Recommended Reading 2024

2024 was a year of depth over breadth. With Curacel running well and Soteria AI spinning up, I focused on understanding what separates good startups from great ones.

Elon Musk

by Walter Isaacson

Isaacson spent two years shadowing Musk for this biography. The good, the bad, the complicated. Whether you admire or despise him, understanding how he thinks — the “algorithm,” the first principles approach, the relentless urgency — is valuable. Essential reading for anyone building ambitious things.

Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups

by Ali Tamaseb

Ali analyzed 30,000 data points across hundreds of billion-dollar companies to find what actually matters. Spoiler: it’s not what most people think. The “dropout founder” narrative is mostly myth. Most unicorn founders are in their late 30s with significant industry experience.

Key findings that challenged my assumptions:

60% of unicorn founders had prior startup experience
Only 20% were first-time founders with no prior startup experience
The average age of unicorn founders at founding was 34
Most successful founders worked in the same industry as their startup

The data doesn’t lie. Experience and domain expertise matter more than youth and naivety. This book should be required reading for anyone thinking about what kind of founder to be — or who to back.

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