The Undeniably Non-Fiction Book Club (Berkeley)

For those who are interested, here is the link to the detailed results from the voting.

Here is a summary of the book:

In Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization, Ed Conway explores how six fundamental substances—sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium—form the backbone of our modern world. Conway delves into the historical and contemporary significance of these materials, illustrating how they have been instrumental in building empires, fueling economies, and shaping societies. For instance, sand is not only essential for construction but also for producing silicon chips that power our digital devices, while lithium has become crucial for the batteries that drive the renewable energy revolution.

Conway's narrative takes readers on a global journey, from the depths of European mines to the high-tech factories of Taiwan, revealing the complex supply chains and geopolitical dynamics involved in extracting and utilizing these resources. He highlights the environmental and social costs associated with material extraction, such as the ecological impact of sand mining and the water-intensive processes of lithium extraction in Chile's Salar de Atacama. By examining these materials, Conway underscores the paradox of our reliance on them: while they enable technological advancement and economic growth, they also pose significant sustainability challenges.

Ultimately, Material World serves as a compelling reminder of the tangible elements that underpin our seemingly intangible digital age. Conway argues that despite the perception of living in an "ethereal world" dominated by information and services, our existence remains deeply rooted in physical materials. He calls for a greater awareness of the origins and implications of the resources we depend on, emphasizing the need for responsible consumption and sustainable practices to ensure the longevity of our civilization.

This event will be hybrid. I will host the meeting in person at my house in Berkeley which is near the intersection of College Ave and Woolsey St. I will email people the address the Saturday before the meeting. Here are the Google Meet details:

Meeting ID
meet.google.com/bzk-pzzc-wfc
Phone Numbers
(‪US‬)
‪+1 405-489-2040‬
PIN: ‪761 954 569#‬

For those who are interested, here is the link to the detailed results from the voting.

Here is a summary of the book:

“A gripping account of PayPal’s origins and a vivid portrait of the geeks and contrarians who made its meteoric rise possible” ( The Wall Street Journal )—including Elon Musk, Amy Rowe Klement, Peter Thiel, Julie Anderson, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman, and many others whose stories have never been shared.

Today, PayPal’s founders and earliest employees are considered the technology industry’s most powerful network. Since leaving PayPal, they have formed, funded, and advised the leading companies of our era, including Tesla, Facebook, YouTube, SpaceX, Yelp, Palantir, and LinkedIn, among many others. As a group, they have driven twenty-first-century innovation and entrepreneurship. Their names stir passions; they’re as controversial as they are admired.

Yet for all their influence, the story of where they first started has gone largely untold. Before igniting the commercial space race or jumpstarting social media’s rise, they were the unknown creators of a scrappy online payments start-up called PayPal. In building what became one of the world’s foremost companies, they faced bruising competition, internal strife, the emergence of widespread online fraud, and the devastating dot-com bust of the 2000s. Their success was anything but certain.

In The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley, award-winning author and biographer Jimmy Soni explores PayPal’s turbulent early days. With hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access to thousands of pages of internal material, he shows how the seeds of so much of what shapes our world today—fast-scaling digital start-ups, cashless currency concepts, mobile money transfer—were planted two decades ago. He also reveals the stories of countless individuals who were left out of the front-page features and banner headlines but who were central to PayPal’s success.

Described as “an intensely magnetic chronicle” ( The New York Times ) and “engrossing” ( Business Insider ), The Founders is a story of iteration and inventiveness—the products of which have cast a long and powerful shadow over modern life. This narrative illustrates how this rare assemblage of talent came to work together and how their collaboration changed our world forever.

This event will be hybrid. I will host the meeting in person at my house in Berkeley which is near the intersection of College Ave and Woolsey St. I will email people the address the Saturday before the meeting. Here are the Google Meet details:

Meeting ID
meet.google.com/bzk-pzzc-wfc
Phone Numbers
(‪US‬)
‪+1 405-489-2040‬
PIN: ‪761 954 569#‬