Nathan Lustig

Sudhir Venkatesh’s book Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor will tell you the answer. I just finished reading it this week and while it wasn’t as engaging as his previous Gang Leader for a Day, it was informative. It profiles how “hustling” is a necessary part of life for many in [...]

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In Outliers, Gladwell talks about how Korean Airlines reduced its crashes from the most in the world to one of the safest airlines in the world.  He argues that pilots from countries where it is difficult to question superiors suffer more frequent crashes than pilots from countries where questioning superiors is the norm. I bet [...]

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I loved Gladwell’s first book, The Tipping Point, but I actually like Outliers: The Story of Success even better.   I received Outliers from my parents as a gift and finished it in two sittings.  I found myself saying “wow” and “no way” aloud many times as I was reading the book, something that a [...]

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In “Why You’ll Love Paying for Roads that Used to be Free,” Eric A. Morris delivers a compelling arguement for setting up variable toll rates for public highways that are currently free to reduce congesting. It’s a really hard sell to politicians and citizens alike, but he argues: Variable tolling is an excellent public policy. [...]

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I just finished reading The PayPal Wars by Eric M. Jackson who was the former head of marketing at PayPal.  This book is a must read for anyone who is thinking about starting a company or has started a company. It tells the inside story of PayPal from when it was startup called Confinity all the [...]

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Here’s a list of my favorite books of 2008.  These weren’t necessarily books published in 2008, but were books that I read this year and enjoyed. Non Fiction The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable – Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007) Pop! Why Bubbles are Great for the Economy – Daniel Gross (2007) Collapse: How [...]

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