Vince Wu

Vince Wu rated a book 5 of 5 stars

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan

read in September, 2011

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I highly recommend this seminal work by Michael Pollan. It's a delightfully intellectual and philosophical exploration on the food we eat nowadays and how we got here. I give it 5 stars, easily.

The overarching message is simple: we would all be bette...more

Vince Wu rated a book 3 of 5 stars

Outliers: The Story of Success
by Malcolm Gladwell

read in July, 2011

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Similar to "The Tipping Point" (review here) I had mixed feelings about this book by Malcolm Gladwell.

On the plus side, there is no question Gladwell is a master at storytelling. The book was an engrossing and easy read that I finished on a lazy aft...more Similar to "The Tipping Point" (review here) I had mixed feelings about this book by Malcolm Gladwell.

On the plus side, there is no question Gladwell is a master at storytelling. The book was an engrossing and easy read that I finished on a lazy afternoon. I was very much entertained by the unexpected little puzzles embedded in his stories. For example, it was fascinating to see how small differences in birth year have a major impact on future opportunities. Imagine a computer science major born in 1975 vs. 1980. The former graduates just when the Internet bubble is at its peak, while the latter graduates when the bubble had burst. Regardless of how talented the graduate is, being born in 1975 is clearly an advantage in terms of opportunities available to him.

However, I strongly disagree with the premise of the book, which is that when people explain success, they only focus on the individual: their ambition, their brilliance, their propensity for risk-taking, etc. Gladwell's point is that successful people owe their success to other factors as well, which include unique opportunities available to them, cultural baggage, and good old fashioned hard work. Well, no duh!!

This is such a colossal "No duh!" that I feel I should say more. At one level, Gladwell is basically just referring to the Fundamental Attribution Error, which describes how people tend to explain other's people behavior via qualities of the person rather than circumstance. Example from Wikipedia:

As a simple example, if Alice saw Bob trip over a rock and fall, Alice might consider Bob to be clumsy or careless (dispositional). If Alice later tripped over the same rock herself, she would be more likely to blame the placement of the rock (situational).

Thus, it's not that unexpected that when we see a successful person, our first tendency is to assume there's something special about the person's abilities or personality.

While it may be true people's immediate impulse is to attribute success to the individual's qualities, I have not met anyone that denies circumstance matters.

In summary, I didn't find any original ideas or radical thinking from Outliers that wasn't already common knowledge. I give it 3 stars for being an excellent page turner.(less)

Vince Wu rated a book 3 of 5 stars

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
by Malcolm Gladwell

read in July, 2011

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As a specimen of good English writing, I rate this book highly. Gladwell does an incredible job weaving together stories and past research into a marvelous page turner. I couldn't put the book down once I started.

When it comes to actual content, howe...more

Vince Wu rated a book 2 of 5 stars

Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear
by Frank Luntz

read in May, 2011

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For a book whose core message is effective language, I found "Words that Work" much too verbose and meandering for my liking. Some of the early chapters could be summed up quite easily in a few pages, especially as the ideas are borderline stating th...more

Vince Wu rated a book 4 of 5 stars

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
by Richard H. Thaler

read in July, 2010

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The central idea of the book is simple: People should be free to choose, but it's also desirable to influence people's choices for the better. In fact, the authors pretty much explain the concept soup to nuts in the introduction. The rest of the book...more The central idea of the book is simple: People should be free to choose, but it's also desirable to influence people's choices for the better. In fact, the authors pretty much explain the concept soup to nuts in the introduction. The rest of the book felt a bit tedious as such... I would summarize the rest as a refresher on human fallibility and extensive examples of how choice architecture could be applied to wide ranging aspects of life.

This quote summarizes the central idea of the book:

[...] in general, people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of of undesirable arrangements if they want to. [...] we argue for self-conscious efforts, by institutions in the private sector and also by government, to steer people's choices in directions that will improve their lives.

A few examples were quite good:
- illustrating the power of social norms: Add a frown/smiley face to electricity bills based on average usage. The big energy users used less. Remarkably, the energy efficient users didn't use more (vs. another experiment that showed how much less they were using).
- illustrating the power of priming: simply asking "Do you plan to vote?" increased the voter turnout by 25%.
- illustrating "loss aversion": Split a group of people in half. Give one half something (e.g. a mug). Ask first half to mark how much they are willing to sell to the second half. Ask the second half how much they'd be willing to buy from the first half.
- "Save more tomorrow": an automatic saving rule (e.g. auto save a portion of future raises) that ends up helping people save more without removing any choices.
- Make donating organs the default. People can opt out.
- School cafeteria: load up the first section with fruits and vegetables. The "unhealthy" food is still around, but not as easily discoverable.

There were a few examples that I thought were quite odd. For example, there was a chapter on privatizing marriage which I thought was simply shifting the problem around. The authors suggested that the government could get out of the legalizing marriages business altogether, and provide the expected marriage benefits (e.g. tax savings) and enforce responsibilities (e.g. child support) via other means. Churches and other private institutions would give people the "marriage" label according to whatever rules they see fit. While this does remove the government from the debates (e.g. is gay marriage legal?), it doesn't remove any of the debates. The goal isn't clear to me.(less)

Vince Wu rated a book 4 of 5 stars

Lost Horizon
by James Hilton

read in June, 2009

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A fantasy about four people who crash land in the Tibetan mountains and journeyed to Shangri-La. I thought the author did a fantastic job of pulling the reader into the story, and I found myself intrigued throughout by the mystery that surrounded the...more

Vince Wu rated a book 5 of 5 stars

Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle
by Dan Senor

read in July, 2010

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This book is about the ingredients that make up a successful entrepreneurial environment. Authors Dan Senor & Saul Singer does a good job explaining what's fascinating about Israel and unravels some of the possible sources for the incredible amou...more

Vince Wu rated a book 5 of 5 stars

Factory Girls: Voices From The Heart Of Modern China
by Leslie T. Chang

read in December, 2010

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I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the lives of migrant factory workers in mainland China - their aspirations, struggles, day-to-day routine, and so on. The bulk of migrant factory workers are 16-25 year old women, he...more

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Vince Wu rated a book 5 of 5 stars The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan read in September, 2011	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I highly recommend this seminal work by Michael Pollan. It's a delightfully intellectual and philosophical exploration on the food we eat nowadays and how we got here. I give it 5 stars, easily. The overarching message is simple: we would all be bette...more
Sep 09, 2011 11:12pm · see review
Vince Wu rated a book 3 of 5 stars Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell read in July, 2011	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Similar to "The Tipping Point" (review here) I had mixed feelings about this book by Malcolm Gladwell. On the plus side, there is no question Gladwell is a master at storytelling. The book was an engrossing and easy read that I finished on a lazy aft...more
Jul 07, 2011 08:07am · see review
Vince Wu rated a book 3 of 5 stars The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell read in July, 2011	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
As a specimen of good English writing, I rate this book highly. Gladwell does an incredible job weaving together stories and past research into a marvelous page turner. I couldn't put the book down once I started. When it comes to actual content, howe...more
Jul 07, 2011 07:03am · see review
Vince Wu rated a book 2 of 5 stars Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear by Frank Luntz read in May, 2011	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
For a book whose core message is effective language, I found "Words that Work" much too verbose and meandering for my liking. Some of the early chapters could be summed up quite easily in a few pages, especially as the ideas are borderline stating th...more
May 28, 2011 06:50pm · see review
Vince Wu rated a book 4 of 5 stars Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler read in July, 2010	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The central idea of the book is simple: People should be free to choose, but it's also desirable to influence people's choices for the better. In fact, the authors pretty much explain the concept soup to nuts in the introduction. The rest of the book...more
Dec 31, 2010 06:26pm · see review
Vince Wu rated a book 4 of 5 stars Lost Horizon by James Hilton read in June, 2009	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A fantasy about four people who crash land in the Tibetan mountains and journeyed to Shangri-La. I thought the author did a fantastic job of pulling the reader into the story, and I found myself intrigued throughout by the mystery that surrounded the...more
Dec 30, 2010 08:15pm · see review
Vince Wu rated a book 5 of 5 stars Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle by Dan Senor read in July, 2010	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book is about the ingredients that make up a successful entrepreneurial environment. Authors Dan Senor & Saul Singer does a good job explaining what's fascinating about Israel and unravels some of the possible sources for the incredible amou...more
Dec 10, 2010 12:08am · see review
Vince Wu rated a book 5 of 5 stars Factory Girls: Voices From The Heart Of Modern China by Leslie T. Chang read in December, 2010	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the lives of migrant factory workers in mainland China - their aspirations, struggles, day-to-day routine, and so on. The bulk of migrant factory workers are 16-25 year old women, he...more
Dec 10, 2010 12:06am · see review

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