#420: Books I've Loved — Matt Mullenweg

Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. So then I'll save your personal question. Now it is seen. My cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal anti-scala. No

Books I've loved on the Tim Ferris show is exclusively brought to you by Audible. There couldn't be a better sponsor for this series, my dear listeners and readers. I have used Audible for so many years. As long as I can remember, I love it. Audible has the largest selection of audiobooks on the planet. I listen when I'm taking walks. I listen while I'm cooking. I listen whenever I can. And if you're looking for a place to start, I can recommend three of my favorites. The first.

Is the Tau of Seneca. by Seneca, if you want to hear my favorite letters of all time, touches on stoic philosophy, calmness under duress, Etc. The next is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, G A I M A N, one of my favorites. Even if you're a nonfiction purist, this is the fiction book that you need to listen to. Neil also has perhaps the most calming voice of all time. And third, Greg McEwen's Essentialism. Subtitle The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. This is one of my favorite books of the past few years. Combines very well with the eighty twenty principle.

But more on Audible. Every month, Audible members get one credit for any audiobook on the site, plus a choice of multiple Audible originals from a rotating selection. They also get access to daily news digests from the likes of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. as well as guided meditation programs. And here are some other amazing audible features. And I use a bunch of these. You can download titles and listen offline anytime, anywhere. I use this feature. Even when I could get access, I'll put my phone on, say airplane mode, because I don't want to get bothered with notifications and I'm taking a walk to clear my head and you can listen to titles offline in a case like that, or on a plane or whatever. Obviously I'm not flying much these days. The app

is free and can be installed on all smartphones and tablets. You can listen across devices without losing your spot. And WhisperSync is another feature I use quite a lot. I love reading my Kindle in bed, for instance, then picking up at the same exact spot where I left off when I go walking and listening the next day. Kindle and audio versions can be synced up automatically. It's just amazing. And if you can't decide what to listen to, don't sweat it. You don't have to rush. You can keep your credits for up to a year and use them, for instance, to binge on a whole series, if you like. Audible offers just about everything. Podcasts. Guided wellness programs, theatrical performances, A-list comedy, and audible originals you won't find anywhere else. And right now, Audible is offering you guys.

That's Tim Ferris Show listeners, a free audiobook with a thirty day trial. Membership. And uh again, my list if you want to check them out, the Tow of Seneca. The graveyard book? Essentialism, those are just three. There's so many good ones out there.

Just go to audible.com. Slash Tim and brow the unmatched selection of audio programs. Then download your free title and start listening. It's that easy. Let's check it out. Go to audible.com slash Tim. Or text Tim T I M to five hundred five hundred to get started. Today.

Check it out, audible.com slash Tim. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is usually my job to sit down with world class performers of all different types. startup founders, investors, chess champions, Olympic athletes, you name it. to tease out the habits that you can apply in your own lives.

This episode, however, is an experiment and part of a short form series that I'm doing, simply called Books I've Loved. I've invited some amazing past guests, close friends, and new faces to share their favorite books. describe their favorite books, the books that have influenced them, changed them, transformed them for the better. And I hope you pick up one or two new mentors. In the form of books. from this new series and apply the lessons in your own life.

I had a lot of fun. putting this together, inviting these people to participate, and have learned so, so much myself. I hope that is also the case for you. Please Enjoy. I Howdy howdy.

Uh my name is Matt Millenwick. I am the co founder of WordPress. Which is open source software. Used by about actually about thirty five percent of all websites now. And I also run a company called Automatic.

Which is a fully distributed company of over twelve hundred people. That makes services for WordPress and fun serv things like uh WordPress.com, Jetpack, Tumblr, and BooCommerce. So this topic on favorite books has very exciting me'cause I love to read So I'm gonna go through a bunch of'em as fast as I can.

And basically Four categories. Wife. Professional. And then well.

Actually two final Uh bonus categories. Like mind expanding authors where I just read everything they publish. So start with the fun ones. Uh the first two are actually Yeah.

Which I love, uh, because you can kinda work'em in between other readings. Almost like a Like a refresher while you're reading longer things. The first is called Paper menagerie and other stories.

Which is by Ken Lu. This is kinda sci-fi, but honestly I recommend this to a ton of people, including getting a copy for Tim before. And um They've loved it. It's just a huge variety of stories that really

Make your mind think differently. And Ken Lose honestly one of the authors um new authors, at least new to me authors that I'm most excited about. He also translated one of the Three body problem.

books and he just has a ton of great work out. Second one is called Sum. Which is forty tales from the afterlife. This is by a guy who's normally more of a science writer named David Eagleman. Uh

Each one of these stories is only two to three pages long. And it starts out. uh at the point of an afterlife beginning and That sounds It doesn't do it justice, actually. What I would do is maybe just pick this up and check out the very first story.

And see what it does to your mind. I love actually reading One of these before I go to bed. I find that it kind of

resets my brain a little bit and also sometimes gives me really cool dreams. I've also even read them to people as gifts at Burning Man. That's how cool the stories are. These first two were actually uh recommendations that I got. From a friend who's a designer named Connie Yang.

The third and the fun section or fiction section that I recommend uh is actually kind of a secret weapon in that I've met a ton of other CEOs and founders and folks who all told me they were high, highly influenced by this book. And that is the foundation.

by Isaac Asmov. It's actually a a short series. And Yeah, it's It's just so wild how I'll meet people from Including

CEOs of companies worth tens of billions of dollars. Influential books, especially when they were young. I read this as a kid. I think it's a great gift for kids.

Actually recently have picked it back up and am rereading it. It holds up very well. But if you have any kind of like um Yeah, young adults in your life.

That you feel I could enjoy like some really interesting sci fi. Just the concepts in it kinda make you think about the world differently. The second category I'm gonna call life things. Um

So The first And foremost I'll put here, which is actually someone I recommended that Tim had on the podcast. Christa Tippett. It was a great podcast called On Being.

And um has a book called Becoming Wise. It covers a lot of her Like a best of almost of her work. And I would say if you're only gonna be run in the life section. That is the one I would recommend.

The second that I'm gonna recommend is called On Grief and Grieving. Which is by Elizabeth Kubler Ross. Coupela Ross created that scale that you might have heard of, you know, the five stages. Where it's like uh anger, denial, acceptance, blah blah blah. She actually created that.

And this book was the last of I think three books she did in her series. And uh it was actually finished posthumously. by our writing partner because As she was writing this book, she herself was passing away. Ah this book was extremely helpful and important to me after my father passed.

And I've recommended for a number of folks, including those who don't have anyone in their life. uh that's currently ill or has recently passed. Uh it is one thing that is certain for all of us. That uh we're gonna People in our life are gonna pass at some point.

and how this book talks about pre grieving, about grieving It really opened up my mind. To Really be able to process and deal with. But was that total whirlwind.

It still is in some ways a whirlwind of emotions. So This is one I can recommend without hesitation to Any human. Uh on that topic a little bit.

And this one is It's probably gonna make you cry if you read it. is called When Breath Becomes Air. By Paul Kellanithi. And this is also

A little bit of a uh post to mis book that was um Story of a professor. Oh. Tragically found out um He was not gonna make it.

And so what he did with his his last bit of life. And how he acted and his family and everything. Beautifully, beautifully, beautifully written. Very, very special book. And finally on the life side.

This one has a funny title, but it's a really, really good book. It's called Uh Why Buddhism Is True by Robert Wright. I Catholic. You know, this wasn't a book. I'm I'm not Buddhist, not becoming Buddhist. Are there no plans there? Uh but

I found that this book which takes kind of a neuroscience View of Yeah, text in Buddhism, Hinduism that go back Sometimes thousands of years. Uh is really, really fascinating.

And it is an interesting juxtaposition of Kind of how. Older wisdom? intersects and interacts really well with the latest findings of science. And how you can apply that.

to your life to Quiet your monkey mind to be able to focus. On Tim's podcast. Uh so this uh regardless of your

Religious leanings or non religious leanings, I would say is a Excellent and great read. This next Category section is um. The one where I have the most books.

So hopefully you've made it through the fun and life ones and now you're ready to Uh be more professionally successful. Each one of these has had an influence. I would consider it pivotal. To my success, uh in the things I've done in creating

WordPress and automatic. Uh first is relatively new and I wish it had come out a decade before,'cause I could have saved a lot of trouble. It's called principles. By Ray Dalio, who's one of the most successful hedge fund investors. And he runs his company in an extremely interesting way.

And uh this is the first of I think several books he's planning on doing. Where he spells out the things he's learned. He's one of these folks who has an extremely analytical mind. Writes down everything. And uh checks it later.

So if your mind is not as analytical. Um like mine is not quite there. Actually I think probably few people in the world are quite as analytical as very Dalio is. Alright.

It can be I would say provocative. And challenging you to think. In different ways. Also pairs very well with the last recommendation I'm gonna do here, the great mental models.

The second is another one with a not a great title, but really good book. Called nonviolent communication, which is by Marshall Rosenberg. And this means non violent in the sense that Gandhi was non violent, or Martin Luther King. Well. Um, it's not like don't yell at people.

But more How is what we say and how we say it I'm sometimes doing the opposite. Of what we intend. So there's a way to communicate the exact same thing.

In a better way. That people will uh be more receptive to whatever you're you're saying. Um This book.

I think I read originally in like a personal context. I put in this section because I found that it completely Levels up. All of my communication with that was in Family relationships, personal relationships.

And where it probably had the biggest impact was in my work relationships. you know, it automatically do a ton of communication over text as well. Using our internal tool P two, also a lot of slack. And uh you know, sort of applying what I learned and by reading nonviolent communication, I found I became

a lot more effective, particularly at text based communication. The intention of my message across. Speaking of being a distributed company with lots of uh text communication, I'm gonna recommend a book called Remote. Which by the folks over at Basecamp, uh Jason Freed and David Heinmeier Hansen.

Uh this is probably the best guide available right now. uh to doing Working remotely or in a distributed fashion. Also Basecamp, formerly known as thirty seven signals, has a very refreshing, no nonsense first principles way of working.

And I feel like any company that can apply some of the principles, you can pick and choose. It's like a buffet book. Uh can probably become a lot more effective. And I guess probably the best resource.

Uh for distributed work right now. But I will also take this opportunity to plug my podcast. Which you can find at distributed dot blog. Which is interviewing folks. Including uh the base camp folks at some point.

on how to be effective while scaling distributed companies. Writing is so key. And you might be detecting a theme here. And the book that's been most influential my entire life there. was called On Writing or is called On Writing Well by William Zinzler.

Uh, writing to me is not just something for communication. It's also something that really helps me learn how to think better. And I What Point pretty much anything significant.

That I've done in my life. To something that I sat down and wrote. And really worked through it. in a written form first. And I

I have all sorts of hacks. Sometimes I write things out longhand, sometimes I type it in simple notes, sometimes I type it in WordPress. Sometimes I do a Google Doc and collaborate with people. Sometimes I just text my friends. But Um This book I would say is probably the classic.

For Improving the clarity of your writing. Which therefore improves the clarity of your thinking. Um of anything I've read, and I've probably read dozens of writing books at this point.

'Cause it is a topic. And genre of book, which I find very fascinating. So save lots of time. You don't have to read the dozens of books that I read. Just check out this one. And it will definitely level up your written communication. But though a little esoteric.

This next one. And talked about a book which is a little more academic. Which is by an author named George Lakoff. And it's called Metaphors We Live By. It's definitely a writing theme here.

Many people don't know this, but a lot of how we talk. is actually in metaphors. What this book breaks down. Is what these metaphors are. Maybe what you probably use.

Day to day without even realizing it. And How you can Change her use metaphors. Two

Basically Say what you're trying to say and not negate what you're trying to say. So as one example of metaphor that you probably use all the time, but don't think about it. Uh as categories. One that he talks about the book is Argument is war.

As examples. Your claims are indefensible. He attacked every weak point in my argument. His criticisms were right on target. I demolished his argument.

I've never won an argument with him. You disagree? Okay. Shoot. If you use that strategy. He'll wipe you out.

He shot down all of my arguments. If you listen there and really dig in. A lot of

Not to do with war at all, which is arguments. There's all sorts of examples like this, including what I find really fascinating, which is spatial. Metaphors. And if you learn this, this actually I think goes to a bit to how the mind works. Spring this

Pretty well to Uh the final one in this section, which I recommend. Also a fairly new book. By Shane Paris, best known for uh Farnum Street, which is has a great podcast and it's a great site. Uh F S dot blog, I believe.

And they're doing a five volume series called The Great Mental Models. You've probably heard about mental models. If you follow Warren Buffett or Charlie Munker at all. And in fact previously. There's this great book called um

Poor Charlie's almanac. Which was a collection of Charlie Munker speeches. Where he really laid out a lot of his own. sort of very heterodox thinking things have made him very successful. Uh

Uh half of the pair that's been probably one of the most successful investment. uh investors in history alongside Warren Buffett. These speeches were not terribly accessible though. They had a lot of extraneous material, and

They were repetitive in some ways. And the book itself was a little uh hard to access. Um so these great mental models is But one if you can't buy the hard cover like it's

It's one of the most beautiful books I've actually interacted with. In a long time. And um If you're able to build what they call this lattice work of mental models It can make you

Essentially approach all sorts of situations much faster and more effectively than you would if you're trying to figure out things from scratch. Every single time. This pairs really, really well with principles by Ray Dalia. Okay, fourth category I'm gonna call mind expanding. So these are two books, actually ones I've just read this year.

Both of which go pretty well with metaphors we live by. But around consciousness, theory of mind. Kinda how everything works. One's a little bit of a older book, I think from nineteen eighty. And it's only available in print.

Which uh Like everything else I've recommended you can get on the Kindle or something. It's called The World is Sound. Or not a Brahma. It's by a German author.

Uh Joaquim Ernst Barent. And basically goes through just really, really interesting as a musician myself. I learned about things like the harmonic series or the overtone series. Which is a beautiful set of whole number of ratios that sort of government. Western music and the twelve tone scale and things.

Uh, but I didn't know as much about just versus even Intonation and And how also these ratios show up. Kinda everywhere in life. Um be it, you know. From how plants form to the orbit of the planets to

Lots of things. I've Google a lot as I read this book. Some of it is uh still spot on, some of it's been We have sort of newer understandings of some things it talks about. But again, this is the mind expanding category, so I will say it is a interesting

I'll put it as provocative as well, Reed. Uh not something that you agree with everything in the book. But something that probably opens your mind to a lot of things you hadn't thought about before, or never even considered. I would also say it's completely accessible to non musicians as well as musicians. I just found it particularly interesting. Uh, because it applied some things I had learned.

And different uh different sort of fields or different context in A more scientific context. The second, which is also a fairly, fairly new book, is called Conscious. A brief guide to the fundamental mystery of the mind.

This is by Annika Harris. And uh this is Yeah, what they call the hard problem. Um What is consciousness? Where does it come from?

Who is who's listening to me talk right now? Um And who is it that listens to you talk to yourself? Ah, all of these questions I find endlessly fascinating. And is an area of

In some ways a lot of study, and in some ways much less than you would expect. So Uh, this was a very short book. You can actually get through it. Just an hour or two, so

I feel actually even better recommending it because um it packed a huge amount of information and value. Into the Uh a very Kind of. Tidy package.

I always love when books are just as long as they need to be and no longer. So um This will definitely give you lots to talk about. At uh parties or uh with friends. And um

I find just it's Good from a philosophical point of view to sometimes. Think about and ponder these bigger questions. Okay, uh last I promised you The authors that I read literally everything they publish.

No matter what it is. And these are besides him, of course. Uh, because if you're listening you probably already read all his books. Two folks I'm gonna recommend here. Um and I apologise if I'm pronouncing their names, but the first is Yval Noah Harari.

He's probably best known uh for sapiens. Much as I say Yuvall is a author. Oh Can synthesize a ton of information.

uh across history, both modern and older. Um Yeah. present it in like a really compelling way. So I I love sapiens like everyone did. I read Helmadeus.

But I would say my favorite if you're gonna pick one book of his was his his last one, which is Twenty One Lessons for the Twenty First Century. Super fascinating. Very cool to see a historian look at the Contemporary things, and I thought he was spot on. In many of his thoughts.

The second is a much more controversial author. But um I would say ever since I was exposed to one of his early works, Fooled by Randomness and Black Swan. I Will probably always be a fan of uh Nasim Tele, and he is

You know, a writer. Who is not humble. who, you know, is not afraid of sprinkling tons of obscure references and non obscure references. You could easily Uh take one of his books and then read twenty or thirty others.

Uh but he is A provocative thinker? He is an original thinker in many ways. Uh he's a fun writer. Yeah, he writes in a very engaging style.

And whether you agree with her or disagree with him. I think uh your mind. Well Be sharper. For having read his work.

And considered it. Uh Black Swan was I think the very first one I read of his. And a wonderful introduction. But all of his books are Ah, quite fun.

And funny. And uh I will continue to keep reading everything that he publishes. All right. Again, my name is Matt Mollenwick, co founder of WordPress, uh CEO of Automatic. If you'd like to

Check out more of my random musings. Uh my blog is at MA.t. I'm on Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr. Add photomat, that's P H O D O M A T T. And uh I love hearing from folks.

So You can also check out some of my photos at Matt.blog. Mm. I've been publishing online for a long time, so sorry I have so many places. But I uh

I learn a lot from Tim's podcast and I can't wait to hear what other people's book recommendations are.'Cause I'm always looking for new things to read. So if you end up reading any of these, uh drop me a note or a tweet or something. If you like them, if you hate them, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Bye bye. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Fibullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out. And just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up,

I hope you enjoy it.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 3 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.