Onchain Studies

High-signal reading clusters for people who build the future.

@phil · /books

Upcoming Clusters

Taste, Judgment, and Selection

When metrics end, someone still has to choose.

A six-week reading and discussion cluster on decision-making under irreducible uncertainty: how taste forms, how judgment fails, and how selection becomes power.

Syllabus

  1. What Taste Is (and Is Not)
  2. Judgment Under Irreversibility
  3. Selection as Power
  4. Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas
  5. Taste at Scale (and Decay)
  6. Living With Judgment

Core Readings

  • Pierre Bourdieu Distinction
  • Walter Benjamin The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb Skin in the Game
  • Richard Hamming The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • Robert A. Caro The Power Broker
  • Paul Graham Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas
  • Viktor Frankl Man's Search for Meaning

Power Without Office

Influence increasingly detaches from title.

A six-week reading and discussion cluster on informal power: legitimacy without appointment, agenda-setting, defaults, and how influence hardens into institutions.

Syllabus

  1. Where Power Actually Lives
  2. Legitimacy Without Appointment
  3. Agenda Setting and Narrative Gravity
  4. Tools, Protocols, and Defaults
  5. Informal Power Failure Modes
  6. From Influence to Institution

Core Readings

  • Bertrand de Jouvenel Power
  • James Burnham The Managerial Revolution
  • Richard Sennett Authority
  • Eric Hoffer The True Believer
  • Martin Gurri The Revolt of the Public
  • Lawrence Lessig Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace
  • Douglass North Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance

Archive

Silicon Valley Canon

Completed

"Silicon Valley is a curious thing. It doesn't have an architectural center; there's no forum that is the center of Silicon Valley. The center of Silicon Valley moves around. It is wherever there is at this moment the greatest concentration of the people who are going to make the next generation of stuff."

Paul Graham

Silicon Valley isn't a place; it's a set of ideas about how to build the future. This six-week reading cluster explored the essential books, essays, and talks that have shaped the culture of Silicon Valley and the people behind its fastest-growing companies.


Based on Patrick Collison's book list. Included weekly discussion sessions, subscriber group chat on Warpcast, author AMAs, and Readwise integration.

Syllabus

  1. Silicon Valley On The Past
  2. Silicon Valley On Founders
  3. Silicon Valley On Culture
  4. Silicon Valley On Philosophy
  5. Silicon Valley On The State
  6. Silicon Valley On Risk

Select Readings

  • Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb
  • Richard P. Feynman Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman
  • Walter Isaacson The Innovators; Steve Jobs; Elon Musk
  • Jessica Livingston Founders at Work
  • Peter Thiel & Blake Masters Zero to One
  • Clayton Christensen The Innovator's Dilemma
  • Ben Horowitz The Hard Thing About Hard Things
  • Andrew S. Grove High Output Management
  • James P. Carse Finite and Infinite Games
  • Robert M. Pirsig Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
  • Ayn Rand The Fountainhead
  • James C. Scott Seeing Like a State
  • Balaji Srinivasan Silicon Valley's Ultimate Exit
  • Nick Bostrom The Vulnerable World Hypothesis
  • Ray Kurzweil The Singularity Is Near
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Black Swan

Follow along on Farcaster: /books · @phil

Discussion links, session recordings, and workflow resources are available to enrolled participants.