Reading List
Last updated: 2026-04-06 Source: Jotion V4 Media List Database (Notion)
Jack maintains an extensive reading list spanning AI, business, personal development, history, sci-fi, and technical books. He rates books 1-5 stars and tracks reading progress.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Five Stars (Exceptional)
- The Courage To Be Disliked — Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga | Improvement | Finished
- Agents in the Long Game of AI — McShane, Nirenburg, English | AI | Finished
- The Courage to Be Disliked — deeply resonant — rated highest alongside agents book
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Four Stars (Excellent)
- Billion Dollar Whale — Tom Wright &
Bradley Hope | Business | In progress (16%)
- “Jho Low is probably one of the most interesting guys I have had the honor to read”
- System Design Interview — Alex Xu | Technical | In progress (28%)
- Life 3.0 — Max Tegmark | SciFi/AI | Finished (32%)
- Models — Mark Manson | Improvement | In progress (45%)
- Deep Learning Illustrated — Krohn, Beyleveld, Bassens | AI | In progress (29%)
- Essentialism — Greg McKeown |
Personal Development | Finished (Feb 14, 2026)
- “Far too many people are focused on additive activities… this book is about being able to do less”
- 100 Page Machine Learning Book — Andriy Burkov | AI | In progress (35%)
- Grokking Deep Reinforcement Learning — Miguel Morales | AI | In progress (8%)
- Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t — Jeffrey Pfeffer | In progress (9%)
- The Rare Find — George Anders | In progress (15%)
- The Art of Strategy — Dixit & Nalebuff | In progress (9%)
- Elements of Programming Interviews in Python — Aziz, Lee, Prakash | In progress (10%)
- The Power to Compete — Mikitani & Mikitani | In progress (52%)
- Why Nations Fail — Acemoglu & Robinson | In progress (12%)
- Models: Attract Women Through Honesty — Mark Manson | In progress (45%)
⭐⭐⭐ Three Stars (Good)
- 50 Political Ideas You Really Need to Know — Ben
Dupré | History | Finished (14 chapters)
- “Good foundational overview… felt more like an encyclopedia, not too engaging”
In Progress (Unrated)
- Grokking Deep Reinforcement Learning — Miguel Morales (8%)
- Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar — Edwin G. Pulleyblank (11%) — suggests interest in classical Chinese
- Taking Charge of Adult ADHD — Russell A. Barkley (14%)
- The Art of Strategy — Dixit & Nalebuff (9%)
Patterns & Insights
Jack reads broadly but gravitates toward: 1. AI/agents — multiple books on ML, deep learning, agent theory 2. Business + power dynamics — Billion Dollar Whale, Power, Why Nations Fail, Art of Strategy 3. Personal development + psychology — Essentialism, Models, Courage to Be Disliked, ADHD 4. Technical — System Design Interview, EPI Python, ML books
The ADHD book and “Courage to Be Disliked” together suggest Jack is actively working on self-understanding and independence from external validation.