A Crowded Space

The JSV Book Club

My former boss at Upwork, Ed Schaffer, joined the company about a year after I started.  On his first day there, he brought a few copies of “Winning” by Jack Welch and asked me to read it.  It’s a great book - I read it quickly and I’m sure it made me a better manager - at the time I was just 25.  Thank you Ed.

My good friend and cofounder, Jason Chicola, has bought several phenomenal books for me over the years, some because I clearly had a gap in my knowledge that he proactively sought to close, or because he just knew I would greatly enjoy David Halbertsham’s book on baseball, “Summer of ‘49.”  Thank you Jason.

My first few years in venture capital, I would occasionally buy a copy of books like “The Goal” or “The Ultimate Question” and send them along to founders that I knew would benefit from the book.

Giving a book is among the best gifts you can give.  You are imparting highly relevant knowledge - and it’s only $10 - $15.  I can’t think of anything with better ROI.

Additionally, we have found that the firehose of tech news via Twitter, LinkedIn, etc - actually devolves our thinking and has a tendency to both waste time and cause consensus based thinking.

So, at Jackson Square Ventures, we started a book club.

The motto for the club is “Ancora Imparo,” which translates to “I am still learning.”  This was humbly stated by Michaelangelo, at the age of 87.  It’s not lost on me that this can be shortened to AI.  AI usually refers to artificial intelligence in Silicon Valley, and in the field of AI, the more training data you have the better the algorithms become.  AI in the realm of humans and the book club means the constant pursuit of learning, something all of us should strive for as investors, founders, humans, husbands, wives, and parents.  The training data here is a curated set of exceptional books by exceptional authors. 

In the first book we sent out, “The Medici Effect”, one of the key lessons is that innovation happens at the Intersection - the place where diverse sets of experience and expertise combine.  Combining fields like science, music, sports, art, and more yield incredible results.  We aim to embody the Medici Effect with the JSV book club.

We send out a book every month or two that we think is a phenomenal book, has relevance to the startup ecosystem, represents a wide variety of subjects, and is not just the top book on the bestseller list.  We send the books to founders, executives, LPs, and other friends and colleagues.  These are gifts that are intended to broaden the mind, train the brain, and foster an ecosystem of founders, investors, and great people.  The books are generously provided by JSV and our wonderful sponsor, McKool Smith.

Then, we invite the author of the book or a relevant person from the story to join us at JSV for a special evening event and fireside chat.  We’ve held 3 events so far, with Frans Johansson, author of “The Medici Effect”, Dr. Bob Wachter, author of “The Digital Doctor”, and Joe Montana, quarterback for Bill Walsh, “The Score Takes Care of Itself.”

A couple nights ago, we were thrilled to be joined by Joe Montana and Matt Maiocco in a fireside chat discussing the great book, “The Score Takes Care of Itself.”  Stay tuned for an update coming soon w video and highlights from the evening.

The next book club event is coming soon, April 19th, with featured guest Dan Ariely, and his new book, “Dollars and Sense." 

If you’d like to join the book club, sign up for our newsletter to stay in the loop.

Ancora Imparo.