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Alpha Girls by Julian Guthrie The Women Upstarts Who Took On Silicon Valley’s Male Culture

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What's it about? Alpha Girls (2019) tells the story of four pioneering women venture capitalists – Magdalena Yesil, Mary Jane Elmore, Theresia Gouw, and Sonja Hoel Perkins – who helped build foundational Silicon Valley companies like Salesforce, Facebook, and McAfee while navigating an industry culture defined by sexism, unequal treatment, and the challenge of being the only women in rooms full of men. These “alpha girls” not only survived but ultimately rewrote the rules of venture capital, creating networks and investment models that opened doors for the next generation of women in tech. Silicon Valley, the 1980s. Among the men making their fortune were four women who would go on to shape the venture capital game. Magdalena Yesil fled Turkey with $43 and became the first investor in Salesforce, inventing the annual contract model that saved the company from bankruptcy during the dot-com crash. Mary Jane Elmore became one of the first female venture capital partners, only to fin...
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The Developing Mind by Daniel J. Siegel How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are

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What's it about? The Developing Mind (1999) provides a comprehensive exploration of how the mind emerges from the intricate interplay of brain, body, and relationships. Weaving together research from several disciplines, it shows how consciousness and identity develop through ongoing neural processes and interpersonal connections, ultimately presenting the mind as both profoundly embodied and relational. Life presents us with endless opportunities to reflect on who we are, why we react the way we do, and how our relationships influence our inner world – yet most of this seems beyond our comprehension.We sense emotions rising and falling, habits pulling us toward default responses, and moments of connection lifting or deflating us, but the underlying mechanisms often remain mysterious.Having a framework to better understand the mind can foster a profound sense of empowerment, and interpersonal neurobiology is one such means. What makes the interpersonal neurobiology perspective ...
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Relationship Currency by Ravi Rajani Five Communication Habits For Limitless Influence and Success

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What's it about? Relationship Currency (2025) presents five communication habits designed to help leaders, salespeople, and entrepreneurs develop meaningful business connections. It provides practical techniques for asking intentional questions, listening deeply, cultivating authentic charisma, and telling compelling stories that inspire action while building trust. Through frameworks grounded in psychology and real-world business experience, it offers a guide for creating lasting professional relationships that drive influence and business success. We’ve been taught that influence is a performance – master the pitch, perfect the handshake, optimize the follow-up cadence.But if you’ve ever walked away from a conversation feeling like something was off, even when the other person said all the right things, you already know the truth.People sense when connection is being manufactured.They might not be able to articulate it, but they feel it. There’s an ingredient missing, and that ...
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The View from Ninety by Charles Handy Reflections on Living a Long, Contented Life

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What's it about? The View from Ninety (2025) is a collection of final essays written while facing mortality after a stroke. It distills nine decades of experience into reflections on what truly matters – distinguishing the important from merely serious, measuring success in relationships rather than wealth, and finding peace with the natural cycle of life and death. It offers practical lessons for living contentedly when all pretense falls away and only essentials remain. At 90, Charles Handy woke up each morning surprised still to be alive.Doctors told him his stroke would likely trigger a fatal second one within two years.He called himself “statistically dead.” Instead of waiting passively, he spent those borrowed years writing essays for the Idler magazine, transforming nine decades of lived experience into practical wisdom. Handy’s credentials were impressive – Shell executive, best-selling business author, London Business School professor, Warden of Windsor Castle’s think ta...
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Make Work Fair by Iris Bohnet Data-Driven Design for Real Results

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What's it about? Make Work Fair (2025) offers a data-driven alternative to ineffective diversity training by showing how to redesign workplace systems themselves. It demonstrates how measuring patterns, removing structural barriers, and building accountability into daily work creates organizations that are both fairer and more effective. Early voice recognition software worked beautifully for some people and failed spectacularly for others. Engineers trained the algorithms primarily on white male voices from California, assuming this would be sufficient for everyone.Research revealed something different.These systems misunderstood 35 percent of words spoken by Black Americans but only 19 percent of words spoken by white Americans. Women fared worse than men across all racial groups. In the UK, Scottish accents produced error rates so high that when Siri launched, Scottish users struggled even with the most basic commands.Welsh accents confused smart speakers over 23 percent of ...
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Manias, Panics, and Crashes by Robert Z. Aliber A History of Financial Crises

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What's it about? Manias, Panics, and Crashes (1978; 8th edition 2023) analyzes financial crises spanning three centuries to identify recurring patterns in market booms and busts. It demonstrates how speculation, credit expansion, and euphoria have repeatedly led to panic and collapse across different eras and economic systems. Drawing on historical evidence from the South Sea Bubble to the 2008 financial crisis and beyond, it provides a comprehensive framework for understanding why financial instability is inevitable in credit-based economies. In 1720, shares in the South Sea Company soared from £100 to over £1,000 in months as investors scrambled for exposure to its monopoly on British government debt consolidation.By September, the price had collapsed back to £100, destroying fortunes and triggering a crisis so severe that Parliament confiscated the estates of company directors.Three centuries later, the pattern remains hauntingly familiar.Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History...
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Doing Meritocracy Right by Thomas A. Cole How Business Leaders Can Turn an American Aspiration Into Reality

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What's it about? Doing Meritocracy Right (2025) challenges you to reject the flawed systems of credentialism and nepotism that have turned a noble American ideal into an artificial aristocracy. It argues that private sector leaders, rather than politicians, possess the unique ability to redefine success by valuing character and integrity alongside talent. By implementing practical reforms in hiring and promotion, you can strengthen your organization and help restore the promise of upward mobility for all. When it comes to getting ahead, you might be under the misconception that effort and talent are the only currencies that matter.After all, it’s a story that has the potential to fuel your ambition – and justifies every late night you put into your career. But there’s often a nagging feeling that something’s off – that the machinery of advancement keeps jamming, or that the criteria for leadership have drifted from actual capability toward something more exclusionary.Noticing t...
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