Summer Musings: What I Read (and Listened To)

This summer I finally solved something I've circled for years: how to actually read more. The unlock was mundane — some down time, and a library card. Copenhagen Kommune's library gave me free access to a wide range of books and audiobooks. The English selection was thinner than I'd hoped, but I still found four books worth writing about.

Chip War was the standout, and a strikingly relevant read for right now. I already knew about Moore's Law; I hadn't appreciated how improbable it was to keep alive, or the handful of people across the US, East Asia, and Europe who kept pushing that "impossible" forward. What stuck with me most, though, was watching how the industry's people moved. Intel was born because a group at Fairchild wanted something different — not unlike the Anthropic/OpenAI story today. Both cases point to the same thing: innovation isn't just about capital or talent, it's about a group of people who share both the vision and the conviction on how to get there. I think that's often where big R&D efforts actually fail — not for lack of money or smart people, but for lack of alignment on the path forward. And as these companies scaled, their leadership shifted from technical founders to business managers, which quietly changed what they optimized for. I still believe fiscal discipline is what lets a company scale, but technical depth is what actually transforms it.

Then I needed a palate cleanser, and stumbled into Magpie Murders while hunting for an English audiobook. I wasn't expecting much and couldn't put it down — tight plotting, real character work, and just enough simplicity to make it a pure pleasure. I'm already hoping the library picks up the sequel (please, Copenhagen Kommune).

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck had been on my list forever without ever quite making the cut — until a long train ride to Gothenburg and back gave me the time to finish it in a day. It gave me a lot to think about, especially in how I choose the problems I want to solve, and which ones are actually worth solving. I've often imagined success for myself, but rarely reflected on how much pain I'm willing to go through to get there. It reminded me of training for my first half marathon — the first 10k always felt good, but the next 10 was where it hurt, where my body didn't want to get out of bed. I pushed through anyway, and it was unpleasant, but entirely worth it. That's the kind of reflection this book prompted, and there's more to unpack — it deserves its own post, coming soon.

Finally, Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari, which I've already written about separately: Lessons from Nexus.

It's been a genuinely good summer of reading, and I'm looking forward to keeping the habit going as the year progresses. Let me know where you'd want more — happy to go deeper on any of these.