Reading.

For investors, reading is a part of the job.

I made my investment decision in Coinbase because I read a lot. In 2012, I read about Bitcoin in an Economist magazine and it gave me the last piece of validation I needed to make the decision. Warren Buffett says he reads 7 hours a day. When Warren Buffett does something for 7 hours a day, it feels like a good use of time.

I’m careful about what I read because it impacts how I think, and how I think, impacts what I say, and what I say, impacts what I do.

The internet is so noisy these days. It’s harder and harder to find the content that feeds me what I want.

For me, most of my reading, I want to contribute to the success of Boost VC or be super fun… ideally both. So I spend a lot of time reading Science Fiction books or Science magazines. I should mention — those are my favorite things to read, it just happens to help Boost VC. Currently I’m reading “The Old Man’s War,” and “The Renegades.”

Additionally, I’ve found that I don’t really enjoy the books or readings that are “Popular” in the venture capital community. I’m impressed how things like “The Three Body Problem”, and “Sapiens” get so much notoriety in venture, but I’ve started both 5 times and never finished them.

I used to punish myself and force myself to finish all the books I started, but as I read more, I realized that it’s a huge waste of time.

The most under-valued thing about reading is the timing of the right thing at the right time. Coinbase is my best example with the Economist article, but really it happens all the time. How do you ready your brain to absorb the correct information in order to make the best decisions? The only real answer is to read all the time, and to spend time curating the things you read. If you do this, you can hope that by hanging around the appropriate topics, you will stumble upon an important piece of information that you were ready to receive.

Something else I do in reference to reading is that I re-read books that I like all the time: The Name of the Wind, Eragon, Harry Potter and Ender’s Game to name a few. I get something new out of them each time. My brain is ready to listen to different parts of the secrets hidden in the stories each time.