Wisereads Vol. 69 — Leading to Thrive by Klaus Kleinfeld, book recs from Andrej Karpathy, and more

Last week, we shared an excerpt of Codie Sanchez's debut, Main Street Millionaire, a guide to achieving financial freedom. This week, we're sharing an exclusive 4-chapter preview of Leading to Thrive by former Siemens CEO Klaus Kleinfeld.

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Most highlighted Articles of the week

How To Make The Greatest Comeback Of Your Life

Dan Koe · thedankoe.com

To escape the trap of a conventional life, Dan Koe encourages readers to meditate on their current stagnation before striking out into the unknown. "The best periods of my life came after getting absolutely fed up with the lack of progress I was making. I didn’t care what I did. I just had to do something…Most people would call that desperation, but I would call it a mind that’s hungry to learn, grow, and evolve to the next level."

The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone

David J. Morris · The New York Times

In a guest essay, creative writing assistant professor David J. Morris expresses concern over data showing men reading and writing less literature—an art he considers essential. "I am reminded of something that the feminist scholar bell hooks once wrote: 'There remains a small strain of feminist thinkers who feel strongly that they have given all they want to give to men; they are concerned solely with improving the collective welfare of women. Yet life has shown me that any time a single male dares to transgress patriarchal boundaries' — something I am convinced that literature enables men to do — 'the lives of women, men and children are fundamentally changed for the better.'"

The GPT Era Is Already Ending

Matteo Wong · The Atlantic

Matteo Wong asks whether the innovation behind OpenAI’s o1 model—designed to “think” through its answers—heralds a new era of AI models. "The company has been unusually direct that the o1 series is the future... The company believes, or wants its users and investors to believe, that it has found some fresh magic. The GPT era is giving way to the reasoning era."

Most highlighted YouTube Video of the week

Why Your To-Do List Isn’t Working – And How to Fix It

Tiago Forte

Instead of brute forcing a long daily to-do list, Building a Second Brain author Tiago Forte suggests narrowing your focus to achieve more. "I can't think of a better way to crush all sense of motivation and hope than looking every day at a huge list of tasks that you'll never, ever be able to get to the end of. So my rule is that I always pick a maximum of three tasks from my full list in the morning which I plan on getting done that day."

Most highlighted Twitter Thread of the week

Of ~200 books I've read, the few that stayed with me

Andrej Karpathy

1984, Atlas Shrugged, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy all left a lasting impact on Andrej Karpathy. He also recommends The Vital Question: "First time I intuitively grokked the bridge from geology to biology, the origin of life, and likelihood of life in the Universe at large at various stages of complexity and development," and Flowers for Algernon: "Just a totally crushing masterpiece on intelligence."

Most highlighted PDF of the week

AI Creation and the Cosmic Host

Nick Bostrom

Known for his philosophical takes on AI and existential risk in Deep Utopia and Superintelligence, Nick Bostrom now contemplates "cosmic hosts" and a metaverse in his latest paper. "There may well exist a normative structure, based on the preferences or concordats of a cosmic host, and which has high relevance to the development of AI. In particular, we may have both moral and prudential reason to create superintelligence that becomes a good cosmic citizen—i.e. conforms to cosmic norms and contributes positively to the cosmopolis."

Hand-picked book of the week

Leading to Thrive

Klaus Kleinfeld

In the short term, visionary leaders often make sacrifices. In the long run, pursuing business success at the expense of personal wellbeing is unsustainable. In Leading to Thrive, Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld draws on his extensive leadership experience to show how winning the “Inner Game” generates and sustains the energy needed for the “Outer Game” of guiding companies to greatness.

"At its most basic, leadership is all about getting people to do what you’d like them to do. Sometimes, it’s what they may not want to do at that moment, or maybe at all. One of the most powerful rules of leadership is to create a strong intrinsic motivation.

One of my favorite childhood passages is from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Citadelle. It’s full of wit and wisdom. Here’s one piece of wisdom I particularly enjoy: 

'If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.'"

We're psyched that this preview of Leading to Thrive includes four chapters—two focusing on the inner game (Part I), and two introducing leadership tactics (Part II). If you enjoy the excerpt, you can order a full copy of Klaus' debut here, available now.

Handpicked RSS feed of the week

Escape to the Bookshop

Live vicariously through Sarah Bringhurst Familia as she documents her journey to open a bookshop in a quaint Italian hill-town. From What inspired me to open a bookshop in Italy: "When we walk in a certain bookshop—imagine yourself there now, wherever that bookshop is for you—there’s a thing that makes us want to catch our breath. I think it’s our sense that the space feels sacred, like a temple to everything we know a book can be. And that’s the kind of space I want to make."