martijnreintjes's reviews
261 reviews

Centralised vs. decentralised organisation.
What makes them work and what advantages brings each.
Can hybrid organisations work?

Interesting read and lots to ponder about for my own company.

Book holds up quite well even it's over 10 years old.
Lots of the examples are still active or at least I remember them.
The book was written before the cryptoboom, so that was a part I missed in it. Maybe an update is in order?

Bit of a slow read, as the book is not so much a story, as a description and explanation on what a wild nature could look like and how it can transform our surroundings and make nature flourish again.

The book made me happy and sad at the same time.
Basically we have been fucking up nature and getting animals extinct since we where able to throw a spear (bye bye mega fauna). And the nature we see in Europe nowadays is nothing near what wild nature was before humans came here.
Also the reports of the collapses of animal species nowadays and reading about the abundance of past times makes you feel super sad.

Luckily there are also some more happy notes, as the reintroduction of former removed species and the return of others.
There is a continues battle between how people and should live together.
We haven't found the solution yet, but more and more people are becoming aware of it.

The book proposes some interesting thought exercises about if and when you should sell your business.

Super interesting read about the creation and downfall of an illegal start-up.

Take-aways:
- if you are a criminal mastermind, the people around you will fuck up
- you can be as careful as you want to be, eventually you'll fuck up
- different teams really suck at working together
- plan for the worst and test your contingency plans

The Art of War is about doing what you feel you need to do.
Creating
And why it is so hard to create.

I loved the first part, in which is explained why it is so hard to create and why we procrastinate (like I'm doing now as I should actually write something else). After explaining this, and acknowledging the reader that it's completely normal. The writer fails to really explain how to overcome it, or how he overcomes it. He just states that the "real" artists are succeeding ... so good luck with that.

The book started out strong, but lost momentum in the second part and became quite boring in the last part.

It was time to potty train our 2,5 year old boy.
We already made a couple efforts, but there was no real strategy and we fizzled out.
So we tried this method and we're now in our third day and it looks like it stuck.
So YEAH! No more diapers!

The book gives a lot of insight in how to potty train and what to do and not to do.
It's all about consistency.

I do wish the three days themselves where a little more fleshed out. Like what to do on day 1, 2 and 3.
For us, I think we went a bit overboard on day 1 and force fed our son a LOT of fluids.
The poor boy needed to go to the toilet every 15 minutes!
But it did really imprint the pattern in his brain, so day 2 and now day 3 are a bit more relaxt.

If you are looking for a potty train method, this one is quite intensive, but you're also done in 3 days :)

Short funny book.
It was a bit bizar, especially as I didn't knew the setting of the book.
I expected it to be placed in India, but later on I realised it was in the Germany of the 1930's

Instead of the story of Leonardo's life, the book is about his paintings.
And through his paintings, you learn something about his life.
But as the paint of the paintings is dry, so was this book.
I found it very hard to get through it.

The audiobook helped, but pfff, I have read way better Biographies of people.