Top Content of 2021
What I enjoyed from what I read, watched, and listened to.
As with the last couple of years, I want to publish some of the content that stood out as exceptional quality from the year 2021 (or year 2 of the global covid pandemic, depending on how you measure things). Each category has been retained with the addition of one more “Best Blog or Essay”. I read a lot of blog posts and essays this year and this year in particular I realized how much insanely high-quality writing is being published directly on the internet for our consumption. If you aren’t reading as many books don’t worry, there is plenty of great reading in shorter form out there.
As always, please let me know what you think, any feedback you may have, and anything you would recommend for me to consume based on what you know about me.
Top Songs of 2021
This year I’ve decided to embed a playlist of my top songs so you have something to listen to while you read all of my other content recommendations. You’re welcome or I’m sorry in advance.
Oh Miles - Lane 8 | Beautiful and uplifting
Billie (Loving Arms) - Fred Again | Stupid smiles on the dancefloor
Headed South - Zach Bryan | Nashville style ballad
Nothing Around Us Mathame | Melodic journey
LUMBERJACK - Tyler, The Creator | Tyler at his best
First Class - Rainbow Kitten Surprise | Gorgeous and moving
Perfect - Cinimin | Best for the basement
Do It To It - Acraze | Low brow but effective
13 - Allan Rayman | Punchy Western Rock
Break Me Down (ft. Fractures) - Paraleven | Pulsing and emotional
Top Books of 2021
Chaos Monkeys - Antonio Garcia-Martinez
In a sentence, this was Liar’s Poker for Silicon Valley. I know I’m late to the party on this one but it’s an extremely fun and informative read. Last year AGM was fired from his role at Apple for this book which stirred a huge controversy and makes this book a must-read. His writing is beautiful which on its own would be enough of a reason to pick this one up but there’s much more to it. His stories about the early Silicon Valley startup work, Y Combinator, and Facebook as it was going through an IPO are as educational as they are hilarious. A great primer for understanding small and large tech companies in the bay area during a specific point in time.
A classic for good reason. While this book was written years ago it ages much better than most sci-fi because at its core it is a story about humans. The world-building is second-to-none and the story (after the first 20%) is gripping. While the movie was awesome, I highly recommend everyone to read the book as it was a blast from start to end.
The Art of Learning -Josh Waitzkin
Josh Waitzkin has an absolutely insane personal history. Read here if you want to learn more but the TLDR is that he was a child chess prodigy who was the inspiration for the movie “Searching for Bobby Fisher”. After that, he went on to win a World Championship in Taiji Push-Hands. This book was his explanation of how he approaches learning and how he was able to become so successful in completely different fields. Informative, interesting, and humbling, this book stretched my brain and made me feel inadequate for what I have accomplished at the age of 27 (in a good way).
Every year I try to read at least one book that I should have read in High School because the classics are classics for a reason. Last year for my birthday a friend of mine named David gifted me this book as he knows that I do a daily stream of consciousness journal and thought this would hit home. Well, it did. Interspersed between stories of complete recklessness is some of the most beautiful writing I read last year. The stories are completely insane, of course, but the way that Kerouac documents his travels is unlike anything I’ve read. This one isn’t for everyone but if you are looking to refresh yourself on an American classic, you could do a whole lot worse than this one.
Be Slightly Evil - Venkatesh Rao
This book isn’t for everyone but if you have read any Venkat before this, such as the Gervais Principle or Breaking Smart, and have a cynical sense of humor, this book will definitely land. This one brings game theory, power, status, influence, and more into the world of the workplace and expands on it as only Venkat can. It is purposefully clever for the sake of being clever and functions much less as a practical guide and more so as an interesting thought experiment wherein, some examples have real-world implications. I thoroughly enjoyed this but likely wouldn’t be gifting it to anyone on Christmas.
Top Podcasts of 2021
Dissect | Runaway - Kanye West
Runaway by Kanye is one of my top ten songs of all time and this breakdown of the song makes it that much better. Dissect is an incredible podcast for the music lover and this song is an absolute masterpiece so you can imagine how great this episode is. This was sent to me by a friend (Jay Mark) and I promise it’s not just for fans of Kanye. This episode will make you appreciate rap music production on a whole other level. (And may encourage you to dive back into MBDTF, but that’s not the point).
Huberman Lab | Maximizing Productivity, Mental, and Physical Health with Daily Tools
This podcast goes into serious detail on the biological mechanics of performance and pairs that with concrete steps on how to maximize your sleep, digestion, mental cognition, physical performance, and more. This was sent to me by a friend also named Erik and there has been no podcast that I used more in my daily life than this one. Highly recommended.
I was new to Acquired last year but the long-form business and market breakdown style of the podcast is something that I truly love. This was a three-hour deep dive into the Ethereum blockchain and Ether cryptocurrency that serves as a great primer for anyone looking to learn more about these specific projects or crypto as a whole. Highly recommend this for people who are looking to explore this increasingly important technology.
The Tim Ferriss Show | Chris Dixon & Naval Ravikant on The Wonders of Web3
In the same vein as the previous podcast, this is a deep dive on “web3” which serves as an umbrella term for the connected internet as powered by blockchain and cryptocurrency technology. Be warned if you are a skeptic that both Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant are incredibly bullish on these developments so you will get somewhat of a biased perspective. That being said this was as informative and wide-ranging a podcast on the space as you can find and Tim does a great job letting the experts discuss the subject in detail.
Invest Like The Best | Ben Thompson - Platforms, Ecosystems, and Aggregators
Ben Thompson is your favorite newsletter writer’s favorite newsletter writer. Well, maybe just for technology but still. He has been writing what has become the book on the burgeoning tech industry for over a decade and his analysis is used by tech executives across the globe. This podcast goes deep on how he thinks about the future of technology and his mental model of how to think about the interplay of platforms, ecosystems, and aggregators. An increasingly important topic in today’s tech-business landscape.
Top Articles, Essays, or Blog Posts of 2021
Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All: An Essay - David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace has quickly become one of my favorite authors of all time and this essay kickstarted that trend. Harper’s Weekly sent him down to do a piece on the Illinois state fair and this was what he came back with. I haven’t laughed harder at a piece of writing in a long long time.
Magic Beans - Venkatesh Rao
NFTs are now practically a mainstream talking point and no matter your stance on them this piece does a great job of explaining them through useful and entertaining metaphors.
Playing Different Games - Everett Randle (The Valley ofDunning Kruger)
I’ve learned a lot (relatively) about Venture Capital in the last year and a big part of that education was this piece on how Tiger Global seems to disrupting the business and “eating other firms’ lunch”. This piece illuminates how VC traditionally works and dives into what Tiger Global is doing differently, and why it seems to be working so well. Recommended for those interested in the space.
I’ll Tell You The Secret of Cancer - Caitlin Flanagan (The Atlantic)
I have little to no experience with cancer (thank god) but from what I’ve read about this piece, this is the most “real” piece of writing on the experience of having cancer out there. Not as morbid as the title suggests, this was seriously incredible writing.
Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted To Know - Astral Codex Ten
Ivermectin was a HUGE topic of conversation in 2021 and this piece was a deep DEEP dive into its efficacy in the form of a meta-study of all studies run on the drug. Worth the full read if nothing else but to fully appreciate how complex drug efficacy is and how little you are able to learn from headlines and surface-level articles.
Pair with this piece from the same author on how infrequently we check the sources of articles that confirm our opinions of the world. A sobering reminder that we are wrong far more often than we think, especially because we rarely seek to prove ourselves wrong.
Top Movies of 2021
Mystic River | Hbo Max (Stream)
Something I realized last year was that a lot of the new movies coming out are not worth watching. They just aren’t. But, along with this came the realization that there are a lot of old movies that are worth watching. This is one of those movies. A gritty story about a girl in Boston who is killed and her father’s attempt to figure out who did it. The writing, acting, and plot in this movie are all top-notch. It won two Oscars for Acting (Best Lead & Supporting Actor) and was nominated for four more awards which give it the credibility that you may or may not need. If you haven’t, watch this one soon.
Little Miss Sunshine | Amazon Prime/ Apple (Rent)
This was one of my girlfriend’s favorite movies that somehow I had never seen. I watched it for the first time last year and it was incredible. Little Miss Sunshine is a brutally honest movie about a dysfunctional family on a road trip to LA for a little girl’s pageant. This is a movie that makes you feel good and rips your heart out all at the same time.
Sound of Metal | Amazon Prime (Stream)
Sound of Metal follows a drummer who loses his hearing and goes to a home for deaf people to learn how to adjust to his new reality. Absolutely gut-wrenchingly emotional and some of the best acting I have ever seen this was highly rated for a great reason. Also, if you are interested in movies that sound good, this was the best maybe ever. The way they scored this one puts you into the shoes of someone who is losing their hearing and that goes an incredibly long way for empathizing with those among us who cannot hear.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri | Amazon/ Apple (Rent)
This was another movie about a daughter who was killed and a parent who is trying to figure out who did it (noticing a trend?) Francis McDormand plays a rough Missouri Mother who is fed up with the police not doing enough to figure out what happened to her daughter and takes matters into her own hands. This was at one time brutal, funny, quirky, and an emotional roller coaster. Highly, highly recommended.
Ex Machina | Amazon (Rent)
If you are at all interested in the future of AI and sentient robots this is a great flick. The plot follows a man to the deserted island of a tech CEO who is working on building a robot to pass The Turing Test. I won’t spoil more than that but this is a wild ride and has an ending that is both unexpected and supremely unsatisfying.
Thank you for reading and please, seriously, send some recommendations my way.
Dissect is audio gold! Also just copped "Be Slightly Evil" -- I'll keep ya posted.