Sunday, June 22, 2025

Review of Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

This book review was written by Eugene Kernes   

Book can be found in: 
Book Club Event = Book List (06/28/2025)


Watch Short Review

Excerpts

“From the very beginning of his career, Musk was a demanding manager, contemptuous of the concept of work-life balance.  At Zip2 and every subsequent company, he drove himself relentlessly all day and through much of the night, without vacations, and he expected others to do the same.  His only indulgence was allowing breaks for intense videogame binges.” – Walter Isaacson, Chapter 10: Zip2: Palo Alto, 1995-1999, Pages 74-75


“Musk restructured the company so that there was not a separate engineering department.  Instead, engineers would team up with product managers.  It was a philosophy that he would carry through to Tesla, SpaceX, and then Twitter.  Separating the design of a product from its engineering was a recipe for dysfunction.  Designers had a corollary that worked well for rockets but less so for Twitter: engineers rather than the product managers should lead the team.” – Walter Isaacson, Chapter 12: X.com: Palo Alto, 1999-2000, Pages 91-92


“Musk was laser-focused on keeping down costs.  It was not simply because his own money was on the line, though that was a factor.  It was also because cost-effectiveness was critical for his ultimate goal, which was to colonize Mars.  He challenged the prices that aerospace suppliers charged for components, which were usually ten times higher than similar parts in the auto industry.  |  His focus on cost, as well as his natural controlling instincts, led him to want to manufacture as many components as possible in-house, rather than buy them from suppliers, which was then the standard practice in the rocket and car industries.” – Walter Isaacson, Chapter 18: Musk’s Rules for Rocket-Building: Space X, 2002-2003, Page 129


Review

Is This An Overview?

Elon Musk is a brilliant visionary with an aptitude for hardware and software, but Elon is someone difficult to work with.  Does not like sharing power, and does not accept no as an appropriate response.  During childhood, Elon went through physical and emotional turmoil.  Becoming callous and impulsive.  Elon can be intimidating.  Elon potentially has Asperger’s, given the lack of social skills, emotional connectivity, and self-regulation.  Elon is frank with people, which does not endear Elon to others.  But Elon does not think that managers need to endear themselves to others, that endearment would be counterproductive for a manager.  Elon loves to argue, and is drawn to chaos.  Stability and contentment are not acceptable.  Rather than mitigate risk, Elon seeks risk out.

 

Elon Musk is a demanding manager, who instills a constant sense of urgency.  A relentless work effort during the day and night.  Elon expects others to do the same.  A work ethic that can inspire, but also demoralize.  Leisure is rare, with videogames being an accepted indulgence.  Teams are formed to enable people from different production aspects to work together, rather than separately.  A system in which engineers and designers work together, and gain immediate feedback on how their ideas affect the product and manufacturing capacity. 

 

Elon has a production algorithm for what everyone working needs to consider.  The algorithm asks to question requirements, delete anything unnecessary, simplify, accelerate cycle time, then automate.  Rather than rely on established requirements, everything needed to be experimented and tested.  To experiment as much and fast as possible to quickly find the problems that needed to be resolved.  Sometimes finding that the requirements had good reasons and were costly to test, and sometimes taking the risk improved the product. 

 

To achieve long term goals, Elon needed to keep costs down as much as possible.  Rather than outsource components, Elon decided to manufacture components in-house when the market price of the components was high.  Deleting as much as possible from the product.  With the claim that if at least 10% of the deleted parts were not brought back, then not enough was deleted.  Cutting costs has enabled product improvements, but sometimes cost cutting came at the expense of safety. 

 

Caveats?

This biography covers a range of sensitive topics.  From personal to the different companies.  Sharing a person who is complex, and has complex views.  From how Elon’s personality can motivate, but also cause harm.  Setting up the narrative for the reader to make their own decision on what to think of Elon Musk.  


Questions to Consider while Reading the Book

•What is the raison d’etre of the book?  For what purpose did the author write the book?  Why do people read this book?
•What are some limitations of the book?
•To whom would you suggest this book?
•Who is Elon Musk?
•How does Elon respond to fear?
•How does Elon respond to contentment? 
•Does Elon have Asperger’s?
•How did Elon learn the difference between what people said and meant? 
•Was Elon interested or hardware or software? 
•What does Elon think of technological progress? 
•What did Elon learn at Zip2?
•What happened between Zip2 and PayPal?
•Why SpaceX?
•What is America’s approach to space?
•What happened to the NASA’s cost-plus contracts? 
•What happened at Kwaj?
•What was the space race? 
•What is Starlink?
•Why Tesla? 
•Was Tesla bailed out by the government? 
•What is Tesla’s self-driving approach? 
•What happened with the SEC?
•What was the approach with China? 
•What was Tesla’s approach to vehicle accidences?
•Why Neuralink? 
•What does Elon think of Artificial Intelligence? 
•Why SolarCity?
•Why The Boring Company? 
•Why Twitter / X?
•How did Elon effect content moderation? 
•What does Elon think of psychological safety?
•What was Twitter’s political bias? 
•What is Elon’s management style?
•What is The Algorithm? 
•Is being a tough and cruel needed to innovate?
•What was Elon’s approach to engineers and product designers? 
•What is Elon’s approach to risk? 
•What is Elon’s approach to costs? 
•What is Elon’s approach to deadlines?
•What is Elon’s approach to experimentation? 
•What did Elon think of rules?
•What is Elon’s approach to automation? 
•What is Elon’s approach to feedback?
•What material does Elon favor? 
•What does Elon think of woke? 
•What were Elon’s inspirational sources?
•How did Elon effect Ukraine? 
•What does Elon think of Bill Gates?
•What is reddskool?
•How did Kimbal Musk affect Elon?
•How did Maye Musk affect Elon?
•How did Errol Musk affect Elon?
•How did Elon behave in relationships?
•What was Elon’s relationship with Justine?
•What was Elon’s relationship with Talulah?
•What was Elon’s relationship with Amber Heard?
•What was Elon’s relationship with Grimes?
•What happened to Elon’s children? 
•What happened after the Rio vacation in 2001? 

Book Details
Publisher:               Simon & Schuster
Edition ISBN:         9781982181307
Pages to read:          686
Publication:             2023
1st Edition:              2023
Format:                    eBook 

Ratings out of 5:
Readability    5
Content          4
Overall          5







Friday, May 9, 2025

Review of The Schopenhauer Cure: A Novel by Irvin D. Yalom

This book review was written by Eugene Kernes   

Book can be found in: 
Genre = Novel
Book Club Event = Book List (07/26/2025)
Intriguing Connections = 1) Why Conflict Occurs And How To Resolve Them?


Watch Short Review

Excerpts

“But even more intriguing was the riddle of why he chose to revisit Philip.  Of all his old patients, why choose Philip to lift out of deep memory storage?  Was it simply because his therapy had been so dismally unsuccessful?  Surely there was more to it than that.  After all, there were many other patients he had not helped.  But most of the faces and names of the failures had vanished without a trace.  Maybe it was because most of his failures dropped out of therapy quickly; Philip was an unusual failure in that he had continued to come.  God, how he continued!  For three frustrating years he never a missed session.  Never late, not one minute – too cheap to waste any paid time.  And then one day, without warning, a simple and irrevocable announcement at the end of an hour that this was his last session.” – Irvin Yalom, Chapter 3, Page 29


“”There’s no true contradiction,” Philip replied instantaneously.  “One can be a competent therapist and supervisor even though one fails with a particular patient.  Research shows that therapy, in any hands, is unsuccessful for about a third of patients.  Besides, there’s no doubt I played a significant role in the failure – my stubbornness, my rigidity.  Your only error was to choose the wrong type of therapy for me and then persist in it far too long.  However, I’m not incognizant of your effort, even your interest, in helping me.“” – Irvin Yalom, Chapter 9, Page 67


“Gill, you’re not going to like my answer.  But here it is.  I can’t tell you what to do: that’s your job, your decision, not mine.  One reason you’re here in this group is to learn to trust your own judgment.  Another reason is that everything I know about Rose and your marriage has come to me through you.  And you can’t avoid giving me biased information.  What I can do is help you focus on how you contribute to your life predicament.  We can’t understand or change Rose; it’s you – your feelings, your behavior – that’s what counts here because that’s what you can change.” – Irvin Yalom, Chapter 11, Page 90


Review

Is This An Overview?

Julius is a therapist who received a grave diagnosis.  Having at best one year of health left, Julius evaluates one’s life.  Evaluates whether Julius was an effective therapist.  Although there were those who improved with the guidance of Julius, there were those who Julius could not help.  One person in specific, Philip, was the worst of Julius’s failures.  Julius could not help Philip even after spending years in therapy.  Wanting feedback, connects with Philip who seems to have been transformed.  Philip confirms that Julius’s therapy did not help, but that the transformation was caused through the philosophy of Schopenhauer. 

 

Phillip believes that Schopenhauer’s philosophy can also provide comfort for Julius’s metal state.  Julius wants to consider Schopenhauer, while Philip needs professional supervision hours to become licensed.  They make a contract that Julius will supervise Philip, and Philip will provide guidance on Schopenhauer to Julius, under the condition that Philip first attend Julius’s group therapy sessions.  The reason for the condition, is that Julius cannot accept Philip’s impersonal methods of therapy.  Can Julius’s group therapy help Philip or is Philip’s Schopenhauer cure the better type of therapy?

 

Caveats?

This book relies on psychology and philosophy.  No background knowledge of the fields is required, but interest in those topics depends on the reader.  Most of the book takes place in the therapy group, the discussions that the group has.  The experience and effectiveness of group therapy can differ for everyone.


Questions to Consider while Reading the Book

•What is the raison d’etre of the book?  For what purpose did the author write the book?  Why do people read this book?
•What are some limitations of the book?
•To whom would you suggest this book?
•Who is Julius?
•What is happening to Julius?
•What kind of therapist is Julius?
•How does Julius change during the year?
•Why did Julius contact Philip?
•What are the guidelines to group therapy?
•Who is Philip?
•What did Philip think of the three years of therapy with Julius? 
•What did Philip’s students think of the lectures? 
•What is Philip’s behavior problems?
•What kind of therapist does Philip want to become?
•Why is Philip interested in Schopenhauer?
•What is the Schopenhauer cure?
•Who did Schopenhauer influence? 
•What was the relationship between Schopenhauer and Schopenhauer’s mother Johanna?
•Wha are the advantages and consequences of attachment and detachment? 
•What advice does Schopenhauer give? 
•Who is Gill and what are Gill’s behavioral problems?
•Who is Tony and what are Tony’s behavioral problems?
•Who is Bonnie and what are Bonnie’s behavioral problems?
•Who is Rebecca and what are Rebecca’s behavioral problems?
•Who is Pam and what are Pam’s behavioral problems?
•What are the relationships between the group members?
•What does the group think of Julius’ year?
•What does Buddhism offer? 

Book Details
Publisher:               HarperCollins Publishers
Edition ISBN:         9780061840883
Pages to read:          351
Publication:             2009
1st Edition:              2005
Format:                    eBook 

Ratings out of 5:
Readability    5
Content          5
Overall          5






Monday, May 5, 2025

Review of Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness by Steve Magness

This book review was written by Eugene Kernes   

Book can be found in: 
Book Club Event = Book List (06/21/2025)


Watch Short Review

Excerpts

“Regardless of whether it’s on the sporting field, in the classroom, or in the boardroom, strength and resilience don’t come from blindly powering through adversity or pretending that punishing ourselves yields results.  Instead, real toughness is experiencing discomfort or distress, leaning in, paying attention, and creating space to take thoughtful action.  It’s maintaining a clear head to be able to make the appropriate decision.  Toughness is navigating discomfort to make the best decision you can.  And research shows that this model of toughness is more effective at getting results than the old one.” – Steve Magness, Chapter 1: From Tough Coaches, Tough Parents, and Tough Guys to Finding Real Inner Strength, Pages 14-15


“Real toughness is about providing the tool set to handle adversity.  It’s teaching.  Fake toughness creates fragility, responding out of fear, suppressing what we feel, and attempting to press onward no matter the situation or demands.  Real toughness pushes us to work with our body and mind instead of against them.  To face the reality of the situation and what we can do about it, to use feedback as information to guide us, to accept the emotions and thoughts that come into play, and to develop a flexible array of ways to respond to a challenge.  Toughness is having the space to make the right choice under discomfort.” – Steve Magness, Chapter 1: From Tough Coaches, Tough Parents, and Tough Guys to Finding Real Inner Strength, Page 17


“False confidence helps in situations where we largely don’t need an extra boost.  Faking it works on easy tasks, where the challenge is low and a bit of extra motivation is needed to get you started.  In the workplace, research shows false confidence can fool those who are uninformed on a subject, but those with even a moderate understanding of the topic will sniff out your lack of acumen.  In situations that demand toughness, false confidence largely fails.  Outer confidence is fragile, falling away when pressure or uncertainty arises.  A secure inner confidence is robust.  While we envision tough competitors and executives as having an unshakable belief in themselves, the reality is that the best way to be prepared for a challenge isn’t bravado but tragic optimism, a sense of reality in the short run but hope over the long haul.” – Steve Magness, Chapter 4: True Confidence Is Quiet; Insecurity Is Loud, Page 68


Review

Is This An Overview?

Being tough is culturally perceived by a lack of fear, emotions, and vulnerabilities.  Being tough means being callous.  Creating a variety of toxic behaviors that were excused for being portrayed as what tough people do.  Cruel training methods were used to develop this version of toughness, but had negative consequences.  Rather than build toughness, the cruel training methods sorted those who were or were not tough, but they failed at sorting.  Those who left did tough activities while those who stayed became more physically and mentally fragile.  Cruel training methods taught people to respond to external motivation of fear and power, to avoid being punished.

 

The perceived toughness is fragile, for the individuals tend to lose their emotional control, confuse power for respect, and take their frustrations and insecurities out on others rather than deal with their frustrations.  Real toughness is about having equanimity when facing adversity.  Real toughness is being able endure adversity with thoughtful action, rather than blindly powering through the adversity.  Those who are really tough keep their focus, embrace challenges, recover from errors, persevere, and are intrinsically motivated.  They use their emotions for feedback to guide behavior, as feelings provide valuable information to make better decisions.  They set appropriate expectations about their capacity to cope with a challenge, by embracing reality rather than being deluded by false confidence.

 

Caveats?

This book is filled with examples of the various types of toughness, and methods to develop toughness.  Interest in the examples depends on the reader.  


Questions to Consider while Reading the Book

•What is the raison d’etre of the book?  For what purpose did the author write the book?  Why do people read this book?
•What are some limitations of the book?
•To whom would you suggest this book?
•What does it mean to be tough?
•How does being tough effect sports?
•How does being tough effect how a child develops?
•How tough are the people who are trained through authoritarian methods?  
•What happened to people who are punished into becoming better, when they are not being punished? 
•Who are the Junction Boys?
•Can cruel training methods build toughness? 
•What is dissociation? 
•How do soldiers build toughness? 
•What does it mean to believe in yourself?
•How does confidence effect coping with a situation?
•What happened to the self-esteem research and how did that research effect society? 
•How does self-worth effect a person’s mental health? 
•When does faking confidence work? 
•What is give-up-it is and how does it effect society? 
•How does a sense of control effect mental health? 
•How do emotions effect thinking and behavior?
•Why is being alone a skill?

Book Details
Edition:                   First Edition
Publisher:               HarperOne [HarperCollins Publishers]
Edition ISBN:         9780063098633
Pages to read:          216
Publication:             2022
1st Edition:              2022
Format:                    eBook 

Ratings out of 5:
Readability    5
Content          5
Overall          5






Thursday, May 1, 2025

Review of An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence by Zeinab Badawi

This book review was written by Eugene Kernes   

Book can be found in: 
Book Club Event = Book List (09/20/2025)


Watch Short Review

Excerpts

“Africa is where it all began for us modern humans.  We should be united by our shared beginning in a way that enables us to look beyond race, to a time when such differences did not exist.  When one examines the long history of humankind, it becomes apparent that racial differentiation is a relatively recent occurrence; genetics present us with facts that are at odds with the cultural construct of racism.” – Zeinab Badawi, Chapter 1: Our Family and Other Hominins, Page 7


“The trade had an immeasurably detrimental impact on Africa.  It fuelled conflicts between communities and gave victors the opportunity to sell those whom they defeated; this meant that communities became suspicious of one another, conflict became endemic and people increasingly looked to their own ethnic group for protection, leading to the atomization and polarization of African societies.” – Zeinab Badawi, Chapter 14: Slavery and Salvation, Page 338


“However, contrary to popular belief, independence was won mostly through peaceful and organized mass resistance, demonstrations, strikes and political rallies.  Countries that gained independence through the power of protest, Ghana for instance, went to enjoy better levels of democracy than those forced to do so through armed rebellions like Algeria, where violence was used as a form of political dissent.” – Zeinab Badawi, Chapter 17: Africa’s Resistance and Liberation, Page 422


Review

Is This An Overview?

Humankind began in Africa, before migrating everywhere.  The story of Africa has often been told by foreign powers, that improve their perception of events at the expense of Africa.  This book is a counternarrative to the foreign power narratives.  This is a history represented by the people of Africa.  A history that represents the variety of societies that developed across the African continent.  The methods that states used to gain sovereignty, and how their sovereignty was lost.  The internal and external power struggles.  The different religious practices, and the ways religion effected societies.  The significant building projects and influential ideas.  When Africa was used for a supply of labor, the slave trade precipitated in conflicts as each community became suspicious of other communities for the victors sold the defeated.  Social disfunction fragmented economic activity and inhibited state development.  The end of slavery transitioned into exploitation of the various resources found in Africa.

 

Caveats?

This book covers a lengthy history of Africa, a history of many different African people, cultures, and states.  This book acts as an introduction to the societies, as there is not much information on each society.  To understand each society would require more research.  


Questions to Consider while Reading the Book

•What is the raison d’etre of the book?  For what purpose did the author write the book?  Why do people read this book?
•What are some limitations of the book?
•To whom would you suggest this book?
•How is the story of Africa usually told?
•Why is Africa where humanity began? 
•How does humanity’s history effect race? 
•What were the Kung of Botswana cultural attributes? 
•Who was Queen of Sheba?
•Who was St. Augustine? 
•What were African religious beliefs? 
•How did slavery effect Africa? 
•Should the treasures of Africa be returned?
•Should there be Reparations? 
•How did African states gain independence and what were the outcomes? 
•What happened in Aksum [Kingdom of Aksum]?
•What happened to the Amazigh [Berbers]?
•What happened in the Asante Kingdom?
•What happened in the Benin Kingdom?
•What happened in the Congo [Republic of the Congo]?
•What happened in Egypt?
•Who built the pyramids? 
•What happened in Ethiopia?
•What happened in the Ghana Empire?
•What happened in Great Zimbabwe?
•What happened in Kush [Kingdom of Kush]?
•What happened in Mali?
•What happened in Morocco?
•What happened in Mutapa Kingdom [Monomotapa]?
•What happened in Rwanda?
•What happened in Rozvi?
•What happened in Songhay Empire?
•What happened in Swahili?
•What happened in Zulu?

Book Details
Edition:                   First US Edition
Publisher:               HarperCollins Publishers
Edition ISBN:         9780063335417
Pages to read:          463
Publication:             2024
1st Edition:              2024
Format:                    Hardcover

Ratings out of 5:
Readability    5
Content          4
Overall          4








Sunday, April 27, 2025

Review of Understanding Knowledge by Michael Huemer

This book review was written by Eugene Kernes   

Book can be found in: 
Book Club Event = Book List (07/12/2025)
Intriguing Connections = 1) The Style of Math, 2) What Makes Science A Science?,


Watch Short Review

Excerpts

“Trying to produce a system of knowledge about some subject matter by reasoning from first principles, without relying on judgments about cases, is like trying to design a new airplane based on theoretical physics, without knowing details about any actual airplanes. Your system is almost certainly going to fail in some major way.  If it’s a philosophical system, though, there’s a good chance that you won’t recognize that it failed, because there won’t be any decisive empirical test as there is in the case of an airplane, so when someone points out the problems with your theory, you can come up with rationalizations to keep holding on to it. That has happened to many, perhaps the vast majority of, philosophers throughout history.” – Michael Huemer, Chapter 7: Taxonomy and Paradigms of Knowledge, Page 127 


“But observation never gives us normative information. Observation only tells us what is, not what ought to be. You can’t see, hear, taste, touch, or smell justification. Normative propositions also can’t be inferred from descriptive information alone—you can’t figure out what ought to be solely on the basis of what is. Therefore, empiricism itself cannot be justified on the basis of observation.” – Michael Huemer, Chapter 10: Puer Reason, Page 171

 

“Disagreement poses a practical problem for a few reasons. It directly causes social tension; it causes partisans of different views to waste resources trying to defeat each other; and, perhaps most importantly, it likely results in our making bad decisions since we do not know what the right decisions are. Or perhaps more precisely, the unreliability of our ways of forming beliefs causes disagreement and also causes bad decisions. Unfortunately, it is precisely on certain kinds of practical questions (politics and morality) that we are most likely to disagree.” – Michael Huemer, Chapter 17: Irrationality, Page 324


Review

Is This An Overview?

Epistemology are the methods by which beliefs are justified, the underlying thinking behind decision making.  All statements contain implied knowledge claims, with epistemology the study of that knowledge.  Knowledge that needs to be justified by rational beliefs, formed by a probabilistic account of evidence.  Which requires the individual to want to pursue truth and avoid errors.  There are many views of what is knowledge, and what are justified beliefs, but each has their own logical limitations. 

 

Belief systems can be internally coherent, but not externally valid.  Theoretic knowledge of principles needs to be tested by experience to be useful, as there can be missed information within the theoretic knowledge.  Most knowledge is obtained through other people’s testimonies.  Accumulated information that would be potentially impossible for anyone to verify all the knowledge in their lifetime.  Testimonies are a crucial source of knowledge, but cannot be trusted as they can confirm biases rather than understand reality.  Even knowledge that is obtained and used by the individual requires cognitive faculties, but the faculties have their own limitations. 

 

Caveats?

This book is a guide to epistemology topics and ideas, which uses a lot of jargon.  A reference book for those taking a course in epistemology, or for professional epistemologists. 

 

The methodology of the book is not tailored to facilitate improving decision making.  Rather the book is meant to find the logical limitations to claims.  Epistemology is supposed to be a study of knowledge, but as the author notes, epistemologists do not have an accepted and working definition of knowledge, as each attempted definition has logical limitations.  Neither knowledge nor any obtained belief can be proven, not even if someone is not a brain in a vat.   


Questions to Consider while Reading the Book

•What is the raison d’etre of the book?  For what purpose did the author write the book?  Why do people read this book?
•What are some limitations of the book?
•To whom would you suggest this book?
•What is epistemology? 
•What is a proposition?
•Is a proposition a belief?  
•What are the characteristics of an argument?  
•What is knowledge? 
•What are justifications?
•What is the Gettier’s refutation?
•What is reliabilism? 
•Should people define their terms?
•What are the structures of knowledge? 
•What coherence theory of justification? 
•What is skepticism?  What are the types of skepticism? 
•What is foundationalism? 
•What is meta-knowledge? 
•How does cognitive faculties effect knowledge? 
•What is inferential knowledge? 
•What is empirical knowledge?
•What is a priori knowledge? 
•What happens to failed philosophical knowledge? 
•What do observations provide? 
•What is Bayesian analysis? 
•What is “Nullius in verba”?
•What is the effect of disagreement? 

Book Details
Publisher:               Amazon
Edition ISBN:         B0C5VBNCXW
Pages to read:          386
Publication:             2023
1st Edition:              2023
Format:                    eBook 

Ratings out of 5:
Readability    2
Content          2
Overall          1