10 books I read in the past 5 months that changed how I think about AI, money, science, and the world.
1. The Alignment Problem - Brian Christian
(recommended by Sam Altman)
The clearest explanation of why building AI that actually does what we want is the hardest problem in computer science. Not sci-fi. Real labs. Real failures. Right now.
2. The Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
(recommended by Charlie Munger)
Written in 1776. Still the most honest explanation of how economies actually move. Every AI founder building a business needs the mental model in chapter one before anything else.
3. A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
(recommended by Elon Musk)
Most people own it. Almost nobody finishes it. The chapter on the arrow of time broke my brain in the best way. Read it slowly.
4. Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
(recommended by Barack Obama)
Your brain runs two systems. One is fast and wrong most of the time. One is slow and almost never used. This book is the manual for the one you keep ignoring.
5. The Coming Wave - Mustafa Suleyman
(recommended by Bill Gates)
The co-founder of DeepMind explains what happens when AI and synthetic biology arrive at the same time. Not a warning. A map. Read it before everyone else does.
6. Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari
(recommended by Mark Zuckerberg)
One book that explains the entire last 70,000 years of human history in 400 pages. The chapter on money is the one that stays with you.
7. The Black Swan - Nassim Taleb
(recommended by Daniel Kahneman)
The events that shape your life are the ones nobody saw coming. This book teaches you to stop predicting and start preparing for what you cannot predict.
8. Life 3.0 - Max Tegmark
(recommended by Demis Hassabis)
An MIT physicist asks what happens to humanity after AGI. Not emotionally. Rigorously. Every scenario is laid out like a physics problem. Uncomfortable in all the right ways.
9. Poor Charlie's Almanack - Charlie Munger
(recommended by Warren Buffett)
100 mental models from one of the sharpest minds of the 20th century. You will use at least 20 of these every week for the rest of your life.
10. Range - David Epstein
(recommended by Malcolm Gladwell)
Gladwell built his career on the 10,000 hour rule. Then this book changed his mind. The case for being a generalist in a world that keeps telling you to specialize. Read it if you have ever felt behind.
Save this. Read the books I shared here. Your future self will thank you.