Our Fave Content from 2022
In our humble opinion, the team here at Permanent Equity has outstanding taste – and widely varied interests. Here are recommendations from our team members of their favorite content from this year – books, articles, music, podcasts. Some are business-related, some only if you loosen the term, some not at all. The only requirement we had was that it came out in 2022 (there were some stretches on that front, too). We hope you enjoy – and let us know what you’ve been reading, watching, and listening to this year!
Book: Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
“What could we learn from someone who transformed a pedestrian fine dining restaurant into the best in the world? In short, a lot. Mr. Guidara shares the principles of hospitality, business, leadership, and relationships that created a world of warmth, care, longevity, and profitability.” — Brent Beshore, CEO & Founder
Podcast Episode: Invest Like the Best: David Senra - Passion & Pain
“Invest like the Best is a great podcast in many ways, but I particularly enjoyed the David Senra episode (#292: Passion & Pain) for 3 reasons: (1) The discussion on ego and how it interplays with a successful business will have you rethinking the value of a certain type of ego; (2) The examples told through the sport of basketball on the importance of constant learning, practice, and listening and why it matters in your business; and (3) The plentiful biography/autobiography recommendations from someone who has devoted their career to reading and studying hundreds of books about the greatest founders and entrepreneurs of all time.” — Caroline Sechler, Senior Financial Partner
Podcast Episode: Rolex, Biz Breakdown
“An inside look at the fascinating history of Rolex. They cover the mechanics of the luxury watch market and how Rolex marries manufacturing and marketing excellence to separate it from other brands. It's filled with ideas related to the power of branding and the importance of craftsmanship when producing anything.”
Podcast Episodes: Founders: Paul Graham's Essays, part 2, part 3
“David Senra summarizes key points from Paul Graham's famous essays. Most of them are related to startups, but the lessons can be applied to companies operating at any scale: ‘The way to make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway. Run it as cheaply as possible...The immediate cause of death in a startup is always running out of money. So the cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill.’” — Clayton Dorge, Program Manager
TV Show: Severance
“Work/life balance gone terribly wrong. The show captured my imagination, and I loved the dystopian mood and thought-provoking story.” — Danny Gray, Senior Analyst
Book: Raising Emotionally Strong Boys by David Thomas
“As a father of four young boys, this is the book from 2022 I think about the most. While it’s undoubtedly helpful in equipping you with tools as a parent, it could easily have been titled, ‘Becoming An Emotionally Strong Man.’”
Music: Revolver (Super Deluxe) by The Beatles
“I’m a music guy so I gotta include my fave album ‘from 2022.’ These updated mixes utilizing audio technology available 50+ years later are a ton of fun and make a strong case for Revolver being the best Beatles album.” — David Cover, Creative Director
Book: Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions by Todd Rose
“I randomly picked this book up at a bookstore, and opened to a middle chapter titled: ‘The Slippery Slope.’ It was like reading an updated Jiminy Cricket reminder (complete with research statistics) on little fibs snowballing into big issues collectively and within your own brain. Purchased on the spot, and found the whole book to be a healthy reminder on how easily we assume things and why intention is critical.”
TV Show: Abbott Elementary
“Every episode offers a sharp plot, and plenty of laughs. And it also reminds me why teachers are saints in lanyards.” — Emily Holdman, Managing Director
Movie: Hustle
“One of the best basketball movies I have ever seen. Riveting from start to finish. It showed what pushing through adversity can produce mentally and physically.”
Musician: Forrest.
“I love everything this guy does, whether in his band Surfaces or his solo projects. He is a unique collection of pop, reggae, and hip hop. He is great to either chill out to or even better with the windows rolled down on a 75-degree afternoon.” — James Bachman, Program Associate
Podcast Episode: Huberman Lab Episode 101: Using Caffeine to Optimize, Mental and Physical Performance
“One of many excellent episodes, this one is right up my street – go outside or be in bright light within an hour of waking up and wait 90-120 minutes before drinking caffeine. I’m always looking for better ways to improve my mental and physical health – plus I don’t sleep well.” — Jenny Huffstutter, Chief of Staff
Podcast: Spy Affair
"Spy Affair is a real-life story of a Russian agent, American political influence and the FBI with twists like a Clancy novel. This seven-part, binge-worthy mini-series feels like one of the most interesting and timely stories most people did not follow." — Johnny Fugitt, Director of Portfolio Operations
TV Show: WeCrashed
“WeCrashed is fun the same way that watching true crime documentaries is fun – there's a morbid curiosity that surrounds destruction and failure. Also, Brent likes to go shoeless in the office and I like to call him Adam Neumann, so that's fun.”
TV Show: Severance
“I’m with Danny, Severance is at once familiar and completely foreign, which gives it an eerie feel from start to finish. Adam Scott's performance is Emmy worthy (and nominated). It's a dystopian psychological thriller at its best. Kept you guessing the entire season. Just when you thought you had some idea what might be happen, boom, plot twist.” — Kelie Morgan, Director of Talent Acquisition
Book: The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor by Mark Schatzker
“I don’t think I read anything published in 2022, but I read this and can’t stop thinking about it. In the quest to produce more food and make it more profitable, our food has become bland and less nutritionally sound. As a result, food scientists are trying to make food more flavorful (and addictive!). ‘Natural flavoring’ isn’t what you think it means.” — Lori Sander, Director of Operations
Book: Ergodicity: Definition, Examples, And Implications, As Simple As Possible by Luca Dellanna
“The thing I probably latched onto most this year is the concept of ergodicity — how payoffs scale over space and time. This is a book that a Twitter friend of mine wrote on it.” — Mark Brooks, Managing Director
Book: Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement by Daniel Kahneman
“I did a whole bunch of reading and studying this year on the private equity industry as I made the switch to my new job here at Permanent Equity — none of it was from 2022. But this was one of my favorite books from this year.”
Podcast: Ten Minute Bible Talks
“I listen to this on my way to work or while working out almost every day.” — Ryan Lidolph, Operating Partner
Book: Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
“Take Animal Farm, put it in a fictional country based on Zimbabwe during the fall of Mugabe, add some hashtags and disinformation for the internet era, and make it weirder. Glory is a riotous, deeply funny and discomforting story about abuse of power, collective delusions, returning home, and the strange ability of language to bind and break communities.”
Podcast: The Book of Wrestling from The Ringer
“David Shoemaker hosts this deep dive into the WWE’s Attitude Era with outstanding storytelling and infectious enthusiasm. Each episode hinges on a catchphrase that defined the era – from ‘That’s gotta be Kane!’ to ‘As God As My Witness…’ It’s fast-paced and fun, and, even if you’re not a wrestling fan, it’s a fascinating look at pivoting a brand, reengaging a customer base, and the business of sports entertainment.” — Sarah George-Waterfield, Managing Editor
TV Show: Severance
“Aside from my continued love of The Great British Baking Show, add me to team Severance, my favorite show from 2022. It takes the common concept of work/life balance to an extreme degree.” — Sarah Shoemaker, Senior Financial Partner
Podcast: 50x with Will Thorndike
“Their simplicity and focus on value drivers in their business give a great perspective to anyone who feels like they have too many balls in the air.” — Spencer Butcher, Vice President
Article: Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid by Jonathan Haidt, The Atlantic
“Like many others, (I/we) have been searching for something, anything, that (I/we) can cling to in an effort to provide some explanation for the evolution of American society over the course of the last decade. While I cannot definitively say that this piece provides the answer, it certainly feels like it is on the right track and provides at least some semblance of a coherent answer. Serves as a nice companion piece to this.” — Taylor Hall, Managing Director & CLO
eBook: The Only Crypto Story You Need by Matt Levine, Bloomberg
“Love it or hate, the rise and fall and rise and fall of Crypto has been a defining business and finance story of the past decade. Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine put it all in perspective in October in a must-read story that only became more fascinating in light of the collapse of SBF and FTX.”
Article: Amazon Wanted a Lord of the Rings Show. It Turned to Frodo and Sam by Ben Cohen, The Wall Street Journal
“If you're fascinated by the trade-offs between risk and reward, the backstory of how Amazon handed over control of the most expensive television show ever to two relatively unknown commodities is worth the read. If you want to do something different, the lesson is you have to do it differently and be ok with feeling uncomfortable sometimes.” — Tim Hanson, CFO
