Hello friends!👋
In modern times, reading books is not the only way to consume useful content. YouTube probably helps people more than books do. In my case, I often use books, YouTube, and podcasts to teach myself topics that interest me. In this post, I’m going to share some of the favorite resources I’ve found on the internet. I hope you find something useful here that levels up your game in some way. Let’s dig in!
YouTube Recommendations
I’ll share a bunch of youtube channels (in no particular order) I love with links to their page and a short description of what the content is all about.
Kurzgesagt - A channel that is famous for its beautifully animated videos on topics ranging from biology, astrophysics, and psychology to philosophy. My cousins aged 15 and 10 love this too!!
MIT OCW - MIT OpenCourseWare offers lectures from MIT in a recorded format for anyone to go through. I went through their course on Blockchain and Money taught by Gary Gensler (current SEC Chair of the US). The layout and teaching were fantastic!
Principles by Ray Dalio - Ray Dalio is a renowned hedge fund manager and author of the best-selling book - Principles. He talks about each of his principles in super-short clips and shares his views on global macro events in a digestible video format.
Y Combinator - YC needs no introduction. They have THE best videos on addressing problems related to starting up companies. Right from picking an idea to raising funds and scaling the firm to a billion $$, they’ve got it all. Their portfolio companies include Airbnb, Coinbase, Reddit, Dropbox, Razorpay, and many more.
Academy of Ideas - A channel that focuses on philosophical ideas and is heavily influenced by the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Carl Jung, and Friedrich Nietzsche. These men have done great work in the field of human psychology and the videos often dissect the ideas in a consumable format.
Bankless - Probably the best show on crypto. The hosts invite some of the best people from the ecosystem for a candid talk on the most pressing and happening issues in crypto. The videos are divided into sub-categories and released on specific days each week. Once you dig in, there’s no going back.
Tanmay Bhat - A pretty famous Youtuber from India. Some of his videos are hilarious 😂 and some are quite informative. He even runs a crypto-focused podcast with Akshay BD. Check out the ‘Channels’ section on his Youtube profile page to access all his channels on Youtube.
Naval - One of my favorite guys out there. His ideas on wealth, work, happiness, and decision making is incredibly simple yet profound. Sort his videos by ‘Most Popular’ and watch them over time. Unless you’ve already made it in life, you will find something useful in his videos.
Finematics + Whiteboard Crypto- These are the channels that got me hooked on crypto and laid out the seemingly complex topics in a simple and digestible fashion. The videos have beautiful animations and center around crypto and finance. If you’re new, must watch it!
Marques Brownlee - This dude has been making videos on tech gadgets since he was a kid and now absolutely kills it with his production and narration style. All of us look out for new phones or gadgets to buy and this guy fits right in the slot. Top-notch reviews with top-class production! It’s fun to watch his videos.
Book Recommendations
These are some of my best books in the past few years. If you choose to pick one of these, you’ll probably gain deep insights into an industry or human beings in general. In no particular order-
Skin in the Game - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The book anchors around the idea of ‘trust what they do, not what they say’. The central theme covers religion, politics, business, finance, and risk management. It has the power to change how you think once you’ve gone through this!
Thinking in Bets - Annie Duke
In our day-to-day lives, we often have to make decisions without having all the facts and information we need. This book from a Poker champion teaches how to evaluate decisions before the results are in. This can help you differentiate regret from hindsight bias!
Zero to One - Peter Thiel and Blake Masters
We live in the world of startups and who better to learn from than Peter Thiel himself. Former CEO of Paypal and current Chairman of Palantir, Peter is one of the better thinkers and doers of our time. This short book is full of contrarian ideas on how to build a monopolistic business.
The Sovereign Individual - James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Moog
A brilliant book, written in 1997 that predicts most of the cultural and technological phenomena of our times. The predictions are wild and scarily true (most; not all). The book talks about the rise of an individual and its dominance over the state in the 21st century.
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
The story of a young Indian boy who lives multiple lives during his existence in his search for enlightenment. He practices all that was preached only to find his answers from a river. This is a beautiful read and <150 pages. You might end up crying towards the end ;)
Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari
I thought history was boring until I picked this up. The book fuses history and biology like nothing you would have ever read. Did you know homo sapiens were not the only humans alive? How did humans survive the wilderness when even the mammoths perished? Do weak men create hard times and tough men create easy times? Pick this up for a fascinating journey of the homo sapien.
Antifragile - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
This is another banger from Nassim Taleb. A mind-blowing book that’ll change your thought process for sure. He talks about how things gain from disorder and why robustness is sub-optimal. From the stories of Hydra and Phoenix to the more relatable incidents of the Titanic, the book explores how humans must engage in things that make them antifragile aka ‘Seek things that won’t kill you but make you stronger.’
How to Get Rich - Felix Dennis
Britain’s famous entrepreneur from the late 20th century shares his wisdom on acquiring wealth, in a humorous and poetic way. The book cuts through all the bullshit and speaks directly to the reader. It’s an engaging read that’ll show you what it takes to get there and questions you - Do you even want to be rich?
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big - Scott Adams
This is a humor-laden book that’s guaranteed to crack you up just when you think things are getting serious. Scott walks the reader through his life and his experiments and attempts at trying a number of things and failing at most of them, yet succeeding overall in life. The simple mantra is: it’s hard to be in the top 1% in any given field but if you combine multiple skills, you can easily get into the top 1% of that combination of skills!
A Master’s Secret Whispers - Kapil Gupta
This book is written in the format of a dialogue between a teacher and his student. The teacher shares wisdom and truth about life and human suffering that is easy to read but not so easy to understand. The truth here will challenge everything you’ve known about life and society. The teachings are similar to what Jiddu Krishnamurti used to talk about. Mind-bending read!
Podcast Recommendations
I listen to only a few podcasts but they serve my purpose so gonna share those 5 with yall. I do not necessarily listen to all their episodes but only the ones where I find the guests are interesting. In no particular order-
Lex Fridman Podcast - Lex Fridman is a computer scientist from MIT and often invites intellectuals from all domains to discuss topics related to science and technology. From Vitalik Buterin to Elon Musk, you’ll find his guests come from a wide range of backgrounds that make his show a goldmine for knowledge. You’ll find his stuff on Youtube, Spotify, and other platforms.
The Joe Rogan Experience - Probably the most famous podcaster by a good measure, Joe Rogan is an actor, a comedian, a UFC commentator, and a podcaster. His guests come from all backgrounds such as politics, business, science, religion, technology, creative arts, etc. The shows are long but they are insightful provided you pick the ones you like. Available on Spotify.
The Ranveer Show - India’s best podcast in my opinion. Ranveer invites interesting people from the Indian community for a candid conversation focused on educating the masses on topics ranging from neurobiology to basic finance. His shows are available on YouTube and Spotify.
The Tim Ferriss Show - His shows have won the award for podcasts of the year multiple times and have been downloaded many times. Tim himself is a super interesting guy having authored a bunch of books that offer great hacks around work and life. Some of my favorite shows involve Chris Dixon, Nick Szabo, Vitalik Buterin, Balaji Srinivasan, and Naval Ravikant as guests. You can search for your favorite personalities and dive into the rabbit hole. The quality of questions asked is top class.
The Knowledge Project - Shane Parrish hosts some of the best thinkers and knowledge workers on his show and the insights one can derive out of it is insane. All of it is free so make sure you check this out. It’s available on Youtube and Spotify. He’s also behind the brilliant blog - Farnam Street!
These were some of my favorite books, YouTube creators, and podcasters who’ve added value to my life. I hope you found some useful content amongst these. If you know of great creators who aren’t as popular, please do share with me either directly or by linking it in the comments.
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