Zero to One

I just finished reading Peter Thiel's book, Zero to One.  Overall I found it to be a unique point of view about startups, where new many new technologies are created.

While I felt his comments about Ayn Rand show a misunderstanding of her philosophy, I do believe Thiel's overall philosophical views are solid.  I share his perspective, that they way to fix many of our world problems is through innovation and invention.  Successive technologies that improve performance of existing technologies by 10X or better will be the path to human success.

The figures on new job growth and venture capital are staggering.

Big Data for Everyone

Interested in getting started with Big Data? Don't have a Hadoop cluster or Data Science team? 

Some very cool data science capabilities are available in preview from Microsoft:
http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/machine-learning/

Also - there is a great book by Microsoft to get you started on it: 
http://www.amazon.com/Predictive-Analytics-Microsoft-Machine-Learning/dp/1484204468

Pluggable science technology with the full power of Hadoop and the R programming language!  It would have been great to have this when I was in Statistics graduate school.

Book Review: Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World by George Gilder

I read a great book recently that re-energized me and reminded me of where our economic growth comes from.  It reminded me of my favorite author, Ayn Rand, and her philosophy.  Atlas Shrugged is my favorite book.

George Gilder's "Knowledge and Power" is a great read.  Yes, he lost me in a few places, but he also connects many "new" dots together.  The concepts of Information Theory, and how that affects our economy, are superb.   The concept of knowledge as surprise, and how the stock market and SOX are "protecting" us from information, and therefore making the market unstable, are clear.

Our country is in a deep hole right now.  Sadly, most of our citizens lack an understanding of where our economic growth comes from.  We cannot spend our way into a better economy.


Forced income equality is economic destruction.  For some reason, this topic has become very "loud" lately.  "Atlas Shrugged" should be required reading for everyone in the USA.  Our economic system is capitalism, and we need to be reminded of what will happen if we forget the basics.  The basics are that we need a system where investments go to ideas that make our lives better.  People like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have made the world a better place, and deserve the incomes they earn.  They have devoted their lives to the betterment of mankind.


I will follow up on another book I am reading with Ayn Rand overtones.  Please read Gilder.  It is worth your time.