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From Zero to One – Boon Review

I finished Zero to One while walking the streets of Adak, Alaska, and only wrote this review three months later on a flight to New York—which feels appropriate for a book that rewards slow reflection more than quick consumption.

Peter Thiel writes from a distinctive trajectory: trained as a lawyer, he left the conventional path to cofound PayPal and later became a prominent tech investor. That mix shows. His arguments are logically crisp and tightly structured, like a legal brief, but framed with the high-conviction lens of a founder and venture capitalist.

The book opens with the late‑90s dot‑com boom and crash, where Thiel’s contrarian instinct led him to close a crucial funding round for PayPal just before the market collapsed. From there he builds his key claims: that great companies escape competition by becoming monopolies, and that monopoly—far from being purely harmful—can enable long-term thinking and real innovation. He anchors this in a “power law” view of the world: in technology and venture capital, a tiny number of companies produce almost all the returns, so focus should be on finding and backing those rare, transformative bets rather than spreading effort evenly.

The result is a book that is clear, coherent, and frequently compelling—but also decidedly elitist and anti‑establishment. Thiel’s faith in exceptional founders, technology, and markets can feel exclusionary and simplified. Still, even if you disagree with parts of it, Zero to One is a sharp, compact provocation to think more seriously about originality, focus, and what kind of future you’re actually building.

This book review was edited with the help of OpenAI GPT-5.1.

The Sovereign Individual – Book Review

I’ve bookmarked this book for a while, yet recent geopolitical events in 2024-2025 drew me to read it. Unexpectedly, the book’s underlying ideology was easier to follow amid the tech AI boom.

Being 27 years old, book exposes numerous social political issues from politics that are still relevant today: income inequality, sovereign debt explosion, etc. It remarkably predicted major mega political trends, e.g. countries are converging on incomes yet groups within a country’s border are suffering higher inequality.

The book stresses on diminishing return of violence by nation states and the adversarial nature of taxing power and wealthy individuals.

I appreciate the book’s attempts to explain the history of collective power and demystify the nation building process. Historically Sovereignty has taken forms other than nation states and it’s a refreshing perspective to modern readers to think outside the box of “countries”.

The authors, James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg, argue that politics follows “megapolitics”: deep shifts in technology, economics, and the organization of violence. Feudalism, monarchies, and modern democracies, in their view, weren’t primarily born from ideas or ideals, but from changing conditions—how easy it was to collect taxes, move goods, or wage war.

Their claim is that we’re now moving from the industrial age to the information age, and that this shift will:

• Reduce the effectiveness of large-scale physical violence as a tool of control
• Empower highly mobile, digitally enabled individuals
• Undermine the ability of governments to tax and regulate those individuals
• Gradually weaken the nation-state as the central organizing unit of political life

Reading this today—when remote work, global capital flows, digital assets, and AI tools are normal—it feels less like theory and more like a rough sketch of the world we’re already entering.

The book explores the changing economics of violence and taxation. Historically, whoever could organize violence—armies, police, surveillance—could enforce taxes and rules. As more wealth becomes intangible and mobile, that equation shifts. Governments’ taxing power will be curtained as commerce shifts to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The result is a more adversarial relationship between high-earning individuals and states.

What I found most valuable, though, is the way the book demystifies the nation-state. It reminds you that “countries” and “citizenship” are not eternal facts, but relatively recent arrangements in a much longer history of sovereignty. Before the modern state, power was organized through empires, city-states, feudal hierarchies, church authority, and corporate charters.

The authors invite you to consider that the nation-state may not be the final form of political organization. As more of life moves online, they suggest, new kinds of sovereignty could emerge—organized around networks, platforms, virtual jurisdictions, or small, competitive enclaves. In an era where AI, data, and compute are concentrated in a handful of powerful private actors, that question feels particularly relevant: who really governs, and how?

All that said, this is not a neutral book. It has a clear ideological tilt toward ableism, elitism, radical individualism and a deep skepticism of welfare states and mass democracy.

For me, The Sovereign Individual felt less like a piece of 90s futurism and more like a sharp, sometimes uncomfortable lens on the present. It doesn’t have all the answers, and its ideological edges deserve pushback, but it does a rare thing: it forces you to step outside the assumption that the world of nation-states, mass taxation, and traditional citizenship is permanent.

In a time when AI and digital networks are rapidly rewriting what individuals can do on their own, that’s a question worth sitting with—even if you ultimately reject the authors’ vision of where it leads.

This book review was drafted by hand and edited by OpenAI GPT 5.1.

The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson

This is a fascinating story about a trader at Citibank who came from poor background made money from knowing more about the main street economics than his peers. Sadly he lost interest in trading, got sick of the work culture, and fought with management to leave with his deferred stock.

From this book, I can relate to the busy trading floor scene like in HBO Industry. Interesting jargons like “yard” and “green eurodollar” sound refreshing. And his depiction of Ilford, Canary Wharf, and Tokyo is vivid. I’d love to try his Tokyo food recommendations.

After all, the author is tad naive in his dealing with bank management. Having seen his boss “retired” at age 29 and coming back a few years later made him believe it can be replicated with ease, without digging into the intricacies of the deal. That could be the start of his trouble. His intention to quit was unplanned, and a bit rushed, and could be easier with over-communication with management. In the end, after much tribulation, he did it (maybe writing emails to C-suite execs helped).

Be Useful by Arnold Schwarzenegger

It may sound like a cliche self-help book from the cover, but this book does provide some interesting anecdotes in the former California governor’s extraordinary career – in body building, in acting, and in government. It shines some light on what drives him and how he approaches the challenges and unblocks himself.

It is a good motivational title especially given the author narrated the audiobook. It is true that they say deep voice can make the argument more convincing.

The Handmaid’s Tale: Thoughts

Just finished this fascinating book yet it’s very different to other dystopian novels. It does feel strangely plausible with trajectory of world events.

The book’s depiction of the characters’ inner emotion is extraordinary and makes the story feel personal. The every life is rendered perfectly with the references in the shop names, lock-up of sharp objects in the house, and the desire and desperation between the “strangers” living in the same house.

COVID-19, contracted in 2023

Returning from the dreadful trip in Florida, I tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday.

It is my first experience and and here are the day-to-day changes:

• 1/16 Mon, last day in Orlando and flying back. Woke up with dry throat. Runny nose and sneezing, more like a common cold.
• 1/17 Tue, nasal congestion persists.
• 1/18 Wed, runny nose got better but the strong scent from the soap all but disappeared when I was showering. Tested positive at home with antigen rapid test.
• 1/19 Thu, nasal congestion got a little better. Attenuated smell but improving.

To be continued…

Returned from Magic Kingdom

I recently returned from a trip to Orlando, and unfortunately, it was not the vacation I had hoped for. The trip was plagued with difficulties from start to finish, and I find myself feeling quite disappointed and sad as I reflect on the experience.

The first setback came when my flight was delayed due to historic FAA computer glitch. This meant ensuing flight change and my bag was dropped at JFK, the connection airport. Not knowing until arriving at Orlando, I requested the bag to be shipped to my hotel, which turned out to be a big mistake.

The next day, I discovered that my camera and lenses had been stolen from my checked luggage. This was a particularly difficult blow to the trip, and not to mention the substantial financial loss.

To make matters even worse, on the last day of my trip, I got sick. This meant that I had to spend my final hours in Orlando feeling ill, which later found to be COVID-19. And of course, the return flight was delayed 3 hours, and I got home around 2AM.

Disney’s parks were eye-opening and Universal Studio felt more of a fun throwback, but overall, this trip was not the relaxing and enjoyable experience I had been looking forward to. Instead, it was filled with setbacks and disappointments.

While it is hard to find any positive side of this experience, I am trying to focus on the lesson learned: things do not always go as planned, and can we just stay home?

Radical Uncertainty: What’s Between the Known-unknown and Unknown-unknown

The year 2020 has struck many people that the nature of this world is very uncertainty. Yet, uncertainty is not singular. What’s the weather like tomorrow, who will be the next president of the United States, and what will be the biggest invention in the next century, are questions with varying degree of uncertainty. In fact, they represent the difference between the known-unknown and unknown-unknown.

To be continued…

01/2020

It has been long since I wrote monthly summaries. However, this January has been an extraordinary month that is worth noting. If any following month reaches such level of abnormality, it shall be a permanent routine to write down what happens each month.

The first is a dramatic ER visit by ambulance. On Jan 23, in a gym in Century City, I had experienced nausea and threw up, ensuing panic attack rendered me numb and immobile. While waiting for my friend and crouching in the sofa in the lobby, I asked the front desk staff to call paramedics, as I had the premonition that the worst might happen. Then, I had the lifetime experience of being taken to a chair and transported to the ER by an ambulance. I had to wait for the doctor anxiously as the symptoms gradually subsided. In the end, thankfully, I recovered fully in 24 hours. I had similar incidents but that was on a boat, or of food poisoning. What had struck me most was that I still had no idea what caused it this time.

Then, a week later, my car was hit in a parking lot. It was a first, too. While some things are bound to happen sooner or later, it did surprise me they like to occur together. Not the mention that two weeks ago, my online order was found bluntly stolen from the package in front of my door, delivered only 30 minutes ago. Investment was under-performing. Progress on capstone project was lacking…

I felt as January passed, February can pass in a more positive light. One of the changes I have made is, ironically enough, that I picked up my pen (keyboard) again and started writing on this blog. I first finished a post from 4 months ago as I felt the urge to get things done. I also applauded myself for finishing reading a book that took me forever. I went to the gym again, after a respite. Now, I shall do more, and wonderful things will happen.

I Went To See An Eye Floater Doctor

People who are close might have noticed, that I like to wear sunglasses even indoors. Most do not know that I suffer from eye floaters. Eye floaters are the lines or dots one could see looking at a bright background.

I have noticed them first in February when I was on vacation in Catalina Island. Since then, I went to see three ophthalmologists. The last one, Dr. Johnson in Irvine, CA was a specialist in this field, known for his laser treatment of eye floaters.

I went to see Dr. Johnson on 9/17. It was an experience worth noting. The meeting was fairly expected, but he gave me some extra information and insights, which is hard to find on the Internet. He spent an hour just talking, and illustrated coagulated proteins in the vitreous cast shadow on the retina, causing the perception of the floaters. After all, it is unknown what has caused the proteins to clump together, and he gave an assumption that the environment factors, like unhealthy diet, could cause the inflammation or unexpected change in the eye.

Making sure that I have all the information I need to know, Dr. Johnson started to inspect my eye. I have been told that most young patients have the floaters too close the retina, an unfavorable condition for laser treatment. The device is the same one that he used to operate with laser. He attached a contact lens-like lens in my eye, between the microscope-like device and my eye. It was not uncomfortable when he did the inspection. It took about 5 minutes for each eye.

Unfortunately, I was not a candidate for the treatment, as my age predicted. Dr. Johnson discussed other treatment options, like vitrectomy, that usually carries too much risk for an otherwise healthy eye. Yet, some people went for it. As the severity of the symptoms are different for each person, and the tolerance of each person differs. More importantly, many people are stuck at the stage to “fix it,” whereas some have obtained acceptance. It is hard to say which stage I am at, because I am still optimistic that it can be treated, or mitigated, and it does not cause me great distress if, in the end, there is nothing that can be done.