Julian's Updates

Julian added 'Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism'

Sat, 03 May 2025 22:02:45 -0700

Julian gave 5 stars to Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism (Kindle Edition) by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Julian started reading 'Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk'

Sat, 03 May 2025 22:02:33 -0700

Julian started reading Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna

Julian finished reading 'Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism'

Sat, 03 May 2025 22:02:14 -0700

Julian finished reading Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Julian is 82% done with Careless People

Sat, 03 May 2025 12:19:54 -0700

Julian Dunn is 82% done with Careless People.

Julian wants to read 'When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency'

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 22:48:29 -0700

Julian wants to read When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency by Anna Zivarts

Julian wants to read 'Feminist City: A Field Guide'

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 20:13:34 -0700

Julian wants to read Feminist City: A Field Guide by Leslie Kern

Julian wants to read 'New York and Los Angeles: The Uncertain Future'

Sun, 20 Apr 2025 15:02:11 -0700

Julian wants to read New York and Los Angeles: The Uncertain Future by David Halle

Julian added 'New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future'

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 08:25:10 -0700

Julian gave 2 stars to New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future (Kindle Edition) by James Bridle
I've had this book on my reading list for many years and had very much been looking forward to reading it. The introduction started out fairly well, setting the stage for Bridle's argument that many technologists are blind to the side effects of their creations and assume that the remedy to negative effects that technology causes is to implement more technology. ("Computational thinking", Bridle called it.) Fair enough, and I prepared myself for him to make arguments on that basis.

Unfortunately, the rest of the book was a completely unfocused polemic that strayed extremely far from his original stated purpose. In many places, it simply came across as a screed that had little relationship to "computational thinking", as Bridle takes the occasion to trot out every sin incurred by governments and other sources of power: British colonial abuses in Kenya, mass surveillance by the NSA, non-renewable resource extraction by dominant corporations, climate change, and so on. The worst part is that Bridle doesn't even try to make even a meager attempt to tie any of this back to his original thesis; he's enjoying himself too much, speaking "truth to power", to bother. It's like the whole purpose of him writing any of this down was to establish his socialist bona fides in the service of... what, exactly? Admission to the Noam Chomsky school of left-wing linguistics? It's even worse than Zeynep Tüfekçi's writing; as much of a doomsayer she is, at least she has some original thought, whereas Bridle has essentially written a lit review of a century's worth of oppression without adding much to the conversation.

It's incredibly disappointing because of what this book could have been: an accessible primer to help the everyman understand and push back against billionaires who think that more uncontrolled innovation is the answer to everything. On top of everything else I mentioned, "accessible" it is not; Bridle can't help himself, using the most obscure ten-dollar words and convoluted academic phraseology. Even if he'd hewed plainly to his thesis, his elitist style would still have sunk the book and reinforced, for the layperson, that folks who question the supremacy of technology are just dissatisfied ivory tower academics that have nothing useful to say to them. The book is overall just sad because of the gap between what it is and what it ought to have been.

Julian is currently reading 'The PRFAQ Framework: Adapting Amazon’s Innovation Framework to Work for You'

Sun, 13 Apr 2025 16:53:42 -0700

Julian is currently reading The PRFAQ Framework: Adapting Amazon’s Innovation Framework to Work for You by Marcelo Calbucci

Julian added 'How to Become CEO'

Sun, 13 Apr 2025 14:18:14 -0700

Julian gave 2 stars to How to Become CEO (Hardcover) by Jeffrey J. Fox
I picked up this book on a bit of a lark; it was lying around the startup studio that I work out of, and I figured it would probably be mostly horseshit that didn't hold up over the last 25 years since it was written. And boy was I right. Fox is a quintessential, cookie-cutter HBS MBA type whose approach to leadership (as articulated in this book) is hilariously out-of-touch. Don't attend company functions unless you are forced to? Don't socialize with your colleagues because they're not your "friends"? Keep work and home separate and don't take work home? Optimize your business trips for working, and take meals in your hotel room so you can maximize your work time without interacting with other people? I've just never seen CEOs get selected because they were the least social animals in the company; they are among the most social, which is why so many CEOs come from sales. We want our leaders to be people, not automatons, and I think even the most cynical boards of directors would recognize that employees are human and want to work for actual humans. (Or at least someone who is the simulacrum of a social human.)

Despite the reams of advice that I strongly disagree with (some of it truly comical, like skipping lunch so you can do more work or play squash), I might be willing to forgive Fox a little bit if he'd grounded the book in an explicit thesis for why someone might want to become CEO in the first place. That way, the reader could examine Fox's advice through the level of alignment with their reasons for wanting to become CEO. Without such an underlying thesis, Fox just assumes everyone wants to become CEO for the power and glory, and recommends tactics for optimizing one's life towards work and devotion to the company.

Eventually, though, Fox's ruthless Randian approach hits a limit, and he starts offering contradictory advice (don't take work home; prioritize your family life, etc.) I would have preferred if he'd just stuck with being a hard-ass, because it's closer to the truth. Like it or not, I've never seen a modern CEO not working on the weekend or sacrificing family time for work. If you aren't committed to doing that, don't become a CEO. In fact, don't have children, so you can spend more time working. Again, I've never seen or heard of a person that became or stayed CEO because they either implicitly or explicitly deprioritized everything that wasn't optimized for the role of being CEO. If you are not that kind of person, don't aim your career towards the office of the CEO.

Fox is right about one thing, however: the easiest way to become CEO is to start a company (as CEO) and then grow it so that it becomes massively successful, rather than waiting around for someone to anoint you CEO in an established firm. If you do that, then perhaps you have a better chance of defining the CEO role in a more flexible way. (Depending on how your cap table is structured.) Otherwise, CEO is still a hired gun role, you serve at the whim of the board of directors, and you are probably going to spend every waking minute thinking about work and managing your company.