4 Nonfiction books you should read in 2021

one of the things i love doing the most is reading non-fiction books that wow my mind away books that not only change how i think about the world and how i do what i do but also that surprised me with an interesting insight that i didn't know before watching book recommendations and reusing youtube is something that i enjoy doing a lot however for some reason it's kind of difficult for me to find enough content on general nonfiction topics so that is why i decided to start this channel hi everybody my name is andres welcome and thank you for coming to this first video of my channel in this channel i mostly expect to be discussing and recommending books that i read about startups innovation in general human behavior design the science behind different things about our world history leadership what not so long as the book brings to the table a powerful unique and interesting insight about something it's in now to inaugurate this channel i want to share with you four books that i've read that blew my mind away two of them are very recent and very popular and the other two i consider them to be hidden gems anyways if you like this video and you want to see more don't forget to subscribe but especially don't forget to leave me your comments and feedback in the comment section below let's get started okay guys so the first book i want to show you is from brandon stalin and it is called humans in one sentence i would say that this book is a master class in empathy this book is a collection of many powerful short stories about experiences and situations that ordinary people from different parts of the world have lived in the past or that they're going through today and it goes out to show us what life really looks like to the average human being regardless of borders now humans is an expansion of brandon's humans of new york project it's a world version you've got stories not only from new york but also from paris hong kong santiago amsterdam buenos aires berlin what i realized is that brandon became a master in his corner of the matrix we call life which is stopping random strangers in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the street and then he manages to make these people open up and share the most deepest and intimate stories of their lives now why would i recommend you to read this book not only because i have a weakness for physical books and this happens to be quite a beautiful one but because as you go you will not only read but you will get to feel what empathy is all about you will get to read a story about love luck or success and then suddenly jump into a story about struggle and that can be in the form of drug addiction abandonment or even the story of a genocide survivor now there are so many takeaways we can get from this book and this will vary from person to person but to me was to learn that the key to human connection frequently hides behind the stories that we grow up to hide stories about our fears our insecurities our frustrations our struggles in general and that these are oftentimes the unintuitive secret that bring people together it just seems so odd to me that interacting with people is so fundamental to everything that happens in our society yet we don't learn things like empathy in the same way we learn physics or math early on anyways one final recommendation in case you decide to pick this one up this book is a page turner and you will not want to put it down but to be honest slowing down and taking my time to process all these stories make the whole experience of reading it a lot better so yeah guys this is humans by brandon stanton let's move on to the next one so the next book is one of the hidden gems that i mentioned you before and with it i'm gonna be taking us into the startup world the launchpad inside y combinator by randall strauss now this book is all about how to start startup but what i believe makes it so unique is that it has two different perspectives that very few books about startups can match all right so first things first randall is an acclaimed author and journalist who in 2011 was granted permission to document the journey of a batch of startups in y combinator the most successful startup accelerator in the world as randall himself says he became the fly in the wall that watched everything that happened throughout the program through this experience randolph was able to capture the perspective of several startup founders who were starting and running their companies wanting y combinators three month program and at the same time and here's the magic he captured the perspective of y combinators partners themselves and i think this is super important because these are the people who have created and optimized this startup making machine okay so four quick things about y combinator that i think it's very cool that you know in case you decide to read this book twice a year y combinator invests a small amount of money in a large number of startups and provide advice to these companies to help them grow from what i've been able to gather since 2005 y combinator has invested in over 3 000 companies which together have a combined valuation of over 300 billion dollars out of these 3 000 companies about 25 are worth over 1 billion dollars and more than 100 are worth more than 100 million dollars some of the most popular companies that came out of yc are dropbox airbnb stripe reddit coinbase twitch cruise heroku you name them oh and 9gag also came out of yc although this is quite a short book it's 247 pages long it's quite short i know you're gonna enjoy this book a lot because you're gonna feel like you are sitting right next to all of these entrepreneurs and the y combinator partners and the reason for this is because this book is full of conversations that really took place so to give you a few examples you will get to see what some of the applying teams did to showcase themselves and their ideas during the selection process of the program and what the partners have learned to look for to ensure that they invest in the right teams you will also get to see the things that different teams did to go from idea to growth in three months and the different advices that these yc partners gave to the founders such as launch your product as fast as you can because it is after launching your product and not before that you really begin to understand what your customers want and don't want even lessons and advices on focus how to define metrics and manage your press your fundraising strategy your pitching and so much more so by reading this book rando will put you in the front lines of the stories of several incredible startup founders and at the same time give you this 30 000 feet perspective that y combinator has been able to develop by observing the patterns of failure and good practices that so many founders have gone through throughout the years so i think that the launch pad inside y combinator by randall strauss is totally worth it all right so let's go for the third book alright guys so the third book i want to dive into is pick by chip conley how great companies get their mojo from maslow i think this book is another hidden gem because it is all about how we can apply maslow's very influential hierarchy of needs in business particularly to create enduring companies just to give you some context maslow basically classified our human needs in five categories which later on became popular as the maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid it is a hurricane because as we get to fulfill lower level needs at least to some extent then we are able to focus and climb towards higher level needs onto reaching the top aka the peak so for example it is at the peak of maslow's hierarchy of needs where we find self-actualization or in other words passion purpose meaning our true potential in what we do however it can be really hard to be in the peak of our game if we are struggling say with our lowest level needs such as survival needs for food water warmth or rest this book makes the case that if our employees our customers and our investors who are like the bloodstream of any company are human beings who have needs too how powerful would it be to know their needs at each level of their hierarchy of needs where do things like compensation packages recognition or purpose related efforts belong in the employee pyramid are they all the same should we look at them separately what the great companies do to tangibly create strategies around them another example and i'm just touching the tip of the iceberg of this book guys in the case of the customers many companies tend to fall into the trap of only fulfilling customers expectations but as you would expect these belong at the base of the customer's pyramid the minimum they expect from you and your industry higher up in the pyramid is where you discover things like conscious desires the things that give you an advantage but even higher up you'll find things like unconscious unmet needs and these are the things that relate to disruption innovation things that really give you a differentiation in the market thing is that chip created this very practical framework of pyramids for each of your stakeholders and he also gave you a lot of advice and the different approaches and tools that you need to unlock each level following up on the customer's example having conversations with your customers and launching surveys and you know doing focus groups work very well in a specific level but then things like immersing in your customers life like an anthropologist would do work in another level you probably heard a lot of the phrase we do what we measure but oftentimes we fall into the trap of doing what is easier to measure for example things that are at the bottom of the hierarchy are not what is most impactful higher up and in this book you'll get all the wise the watts and the house that you need to unlock each level of your stakeholders needs chip is a big deal he's a successful entrepreneur he played a huge role in airbnb success just look at the people who reviewed the book you got joe gibia co-founder of airbnb ben silverman co-founder of pinterest blake makowski co-founder of toms shoes even the forward was written by tony said the former ceo of zappos who sadly recently passed away this book is quite short it's 250 pages long but i'm going to be honest with you this book is full of powerful punchlines examples and great advice but sometimes i will get this huge pile of details that will make me want to scheme but at the same time i didn't because i feared of missing important stuff but still it's mind-blowing so that's it for peak let's get going with the last book you guys ready okay so this last book i enjoyed it so much that i literally read it in one sitting and this is sapiens but the graphic version the full name of the book is sapiens a graphic history the birth of humankind volume 1. it is by yuan noah harari in collaboration with david van der meulen and daniel casanavi for the illustrations i hope i pronounced their names as well truth is this is my first impression of sapiens because i haven't read the original version yet and i have been wanting to do so for so long but this one got in the way however it seems to me that the next volumes are going to be taking a while before they are released so i might as well get the original version soon anyways i know there is already a lot of content about sapiens out there and i don't want to be repeating things that you already know so i'm just going to focus on what makes this book so different and at least special to me you know at first i actually thought that this was a kids version but then i realized on amazon that bill gates and barack obama read the book and so i was confused like what's going on should i get it and i am really happy that i did because after reading it i realized that it perfectly suits a wide range of ages it is graphic yes it is fun but it is still serious i don't usually read graphic books and i know that i'm probably missing a lot but this felt like a national geographic documentary play in my head usually history books are dense they are packed with a lot of interesting and cool information but that you end up forgetting later on or at least i do but this is not the case with this book by the way i've read a little bit about the controversy that this book has created to some people but what can i say other than you know this is a history book i think that harari just set out to tell us this is what happened in our past as a species this is what we know what we don't know what we're not sure about and i think that all these inputs are very valuable for us to think in first principles about our current beliefs our paradigms you know with the objective of making our society better no one asked me but i believe that we still know so little about too many things there are things that used to be absolute truths yesterday and that are not anymore and that we are better off as a society if we are open-minded and willing to learn as much as we can about our universe its forces our planet and even ourselves one recommendation i read this book too fast and later on when i decided to open the book and read a random page i realized that i missed subtle interesting and fun messages in the illustration i'm not used to reading graphic books but take your time enjoy it don't rush it plus guys this book is beautiful there is no question that i will be buying the original version of sapiens but also the full collection i honestly can't wait to see how they all look together so yeah guys these are the four books for this first video oh by the way before you leave i have a package with new books arriving very soon that i'm very excited about and so i thought that for the next video i can do an unboxing with you guys and share with you why i bought them and what i think this book bring to the table so don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell if you don't want to miss that video and if you like this video don't forget to leave me your thumbs up and your comments and book recommendations in the comment section below anyways that's it for today guys love you ciao

Channel: Andres Leon

Views: 1,876

Keywords: Non-fiction, book, books, 2021, recommendations, reviews, booktube, innovation, startups, entrepreneurship, sapiens, yuvalnoahharari, peak, chipconley, combinator, randallstross, humans, brandonstanton, humansofnewyork, tbr, read, reading, nonfiction, sobered, goodreads

Id: v23ctF-H-Jg

Length: 13min 47sec (827 seconds)

Published: Sun May 16 2021