#447: Books I've Loved — Ann Miura-Ko

Jul 17, 2020

Ann Miura-Ko, co-founding partner at Floodgate and Stanford entrepreneurship lecturer, discusses her favorite transformative books. She shares insights from Clayton Christensen's 'How Will You Measure Your Life?' highlighting intuition and balance between career and personal life. Miura-Ko reflects on resilience through 'The Dove Keepers' and explores morality with Jonathan Haidt's 'The Righteous Mind.' Additionally, she underscores the complexity of fairness in social justice, revealing how influential reads have shaped her perspective.

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ADVICE

Trust Your Gut

Follow your gut, even if a decision doesn't seem logical to others.
Trust your instincts, especially when choosing who to work with.

question_answer

ANECDOTE

PhD Pursuit

Ann Miura-Ko pursued her PhD despite others questioning her decision.
She prioritized learning from inspiring individuals, which led to her success.

insights

INSIGHT

Jobs To Be Done in Relationships

Consider the "job to be done" in relationships, similar to product design.
Ask yourself what others need from you, not just what you want to give.

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Balancing Life's Strategies

04:16 • 10min

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Exploring Life Lessons and Historical Resilience Through Literature

14:36 • 3min

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Understanding Morality Through Diverse Lenses

17:26 • 6min

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Exploring Fairness and Influential Reads

The Graveyard Book tells the story of Nobody 'Bod' Owens, a young boy who escapes his family's murderer, known as the man Jack, and finds refuge in a graveyard. There, he is adopted and raised by the ghostly residents, Mr. and Mrs. Owens, and protected by the mysterious caretaker Silas. As Bod grows up, he learns supernatural abilities and faces various dangers both within and outside the graveyard. The book follows Bod's adventures and his eventual transition into the world of the living, exploring themes of identity, family, and the intersection of life and death.

The Tao of Seneca

Practical Letters from a Stoic Master

Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)

This book is a compilation of Seneca's letters, known as the *Epistulae Morales* (Moral Epistles), which provide practical advice on Stoic principles. It covers topics such as the importance of living in accordance with nature, the dangers of external influences on happiness, the value of self-control, and the pursuit of virtue. Seneca's writings emphasize the need to focus on inner strength, endurance, and the cultivation of a sound mind, rather than seeking happiness through external goods like fame and riches.

How will you measure your life?

Clayton M. Christensen

In 'How Will You Measure Your Life? ', Clayton M. Christensen, along with co-authors James Allworth and Karen Dillon, explores how business principles can be applied to personal life to achieve happiness and fulfillment. The book addresses three key questions: how to ensure happiness in one's career, how to build enduring relationships with family and friends, and how to maintain integrity. Christensen emphasizes the importance of allocating time and energy wisely, avoiding the trap of short-term gains, and focusing on long-term personal and relational investments. He also discusses the 'jobs to be done' concept, encouraging readers to understand and fulfill the emotional needs of those in their lives.

Essentialism

The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Greg McKeown

In 'Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less,' Greg McKeown argues that by applying a more selective criteria for what is essential, individuals can regain control of their time and energy. The book is divided into sections such as Explore, Eliminate, and Execute, providing practical advice on distinguishing the vital few from the trivial many and eliminating non-essential activities. McKeown emphasizes the importance of clarity of focus, the ability to say 'no,' and living 'by design, not by default. ' This approach helps readers achieve more by doing less and making the highest possible contribution in their personal and professional lives.

The Righteous Mind

Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

Jonathan Haidt

In this book, Jonathan Haidt draws on twenty-five years of research on moral psychology to explain why people's moral judgments are driven by intuition rather than reason. He introduces the Moral Foundations Theory, which posits that human morality is based on six foundations: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation, and liberty/oppression. Haidt argues that liberals tend to focus on the care/harm and fairness/cheating foundations, while conservatives draw on all six. The book also explores how morality binds and blinds people, leading to social cohesion but also to conflicts. Haidt aims to promote understanding and civility by highlighting the commonalities and differences in moral intuitions across political spectra.

The dovekeepers

Alice Hoffman

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman is a spellbinding tale of four women—Yael, Revka, Aziza, and Shirah—who converge at Masada, the last stronghold of Jewish resistance against the Romans. Each woman brings her own story of loss and resilience, weaving a narrative of survival, magic, and the human spirit. Set against the backdrop of one of history's most tragic events, the novel explores themes of family, faith, and the will to live.

Books I've Loved — Ann Miura-Ko | Brought to you by Audible.

Note: This episode was recorded in November 2019.

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to sit down with world-class performers of all different types—from startup founders and investors to chess champions to Olympic athletes. This episode, however, is an experiment and part of a shorter series I’m doing called “Books I’ve Loved.” I’ve invited some amazing past guests, close friends, and new faces to share their favorite books—the books that have influenced them, changed them, and transformed them for the better. I hope you pick up one or two new mentors—in the form of books—from this new series and apply the lessons in your own life.

Ann Miura-Ko (@annimaniac) has been called “the most powerful woman in startups” by Forbes and is a lecturer in entrepreneurship at Stanford. The child of a rocket scientist at NASA, Ann is a Palo Alto native and has been steeped in technology startups from when she was a teenager. Prior to co-founding Floodgate, she worked at Charles River Ventures and McKinsey and Company. Some of Ann’s investments include Lyft, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Refinery29, JoyRun, TaskRabbit, and Modcloth.

Given the success of her investments she was on the 2017 Midas List of top 100 venture capitalists. Ann is known for her debate skills (she placed first in the National Tournament of Champions and second in the State of California in high school) and was part of a five-person team at Yale that competed in the Robocup Competition in Paris, France. She has a BSEE from Yale and a PhD from Stanford in math modeling of computer security. She lives with her husband, three kids, and one spoiled dog. Her interests are piano, robots, and gastronomy.

“Books I’ve Loved” on The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by Audible! I have used Audible for many years now. I love it. Audible has the largest selection of audiobooks on the planet. I listen when I’m taking walks, I listen while I’m cooking… I listen whenever I can. Audible is offering Tim Ferriss Show listeners a free audiobook with a 30-day trial membership. Just go to Audible.com/tim and browse the unmatched selection of audio programs. Then, download your free title and start listening! It’s that easy. Simply go to Audible.com/tim or text TIM to 500500 to get started today.

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