DeFi Education's Holiday Book List

Level 2 - Value Investor

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We love the holiday times because we get to finally catch up on reading.

This year, we decided that we wanted to share a book list with DeFi Education readers who might be doing the same.

To become a good investor, you need to have a strong appetite for reading and researching. Develop unique perspectives, find new information, and have a good nose for what’s important.

This book list consists of books our team has read and gotten value from. None of them are about crypto - DeFi Education covers everything on that front for paid subs already.

Having a well rounded perspective on the world of finance, business and markets will benefit every aspect of your life, including crypto.

Without further ado, we present to you the DeFi Education Holiday Book List.

Out of the Gobi

By: Weijian Shan

Hong Kong-based private equity leader Weijian Shan gives a detailed account of growing up poor in China during the Mao era. As a teenager, Shan was farm labor in the Gobi Desert and only had an elementary school education. Today he’s the Chairman and CEO of PAG group, a $50B private equity fund. The book highlights the struggles of his early life. Incredible story.

How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Reason in Everyday Life

By: Thomas Gilovich

“It ain’t what you don’t know know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” - Attributed to Mark Twain

A pioneering social psychologist condenses his academic research in human judgment and decision making into an illuminating book which demonstrates how and why educated people systematically err. A short, easy, and at times amusing read covering issues such as why people continue to “believe in the effectiveness of questionable interpersonal strategies”. If you’re new to social psychology or not sure if you need to care about it, this is the book for you.

Digital Minimalism

By: Cal Newport

Great book if you’re addicted to your phone and want to snap out of it. The book is written by Cal Newport, a key figure in popularizing the concept of “deep work.” He also has a solid blog about productivity in the modern day. We haven’t read it in a long time (don’t need it) but it was a great resource when we were college students and early career professionals.

The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future

By: Sebastian Mallaby

Book detailing the history, structures and mindsets behind venture capital. It was released in February 2022 at the tail end of a massive bubble that saw VCs capture massive profits by playing hot potato with startup equity. This book will give you insight into the world of Venture Capital as investors, and the world more broadly, sober up from the excesses of the 2010s and 2020s.

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

By: Niall Ferguson

Scottish historian Niall Ferguson sets out to condense “the financial history of the world” into 350 pages and does a remarkably decent job. This book was published in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and Ferguson devotes one of the six chapters to an analysis of speculative bubbles. Some of our most popular posts are Finance 101. If you’re looking for an accessible and engaging examination of the history of money, banking, and credit this book is for you.

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And that’s a wrap!

Let us know your thoughts on these books once you read them - we’d love to know what you liked about them.

If you want to settle into something crypto specific, we’d suggest using the holiday time to go through the video materials in the academy. It’s about 7 hours of total content, which you should be able to get through in under a week.

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Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. These are opinions from an anonymous group of cartoon animals with Wall Street and Software backgrounds.

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