Balaji Srinivasan is an influential entrepreneur and investor in technology and cryptocurrency. He co-founded companies such as Counsyl and Earn.com and played a great role in the advocacy of blockchain technology and decentralized platforms (CTO of Coinbase).
High Output Management
The Changing World Order
The Great Influenza
Balaji SrinivasansourceFour books on the Spanish Flu [one of them]
Indistractable
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1
Only the Paranoid Survive
Balaji SrinivasansourceWe’ve all read Grove. Only the paranoid survive
The Fourth Turning
Who We Are and How We Got Here
AI Superpowers
Balaji SrinivasansourceI initially thought it'd be a pop overview of AI. But it's actually a history of the Chinese tech ecosystem. Many of his takes on speed of execution & innovation have now proven out
Rules for Radicals
Pale Rider
Balaji SrinivasansourceFour books on the Spanish Flu [one of them]
Start-Up Nation
Balaji SrinivasansourceI love @dansenor 's book! But I think we are going to see this trend accelerate. Just like there were Palm Pilots in 2000, but iPhones were bigger in 2010 and huge in 2020
How Innovation Works
The Sovereign Individual
The Internet of Money
The Great CEO Within
Balaji Srinivasansource@brian_armstrong and I used parts of this at Coinbase and @naval has used this at several of his companies. We found it helpful!
The Kill Chain
Balaji SrinivasansourceThe US military has a perfect record in its war games with China. China has won every round
The Forgotten Man
Balaji SrinivasansourceI agree that those pressures were present. I find books like this useful as an alternate perspective on the era
Hate Inc.
Balaji SrinivasansourceSee also @mtaibbi’s book Hate Inc.
The Knowledge
Balaji SrinivasansourceI agree with you generally. I do think however that autarky-as-backup-plan may come into vogue. Not the same standard of living as free trade, but not zero either in a supply chain disruption situation. It’s not easy but may be easier than people think
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 2
Flu
Balaji SrinivasansourceFour books on the Spanish Flu [one of them]
End the Fed
Balaji SrinivasansourceRon Paul was to Bitcoin what Andrew Yang is to startup societies. Mainstreams ideas, prepares the ideological battlefield
The Cold Start Problem
Balaji SrinivasansourceUseful for anyone trying to bootstrap a new community or network, which is virtually every founder these days
The Man Who Knew Infinity
Pandemic 1918
Balaji SrinivasansourceFour books on the Spanish Flu [one of them]
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3
Stalin's War
Balaji SrinivasansourceSean McMeekin's latest tour-de-force makes a strong case that Stalin should be thought of as the main actor in WW2 — not Hitler or the US
Has China Won?
Balaji SrinivasansourceOne perspective is from @mahbubani_k, Singapore's former UN ambassador. One may have to set aside ego to read it, but it floats a different approach: avoid war, accept that China is rising, renegotiate the order
From Third World to First
Balaji SrinivasansourceI agree with the core point that “assume a well-run state” is a tremendous assumption
Innumeracy
The Gray Lady Winked
Balaji SrinivasansourceI put it up there with the top five books I recommend
The Internet of Money Volume 2
The Little Bitcoin Book
Balaji SrinivasansourceThe Little Bitcoin Book was written in a few days by N people, one chapter each, and then published on Amazon
Catching Fire
The Craft
Balaji SrinivasansourceAnyone working on NFT collections should understand the history of the Freemasons. Many of their rituals could be usefully updated for the digital era. With modern technology, could feel like real magic
Seeing like a State
Balaji SrinivasansourceIf you read Seeing Like a State, there’s a sense in which the term “real name” is a misnomer. A better term is a state name — a name which makes you legible to the state
The Journalist and the Murderer
Balaji SrinivasansourceThe book is short and well worth reading. Presages much of today’s train crash on social media
Bad News
Balaji SrinivasansourceSee also @bungarsargon ’s recent book Bad News
Netflixed
Balaji SrinivasansourceWhat actually happened: Blockbuster tried to buy Hollywood Video, but the FTC called this off on antitrust (!) grounds. By 2010 Blockbuster was bankrupt and Netflix was soaring. In retrospect, state action was completely rearward looking and unnecessary
Three Felonies A Day
The Princeton Companion to Mathematics
Balaji SrinivasansourceThe desert island book. So good
The Future Is Asian
Balaji SrinivasansourceThe American century is ending. The Asian century is beginning
War and Peace and War
Working in Public
Balaji SrinivasansourceThis is now out on Kindle for $10. Nadia is very smart and it’s worth reading anything she writes on open source
How the Internet Happened
Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution
The Truth Machine
Balaji SrinivasansourceMore and more frequently, I point people to @paulvigna and @mikejcasey ’s book for an accessible explanation of how blockchains allow us to establish certain kinds of truths even in adversarial environments
The Internet of Money Volume 3
The House of Government
Deep Learning: A Visual Approach
Balaji SrinivasansourceI’d seen Anscombe’s quartet many times before, but was reminded of it when flipping through this fun new book on deep learning. It intentionally eschews equations, but has nice visuals like this one on conditional probability
A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations
Visual Complex Analysis
Where Is My Flying Car?
Balaji SrinivasansourceDon't judge this self-published book by its cover, just read it
Physics for Scientists and Engineers
Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler
Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital
My Brother Ron
Physics from Finance
Balaji SrinivasansourceThis author’s work is a lot of fun. Not exactly art, but novel approach with a lot of visual inspiration
Merchants of Truth
Balaji SrinivasansourceJill Abramson, former editor of the New York Times, on how business imperatives and pageviews drove the editorial process
History Has Begun
Balaji SrinivasansourceBruno’s thesis is that America is increasingly becoming a virtual society, focused on make-believe above all
The Great Wave
Balaji SrinivasansourceGold from the Americas did flood Europe in the 1500s, which helped cause inflation
China Coup
Balaji SrinivasansourceThere’s another 1st round KO possibility, which I mention for the sake of completeness. Garside’s book “China Coup” makes the case that Xi could be felled by his internal enemies (possible!) and that this will lead to democratization (IMO implausible)
Frisco Kid
Balaji SrinivasansourceIf only Jack London’s Frisco was still au courant as a term for SF, this would be slightly more catchy
Test-Driven Development with Python
Virtual Economies
Balaji SrinivasansourceAnother major area of experimental macroeconomics prior to cryptoeconomics was the virtual economies work by Edward Castronova et al, studying World of Warcraft and the like. A good read for crypto people
UFO Hunters
Balaji SrinivasansourceThe 2nd is the Tinley Park Lights. Crucially, this wasn't just a mass sighting. Different people actually caught a UFO on camera from multiple angles
Unelected Power
Balaji SrinivasansourceDecent book — by a central banker! — on the lack of legitimacy of central banking and the regulatory state writ large. It's from 2018, before the most recent spate of money printing, and assumes reform will come from within. But it recognizes the problem
The Man Who Invented Fidel
Balaji Srinivasansource[NYT reporter Herbert Matthews’] heroic portrayal of Castro, who was then believed dead, had a powerful effect on American perceptions of Cuba, both in and out of the government, and profoundly influenced the fall of the Batista regime
The Nature of Mathematical Modeling
Visual Complex Functions
One Thousand Exercises in Probability
Schaum's Outline of Principles of Accounting I
Reputation and Power
Best books recommended by Balaji Srinivasan (updated 2024) – must-read for entrepreneurs, technology geeks and crypto-enthusiasts.