Jordan Mattox

1. Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity Peter Attia

I’d listened to some of Attia’s podcasts before reading this book and have generally viewed him as part of the biohacking community, but this book is much clearer, accessible, and down-to-earth. The basic premise of the book is that we need to transition from Medicine 2.0 where we wait for bad things to happen before addressing our health issues, to Medicine 3.0 where we focus on prevention and increasing health span (the amount of our life that we are healthy and active). One of the interesting concepts in the book is that exercise is much more important than nutrition, which is a kind of 180 from what I understood before: that a healthy diet and moderate exercise was the best and most sustainable way to approach health. Since reading this book, I’ve made two major changes: a pretty dramatic increase in the number of minutes that I exercise each day and the amount of protein that I consume. Ultimately, this may be one of the more important books that you read. 

2. Cannery Row John Steinbeck 

Before this, the only Steinbeck I’ve read is The Grapes of Wrath, and that was a long time ago. Given the tone and the characters, I’d assumed that this book was written before Grapes of Wrath, but it was actually written six years after. The story is a hilarious mixture of wacky characters that honestly reminded me of 100 Years of Solitude, not quite a magical realism, but a world where reality and the unbelievable teeter back and forth. 

3. How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything in Between Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner 

I found this book on a blog that I follow called The Enlightened Economist that highlights interesting publications in political economy, business strategy, and history. This book does exactly what it says: it shows how big things get done. The book, hilariously enough, starts with the California High Speed Rail project as an example of how these kinds of projects can break down and go awry. Probably the most impactful lesson for me was the inside and outside view of projects: for those creating something, we see our project as unique, and those on the outside are better able to see its similarity to other, comparable projects. By trying to take the outside view, we can learn lessons from their implementation and avoid pitfalls. If you work in the world of project management or just have something big you need to get done, this book is invaluable. 

4. Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology Chris Miller

This book has been on my reading list for a while now, but listening to Ezra Klein interview him on his show pushed me over the edge. The book essentially gives the history of semiconductor research and development, the political context that it emerged from, and how interdependence is being weaponized in the 21st century. There is so much in this book about how the world works: how fragile some of the supply chains and manufacturers’ operations are and how dependent the world is on chips. If you want to understand how the modern world works, this book is indispensable. 

5. The World for Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources Javier Blas and Jack Farchy 

This is another one of those books that successfully explicates how the world really works. My first, and hilarious, exposure to commodity traders was the Disney movie Jungle to Jungle with Tim Allen and Martin Short. The plot of the movie involved Allen and Short attempting to “short” coffee beans. I don’t think futures are discussed in the movie, but in reality they would likely have been used to leverage their bet on coffee prices. Commodity traders are exactly what they sound like: trading groups that buy goods like grain, coffee, oil, or aluminum at a potentially lower price to sell them at a potentially higher price. That’s the simple version. In reality, commodity traders work in the shadows with unstable governments to find buyers for their goods and take a cut. Every time there was a supply chain breakdown due to world events or political instability, commodity traders were there to “help out” and make hundreds of millions of dollars. These are the billionaires whose names you don’t know and would regularly use things like bribes or international water’s legal neutrality to get what they wanted. Fascinating read. 

6. Poverty, by America Matthew Desmond

Desmond’s previous book Eviction was a fascinating look at the world of low-income housing and the eviction process’ effect on people. In this book, Desmond widens the lens to look at poverty in general and how all of us (meaning literally everybody else) profits from it. This book is both incredibly convicting and frustrating. One example is block grants, which are supposed to be used to help low-income families. The federal government gives these block grants to states who then can determine how to use the funds according to the specific needs of the region. Naturally, when you give states free reign in choosing how to spend this money, you get situations where states will use the money to, for example, fund Christian summer camps or pay Brett Favre a million dollars to speak. Perhaps even worse, many states just will let the money sit, holding onto hundreds of millions of dollars that can move children out of poverty. But it’s not just governments that are a part of the problem, we also benefit and maintain this system of exploitation. Mortgage interest deductions are one of the biggest tax breaks, and most of the families that benefit from them are not in need. I had no idea that the cost of the mortgage interest deductions are four times the size of the amount of money that is spent on low-income housing. This is one of those books that will leave you angry, guilty, and overwhelmed by the challenges. But it is not completely without hope. Those who benefit from low wages, and consequently cheap goods, mortgage interest deductions, and increasing home values through the constriction of the housing supply need to be the ones to advocate: meaning, we need to be the ones to volunteer to give things for the sake of the rising tide.