Five Links for February 2025
Every month, these are five mind-expanding links to read/watch/listen. If you find these interesting, please do share with your friends.
super shout-out to Tyler Cowen and Scott Barker for referring a bunch of great people to Five Links last month. Thank you!!
Here are five links worth reading…
On group decision making, consensus games and outcome games. If you’re a leader, you should be thinking about which of these games you’re creating in your organization.
the decline of the investment bankers and the rise of lawyers
Looking at the hierarchy of prestigious finance jobs over five decades, investment bankers have fallen from the top spot to fifth place, while lawyers have climbed from fifth to second (and they might rise even further thanks to AI leverage)
“Dozens of thinkers complain that there are no more geniuses. Most just don’t know where to find them.”
Listen: Mark Pincus - Product Instincts: “Proven, Better, New” (World of DaaS pod)
Mark Pincus helped build one of the most popular games of all time and has one of the best product frameworks out there.
The Origins of Wokeness by Paul Graham
Paul’s deep investigation into "wokeness" reveals it's actually a recurring pattern: every society has self-righteous moral enforcers. What changes is the rules they enforce, from Victorian Christian virtue to today's social justice.
The Global Hunt for Putin’s ‘Sleeper Agents’ by Drew Hinshaw & Jo Parkinson
Inside the international manhunt for Russia’s undercover European agents, including a hard-drinking war correspondent to a suburban mom running an art gallery who spent years building false identities to spy on the West from within.
Bonus: the ultimate guide to holding world class dinner parties
There is nothing lamer than an ill-planned dinner. I have attended enough not so great dinner parties to put together a solid blueprint for hosting a good one.
Bonus (Crystal ball) Crazy bets on 2025 - 12 personal hedge funds predict the year
Although our 2024 predictions returned a measly 3.13%, I brought together another anonymous group of VIPs to make predictions for 2025.
TitleDock launched: it is Superhuman for Contacts. It has been my secret way of managing contacts.
Bonus (Listen): Samo Burja live players vs NPCs (World of DaaS)
Your dose of ancient civilizations, technology, parenting, philosophy. Samo is a unique thinker who pulls the whole scope of Western history into his views.
More reading links at https://twitter.com/AurenReads
Recommended book of the month:
Note: in the past I listed all the books I read in the previous month. But most of them were not very good. So from now on, i’m only going to recommend the one book worth reading.
Emperors of Chocolate by Joël Glenn Brenner
HT: David Kamenetzky, Will Snellings
Recommended TV/movies:
Shogun (Disney+/Hulu)
The Penguin (HBO Max)
kind but impolite: the most under-rated people
Auren Hoffman is CEO of NQB8, Chairman of SafeGraph (geospatial data on physical places), and GP at Flex Capital ($200M VC firm). Engage on X: @auren
and please share Five Links with your friends and allies.