The other book is, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?"

https://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/03933...

I particularly liked it for the in depth discussion of how Appendix F came to be written.

https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm

Edward Tufte's analysis of the Space Shuttle Columbia explosion[0] is by far the most informative post mortem I've seen. It directly impacted everything I've written since reading it.

If you hit the link, you'll see the page appears to be a wall of text, not a simple slide or two. As you read deeper into the report, you'll understand that's an intentional aspect of the report. (I'll also note this is the Columbia explosion, not the better known Challenger disaster O-ring post-mortem discussed by Richard Feynman in his autobiography[1], even though that's a great post mortem as well).

[0]https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=...

[1]https://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/03933...

Definitely not! If you act like a jerk it's not like that goes unnoticed either. Wouldn't you rather do business with companies that seem like they're generally trying to be helpful? Stripe is a good example. YC is a good example.

Frankly there is a shortage of companies like this, thats part of why you may feel this way.

This shortage makes it more valuable to operate with integrity.

Also it's just a much more fun way to live. What else are you going to do? Go around screwing people over all the time? At the end of the day you still have to live with yourself.

If you're looking for examples of this mindset I recommend reading Feynmann[0][1], How I Became The Honest Broker[2], and Various Diatribes from old hacker culture[3].

It's possible to play extremely hard and not be an asshole. It's called good sportsmanship. It's not required but it's entirely possible.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Cha...

[1] https://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/03933...

[2] https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/how-i-became-the-honest-brok...

[3] http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

> as well as the characters

While I cannot recommend any books on physics itself, I can recommend a couple light reads on Richard Feynman, the Nobel prize-winning physicist (links below). Each is structured as a series of short autobiographical stories so they're very easy reads that shed light on some of Feynman's life, both within and without academia.

[1] Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)

http://amzn.to/2gTVXa5

[2] "What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character

http://amzn.to/2gTWfOd

The sequel, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character [1] is also excellent, and includes his account of serving on the commission that investigated the Challenger disaster.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/03933... or part of the buy it together bundle in wimagguc's link

I think shedding some self consciousness can be a good thing. Feynman captures it with a perhaps more positive spin than this book. http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/039332...

If this is taken to extreme, it's actually very bad. Leaders who don't care for their followers cause a lot of anguish. And how will polite society fare if nobody cares how anyone else feels? So if society needs 90% of people to be self conscious and follow norms, are they all the suckers?

Interesting read, but if anyone is interested in more personal anecdotes like this, I suggest:

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Char...

[2]http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/039332...

I highly recommend both of Feynman's memoirs:

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Char...

"What Do You Care What Other People Think?" http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/039332...

He's of course a good writer. But if you didn't know any better, you'd think him to be a sort of adult-Pollyanna, someone of innocent optimism and immense curiosity. It reminds me a lot of reading Woz's autobiography, in fact; I guess it makes sense that this characteristic of constantly questioning and challenging the norms is what leads to great innovation.

In a chapter from "Surely You're Joking", Feynman describes how he was curious about the accepted fact that dogs have a much better sense of smell than humans. So he went around sniffing objects held by humans, even getting down on the carpet on his hands and knees to see if he could smell his own footprints: http://goo.gl/WBbw1

It's an amusing story, but one that is very telling of Feynman's insatiable curiosity and scientific mind. He did these smell-experiments not as a child, but when he was a scientist at Los Alamos.

Read something REALLY fun, enlightening and TRUE: Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a curious character) and What do you care what other people think (Further adventures of a curious character)

ObAmazon: http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/039332...

ObAmazon: http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Char...