Niki Scevak is a Partner at ,, an Australian venture capital fund. Prior to Blackbird, Niki founded ,, Australia’s pre-eminent early-stage technology accelerator, as well as two software companies. Blackbird has invested in some of Australia’s most successful startups, including ,, ,, ,, ,, , and ,.
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Anthem
Anthem is a dystopian fiction novella by Ayn Rand, written in 1937 and first published in 1938 in England. It takes place at some unspecified future date when mankind has entered another dark age characterized by irrationality, collectivism, and socialistic thinking and economics. Technological advancement is now carefully planned (when it is allowed to occur at all) and the concept of individuality has been eliminated.
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Atlas Shrugged
Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand???s magnum opus: a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller???nominated as one of America???s best-loved novels by PBS???s The Great American Read. Who is John Galt? When he says that he will stop the motor of the world, is he a destroyer or a liberator? Why does he have to fight his battles not against his enemies but against those who need him most? Why does he fight his hardest battle against the woman he loves? You will know the answer to these questions when you discover the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the amazing men and women in this book. You will discover why a productive genius becomes a worthless playboy…why a great steel industrialist is working for his own destruction…why a composer gives up his career on the night of his triumph…why a beautiful woman who runs a transcontinental railroad falls in love with the man she has sworn to kill.,Atlas Shrugged, a modern classic and Rand???s most extensive statement of Objectivism???her groundbreaking philosophy???offers the reader the spectacle of human greatness, depicted with all the poetry and power of one of the twentieth century???s leading artists.
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Done Deals
This work provides a revealing history of the venture capital industry as told through first-person accounts. It chronicles the industry’s beginnings and highlights the differences between America’s West and East coast firms. More than thirty leading venture capitalists – from early pioneers such as Eugene Kleiner and Arthur Rock to current top players like Geoff Yang and John Dorrer – reveal insights gleaned from their personal experiences in successful deal-making.
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Elon Musk
New York Times and International Bestseller. ,Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Audible and Amazon.,More than 2 million copies sold.,In the spirit of Steve Jobs and Moneyball, Elon Musk is both an illuminating and authorized look at the extraordinary life of one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting, unpredictable, and ambitious entrepreneurs–a real-life Tony Stark–and a fascinating exploration of the renewal of American invention and its new “makers.”,Elon Musk spotlights the technology and vision of Elon Musk, the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity, who sold one of his Internet companies, PayPal, for $1.5 billion. Ashlee Vance captures the full spectacle and arc of the genius’s life and work, from his tumultuous upbringing in South Africa and flight to the United States to his dramatic technical innovations and entrepreneurial pursuits.,Vance uses Musk’s story to explore one of the pressing questions of our age: can the nation of inventors and creators who led the modern world for a century still compete in an age of fierce global competition? He argues that Musk–one of the most unusual and striking figures in American business history–is a contemporary, visionary amalgam of legendary inventors and industrialists including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs. More than any other entrepreneur today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as the visionaries of the golden age of science-fiction fantasy.,Thorough and insightful, Elon Musk brings to life a technology industry that is rapidly and dramatically changing by examining the life of one of its most powerful and influential titans.
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Homo Deus
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER,Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity???s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.,Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style???thorough, yet riveting???famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda.,What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century???from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.,With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future.
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Poor Charlie’s Almanack
Poor Charlie’s Almanack is a collection of speeches and talks by Charlie Munger, compiled by Peter D. Kaufman.,Charlie Munger is the long serving vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. This book brings together his investing thoughts beyond his famous statement “I have nothing to add.” Munger is an admirer of Benjamin Franklin, and the book’s title is a tribute to Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack.,Net proceeds from sales of the book go to the Munger Research Center at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.
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Principles
1 New York Times Bestseller.,???Significant…The book is both instructive and surprisingly moving.??? ???The New York Times,Ray Dalio, one of the world???s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he???s developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to create unique results in both life and business???and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals.,In Principles, Dalio shares what he???s learned over the course of his remarkable career. He argues that life, management, economics, and investing can all be systemized into rules and understood like machines. The book???s hundreds of practical lessons, which are built around his cornerstones of ???radical truth??? and ???radical transparency,??? include Dalio laying out the most effective ways for individuals and organizations to make decisions, approach challenges, and build strong teams. He also describes the innovative tools the firm uses to bring an idea meritocracy to life, such as creating ???baseball cards??? for all employees that distill their strengths and weaknesses, and employing computerized decision-making systems to make believability-weighted decisions. While the book brims with novel ideas for organizations and institutions, Principles also offers a clear, straightforward approach to decision-making that Dalio believes anyone can apply, no matter what they???re seeking to achieve.,Here, from a man who has been called both ???the Steve Jobs of investing??? and ???the philosopher king of the financial universe??? (CIO magazine), is a rare opportunity to gain proven advice unlike anything you???ll find in the conventional business press.
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Sapiens
100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens.,How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?,In ,, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical ??? and sometimes devastating ??? breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?,Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power … and our future.
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Setting the Table
A landmark, bestselling business book and a fascinating behind-the-scenes history of the creation of Danny’s most famous eating establishments, Setting the Table is a treasure trove of valuable, innovative insights applicable to any business or organization.
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The Fountainhead
The revolutionary literary vision that sowed the seeds of Objectivism, Ayn Rand’s groundbreaking philosophy, and brought her immediate worldwide acclaim. This modern classic is the story of intransigent young architect Howard Roark, whose integrity was as unyielding as granite…of Dominique Francon, the exquisitely beautiful woman who loved Roark passionately, but married his worst enemy…and of the fanatic denunciation unleashed by an enraged society against a great creator. As fresh today as it was then, Rand???s provocative novel presents one of the most challenging ideas in all of fiction???that man???s ego is the fountainhead of human progress…,???A writer of great power. She has a subtle and ingenious mind and the capacity of writing brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly…This is the only novel of ideas written by an American woman that I can recall.??????The New York Times
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The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Since its release in 1949, , has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell???s revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In these pages, Campbell outlines the Hero???s Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world???s mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.,As part of the Joseph Campbell Foundation???s Collected Works of Joseph Campbell, this third edition features expanded illustrations, a comprehensive bibliography, and more accessible sidebars.,As relevant today as when it was first published, , continues to find new audiences in fields ranging from religion and anthropology to literature and film studies. The book has also profoundly influenced creative artists???including authors, songwriters, game designers, and filmmakers???and continues to inspire all those interested in the inherent human need to tell stories.
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Zero to One
1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER,If you want to build a better future, you must believe in secrets.,The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.,Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.,Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.,Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.