I’ve always been an avid reader, so it is a real challenge not turning this whole blog into a series of book reviews. However, it’s been a weekend of fun books recommended by other people.

The Onion

First, I had a chance to meet the thoughtful Katie Harbath last week and spent a bunch of time discussing our shared histories, including Wisconsin and UW Madison. She noticed my Onion mug and pointed me to a book I have been thoroughly enjoying: “Funny Because It’s True: How The Onion Created Modern News Satire.”

Experiencing “The Onion” is one of these dramatic life moments — the time before and the time after are just different. Growing up with Monty Python, “Airplane” (“Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!” is another must read), and Mel Brooks, plus growing up in Milwaukee, one of the birthplaces of improv, meant I was pretty much the bullseye of The Onion’s target market. I knew I was early to The Onion, but what I didn’t realize until reading the book was I was there from the beginning thanks to my friend Tom Ryan sending me copies in the mail while I was a plebe at USNA.

In a lot of ways, it’s the kind of book that I hope someday gets written about Second Life. Like Second Life, there are clearly a lot of people who claim credit for The Onion’s success, and “Funny” is pretty direct in supporting and disputing those claims. Like “Surely,” it’s also a wonderful time capsule of Madison and Wisconsin during the period I was growing up there. The very end of an America where a minimum-wage job and some hustle could fund a world-class education, an office downtown, and a small business.

Haven’t finished yet, but loving it. Can’t wait to get to the recent history — because The Onion’s success with the print edition is reminiscent of what we had started seeing with vinyl back in the mid-oughts.

If one book is good…

As a kid, I had a habit that baffled my parents — like, to the point of them asking doctors “is this normal?” — which was to always be reading multiple books simultaneously. I had a book in pretty much every room of the house, plus books for study hall and the bus ride. I don’t do quite as aggressively these days — I do have a job — but I still regularly interleave books. My second book this weekend came from Guy Kawasaki’s incredibly fun discussion with Dave Whorton about Evergreen companies. I had really enjoyed Catherine Bracy’s book “World Eaters” about the same topics, so I eagerly tucked into Dave’s book, “Another Way.”

I really enjoyed it! What both Dave and Catherine identify so sharply is the relatively recent phenomenon of VC’s complete prioritization of hypergrowth companies and how the lessons of the late 90’s — and maybe even more the last decade — have impacted what companies and innovations have access to venture capital.

I — of course — have benefited from VC multiple times in my career and been really fortunate to have investors who were comparatively long-term in their thinking. But I don’t think VC is the only funding opportunity for great ideas, so it’s a joy to read such thoughtful takes on different paths.