My Reading List for 2024

After sharing my favorite books from 2023, I received some amazing recommendations for new books to explore in 2024.

I will continuously update this list, so remember to check back for updates.

More recommendations are welcomed. ??

Ask Iwata: Words of Wisdom from Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's Legendary CEO

by Hobonichi, Sam Bett and Satoru Iwata

"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." —Satoru Iwata

Satoru Iwata was the former Global President and CEO of Nintendo and a gifted programmer who played a key role in the creation of many of the world’s best-known games. He led the production of innovative platforms such as the Nintendo DS and the Wii, and laid the groundwork for the development of the wildly successful Pokémon Go game and the Nintendo Switch. Known for his analytical and imaginative mind, but even more for his humility and people-first approach to leadership, Satoru Iwata was beloved by game fans and developers worldwide.

Thank you for the tips Martijn van Zwieten

The Future of Geography - How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World

by Tim Marshall

We're entering a new space race – and it could revolutionise life on Earth.

Space: the new frontier, a wild and lawless place. It is already central to communication, economics, military strategy and international relations on Earth. Now, it is the latest arena for human exploration, exploitation – and, possibly, conquest. We're heading up and out, and we're taking our power struggles with us. China, the USA and Russia are leading the way.

From physical territory and resources to satellites, weaponry and strategic choke points, geopolitics is as important in the skies above us as it is down below. If you've ever wondered if humans are going back to the Moon, who will benefit from exploration or what space wars might look like, the answers are here.

The Coming Wave

by Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar

Soon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organise your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy.

None of us are prepared.

As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the centre of this revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies.

In The Coming Wave, Suleyman shows how these forces will create immense prosperity but also threaten the nation-state, the foundation of global order. As our fragile governments sleepwalk into disaster, we face an existential dilemma: unprecedented harms on one side and the threat of overbearing surveillance on the other.

Thank you for the tips Oliver Hall

Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet

By Chris Dixon

The internet of today is a far cry from its early promise of a decentralized, democratic network of innovation, connection and freedom. In the past decade, it has fallen almost entirely under the control of a very small group of companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook. In Read Write Own, tech visionary Chris Dixon argues that the dream of a creative, entrepreneurial internet doesn’t have to die and can, in fact, be saved with blockchain networks. He separates this movement, which aims to provide a solid foundation for everything from social networks to artificial intelligence to virtual worlds, from cryptocurrency speculation – a distinction he calls ‘the computer vs the casino’.

Drawing on a 25-year career in the software industry, Dixon lucidly shows how the history of the internet has been defined by three distinct eras that have brought us to the critical moment we’re in today. The first was the ‘read’ era, in which early networks democratized information. The second was the ‘read-write’ era, in which corporate networks democratized publishing. We are now in the midst of the ‘read-write-own’ era, sometimes called web3, in which blockchain networks are granting power and economic benefits to communities of users, not just corporations.

A must for anyone who wants to better understand the real potential of blockchains and web3 to drive even greater innovation.’ Robert Iger, CEO, Disney

Snow Crash

by Neal Stephenson

Have to re-read this classic now after getting the new hardcover edition featuring never-before-seen material, the “brilliantly realized” breakthrough novel from visionary author Neal Stephenson, a modern classic that predicted the metaverse and inspired generations of Silicon Valley innovators

Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions.

Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords. His home is a shared 20 X 30 U-Stor-It. He spends most of his time goggled in to the Metaverse, where his avatar is legendary.

But in the club known as The Black Sun, his fellow hackers are being felled by a weird new drug called Snow Crash that reduces them to nothing more than a jittering cloud of bad digital karma (and IRL, a vegetative state).

Investigating the Infocalypse leads Hiro all the way back to the beginning of language itself, with roots in an ancient Sumerian priesthood. He’ll be joined by Y.T., a fearless teenaged skateboard courier. Together, they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.