Hi, I’m Daesol, a tech start-up business strategy guy based in Sydney.
I’ve long been curious about how the world works and this website is a collection of my inner nerding.
Let me first give you a tour of my online home.
1. Underrated-Concepts. These are my longer form, deep dive essays on some big ideas that seem to be unfamiliar to most. Most popular to date:
- Ergodicity: the Most Over-Looked Assumption
- Psychological vs Sociological Narratives: Individuals vs Systems
- Common Knowledge: Consensus View of the Consensus View
- Antifragility, Modernity, and Dancing with Disorder
2. Overlooked-Trends. Here I tell stories on topics with substantial second-order effects that are all too often overlooked. These narratives tend to dance inside the intersection of technology, business, society, finance, and history.
3. Mental-Models are shorter introductory articles. Mental models are representations of how things work. They’re incredibly useful cognitive tools that aid in quickly grasping complicated ideas, solving complex problems, and making difficult decisions. The true power of mental models lies in their high degree of multidisciplinary generalisability.
4. Strategy-and-Management (none published yet – coming soon) are my notes on business problem solving. Ranging from high-level corporate strategy to tactical execution lessons. Functional management practices to leading high-performing teams.
5. Become-Better are more practical and directly applicable articles.
6. Book-Notes highlight my favourite quotes from my favourite books. Examples:
7. Book-Lists are compilations intended to help you discover what you might want to read next.
- List of My All-Time Favourite Books
- Single Sentence Summaries for Every Book I Read in 2022
- Single Sentence Summaries for Every Book I Read in 2021
- Single Sentence Summaries for Every Book I Read in 2020
- Single Sentence Summaries for Every Book I Read in 2019
- Single Sentence Summaries for Every Book I Read in 2018
8. Visual-Timelines. I’ve found most history timelines out there either too detailed, or not detailed enough. They’re also too one-dimensional in disciplinarity and too text-heavy. I’m after more maps and charts. And so, I’ve created my own Visual Timeline Series. Some examples:
- Modern South Korea (1945-present): Miracle on Han River
- Modern China (1949-present): Hundred Year Marathon
- Rise and Fall of the Dutch Empire (1566-1795)
9. Newsletters. Whenever I’ve accumulated enough interesting things to share, I send out an email newsletter. Cadence is intentionally irregular as I hold the belief that there’s no point spamming your inbox for the sake of weekly/fortnightly consistency. Subscribe here:
See Archives for a full list of every post published to date.
Below are mosaics of the books I read in recent years. This should give you a glimpse into the topics I’m interested in.
I used to read a lot of business, self-help, and psychology. Over time, my reading shifted more towards political history, economics, and finance. Then there’s a bit of science, philosophy, and sociology thrown in there.
Every book I read in 2022:
Every book I read in 2021:
Every book I read in 2020:
Every book I read in 2019:
Every book I read in 2018: