“It is time to talk about the Bank of Mum and Dad.”

This turned out to be one I did not enjoy as much as I had expected.

Which is surprising. I heard the author speak at an event in Rome earlier this year, and she was very impressive. The topic she touched upon, generation gaps, was enlightening. Her analysis and data went far beyond the general impressions and stereotypes I had of Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and so on.

Her main thesis was that family wealth is the real economic story of the twenty-first century. Younger generations are far more dependent on inheritance today than ever before. And she is not focused on inheritance as the one-time event toward the end of the benefactor’s life. She is talking about the much larger phenomenon of giving money, or even time, such as taking care of a young beneficiary’s children while the beneficiary is holding down two jobs throughout the life of the beneficiary.

She divides the benefactors primarily into Baby Boomers and, to a lesser extent, Gen Xers, with the beneficiaries being Millennials and Gen Zers. In the talk, she shared some jaw-dropping numbers and illustrations. For example, in the next ten years, in the US alone, $12 to $16 trillion of wealth will change hands through inheritance. With a “t” at the beginning! The following ten years will see somewhere around $100 trillion or more changing hands. This would be the largest transfer of wealth in human history.

She gave examples of how Baby Boomers generally had to take care of only one generation, their children. Every other generation has to take care of two, parents and children. She talked about how income growth has been fairly minimal over multiple decades, while the traditional wealth creation mechanisms, home ownership and education, have risen in price by leaps and bounds, putting them out of reach for later generations. Instead, they spend money on what has become much cheaper – e.g. traveling.

This is where getting financial support from parents early on opens up entirely new opportunities for those lucky children. This is not just about wealth creation. It is also about how much time people have at their disposal, whether they are holding down two jobs instead of socializing after one, their mental health, and even access to better healthcare.

In fact, because of this built-in separation in access to opportunities based on parental wealth, she declares meritocracy dead, or nearly so. Hence the title of the book.

All this was in the talk I heard.

I came home and ordered her book. Actually, I ordered three copies. I wanted both my kids to read it.

And the missteps started there. First, they charged me for three books but sent me only one. It came from the UK. Fortunately, I had ordered through Amazon, and they immediately refunded the price of the other two.

Not sure whether my expectations were simply too high, but reading the book was really a challenge. Maybe I learn differently and was expecting sharper analysis and more insightful observations. They were there, here and there. But there were so many personal stories, almost making this an autobiography, many of which felt trite and distracting, that I repeatedly lost the thread of the key points she was trying to make.

Her ideas were thoughtful and right on the mark. A couple of examples for each would have been enough. The book could easily have been one-fifth its length. It could have been a very powerful book with a handful of memorable messages. Instead, those messages became diluted by lengthy and often unnecessary personal anecdotes.

The editor and publisher could have done her a great favor by ensuring the themes flowed in a more structured and succinct way.

That said, the book does touch upon a few things her talk did not.

A couple of examples.

She talks about how Baby Boomers set the standards for entering youth, with optimism that hard work would be rewarded, but have struggled mightily to enter elderhood. They are now copying the younger generation. They are the largest segment of Facebook users, spend as much time as young people peering into their phones, and have seen the highest increase in alcohol overconsumption and sexually transmitted diseases. Sounds like somebody in their twenties, right?

She also brings out the unique perspective of what a Millennial woman like her has to go through. “The tyranny of time,” she calls it. Not the daily calendar, but the important milestones in life. Education, greater social freedom, and ambition have allowed Millennial women to pursue careers and other interests with unprecedented independence. But at the same time, they are constrained by milestones that cannot be moved very much. “Don’t marry early. Focus on your career… but don’t get left on the shelf.” “Don’t have kids early… but don’t wait until you are too old.” “Enjoy your twenties and travel… but prepare and invest for your future.” Opportunities have expanded, but biological and life milestones remain relatively inflexible, creating an infuriating struggle in the minds of many young women.

Again, great topic. Perhaps I should give it a second try someday.

Meanwhile, feel free to buy the book, or borrow it from me. But I would recommend listening to her on YouTube or finding one of her presentations first. She was kind enough to send me her slides after I connected with her on LinkedIn.

This book was recommended to me by my friend Sunjay Talele. The title seemed vaguely familiar when he mentioned it, but I had never actually read it. I fixed that oversight this month.

If you have even a passing familiarity with common computer algorithms or statistical and mathematical concepts, you will love this book. It brilliantly demonstrates how many real-life problems have already been solved by algorithms that computer scientists and mathematicians have been studying for decades. The fascinating part is that we often end up applying these algorithms instinctively, without even realizing it. The flip side is equally intriguing: if we actually understood the algorithms, we might make even better life decisions.

Take the “optimal stopping” problem. Imagine you’re evaluating candidates and trying to make the best possible choice. The catch is that once you pass on someone, they’re gone forever. But you also don’t want to stop too early and miss an even better option. This applies to dating, hiring, buying a house—you name it. When should you stop, and what strategy should you follow? (Math and computer science folks will recognize this as the famous 37% Rule.)

Or consider the Explore vs. Exploit problem. Exploration opens up new possibilities. Exploitation lets you capitalize on what you’ve already discovered. The question is: when do you stop exploring and start exploiting?

The authors make an interesting observation here. Humans take an unusually long time to become fully independent. Most birds and animals are ready to fend for themselves remarkably soon after birth. Humans, however, spend years under the protection of parents and their community. That extended childhood gives us a long, safe period to explore before we have to exploit our knowledge — a luxury that arguably contributes to our extraordinary adaptability.

When discussing sorting (and searching), the authors point out an amusing fact about the animal kingdom. “Sorting” is usually accomplished through size or outright fights. Humans, fortunately, have developed other mechanisms. So, much as we complain about the “rat race,” we should probably be glad it’s a race and not a fight that determines our social order!

Similarly, while discussing scheduling algorithms, the authors tackle one of the most universally despised aspects of professional life: meetings. Surprisingly, they make a compelling case that without regularly scheduled meetings, our work lives would actually be worse. Planned meetings are one of our best defenses against constant interruptions and unplanned context switching.

By far my favorite chapter was the one on overfitting. In fact, I was so struck by it that I photographed one of the pages and sent it to several colleagues at work. As we’re all trying to make sense of AI’s impact on our workplace, these lines resonated deeply with me:

“As a species, being constrained by the past makes us less perfectly adjusted to the present we know but helps keep us robust for the future we don’t.”

And this gem:

“A bit of conservatism, a certain bias in favor of history, can buffer us against the boom-and-bust cycle of fads. That doesn’t mean we ought to ignore the latest data either. Jump toward the bandwagon, by all means-but not necessarily on it.”

Speaking of fads, did you know that before kale became a “superfood” sensation around 2013, the single largest purchaser of kale was Pizza Hut? They used it in their salad bars—not as food, but as decoration!

The book also left me with one wonderfully thought-provoking question:

“If all jobs paid exactly the same, what job would you do?”

I wholeheartedly recommend this book. The authors have written it with plenty of humor and an engaging style that almost anyone would enjoy. But if you have even a passing interest in computer science, mathematics, or statistics, I suspect you’ll enjoy it even more.

I was drawn to this book one fine day, listening to an interview given by the author – a Nobel Laureate – with Neil deGrasse Tyson in the SpaceTalk show.

A fascinating thing about death that I have observed is that while this is the one given thing – perhaps the only given thing – moment we are born, we are, as individuals and as a group, a bit unwilling to talk about it. Trying to bring the topic up with my own family, even in the context of planning out what happens after my death, I immediately face angry demands of why I would bring up that topic. A Martian would have observed these discussions and concluded that we do not talk about death, perhaps because not talking about it will make it go away.

In the interview, Venki starts by asking, “What is death?” This seemingly innocuous question has some interesting facets. We have none of the cells we were born with. Are we dead? We have cases of reviving people whose hearts had stopped. Were they dead? In fact, Venki goes on to expound on the deaths of cells and tissues, simple animals, human beings, and then takes on the deaths of towns, villages, countries, and civilizations.

This book digs into the physiological causes of death. Quite paradoxically, after spending centuries and billions of dollars, while we understand a lot about what happens to our bodies at the sub-cellular level – and that has given rise to great medicines – we are still not entirely on the up and up about what really causes aging.

That said, we have come to understand that the same mechanism that prevents cancer also gives rise to aging. Evolution has made sure that the cancer-preventing mechanism dominates in our youth when we can reproduce, even if it comes at the cost of aging and dying when we cannot.

The author is fairly down on attempts by humans (he is particularly tough on the rich – especially the Silicon Valley moguls) who are trying to live forever. Even if it were possible – and he expressly believes this cannot be true – he points out the troubles it will cause to society, the economy, and one’s own quality of life. Living forever is not the same as setting the clock back. You are not going to be in your 20s again. In fact, he points out that we have doubled our life expectancy in the last century. We are not exactly that happy with the extra time we have!

But, what blew me away was the origin of the mitochondria, which is central to aging.

One of the finest philosophical comments when paraphrasing another author is “Life is an interruption in an eternity of personal nonexistence.”

Some of the other interesting thoughts that caught my attention.

* It is a curious facet of human psychology that even if we accept that we ourselves will be gone, we feel a strong need to be remembered.

* Unlike humans, most insects and grain crops reproduce only once.

* Natural selection rarely asks for the good of the species or even groups. It is entirely focused on an individual’s fitness – defined by the ability to reproduce.

* Menopause is a curious phenomenon unique to humans, mostly. Why such an abrupt change in a female from being able to reproduce to not being able to is not fully understood.

* Mammals typically have roughly the same number of heartbeats over their lifetime – about 1.5 billion. Humans did too. Till we figured out in the last century how to double our lifespan with the aid of hygiene and medical science. Humans were the same, except that in the last 100 years, our lifespan has doubled.

* DNA’s damage response is a balance between cancer and aging. It is a mechanism that has evolved to benefit early in our life – when we are likely to pass our genes, even if it costs us later.

* Larger species generally live longer than smaller ones because they have slower metabolisms and can also escape predation. But within species, smaller breeds generally live longer than larger ones. This might have something to do with how much growth hormone they make.

* There is strong evidence that damage to our mitochondrial DNA is an important factor in aging. Mitochondria themselves are the evolutionary descendants of a bacterium that was swallowed by a single-celled organism. Over millions of years, the bacteria managed to transfer most of their genes into the host’s genome while retaining a few. The reason is not quite well understood.

* We inherit these mitochondria entirely from the mother’s side.

* Physical activity turns on some of the same pathways that stimulate mitochondrial production in tissues ranging from our muscles to our brains.

* Although the number of centenarians has grown in recent decades, the number of supercentenarians (110 years or older) has not changed and remains very small.

This book was referred to me by Prabasaj-da, and it continues my search to understand quantum theory a bit more than I ever have.

The book is structured like Galileo’s famous dialogue Two New Sciences — in fact, the subtitle is “A Galilean Dialogue.” There are three protagonists: Silvati, who champions quantum theory; Simplicio, who holds more firmly to classical physics; and Sagredo, the purportedly wise go-between.

Reviews in this format tend to be positive, but this conversational style doesn’t quite work for me. The exchanges sometimes felt twisted and conjured up unnaturally. A couple of times, Simplicio’s questions landed exactly on the thought I had in that moment — but those were the exceptions. I generally prefer reading prose and pausing to think on my own.

The content itself is solid. It dives into the questions any early learner like me will encounter in quantum physics. For that reason, I think it would shine as a group read — something to discuss together rather than work through alone.

It’s under 100 pages and an easy read.

“Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution”

I think it was John McGehee who recommended this book in a Facebook comment. I’m genuinely grateful to him, because this turned out to be a fantastic read. It’s especially insightful for a layperson like me. At times it does get confusing, but that’s the nature of the subject, not a failing of the author.

My biggest aha moment came when Rovelli explains that what we think of as an object’s properties are actually relative to the observer. If we could not observe something, we would not even think of it as having properties. Quantum physics started to feel a bit more approachable once I grasped this core idea: reality is made up of relations rather than objects.

The explanation of superposition, especially when it involves understanding entanglement between two objects from the perspective of a third observer, was harder to wrap my head around.

One thing I really enjoyed was how Rovelli weaves in the personal histories of the great physicists in this field. It adds a human touch to an otherwise abstract topic. In the second half of the book, he dives into philosophical debates, particularly between Lenin and Bogdanov, and questions like “What does meaning mean?” I’ll admit, I sometimes wondered what this had to do with quantum physics, but the writing is clear and engaging enough that I still enjoyed it.

There’s a striking line in the book: “I is a process, not an entity.” It takes a bit of thought to unpack. What we call the “self” isn’t really a fixed object, but a flow of sensations and feelings we experience in the moment.

My favorite quote, though, comes from the nineteenth-century French philosopher Hippolyte Taine. Rovelli uses it while discussing how we perceive the world. It’s not that we passively receive signals and then interpret them. The brain is constantly predicting, and the eyes mainly report deviations from those predictions. The quote goes:

“External perception is an internal dream which proves to be in harmony with external things; and instead of calling ‘hallucination’ a false perception, we must call external perception ‘a confirmed hallucination’.”

That one really stayed with me.

A few other memorable lines from the book:

“Abandoning assumptions that seem self-evident can lead to greater understanding.”

“Never express more clearly than you are able to think.” (Niels Bohr)

“However mysterious the mind-body problem might be for us, we should always remember that it is a solved problem for nature.”

“The external point of view does not exist. Every description of the world is from inside it.”

I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

This book wasn’t even on my radar until I grabbed a coffee with my friend Charlie Tillinghast. He mentioned it covered some of the backstory behind how he started Factal, so naturally, I picked up a copy.

While I’m glad I bought it for the few pages featuring Charlie, that’s where the highlights end.

To be honest, the writing style is rough. The whole thing reads like a giant, bulleted “To-Do” list for entrepreneurs, but without any real “aha” moments. Even worse, it occasionally felt like an unabashed marketing brochure for the author’s other books and articles.

The book is packed with stories about real founders, but it consistently chooses surface-level skimming over deep, actionable insights. There were two notable exceptions—Titan Casket by Scott Ginsberg and, to a lesser extent, Seemore Meats and Veggies by Cara Nicoletti—where the storytelling actually had some meat on the bone.

On the bright side? It’s a quick 180 pages with a font so large I could probably read it from across the room in good lighting.

Unless you’re looking for a specific anecdote about a friend, I’d skip this one.

For some time now, I have had this urge to learn a bit about Quantum Physics. Well, maybe it started when a recruiter reached out to me about a CEO job at a quantum computing company on the East Coast. I was intrigued, to say the least. I had no qualifications whatsoever. Turns out, he had seen me run a company called Quantum Spatial (a geospatial company)… and you can put the rest of the story together.

Anyway, I finally searched the internet a bit and picked up this book. I would not recommend it. It is too basic. Most of the book could have fit into 10 pages. If any of you know a good book on this subject for a beginner like me, please do let me know.

I had picked up this book at an airport store on my way to Uruguay. I was impressed by another of his books – Think Again. This one did not disappoint either.

He dives into how to bring out the potential in every human being, of oneself, as well as bringing the same out in others. In the process, he breaks down a few myths and misperceptions.

The biggest one is how we judge and elevate people based on peak performance, not the journey there. The point is that if you want to understand a person’s full potential, it is not about the peak reached but about how much one has traversed to get there.

For oneself, he asserts that we stop learning as we grow up because we are unwilling to embrace the awkwardness of learning. Imagine picking up a new language. We wait to become experts before we feel ready to talk to native speakers. But the process of becoming an expert goes right through the heart of talking to native speakers while you are learning – and in the process overcoming the fear of making mistakes and being awkward.

He also asserts that to achieve full potential, one needs to accept imperfection. (the art of Wabi Sabi). Trying to be perfect will lead one down a very narrow path instead of developing new ones. He quotes this art of balancing the flawed with the flawless in words that appealed to me:

“There is a crack, crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”

Another important concept he stresses is that the path to full potential will not be linear. You will get stuck, have to back out, and then seek alternate paths. If you are not getting stuck, you are not on a path of full potential. “The roundabout path to forward progress”, as he says.

When it comes to helping others reach their full potential, he has a couple of important pieces of advice for all leaders. First, focus on what makes a great team, and it is not the same as putting great individuals together. The other is to judge a person’s character more than their talent. Talent sets the floor, but character sets the ceiling.

What is character? The author says that character is often confused with personality, but they’re not the same. Personality is your predisposition. Your basic instinct for how to think, feel, and act. Character is your capacity to prioritize your values over your instincts.

Some interesting direct quotes:

“Getting better is a worthy accomplishment in and of itself.”
“Ambition is the outcome you want to achieve. Aspiration is the person you hope to become.”
“Teaching is a surprisingly powerful method of learning.”

I forget how I landed up with this book. I think I was reading an article in The Economist that mentioned this book.

It is a fascinating book to understand what causes some of the grave ills of social media. I used to see all the young kids constantly on their phones. But from The Economist article, I learnt that constant social media doomscrolling is affecting the older generation even worse.

The author does not delve very deep into certain aspects of psychiatric issues caused by social media, like loneliness, anxiety, and so on. Instead, he focuses much more on how social media causes mass hysteria around conspiracy theories and deep echo chambers, to the point that ordinary people are becoming unhinged from reality.

He has studied Facebook and YouTube in the greatest detail. Interestingly, not much analysis of TikTok was presented, but he suggests that its algorithms are doing exactly the same.

It stems from the social media company single-mindedly chasing screen time – or the user’s attention. This is clearly driven by profit motives (ad revenue is proportional to the time you spend on an app or site).

As a second step, the social media companies created algorithms to feed you more stuff that they deem will keep you on the screen. The algorithms have developed this magic by constantly studying the behavior of millions of human beings. In and of itself, it does not have any value judgment – but a very good idea – based on data, what will make you stay on the screen.

And the third part is the foible of us human beings. We are attracted to salacious news items. We discount data that goes against our beliefs and instead are likely to believe more data that supports our belief – even after we are told that the data source is spurious!! And if enough people say it, we take it as a cardinal truth.

All this, when done on a large scale – where no human being can truly understand the AI algorithm’s complexity anymore – leads to extreme behavior from human beings. To the point, people have killed people – and in extreme cases, genocides like that in Myanmar – purely based on believing something to be true since the algorithms kept feeding one kind of item only.

The author has a strong point of view: owners of social media need to bear significant responsibility for this and should be held accountable. The owners, on the other hand, claim that it would be a violation of free speech. They have sometimes taken action when faced with political or social pressure, but things regressed soon after.

I think the problem manifestation is clear (people are killing people, and human beings are suffering from deep psychological issues – this is undeniable). However, the solution is equally unclear. In fact, the author does not seem to offer any elegant solution beyond suggesting that we hold social media owners responsible for what their algorithms do.

I would recommend reading this book.

By: Chris Miller

A few weeks back, when I was in Dallas, I got a chance to meet up with my friend from yesteryears – Rashmi Mathur. She has been an executive at Texas Instruments (TI) for over three decades. We were discussing the state of TI today and, in general, the state of chip manufacturing worldwide. I find her very engaging in conversation.

She encouraged me to read this book. This was a great read if any of you are interested in the science, manufacturing, or geopolitical realities of chip-making.

The ubiquitousness of the humble chip is not readily realised by us. Most everything we use today has some chips in it – from coffee maker to dishwasher to remote to some of the blinking Christmas lights I put on yesterday. Most cars have 1,000 to 3,500 chips in them. Every year, the world produces more than 1.2 trillion chips!! That is like 150 chips per man, woman, and child… every year!!

Some of the more fascinating things I learnt included the fact that TSMC has technology that can create those layers on the chips that are 2 atoms thick! Two atoms!! That is a fraction of what the coronavirus looked like.

The book takes the reader through the history of chip making and how concentrated chip manufacturers and the manufacturers of machinery (such as lithography) used by chip manufacturers are. Sometimes, there is only one or two such manufacturers.

The most absorbing part was understanding the race between China and the USA on the chip front. And how Taiwan is squarely in the middle of all this.

The only disappointing part for me is that the book, while explaining the stranglehold the USA has on certain parts of chip manufacturing (e.g. software for those machines), did not delve into how China has quietly built up a monopoly on the rare earth minerals (or rather the refineries for those minerals) that are required for chip making. And successfully used that recently to shake off some US tariff threats on the chip trading front.

Would certainly recommend this book.