Sparse Elegance: Charles Koch’s “The Science of Success”

This is not a self-help book. It is an excellent slim introduction to free market economics and economic thinking masquerading as a business book.

While I picked up the “Science of Success” to see how he applied economic thinking to running a business, I was blown away the authors clarity and elegance in describing economic thinking.

I also found his business system – MBM (Market Based Management) The Science of Human Action Applied to Organizations – to be interesting. It was not a how-to guide though.

Recently Listened to – “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game”

I finished listening to a copy of mp3 of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. The author says the book is about the “search for new baseball knowledge”. It is applying economic thinking to baseball strategy. I loved it.

When I was young, my buddies and I (pre-fantasy baseball stuff) made our own fake baseball leagues and ran games using players from our baseball cards and a homemade card deck for outcomes (matrix of batter positions and AB outcomes: walk, strike out, fly out, ground out, singe, double, etc.). The fun also came from keeping the stats (pen, paper and calculators – no computer yet).

Overtime, my interest in baseball waned do to strikes, lockouts and Bud Selig. I haven’t gone to a game this century. I haven’t watch a game in ages. I started to watch the end of the all-star game that was in Milwaukee a few years ago. I LOL when Bud Selig, as Commissioner, canceled the game at the end because it was going to long into extra innings. He’s a douche.

Had I read this book and come across sabermetrics when still in high school, I would have been sucked back in. I would most likely have majored differently (this and this, instead of this and most of this) at UW-Madison too.

I kept thinking…where’s Moneyball for American Football (maybe this)? Where’s Moneyball for Organizations (maybe this)?