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Founder of Platformer, a newsletter on tech platforms and the people they affect, and co-host of the Hard Fork podcast at the New York Times.

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  Storytelling hits harder when delivered by the human voice.

  Their words

  NPR listeners have long known what modern podcast listeners only realized more recently - that storytelling often hits way harder when it's delivered by the human voice.

  What was Hard Fork?platformer.news

Political scientist writing Drezner's World on international relations, American politics and the marketplace of ideas; author of The Ideas Industry.

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  Fully revealing a mystery-box show's central plot often disappoints viewers, flattening everything that happened before it.

  Their words

  Once the entire plot is revealed in shows like this one, it can be a letdown, flattening what has happened previously.

  My Frustration With Puzzlebox Televisiondanieldrezner.substack.com

American-Polish journalist and historian, staff writer at The Atlantic; author of Gulag, Iron Curtain, Twilight of Democracy and Autocracy, Inc.

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  A conspiracy theory can be used as a pretext to dismantle government programs and target researchers and citizens.

  Americagovernment

  Their words

  Since 2025, MAGA ideologues have been using this alleged plot as an excuse to dismantle government programs, stifle research, intimidate American citizens, and even distort American foreign policy.

  The Myth of the “Censorship Industrial Complex”anneapplebaum.substack.com

Co-founder of Foundry Group and of Techstars. Has blogged at Feld Thoughts since 2004 and has written or co-written nine non-fiction books on startups and venture capital.

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  World-building in fiction cannot be mere decoration — it must be integral to the plot.

  Their words

  world building can't simply be decoration. It has to be integral to the plot.

  What the Actual Fuck, Carlfeld.com

Chief Product and Technology Officer at Netflix, previously VP of Science at Lyft and an economist at Analysis Group.

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  Entertainment without humans at the heart of it does not work: storytelling is a scarce human skill, and characters without that humanity are less compelling.

  Their words

  I have a hard time picturing entertainment that doesn't have humans at the heart of it. So that that's humans in the creation of the storytelling, which I think is a scarce and valuable skill.

  youtube.com

AI researcher at OpenAI; built the poker systems Libratus and Pluribus and the Diplomacy agent Cicero, and works on reasoning models.

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  A benchmark result should be reported under a stated budget, or as a curve against test-time compute — never as a single number.

  benchmarks

  Their words

  my claim is the proper way to evaluate the models now is you either have some kind of budget for the benchmark whether it's tokens or cost or time or whatever or you plot the performance as a function of the amount of test time compute that's going into the model

  youtube.com

British open-standards and open-source technologist, formerly of the UK Government Digital Service and the W3C Advisory Committee. Blogs at shkspr.mobi, where he posts a book review most weeks.

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  The Great When

  Their words

  It is an epic tale full of rogues and reprobates. The story is excellent even though the plot follows a fairly basic structure. Although set up to be a series, it is a satisfying stand-alone tale.

  shkspr.mobi

Founded Bridgewater Associates in 1975 and led it until stepping back from control in 2022. Author of Principles, The Changing World Order and How Countries Go Broke; publishes economic analysis at economicprinciples.org.

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  Systematising principled decision-making with AI is now the line between staying competitive and not; there is no position in between.

  Their words

  What this process can now do in creating understanding of the timeless and universal cause:effect relationship and enhancing and systemizing whatever one is thinking is mind-blowing. I believe that you will either stay at the cutting edge of doing this or you will be uncompetitive.

  Principled Thinking and AI Need to Go Togetherraydalio.substack.com

Creator of the iPod and co-creator of the iPhone at Apple, founder of Nest, and author of Build.

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  Technology-led teams talk about what a product is and never about why it matters, and the why is where the whole story lives.

  Their words

  because too many times when we're technology-led, we talk about the what. We don't talk about the why. And the why is where the storytelling is.

  youtube.com

Executive coach for product leaders. Previously a partner at GV (Google Ventures) and a product manager at Google. Writes at Bring the Donuts, including a standing essential-reading list for product managers.

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  The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better

  Their words

  One of the most common requests I receive is for resources to become a better storyteller. In this book, award-winning novelist Will Storr looks at how the brain responds to stories, and how to captivate your audience and connect with their emotions.

  bringthedonuts.com

Novelist, author of twelve books including Foundry, Bandwidth and Cumulus. Sends a newsletter of monthly book recommendations.

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  Breakneck

  Their words

  Breakneck by Dan Wang takes you on a fascinating journey through China's engineering state, juxtaposing it against America's lawyerly society in an effort to reveal what each country should learn from the other. I've been a keen reader of Dan's personal blog for many years and am delighted to report that this book, his first, features everything I love most about his writing: his unbounded curiosity, thoughtful analysis, compelling storytelling, self-awareness, offbeat sense of humor, and insights born of lived experience.

  eliotpeper.substack.com

China economy researcher based in Beijing who writes on his personal blog about Chinese political economy, history, books and music.

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  The Lumumba Plot

  Their words

  Nominally a biography of Patrice Lumumba, this book is actually a gripping, blow-by-blow account of how the Congo stumbled to independence from Belgian rule.

  andrewbatson.com

American science fiction novelist (Old Man's War, Redshirts, The Kaiju Preservation Society); has run the blog Whatever since 1998.

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  Raiders of the Lost Ark

  Their words

  I am a relic of the 80s as much as Raiders of the Lost Ark, and while I acknowledge how storytelling has changed between now and then, as a storytelling vehicle, in many ways it is still peerless and endlessly watchable.

  whatever.scalzi.com

Writer and novelist. Publishes essays and book notes at nateliason.com; author of the novel Husk and of Crypto Confidential.

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  The effectiveness of a plot twist depends on how carefully a story's point of view relates to its audience.

  Their words

  Point of view is essential for effective twists. Contrast Frozen with Fight Club, where the narrator's unreliability works because the entire story flows through his perspective and he maintains a direct relationship with the audience through fourth-wall breaks.

  Frozen's Lie: How a Tiny Detail Can Ruin a Storynateliason.com

Writer and former McKinsey/BCG strategy consultant; author of The Pathless Path and Good Work, about leaving the default career track. Publishes the Boundless newsletter and podcast.

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  In Praise of Idleness

  Their words

  A collection of timeless essays from philosopher Bertrand Russell, including his famous 'In Praise of Idleness' which challenges our obsession with work and argues that leisure time, properly used, is essential for a fulfilling life and a better society.

  pathlesspath.com

Executive coach for product leaders. Previously a partner at GV (Google Ventures) and a product manager at Google. Writes at Bring the Donuts, including a standing essential-reading list for product managers.

From one piece Storytelling for Product Leaders 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Reading aloud to children teaches more about storytelling than books on public-speaking technique do.

  Their words

  You'll learn more about becoming a better storyteller from reading to your children than from any book with a title like "How To Deliver a TED Talk."

  Storytelling for Product Leadersbringthedonuts.com

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  Good storytelling doesn't require inventing something entirely new; it can be built from existing material.

  Their words

  One myth of good storytelling is that it requires dreaming up something entirely new from scratch. That's not necessary.

  Storytelling for Product Leadersbringthedonuts.com

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  Great storytelling skill comes from immersion in the liberal arts, not from corporate media training.

  Their words

  Steve Jobs was an incredible storyteller because he was immersed in the liberal arts, not because he went to corporate media training.

  Storytelling for Product Leadersbringthedonuts.com

Writes The Pragmatic Engineer, the software-engineering newsletter, and wrote The Software Engineer's Guidebook. Formerly an engineering manager at Uber, and at Microsoft/Skype and Skyscanner before that.

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  The Goal

  Their words

  Written in the '80s, yet a timeless novel on what management is about, may that be a manager of a team, an organization or an industrial plant.

  blog.pragmaticengineer.com

Writer on the intersection of technology and finance. Author of the Bits about Money newsletter and host of the Complex Systems podcast; previously at Stripe.

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  The Dagger and the Coin

  Their words

  This is a worthy entry in the genre. It suffers a bit from extensive plot not about banking and characters who barely speak to dragons. But all of that irrelevant fluff makes it one of the most underrated fantasy series I’ve ever read.

  bitsaboutmoney.com

Theoretical computer scientist, Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin and director of its Quantum Information Center. Writes the blog Shtetl-Optimized.

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  2040

  Their words

  Having said all that: I confess I enjoyed "2040." The plot is tightly constructed, the dialogue crackles (certainly for a CS professor writing a first novel), the satire at least provokes chuckles, and at just 215 pages, the action moves.

  scottaaronson.blog

Statistician at Carnegie Mellon; writes on complex systems, machine learning and inference, and has kept a books-read notebook since 2000 that is now thousands of entries long.

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  Tinker

  Their words

  Mind candy fantasy, in which Pittsburgh is transported to Elfland for most of each month. I read it for the local interest (admission to CMU plays a small part of the plot, and bad things happen in Turtle Creek [which I can only too easily believe]), and it was OK, but not good enough to make me pick up any of the many sequels.

  bactra.org

Monetary economist known for NGDP-level targeting. Wrote TheMoneyIllusion until it closed in 2024 and now writes The Pursuit of Happiness.

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  Hit Man

  Their words

  Hit Man (US) 3.5 Highly entertaining due to its killer plot. So why not a higher rating? I was disappointed that Linklater did so little with the plot—much of the execution (not all) is fairly bland. Where’s the style? As a comedy, it’s only OK. As film noir, it’s nowhere near as intense as Body Heat. It’s sort of Soderbergh-lite. And yet more people will like this one than any other film on my list, because of the great plot.

  themoneyillusion.com

Theoretical physicist and philosopher, Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins and fractal faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. Writes the Preposterous Universe blog and hosts the Mindscape podcast.

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  Physicists did not invent dark matter and dark energy to rescue their theories — they would much rather the answer were something cooler, and the data will not allow it.

  energy

  Their words

  I tear my hair out when people who are not physicists accuse physicists, like you say, of losing the plot because they need dark matter and dark energy. I don’t want dark matter and dark energy; I want something much cooler than that. I’ve tried. But you got to listen to the equations and to the data.

  youtube.com

Writer of the personal-finance blog Of Dollars And Data and author of Just Keep Buying and The Wealth Ladder. Chief Operating Officer at Ritholtz Wealth Management.

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  The Most Important Thing

  Their words

  Thankfully, Marks published a book called The Most Important Thing , where he lays out his investment philosophy through 20 timeless principles.

  ofdollarsanddata.com

Statistician at Carnegie Mellon; writes on complex systems, machine learning and inference, and has kept a books-read notebook since 2000 that is now thousands of entries long.

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  The Silver Tide

  Their words

  They're all mind candy, but of high quality, and this one even makes me swallow a time-travel plot without complaint. But it really does rely on having read the rest of the trilogy beforehand.

  bactra.org

Co-founder of Microsoft and of the Gates Foundation. Writes Gates Notes on global health, energy and climate, and on whatever they have been reading.

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  The Lincoln Highway

  Their words

  Once again, I was wowed by Towles’s writing—especially because The Lincoln Highway is so different from A Gentleman in Moscow in terms of setting, plot, and themes.

  gatesnotes.com

Computer science professor at Georgetown University and author of Deep Work, Digital Minimalism and Slow Productivity; writes about focus, technology and work at calnewport.com and hosts the Deep Questions podcast.

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  Hero On a Mission

  Their words

  I found myself unexpectedly (and perhaps dangerously) inspired by Miller's discussion of the 15-acre plot of land he and his wife bought outside Nashville, where they're carefully cultivating the forest, planting extensive gardens, and organizing retreats.

  calnewport.com

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  When the Lion Feeds

  Their words

  It's definitely a book of its time (it was first published in the 1960s), but it introduces plot and style conventions that echoed throughout many adventure titles that followed.

  calnewport.com

Non-fiction writer, podcaster and occasional TV host. Author of thirteen books including The Ghost Map, Where Good Ideas Come From and Extra Life, host of the PBS series How We Got To Now, and author of the Adjacent Possible newsletter on innovation.

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  The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity

  Their words

  I wouldn’t say that this is the most compelling book I’ve ever read in terms of the prose style or storytelling, but it does provide a very helpful, almost quantitative overview of all the potential threats looming out there

  adjacentpossible.substack.com

Writer and illustrator behind Wait But Why, a long-form blog of stick-figure-illustrated explainers on science, technology and society, and author of the book What's Our Problem?

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  Watching a film for the first time is exciting because part of the brain immerses itself in the plot as if experiencing it firsthand.

  Their words

  Many films are the most fun the first time because a part of our brains loses itself in the plot and actually experiences what the characters are experiencing, to an extent.

  Mailbag #2waitbutwhy.com

Founder and CEO of Get Lighthouse, a management-coaching software company, and previously a product lead at KISSmetrics. Writes about leadership, management and product at jasonevanish.com.

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  Economics in One Lesson

  Their words

  This economics thought experiment is a classic book originally written in 1946. Like most books that follow Nassim Taleb's "all books worth reading are at least 20 years old" rule, it has timeless lessons throughout. It tackles all kinds of ongoing political/economic concepts like rent control, minimum wage, tariffs, "saving industries", and more.

  jasonevanish.com

Writer and novelist. Publishes essays and book notes at nateliason.com; author of the novel Husk and of Crypto Confidential.

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  East of Eden

  Their words

  Absolutely beautiful, a must read. No crazy plot, but there doesn’t need to be.

  nateliason.com

Co-founder of Microsoft and of the Gates Foundation. Writes Gates Notes on global health, energy and climate, and on whatever they have been reading.

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  The Heart

  Their words

  It’s not the plot that makes The Heart such a wonderful book.

  gatesnotes.com

Programmer; builds Mac and iOS apps, wrote WatermelonDB, and writes about tools, focus and software craft.

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  The Emperor of All Maladies

  Their words

  History of cancer (and the research and people trying to combat it) taught through (very good) storytelling.

  radex.io