In the era of ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot wherein complex tasks e.g. BI dashboards operating on massive datasets, coding for foundational systems and primitives in companies of all sizes including Big Tech are being led (if not solely written) by these systems, why should a subscriber or a casual reader of this website be interested to visit? Summary of a book is just one prompt away, isn’t it?
A book summary is, the value derived from reading a book is NOT. I reason about this in 4 dimensions
- Applied knowledge. Reading books was rarely an edge among similarly motivated professionals. You can see this all around yourself, it’s the applied knowledge which helps create differentiated value in the workplace. I will continue to focus on interpreting a book through an application-specific lens
- Knowing which books to skip. In this time, you don’t need to read everything – what to skip is also important. I will be sharper in critiquing a book and help distinguish the ones can be actively avoided
- Curation. Over the next 2 years, I would also sample ~50% of all books to provide insights on how knowledge work is getting disrupted and hopefully navigate readers to increase longevity of their careers
- Inherent value of human judgement and creativity. Writing is a creative activity. When I see AI slops haranguing over dozens of pages, I sometimes miss errors, typos, unstructured thoughts, sentences which could be shorter. Don’t you?
Thank you for being here!
PS: No AI tools were used to write this post!
The Learning Curve: Interesting Readings for Product Leaders 