The book has two main parts. First, it follows the story of the author as he investigates solutions to his own problems with running. Along the way he, meets, befriends, and races with members of a mysterious southwestern tribe known as the Tarahumara Indians and several other interesting characters. The second part of the book (which is mixed in with the story) contains various accounts of scientific study, an evolutionary history of running, and the modern history of the running industry. Here are some key points I found very interesting:

Born to run – Morphological Evidence

McDougall makes the case by recounting scientific evidence and first-hand accounts that humans may have evolved to excel at long-distance running. Our upright posture allows us to use breath more efficiently and take longer strides than other animals, our hairless skin and sweat glands allows us to disperse heat very rapidly, and we exhibit many feature such as specialized tendons and ligaments not needed for walking, but required for distance running. Here is a nice article on humans evolving to run in Discover Magazine

The hypothesis is that ancient humans evolved to chase prey to death in a hunting style called “persistance hunting.” While it is true that a deer can run faster than a person, if a person continually keeps it on the move at an easy 9min/mile pace, the deer will become exhausted before the human and drop. That’s a pretty easy way for post-claw, pre-weapon humans to bag dinner!

Tarrahumara Indians

The stories in this book about the Tarrahumara are amazing. These people, indigenous to the badlands of northern Mexico, still live a very primitive lifestyle. They eat a diet of mostly whole plant foods, live in small dwellings with no amenities, and run like hell! They are known to run 30, 50, 100, 200, or 300 miles at a time for fun and sport. What’s more amazing is that they do this throughout life with amazing health, few injuries, and no shoes! (just very thin-soled sandals.)

Barefoot running

This was one of the major revelations in the book. Human feet can run just fine without running shoes; and this really makes sense, too. People have been shod for a few thousand years, but have been running for MUCH longer than that. What’s more is that until about 50 years ago, “running shoes” were converse-style flat canvas shoes with no arch support, motion control, or super-padded heels. There is a lot of science to support that modern shoes do more harm than good.

I went so far as to purchase a goofy-looking pair of shoes that don’t do much apart from keeping shards of glass out of my feet. I’ve not run any 200 mile races yet, but I have noticed my form improve dramatically. More on my experiences with barefoot running in a future post.

In short, the techniques called “Market-based Management” (MBM) described in the book are string of very sensible ideas. The true power of the book is that it shows how to join these sensible ideas together into a cohesive and effective management strategy. In this review, I’ll briefly describe the points that really hit home with me.

1. Opportunity Cost – Surely everyone knows that an opportunity cost is “the cost of the best alternative forgone to do something.” Koch stresses how this simple principle is under-utilized in most companies, and that by paying close attention to the opportunity cost of EVERY action, companies can be sure to work on the most valuable thing.
2. Comparative Advantage – Here, Koch reiterates the idea that each person should do what adds the most value. This builds on the idea of opportunity cost saying that appropriate distribution of tasks causes people, teams, divisions, and companies to work on what they do best and not forgo their comparative advantage. Doing this all the time at all levels ensures minimal waste.
3. Decision Rights – This term is used as an analog to “property rights.” By distributing the “ownership” of decision making privileges in the same way that property might be distributed, decision makers have clear responsibility for decisions they make. This means that they will reap all of the benefits for good decisions as well as the repercussions of bad decisions. Allowing a person’s decision rights to grow based on how well they use them makes more sense than allowing them to grow based solely on seniority or rank.
4. Appropriate Incentives – Finally, Koch describes how incentives are put in place to encourage long-term growth and value creation. A quote I particularly liked was that a company should, “take from each according to their ability and give to each according to their contribution.” Thus, incentives are firmly rooted in how much an employee actually contributes rather than being fixed to seniority, rank, or title.
5. Principled Entrepreneurship – Furthermore, Koch suggests rating performance not just on contributions but also on missed contributions. Hence, if an employee misses an opportunity to make $1 million, that should be judged as if the employee lost $1 million by failing in any other way. This encourages employees to take prudent risks and remain entrepreneurial at all times.

All in all, a very interesting, but quick read. It seems that these principles really work as evidenced by Koch Industries success. I fear that established companies would be very hard pressed to start incorporating these ideas, but new managers or managers with a great deal of freedom should read this book twice before starting to plan how their company or group will operate!

Baxter selects 19 individuals and follows each through a portion of their lives. The first is a tiny, rat-like primate living along-side dinosaurs 65 million years ago, and the last is a distant relative of humans living 500 million years in the future. As we get to know each individual we get a sense of what motivates them, how they live, and how they have built upon that which their ancestors used to be successful.

I had two big take-aways from this book. The first was how much human behavior is reminiscent of our evolutionary ancestors, and the second is how short a time (in the grander scheme of things) that humans have been around.

Behavior from Our Past:

Baxter builds the human psyche piece by piece as each character becomes more intelligent, more resourceful, and more human-like by inheriting and modifying the traits of its ancestors. Seeing this construction play out over the course of the book gives an interesting perspective on which behaviors are new, which are old, and how each one gave a selection advantage to the ancestors who developed it.

One of the most interesting examples was Baxter’s hypothesis that pre-humans that could believe in religions (i.e. seemingly un-related causal relationships) had a huge advantage over those who didn’t. Believers would fight more fiercely and endure greater hardships because they were doing so for mysterious, unseen rewards and punishments. People who couldn’t make this leap of faith would give up far more quickly, and hence were eventually out-competed by modern humans who could. I’d say that’s a pretty plausible explanation for people’s superstitious behavior!

We’re Just A Blip:

The other major point I got from reading this book is that humans as we understand ourselves are really just a blip in the evolutionary time-frame. We’ve been able to significantly out-pace biological evolution with our technological evolution. What is really startling about this is how quickly that technological progress could be set back. If the expertise that is embedded in our culture were lost, all of the grandeur of humans today would fall quickly back to the struggle to hunt and gather that was our plight ten-thousand years ago! We’re really hanging on a fragile, precarious thread.

Wrapping Up

Overall it was a great read. I found the book intriguing and educational in the beginning as Baxter leads up to modern humans, and as he lets his imagination soar in the “after humans” period of the book, it was an interesting exercise in sci-fi futurism.

Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.

As a mostly-vegan who is appalled with the amount of junk that people eat, I couldn’t agree more! I also like his description of processed-packaged-supermarket-stuff as “edible food-like substances.” I think his message is 100% correct, and very important. Most of the stuff Americans eat is not food. By eating better stuff Americans could be a lot healthier and happier!

While I may sound fanatical about it, Pollan does a great job of getting these points across in a calm, informative way. He even talks about the history of food science and how we got in this predicament. Check The Science Friday Website for a link to the audio of the interview.

Listen to the Interview

I even went on to investigate my own redness. When I asked my mother (who recently did our family lineage) if the red hair was Irish or Scottish or what, she informed me that the rouge locks on my noggin were “from the Saxon Reds.” Ah yes. Visions of sea-faring Vikings wielding battle axes and the pagan god Thor wielding lightning and hammers flashed in my head. Anyway… back to the book.

Now that I’ve read all of Tom’s stuff, I guess I’ll have to find a new author to obsess over and kiss the ass of. Anybody have a good suggestion? I’ll leave you with some amusing and inspiring quotes.

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”

“The analytically minded might conclude that persons with red hair tend to be either dangerous or funny.”

“In the world according to the positivist, the inspiring thing about scrambled eggs is that any way you turn them they’re sunny side up. In the world according to the existentialist, the hopeless thing about scrambled eggs is that any way you turn the they’re scrambled.”

“What limits people is that they don’t have the fucking nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it.”

So in addition to this efficiency point, Tim also suggests setting up little-to-no effort income streams in the form of small niche-market internet-based businesses. He recommends outsourcing everything to a handful of companies so that your only “job” is making sure everybody plays nice together.

Once you have your life efficiently outsourced and funded with a work-free business… you take unlimited vacations and party like a rock-star! That sounds like a pretty sweet deal. I think this review came off making his book seem overly simplistic and not realistic. That wasn’t my experience at all. I really felt like he gave good information on how to make his reality come true! In fact it got me very excited about the prospect of having a “muse” (his word for a hands-free income stream). I’ve been making some moves in that direction since then. This book is definitely worth a read, and will end up in the stockings of some of my friends this Christmas.

Also, check out Tim Ferris’s Blog. It has lots of interesting stories and ideas regarding his “lifestyle design.”

Here’s the synopsis: A loin-cloth-wearing magician, a sexy, enlightened debutante-turned-gypsy, a hemorrhoidal scientist/author, a rogue athlete/drug dealer, and a roadside hotdog-serving zoo are the characters and participants in a caper that might have changed the world, but ended up vanishing in a puff of light. How’s that for a summary?! This book made me want to be a hippy and eat mushrooms. In fact, I made mushrooms for dinner last night! Let me leave you with some notable quotes that found nestled in the pages:

“The principal difference between adventurer and a suicide is that the adventurer leaves himself a margin of escape. (The narrower the margin, the greater the adventure”

“Romanticism and science are good for each other. The scientist keeps the romantic honest and the romantic keeps the scientist human.”

“The world is perpetually changing. It doesn’t do much else but change… Why do you want to stick your nose into it?”

Stephen Flemming
“Transforming Innovative Tech into Business”

As with any other person who has been a VC or angel investor, Steve was incredibly sharp, and seemed like he would be impervious to BS either on the giving or receiving end. Steve began his talk discussing the pros and cons of starting a business in the Southeast. He went on a diatribe about how ludicrous the spending in California is. Then he pointed out that although there isn’t much VC investment in Georgia and the surrounding states, there is a better tax situation, and much better access to real estate, talent, and customers.

Steve continued by discussing the cyclical relationship between institutional investors, VC’s, and entrepreneurs giving some insight into how that relationship drove VC’s behaviors. Some interesting take-aways were that VC’s want the entrepreneur to get rich, and that they’ll only have to be brutal and cruel if they have to in order to make the returns they promised their investors.

After giving some insight in these areas, he began enumerating the things that you must convince investors of when trying to raise capital for a business.

1. You have a large, fast-growing market segment
2. You have a technological advantage that will block competition
3. You have reasonable financial terms
4. You have measurable milestones for success

He went on fleshing these out for most of the remainder of the talk, but kept peppering in useful tips. I’d like to point out some here:

1. Get a good referral (from another investor, an attorney, etc.) If you’re plan comes pre-qualified it. You’re in.
2. Make a 20 page business plan with a 2 page executive summary. No More!
3. Power-Point deck using the 10-20-30 rule (10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 point type)
4. In all of these documents, sell the company, not the product.
5. Do your homework on the investors you’re presenting to and tailor the presentation. It will help you and impress them.
6. Choose your investor wisely. Don’t just follow money; find someone that can help you with experience, expertise, contacts, etc.

Check out Steve Fleming’s website as well. Here you can find his blog as well as some useful information about starting companies.

Furthermore, here is a list of other resources and websites that Steve
suggested:

• Tesla Motors
• The Elements of Style
• Edward Tufte
• The Art of Start (Guy Kawasaki)
• Presentationzen.com

This short, fast read talks about the myths that people have about the process of innovation, and some steps on overcoming these myths and innovating well anyway! Although I found the book inspiring and informative, I think I can sum up all of Berkun’s talking points briefly below and save you the trouble of reading the book : )

• Work hard.
• Work on meaningful problems.
• Work on hard problems.
• Work diligently and tirelessly, but take well-earned breaks to reflect. He belabors the point that innovation comes from persistent effort, not “ah ha” moments.
• Frame and re-frame the problem you’re working on. By following the same rules and same metrics for success that everyone else follows, you’re doomed to mediocrity. Re-examine the problem and re-frame it.
• Work really, really, really hard.

Finally, here is a video from the “Google Tech Talk” series. I haven’t watched it yet, but I’ll bet you can get the gist of the whole book over the 1 hour video.

One of my big take-aways from this book are that to be successful in a tech startup you must work very hard, and make a product that is beautifully designed and loved by users. Furthermore, you must continue working hard and improving constantly or you’ll get squashed by big competitors. If you can do this, then Graham claims success is inevitable.