From oil barons to AI builders: Books we’re reading this winter
40+ books we're reading and recommending. Plus, a conversation on what’s next for wallets with Phantom CEO Brandon Millman
IN THIS EDITION
40+ book ideas for the holiday break, covering everything from memoir to market design
How crypto wallets are evolving into consumer finance platforms — and why they may become the internet’s next super apps
A case study on the Balancer exploit: Why runtime enforcement should be treated as a first-class design requirement for systems that rely on complex numerical behavior
70+ gift ideas to cap off your holiday shopping
WHAT WE’RE READING
From sci-fi to statecraft: 8 books for the holidays
Continuing the long tradition we started here at a16z, here are a few of the books the a16z crypto team is reading and recommending this winter.
Our latest list spans thrillers, samurais, memoirs, and market design with some clear throughlines: the fragility and reinvention of complex systems; the human side of discovery; and the structures of markets, incentives, and mechanisms — whether economic, social, or technical.
Here are just 8 of the 40+ recommendations; you’ll find many more in the full list.
Fiction
The MANIAC by Benjamín Labatut
A novel-like exploration of the personality and life of John von Neumann, celebrated Hungarian-American physicist and computer scientist. – Arianna Simpson, investing
Geopolitics and governance
The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter
Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies argues that civilizations are problem-solving organizations that can eventually succumb to diminishing marginal returns, and then — when there are no neighbors to absorb them — collapse.
Every good layer of bureaucracy or technology creates benefits, but eventually gets squeezed to the point that it costs more than it is worth. If a society doesn’t invest wisely in productivity improvements (particularly energy production) and intentionally shed costly burdens, nature eventually liquidates (simplifies) it. – Eddy Lazzarin, engineering
Arise, England by Caroline Burt and Richard Partington
A brilliant exploration of how the English state emerged, not because of a series of intentional, principled moments of design but because of a series of self-interested bargains between monarchs and their magnates. Obvious lessons for governance design everywhere, including in crypto. – Andy Hall, research
Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang
Breakneck will make you rethink your basic assumptions about China (and by extension the rest of the modern world). Wang brings a savvy eye — and a tolerance for dissonance — to issues as diverse as bridge building (literally), zero-COVID, and the one-child policy. Considered, fast-paced, and uncommonly well-written, Breakneck consistently goes beyond tired political conventions by foregrounding the human implications of Chinese Communist Party rule. – Aiden Slavin, policy
History and biography
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power by Daniel Yergin
The Prize is the definitive history of the oil industry, tracing its roots from the 1850s through the invention of hydraulic fracking. The courage, risk-taking, and invention that characterized the entrepreneurs of the early oil industry rivals anything we’ve seen in the modern Silicon Valley. By understanding oil’s impact on economic growth and geopolitics, one can also get a sense of how far-reaching the implications of crypto and AI are likely to be over the course of the next century. – Jason Rosenthal, operations
Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age by Dennis Duncan
Duncan, a professor of English at the University College London, traces the path of the index — the always-useful compendium of words and ideas buried at the back of a book — from its proto-origins at the Library of Alexandria through modern search engines. Along the way, you’ll learn the history of alphabetization, how accused heretics used the index to defend themselves, how political opponents used the index to take pot shots at one another, and more. It’s delightful, even if you’re not a word nerd. – Tim Sullivan, editorial
Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style by W. David Marx
I’ve come to really enjoy menswear, most of which happens to be made in Japan. I was fascinated to understand why the highest quality American style clothing all happened to be made in Japan, and this book opened a whole new world I never knew about. – Guy Wuollet, investing
Markets, incentives, and mechanism design
Lucky by Design by Judd B. Kessler
This book — by my former grad school office mate Judd Kessler — is one of the best out there on what market design means for our everyday lives. Kessler illustrates the mechanics of all manner of markets, and how to make them equitable, efficient, and easy to be a part of. It’s a perfect complement to several of my recommendations from prior years, such as Who Gets What—And Why and The Inner Lives of Markets. – Scott Duke Kominers, research
Memoir
When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines by Graydon Carter
Carter’s memoir was most interesting in the parts where he talked about his philosophies and approaches on magazines, and when he shared some fun inside details on Condé Nast (where I also once worked when at Wired). I especially devoured the details on topics like publishing cadence, specific articles and authors, and how big iconic events like the annual Vanity Fair Oscar Party came about. When the book ended — and it ends with a delightful list of Carter’s “rules for living,” spanning everything from how to do table place cards to choosing friends who are FISK (funny, interesting, smart, and kind) — I actually cried. I was sad to lose the parasocial “friend” I’d followed for decades and across these pages, and was deeply sad about the end of an era for a medium that shaped our culture… and more inspired than ever to make my own. – Sonal Chokshi, editorial
BOOK TALK
And more recommendations from founders…
This year, we asked founders attending our Founders Summit what book they’d recommend. Here are a few:
PODCAST
The internet’s new interface
Crypto wallets are no longer just wallets. They’re the front door to a decentralized internet.
In this episode, Phantom CEO Brandon Millman joins a16z crypto partners Jay Drain and host Robert Hackett to unpack how crypto wallets are evolving into full-blown consumer finance platforms — and why they may be the most credible candidates to become the internet’s next super apps.
We explore Phantom’s journey from a Solana-first wallet to a multi-chain platform; why wallets are uniquely positioned to win trust around money; and how features like onchain trading, perps, social feeds, prediction markets, and payments are reshaping what people expect from a consumer finance app.
If you’re curious about where crypto, fintech, and consumer apps are headed next, this episode is for you.
Highlights
01:32 – The evolution and role of crypto wallets
02:42 – Wallets vs. browsers: the right mental model
12:03 – Phantom’s origin story and the Solana bet
19:05 – Perps, trading, and product-market fit
26:08 – UX, trust, and consumer finance
30:52 – Social feeds, discovery, and network effects
35:21 – Crypto as a “black hole” absorbing finance
37:09 – AI agents and the future of wallets
ANATOMY OF A HACK
Runtime enforcement: A new line of defense against subtle numerical exploits
Daejun Park and Matt Gleason
Over the past month, we’ve seen two major exploits on closely related systems: Balancer’s Composable Stable Pools and Yearn’s yETH. The details differ but the shape of the failures is strikingly similar: subtle numerical behavior at the edge of precision, exploited through highly sophisticated sequences of transactions.
The Balancer exploit alone siphoned more than $120 million. The shock was amplified because the targeted contracts had been operating for years — considered “battle‑tested” and safe by many. Just a few weeks later, yETH suffered a separate exploit with a different immediate root cause but the same underlying pattern: tiny numerical errors becoming material under adversarially engineered conditions.
When two such incidents land back-to-back, it’s no longer just about a single bug or protocol. It suggests a broader class of numerical vulnerabilities that our standard defenses don’t fully address. So in this post, we use the Balancer incident as a concrete case study: We distill the core mechanics and outline methodologies to prevent similar failures, from pool-favorable rounding and virtual liquidity to precision math and, ultimately, runtime enforcement of invariants.
Our argument? That especially in light of recent events, runtime enforcement should be treated as a first-class design requirement for systems that rely on complex numerical behavior.
GIFT GUIDE
Looking for a last-minute gift?
Not to worry: Here’s a list of 70+ gifts, curated by our team, from our favorite tech to self-care staples. There’s a lot here, ranging in price and with options for all ages. We’ve included gifts everyone will appreciate (AirPods), aesthetic picks for the hard to please (wooden puzzles), and gadgets we didn’t know we needed (a peanut butter stirrer, anyone?). See the full list.
NEWS AND UPDATES
Rulemaking: The CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) kicked off their Crypto Sprint a few months ago to provide regulatory clarity and foster innovation in digital asset markets. a16z crypto’s policy team just submitted their response — proposing three concrete, actionable measures within the agency’s current authority that would protect developers creating DeFi derivatives products and services in the United States. You can read our summary here.
Fact checks: As we covered in last week’s newsletter edition, many have pointed out numerous misrepresentations in a recent New York Times article attempting to explain stablecoins, and specifically “how stablecoins in your crypto wallet differ from a traditional bank deposit.” Here’s one more rebuttal from Unchained’s (and former Forbes senior editor) Laura Shin:
— a16z crypto editorial team
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