Jeff Selection of Best Non-Fiction Books of 2025

• Abundance: The New American Economy (Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson) — Argues that the real constraint on innovation today is not scarcity, but institutional paralysis that prevents societies from building what they know how to build.
• Breakneck: China’s Quest to Become the World’s Leader in Innovation (Dan Wang) — Examines how speed, experimentation, and state-backed ecosystems are reshaping global innovation and technological competition.
• Goliath’s Curse: Myths of the Corporation and the Monopolies of Our Time (Tim Wu) — Shows how dominant organizations undermine their own success by over-optimizing for scale, efficiency, and control.
• Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (Yuval Noah Harari) — Traces how information networks have shaped power and coordination, culminating in AI’s capacity to reorganize society itself.
• Seeing Like a State (James C. Scott) — Explains why top-down, rational planning often destroys local knowledge, adaptability, and creative problem-solving.
• How Big Things Get Done (Bent Flyvbjerg & Dan Gardner) — Uses empirical evidence to show why large-scale innovation fails—and how disciplined imagination enables complex projects to succeed.
• The Experience Machine (Andy Clark) — Reframes human intelligence as embodied sensemaking rather than computation, challenging simplistic AI metaphors.
• The Maverick Effect (William C. Taylor) — Argues that innovation survives inside institutions only when leaders protect dissent, purpose, and moral courage.
• The Revolt of the Public (Martin Gurri) — Explains why institutions are losing legitimacy in the information age and why disruption now outpaces reform.
• Range (David Epstein) — Makes the case that creativity and innovation depend on breadth, experimentation, and delayed specialization rather than narrow expertise.

---

Jeff Selection of Best Articles and Essays of 2025

“How Outsiders Spark Innovation” — from the Spring 2025 issue highlighting innovation practices and how diverse perspectives contribute to organizational creativity. (MIT Sloan Management Review)

“How to Implement Bottom-Up Organizing: Lessons from Agile Piloting and Scaling” — An article that explores agile organizational change practices tied to innovation execution. (California Management Review)

“Algorithmic Surrender: The Leadership Crisis No One Is Measuring” —argues that many leaders are quietly surrendering judgment and agency to algorithms, creating an unmeasured leadership crisis where efficiency replaces accountability and human discernment. (Forbes)

“‘Innovation Execution’—a new industrial paradigm emerges” —explains how a new industrial paradigm is emerging in which innovation advantage comes from disciplined execution—linking digital technologies, operating models, and scale to turn ideas into impact. (Mckinsey Quarterly)

“What Leaders Get Wrong About Motivation” —focuses on intrinsic motivation, leadership, and organizational change dynamics in innovation contexts. (MIT Sloan Management Review)

The Empty Arsenal of Democracy: How America Can Build a New Defense Industrial Base —argues that America’s democratic institutions are dangerously under-resourced and overstretched, weakening the country’s ability to govern effectively and sustain its global power. (Foreign Affairs)

“An Attack on America’s Universities Is an Attack on American Power” —argues that undermining American universities weakens U.S. global power by eroding the country’s core engines of innovation, talent, and strategic advantage. (Foreign Affair)

“To Jumpstart Creativity, Try These 8 Prompts” —an exploration of practical prompts and habits leaders can use to unlock creative thinking in teams. (Harvard Business Review)