Microsoft, perfectionism and traveling cats: Our reading list for spring 2025

Enough winter, spring is finally here for a glimpse 🌷🌼 Accordingly, we are already feeling the need to sit down for a picnic in the city park and enjoy some downtime with appropriate reading. 😉 For exactly this purpose, we have curated five books for you to enjoy the beautiful weather! ☀️

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Source Code: My Beginnings — Bill Gates

You could say it: In a Silicon Valley consisting of Musks and Zuckerbergs, you can also be pleased that there is a Bill Gates who, instead of his own ego cult, is dedicated to topics such as climate change, healthcare and US education.

The Microsoft founder has now Source Code: My Beginnings put at least part of his biography down on paper. However, Gates is not primarily concerned with business issues, his own company history or the like; rather, the focus is on young Gates. His childhood, interests during it — the family that brought him up, the friends who accompanied him in his youth and the sudden death of one of them.

A warm and personal portrait of one of the most influential entrepreneurs of our time, which works particularly on a human level, but also offers material for techies and co., if not least in a slight pinch of self-identification. 😉
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How To Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists — Ellen Hendriksen

Unfortunately, it seems to be a symptom of the digitalized working world to cultivate a certain degree of perfectionism. Whether it's workflows, end products or scheduling, everything can be further optimized down to the smallest detail — and while that can deliver results, it can be quite stressful.

Ellen Hendriksens How To Be Enough: Self-Accpetance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists is dedicated to precisely this tricky problem; the unpleasant grey area, where perfectionism does not achieve the quest for best performance, but the feeling of never being good enough. Hendriksen is exactly the right person to offer help here: Not only as a clinical psychologist, who therefore has the appropriate tips and methods up her sleeve, but in particular as a self-confessed perfectionist who is very familiar with the underlying problems.

As empathetic as he is humorous, Hendriksen offers seven adjustments to the inner circuits to re-code yourself in order to learn to be lenient with yourself when you only work under your own strictness. Hendriksen combines not only psychological expertise including the studies used, but also anecdotes from her (anonymized) patients in order to create the necessary basis for identification and to show that she is not alone in all of this. The particular strength of the book, however, lies above all in the fact that the positive aspects of perfectionism are also emphasized. This is not a weakness of character that must be cured, but a peculiarity with which a healthy relationship should be established. If this sounds familiar, we can only recommend the book.

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‍Bad Friend: How Women Revolutionized Modern Friendship — Tiffany Watt Smith

It must be recognized that in the cultural-social poetry of our time, friendships between men and friendships between women are fundamentally semantized differently. Sisterhood, BFFs, girl power and the like: female friendship is idealized, somewhere between resistance and solidarity, in a patriarchal, male-dominated society. However, the reality is often different, according to Tiffany Watt Smith.

Bad Friend: How Women Revolutionized Modern Friendship is more than a simple memoir about the author's platonic complications, because the cultural historian seamlessly interweaves private matters with historical expertise to develop an emphatic presentation of the social position and perception of women.

According to Watt Smith, we are all bad friends, but female friendships in particular are examined, interpreted and yes, moralized too much. The author is wonderfully transparent not only with her own experiences, but also with her goal: A feminist paradigm shift that includes the complications of friendship as well as the resulting pleasures. A life without friendship would be terrible — but we must also admit that only a few friendships are perfect. And that's okay.

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‍The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, 2019—2025 — Dwarkesh Patel & Gavin Leech

Of course, there is a lot of fanfare about which direction the AI revolution will take us, but here is a very wild suggestion: Why don't we just ask those who are driving it forward in the first place? For years, the Dwarkesh podcast this question and conducted interviews with the most important experts in this field — from DeepMind and OpenAI cofounders to Mark Zuckerberg.

The Scaling Era is the revised transcription of the most important findings that have emerged from the discussions held. Patel shines with the unusual talent of placing his finger on exactly the right points and asking the questions that need to be asked but would slip away from most people. Basically, the book also serves as an introduction to the topic with over 170 definitions and graphics, but is more designed for advanced AI experts.

Patel's expertise, which he summarizes in The Scaling Era There is no doubt that no other person has interviewed so many leading experts on the subject of AI, creating an impressive portrait of the most transformative technology of our time.

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‍The Traveling Cat Chronicles — Hiro Arikawa

Satoru, a self-drawn man from Japan, sits in the car with his adopted stray cat Nana — named after the Japanese word for “seven” because of his peculiar tail shape — and begins a journey through the seasons and scenery of his home country to visit various old friends. A large part of the story is told from the perspective of the cat itself, which, with dry sarcasm and a slight irritation towards the human species, lends a charming, humorous voice. An actually simple premise, almost unspectacular — but you quickly have to realize how much emotional weight there is in this plot.

In the course of events, not only the turbulent past of the introverted cat owner is revealed, but also his state of health and the resulting implication: This is not a simple vacation that Satoru wants to take on with his best friend, it is the search for a new home for Nana.

It all sounds very sad, we know, but it isn't at all. Well, no only. First and foremost is The Traveling Cat Chronicles A book with a lot of heart that, beyond its tragic beginnings, makes an appeal for beauty, for solidarity and togetherness — with each other, with nature and, of course, with the animal companions who stand by us in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. A nice book for this time of year, because as courageous as Satoru is — not only but especially when dealing with Nana — you can't help yourself except to think that this person would ever be anywhere but the spring of your own life. Can you certainly take an example. 🌸

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As always, we hope you enjoy reading and look forward to talking to you! 📖

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