The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West by Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska. One can read Alex Karp’s new book, “The Technological Republic,” in many different ways. Is it a call-to-arms? A critique of inefficient corporate cultures? A historical review of the concept of “the nation?” An attempt to rewind the clock of American higher education to before the 1960s counter-cultural revolution? Or is it just a bunch of self-praise by the billionaire co-founder of Palantir Technologies?

Peak Mind by Amishi P. Jha. We’re all distracted, all of the time. More and more studies show that on average, we spend only 50% of our waking hours engaged with the present moment—the other half of the time we’re zoning out, ruminating, mind-wandering or daydreaming. Furthermore, research suggests that our ability to pay attention is on the decline. And why wouldn’t it be, given the increasing pace at which we’re assaulted by social media notifications, breaking news alerts, and instant messages. It’s no surprise that our minds, drowning in a sea of sensations without a chance for rest or respite, have a hard time to focus on anything at all. The dangers of this pervasive state of mindlessness are of course obvious in situations that depend on our ability to concentrate, whether you’re performing surgery on someone’s brain or simply driving a car. But not only does this constant running on auto pilot cause countless preventable errors of oversight or negligence. It’s also detrimental to our psychological wellbeing: Every time our minds are not truly present in the moment, we can’t fully enjoy our current experience, our social interactions become more and more shallow and less meaningful, our brains can only form inferior memories, and ultimately, we might miss out on what’s most valuable in our lives.

Product Roadmaps Relaunched by C. Todd Lombardo, Bruce McCarthy, Evan Ryan, Michael Connors. To be honest, I’ve built a lot of terrible roadmaps over the years. Some resembled Gantt-charts and came with work packages, milestones, and deadlines. Unsurprisingly, these created an unjustified sense of security and commitment. Others were too lofty and vague, needed lots of explaining and still left behind confused and irritated audiences. I came to try various formats and templates, adapted and tinkered to address some of these issues, but I am yet to uncover the holy grail of roadmapping. Be aware that Product Roadmaps Relaunched also offers no such silver bullet, nor does it provide a single, correct, gold standard roadmap template that everyone should use all the time. But had I stumbled upon the book already when it first came out in 2017, I might well have avoided a few unsatisfying sidesteps.

AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee. On the topic of US/China relations, themes reminiscent of the Cold War era almost immediately spring to mind. Yes, one can look at the geopolitical, economic, and societal disparities between the world’s two leading nations exclusively through the narrow lens of domination, and thereby reach the conclusion that head-on conflict is unavoidable. Both fiction and non-fiction writers have explored that possibility at length, and technology always plays an essential part in these deliberations.

Back in the day, I once attended a big software conference somewhere in Germany. As chance would have it, I struck up a conversation there with an agile coach who was working for a big customer of the product that I was serving for as Product Owner at the. During the course of the event, we would occasionally bump into each other again and chat about our respective challenges: Me, shepherding a medium-sized product team at an international software conglomerate, and him leading the agile transformation of one of the most stereotypically conservative organizations in the world: The federal government of Germany.

Middlemarch by Mary Ann Evans (aka George Elliot). “Surely,” said Dorothea, “it is better to spend money in finding out how men can make the most of the land which supports them all, than in keeping dogs and horses only to gallop over it. It is not a sin to make yourself poor in performing experiments for the good of all.” — Mary Ann Evans (aka George Elliot), Middlemarch (1871)

Designing Your Work Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. “F**k this s**t, I’m quitting!” Many of us have played with the thought of making a memorable exit from a job we didn’t enjoy at some point in our careers. I know a few people who actually did (though not with quite such strong language), but unsurprisingly that didn’t end well for any of them. In their new book Designing Your Work Life, Stanford professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans explore not only how to quit well (spoiler: avoid the f-word if you can!), but also how Design Thinking tools can help us draw more satisfaction from our current jobs, thus reducing the need for quitting in the first place.

In many instances software architecture is less a product of deliberate design and more an accidental result of countless interactions between people. Or, as Eric Raymond put it more pointedly: “If you have four groups working on a compiler, you’ll get a 4-pass compiler.” How Do Committees Invent? by Mel Conway. This idea was originally introduced by Mel Conway in his 1967 paper “How Do Committees Invent?” and has since turned into what is now known as Conway’s Law:

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. I've been curious about the world for as long as I can remember. When I was young, I used to question my parents about the inner workings of almost everything, from household appliances to world politics. At some point I remember talking to my dad about the origins of humans, I think after having read or heard somewhere that African apes are somehow our ancestors. That made me think: Isn't Africa really poor nowadays? How come, if the first humans lived there, and not here in Europe? And what about America? Don't they have "native" peoples there as well? How did they get there, if today that journey takes more than 10 hours on a plane? Unfortunately (but understandably), my dads knowledge in anthropology was exhausted quite quickly, and I was not much the wiser.

Range by David Epstein. Roger Federer and Tiger Woods are two very different kinds of athletes. Each has achieved outstanding success in his field, but they took very different paths to get there: While Tiger Woods started playing golf before he could walk, Roger Federer experimented with a wide variety of sports before honing in on Tennis at a rather late age. David Epstein uses the stories of Roger and Tiger to start his book Range, in which he builds the case for shunning the "early specialization cult", as he puts it. The initial example is a two-edged sword though, as it doesn't really help to underpin his point. It rather illustrates two instances of highly successful athletes with very different backgrounds.