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On April 20, 1939, Ferdinand Porsche gifted the first finished Volkswagen, a black Beetle convertible, to a delighted Hitler at the führer’s fiftieth-birthday party in Berlin. Göring received the second, and Goebbels the fourth. The
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“Back in another untroubled summer, that of 1870, the British foreign secretary Lord Granville, gazing up from Whitehall, could detect “not a cloud in the sky.” Yet a month later, Europe would be torn asunder by the Franco-Prussian War, marking the end of a century of Pax Britannica and all its optimistic assumptions.”
― Hubris: The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century
― Hubris: The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century
“Back in 1921 Veblen had predicted that engineers would one day rule the U.S. economy. He argued that since the economy was premised on technology and the engineers were the only ones who actually understood how the technology worked, they would inevitably use their superior knowledge to seize power from the financiers and captains of industry who wound up on top at the end of the first round of the Industrial Revolution.”
― The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story
― The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story
“I think there are probably too many smart people pursuing Internet stuff, finance, and law,” Musk said on the way. “That is part of the reason why we haven’t seen as much innovation.”
― Elon Musk: Inventing the Future
― Elon Musk: Inventing the Future
“In the years that followed, the goal went from taking huge risks to create new industries and grand new ideas, to chasing easier money by entertaining consumers and pumping out simple apps and advertisements. “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,” Jeff Hammerbacher, an early Facebook engineer, told me. “That sucks.” Silicon Valley began to look an awful lot like Hollywood.”
― Elon Musk: Inventing the Future
― Elon Musk: Inventing the Future
“Warren Weaver is not a household name, but he may be the most influential scientist you’ve never heard of, actively shaping three of the most important scientific revolutions of the last century—life sciences, information technology, and agriculture. In 1932 Weaver joined the Rockefeller Foundation to lead the division charged with supporting scientific research. Funding was scarce during the Great Depression, and the Rockefeller Foundation, with an endowment nearly twice the size of Harvard’s at the time, was one of the most important patrons of scientific research in the world. Over his three decades at the Rockefeller Foundation, Weaver acted as a banker, talent scout, and kingmaker to support the nascent field of molecular biology, a term he himself coined. Weaver had an uncanny knack for picking future all-stars. Eighteen scientists won Nobel Prizes for research related to molecular biology in the middle of the century, and Weaver had funded all but three of them.”
― Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World
― Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World
Daniel’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Daniel’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
244 books
|
37 friends
204 books
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151 friends
63 books
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41 friends
366 books
|
491 friends
2 books
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108 friends
27 books
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177 friends
9 books
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9 friends
2 books
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31 friends
More friends…
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