David Shaywitz

MD,PhD;MGH,BCG now VC in SV (TVI)."Find cool stuff. Have fun. Make impact."- @eperakslis Bio∩tech∩health.Grounded optimist.TechTonics(bk,pcast). Contrib @Forbes

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Book Recommendations:

DS

Recommended by David Shaywitz

Just finished an interesting book, Bet on Yourself, recommended by colleague. Learned a lot from author @AnnRHiatt in part bc we are so dissimilar (one of us is intrinsically deliberate, programmatic, organized, and a pleaser…). But share passion for innovation, growth mindset. (from X)

Take charge of your career and create a life full of learning, adventure, joy, and success utilizing these never-before-shared leadership principles Ann Hiatt learned working alongside the world’s top tech CEOs—Google’s Eric Schmidt, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Yahoo!'s Marissa Mayer. Whether you’re stuck in your current job, starting your first job and wondering how you can use it as a steppingstone towards your dream career, or mid-career and wanting to finally be recognized for promotion or a leadership role, this book is for you. For the first time, Ann Hiatt shares both the daily habits and long-game strategies she learned working side-by-side for decades with the giants of technology at Amazon and Google. Through clear guidance and incredible stories, Bet on Yourself will teach you: How to define your abilities and speak up so that you can be recognized for the work that you do and the unique capabilities you bring to the table.How to create opportunities for yourself when options appear limited and build a purposeful career regardless of your seniority or industry.What it takes to build the confidence you need to build your dream career.How to exchange your frustration over not getting the recognition you deserve for an empowered, actionable plan for taking control of your professional identity and get promoted.These tried-and-true methods to take ordinary opportunities and create something extraordinary, and the leadership principles that guide the work of these celebrity CEOs, are directly applicable to your goals. With a few consistent, daily habits you can build a future that exceeds your wildest expectations. No matter the opportunities available to you in your particular community or career stage, there is a path for you.

DS

Recommended by David Shaywitz

Great final graf (regarding what seems like a fascinating new book, The Secret Body, by @dandavis101) of a magnificently written review of three new immunity/medicine related books by @JohnRossMD https://t.co/MTihZeSMPX @WSJBooks Key point: ↑raw data ≠ ↑useful insight https://t.co/m0xlTCPgv7 (from X)

“A perfect blend of cutting-edge science and compelling storytelling.”―Bill Bryson A revolutionary new vision of human biology and the scientific breakthroughs that will transform our lives Imagine knowing years in advance whether you are likely to get cancer or having a personalized understanding of your individual genes, organs, and cells. Imagine being able to monitor your body's well-being, or have a diet tailored to your microbiome. The Secret Body reveals how these and other stunning breakthroughs and technologies are transforming our understanding of how the human body works, what it is capable of, how to protect it from disease, and how we might manipulate it in the future. Taking readers to the cutting edge of research, Daniel Davis shows how radical new possibilities are becoming realities thanks to the visionary efforts of scientists who are revealing the invisible and secret universe within each of us. Focusing on six important frontiers, Davis describes what we are learning about cells, the development of the fetus, the body's immune system, the brain, the microbiome, and the genome―areas of human biology that are usually understood in isolation. Bringing them together here for the first time, Davis offers a new vision of the human body as a biological wonder of dizzying complexity and possibility. Written by an award-winning scientist at the forefront of this adventure, The Secret Body is a gripping drama of discovery and a landmark account of the dawning revolution in human health.

DS

Recommended by David Shaywitz

Great @BulwarkOnline @SykesCharlie pcast today feat @ScottGottliebMD promoting his outstanding new book, Uncontrolled Spread https://t.co/manYTaDBmk - as usual, smart, thoughtful content - and what a pleasure to hear such a well-informed and reasonable discussion around COVID. https://t.co/JxOX5UCl0j (from X)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Uncontrolled Spread is everything you’d hope: a smart and insightful account of what happened and, currently, the best guide to what needs to be done to avoid a future pandemic." —Wall Street Journal “Informative and well paced.”—The Guardian “An intense ride through the pandemic with chilling details of what really happened. It is also sprinkled with notes of true wisdom that may help all of us better prepare for the future.”—Sanjay Gupta, MD, chief medical correspondent, CNN Physician and former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb asks: Has America’s COVID-19 catastrophe taught us anything? In Uncontrolled Spread, he shows how the coronavirus and its variants were able to trounce America’s pandemic preparations, and he outlines the steps that must be taken to protect against the next outbreak. As the pandemic unfolded, Gottlieb was in regular contact with all the key players in Congress, the Trump administration, and the drug and diagnostic industries. He provides an inside account of how level after level of American government crumbled as the COVID-19 crisis advanced. A system-wide failure across government institutions left the nation blind to the threat, and unable to mount an effective response. We’d prepared for the wrong virus. We failed to identify the contagion early enough and became overly reliant on costly and sometimes divisive tactics that couldn’t fully slow the spread. We never considered asymptomatic transmission and we assumed people would follow public health guidance. Key bureaucracies like the CDC were hidebound and outmatched. Weak political leadership aggravated these woes. We didn’t view a public health disaster as a threat to our national security. Many of the woes sprung from the CDC, which has very little real-time reporting capability to inform us of Covid’s twists and turns or assess our defenses. The agency lacked an operational capacity and mindset to mobilize the kind of national response that was needed. To guard against future pandemic risks, we must remake the CDC and properly equip it to better confront crises. We must also get our intelligence services more engaged in the global public health mission, to gather information and uncover emerging risks before they hit our shores so we can head them off. For this role, our clandestine agencies have tools and capabilities that the CDC lacks. Uncontrolled Spread argues we must fix our systems and prepare for a deadlier coronavirus variant, a flu pandemic, or whatever else nature -- or those wishing us harm -- may threaten us with. Gottlieb outlines policies and investments that are essential to prepare the United States and the world for future threats.

DS

Recommended by David Shaywitz

Spoke today to fantastic data science undergraduates spending summer (virtually for the most part) w @HarvardDBMI - also recommended two books. 1. Range, @DavidEpstein https://t.co/4GRLGyMAcs - how life should be 2. Power, @JeffreyPfeffer https://t.co/0XBAzTiC3R - how life is (from X)

Three Master Secrets of Real Estate Success book cover

by Curtis Oakes, Peter Harris, Trump University·You?

It would take years to learn the keys to real-estate success presented in this unprecedented audio course, in which two master investors reveal their secrets. Curtis Oakes and Peter Harris show how to succeed with an early offer and find opportunities when problems pop up. And they unveil the "Velocity of Money", the key to keeping your dollars working for you 24/7. Own this audio course now if you: Are serious about mastering real estate Demand maximum profits from investments Want to sharpen your real-estate skills

DS

Recommended by David Shaywitz

Really enjoying, and have nearly completed (via @audible_com) @MelMitchell1 fascinating new book on AI. https://t.co/feb6t8qwMJ highly recommended! And h/t to @kevinhorgan for yet another splendid suggestion. (from X)

Melanie Mitchell separates science fact from science fiction in this sweeping examination of the current state of AI and how it is remaking our world No recent scientific enterprise has proved as alluring, terrifying, and filled with extravagant promise and frustrating setbacks as artificial intelligence. The award-winning author Melanie Mitchell, a leading computer scientist, now reveals AI’s turbulent history and the recent spate of apparent successes, grand hopes, and emerging fears surrounding it. In Artificial Intelligence, Mitchell turns to the most urgent questions concerning AI today: How intelligent―really―are the best AI programs? How do they work? What can they actually do, and when do they fail? How humanlike do we expect them to become, and how soon do we need to worry about them surpassing us? Along the way, she introduces the dominant models of modern AI and machine learning, describing cutting-edge AI programs, their human inventors, and the historical lines of thought underpinning recent achievements. She meets with fellow experts such as Douglas Hofstadter, the cognitive scientist and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the modern classic Gödel, Escher, Bach, who explains why he is “terrified” about the future of AI. She explores the profound disconnect between the hype and the actual achievements in AI, providing a clear sense of what the field has accomplished and how much further it has to go. Interweaving stories about the science of AI and the people behind it, Artificial Intelligence brims with clear-sighted, captivating, and accessible accounts of the most interesting and provocative modern work in the field, flavored with Mitchell’s humor and personal observations. This frank, lively book is an indispensable guide to understanding today’s AI, its quest for “human-level” intelligence, and its impact on the future for us all.

DS

Recommended by David Shaywitz

Great new #TechTonics podcast featuring Jim Manzi, discussing pragmatic analysis for business. He's also author of the fantastic book "Uncontrolled." Fascinating life journey, plus grounded discussion of AI in healthcare businesses. https://t.co/yTyMbmzZ4F cc @VentureValkyrie https://t.co/eu9eqCmuc6 (from X)

How do we know which social and economic policies work, which should be continued, and which should be changed? Jim Manzi argues that throughout history, various methods have been attempted -- except for controlled experimentation. Experiments provide the feedback loop that allows us, in certain limited ways, to identify error in our beliefs as a first step to correcting them. Over the course of the first half of the twentieth century, scientists invented a methodology for executing controlled experiments to evaluate certain kinds of proposed social interventions. This technique goes by many names in different contexts (randomized control trials, randomized field experiments, clinical trials, etc.). Over the past ten to twenty years this has been increasingly deployed in a wide variety of contexts, but it remains the red-haired step child of modern social science. This is starting to change, and this change should be encouraged and accelerated, even though the staggering complexity of human society creates severe limits to what social science could be realistically expected to achieve. Randomized trials have shown, for example, that work requirements for welfare recipients have succeeded like nothing else in encouraging employment, that charter school vouchers have been successful in increasing educational attainment for underprivileged children, and that community policing has worked to reduce crime, but also that programs like Head Start and Job Corps, which might be politically attractive, fail to attain their intended objectives. Business leaders can also use experiments to test decisions in a controlled, low-risk environment before investing precious resources in large-scale changes -- the philosophy behind Manzi's own successful software company. In a powerful and masterfully-argued book, Manzi shows us how the methods of science can be applied to social and economic policy in order to ensure progress and prosperity.

DS

Recommended by David Shaywitz

New @bariweiss book on antisemitism is brilliant, powerful, and essential. Will be required reading (unfortunately, in many ways) for our three daughters. How to Fight Anti-Semitism https://t.co/wjBc8cNTyE (from X)

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD • The prescient founder of The Free Press delivers an urgent wake-up call to all Americans exposing the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in this country—and explains what we can do to defeat it. “A praiseworthy and concise brief against modern-day anti-Semitism.”—The New York Times On October 27, 2018, eleven Jews were gunned down as they prayed at their synagogue in Pittsburgh. It was the deadliest attack on Jews in American history. For most Americans, the massacre at Tree of Life, the synagogue where Bari Weiss became a bat mitzvah, came as a shock. But anti-Semitism is the oldest hatred, commonplace across the Middle East and on the rise for years in Europe. So that terrible morning in Pittsburgh, as well as the continued surge of hate crimes against Jews in cities and towns across the country, raise a question Americans cannot avoid: Could it happen here? This book is Weiss’s answer. Like many, Weiss long believed this country could escape the rising tide of anti-Semitism. With its promise of free speech and religion, its insistence that all people are created equal, its tolerance for difference, and its emphasis on shared ideals rather than bloodlines, America has been, even with all its flaws, a new Jerusalem for the Jewish people. But now the luckiest Jews in history are beginning to face a three-headed dragon known all too well to Jews of other times and places: the physical fear of violent assault, the moral fear of ideological vilification, and the political fear of resurgent fascism and populism. No longer the exclusive province of the far right, the far left, and assorted religious bigots, anti-Semitism now finds a home in identity politics as well as the reaction against identity politics, in the renewal of America First isolationism and the rise of one-world socialism, and in the spread of Islamist ideas into unlikely places. A hatred that was, until recently, reliably taboo is migrating toward the mainstream, amplified by social media and a culture of conspiracy that threatens us all. Weiss is one of our most provocative writers, and her cri de coeur makes a powerful case for renewing Jewish and American values in this uncertain moment. Not just for the sake of America’s Jews, but for the sake of America.

DS

Recommended by David Shaywitz

My take on captivating Theranos book, Bad Blood, by @JohnCarreyrou - let's learn the right lesson: fraud is bad, wanting to disrupting HC isn't. https://t.co/JBgDIc8kiV (from X)

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The gripping story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos—one of the biggest corporate frauds in history—a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley, rigorously reported by the prize-winning journalist. With a new Afterword covering her trial and sentencing, bringing the story to a close. “Chilling ... Reads like a thriller ... Carreyrou tells [the Theranos story] virtually to perfection.” —The New York Times Book Review In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the next Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with its breakthrough device, which performed the whole range of laboratory tests from a single drop of blood. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.5 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work. Erroneous results put patients in danger, leading to misdiagnoses and unnecessary treatments. All the while, Holmes and her partner, Sunny Balwani, worked to silence anyone who voiced misgivings—from journalists to their own employees.