sprint? Tolstoy venerates Kutuzov for his humility amidst the sweeping tides. Kutuzov nudges and adjusts, but lacks the hubris to attempt control. As Napoleon retreats from Russia, he simply follows, and in such restraint Tolstoy’s approbation is established. Early attempts to control AI's development have not really worked, and those arguing that we must avoid the race, pause, or first solve safety have been mostly swept away by the tide. At least thus far, the AI Kutuzovs seem to have fared better. – Unlike Karenina, War and Peace is definitively too long.”
• The Origins of Efficiency
• Beware of Pity: “While I don't typically read much fiction, I recently read *Beware of Pity* (Stefan Zweig) and *Transit of Venus* (Shirley Hazzard). Both are really fantastic.”
• The Transit of Venus: “While I don't typically read much fiction, I recently read *Beware of Pity* (Stefan Zweig) and *Transit of Venus* (Shirley Hazzard). Both are really fantastic.”
• GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter?: “Had some travel this week. I really enjoyed: - @tylercowenfairfax's new book [GOAT]”
• How to Know a Person: “Had some travel this week. I really enjoyed: … [How to Know a Person]. Found it very thought-provoking.”
• The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind: “Had some travel this week. I really enjoyed: … [The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis]. Somehow quite different to what it looks like. Middle chapters left me wanting to read more Lewis; have ordered some.”
• Civilization: “Had some travel this week. I really enjoyed: … [Civilization, John Stuart Mill]”
• Creating the Twentieth Century: “Creating the Twentieth Century by Vaclav Smil — highly recommended”
• Powering the Future: How We Will (Eventually) Solve the Energy Crisis and Fuel the Civilization of Tomorrow: “just before that, Powering the Future by Robert Laughlin, which was also pretty good.”
• The Last Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools: “The Whole Earth Catalog -- the library at PARC was first composed simply of the books that the Whole Earth Catalog recommended. Steve Jobs cites it as inspiration for Apple.”