Human Culture

Is humanity ready to give up knowledge to machines?

The founder of Menlo Innovations and author of the business culture cult classic Joy, Inc. offers an inspirational guide to leaders seeking joy in the challenge of leading others. Filled with colorful anecdotes from Sheridan's personal journey and wisdom from many leadership mentors, Chief Joy Officer offers an approachable, down-to-earth philosophy and practice that will help even the most disillusioned of middle managers bring a renewed sense of purpose to their work building others.

Built at the end of the last ice age around 9600 BCE, Göbekli Tepe in southeast Turkey was designed to align with the constellation of the celestial swan, Cygnus - a fact confirmed by the discovery at the site of a tiny bone plaque carved with the three key stars of Cygnus. Remarkably, the three main pyramids at Giza in Egypt, including the Great Pyramid, align with the same three stars. But where did this ancient veneration of Cygnus come from?

Treating People Not Patients, Dr. Michael Sonick provides an invaluable look into the principles that have allowed him to create a state-of-the-art patient centric practice. His back and front stage processes are not only applicable to the practice of dentistry, but to any business that serves people. His insights will empower you to grow your practice or business by changing how you view the people you serve and your role as a professional.

People Operations explains how leaders at small- and medium-sized businesses can stop spending time on HR administration - "paperwork" - and start focusing on the "peoplework" that truly fuels employee growth and productivity. Authors Jay Fulcher, Kevin Marasco, and Tracy Cote provide listeners with a playbook for creating a massive competitive advantage by eliminating antiquated approaches to HR. The book takes a look at how work has changed and what companies need to do about it, and the new approach they must take to processes, systems, and best practices.

The Naughty Nineties: The Triumph of the American Libido examines the scandal-strafed decade when our public and private lives began to blur due to the rise of the web, reality television, and the wholesale tabloidization of pop culture. In this comprehensive and often hilarious time capsule, David Friend combines detailed reporting with first-person accounts from many of the decade's singular personalities, from Anita Hill to Monica Lewinsky, Lorena Bobbitt to Heidi Fleiss, Jesse Jackson to key members of the Clinton, Dole, and Bush teams.

Robots may one day rule the world, but what is a robot-ruled Earth like? Many think the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations, or ems. Scan a human brain, then run a model with the same connections on a fast computer, and you have a robot brain, but recognizably human. Train an em to do some job and copy it a million times; an army of workers is at your disposal. When they can be made cheaply, within perhaps a century, ems will displace humans in most jobs.

If you want to learn key AI concepts to get you quickly up to speed with all things AI, then pay attention...This audiobook covers everything from machine learning to robotics and the internet of things. By the time you finish listening, you will be aware of what artificial neural networks are, how gradient descent and back propagation work, and what deep learning is. You will also learn a comprehensive history of AI, from the first invention of automations in antiquity to the driver-less cars of today.

A web API is an efficient way to communicate with an application or service. However, this convenience opens your systems to new security risks. API Security in Action gives you the skills to build strong, safe APIs you can confidently expose to the world.

People are quitting their jobs in droves, then coming back. Employees are demanding flexibility, while some leaders insist they return to the physical office. Remote work is incredibly convenient but complicated. The job market is always in flux, but one thing is for sure: the last few years have presented the greatest challenges the business world has ever faced. Don't freak out. If you accept the new reality and harness the incredible power of healthy, authentic relationships, you can seize the competitive edge in this new world of work.

In The Paradox of Progress, Dr. Michael M. Karch delves into the ethical complexities of AI’s rapid evolution. Drawing from a career spanning three decades in robotics, orthopedic surgery, and international disaster response, Dr. Karch investigates AI’s far-reaching impact and initiates critical discussion about its duality. This is a compelling exploration through historical precedents of progress and AI’s challenges today, including fears of data bias, deep fakes, technological hegemony, and job displacement.

Authors Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell tap their experiences with the MyLifeBits project at Microsoft Research for this extraordinary book. What if you could remember everything? With today’s technology, that notion becomes more realistic each day. Bell and Gemmell explain what it could all mean.

As technology races ahead, what will people do better than computers? It’s easy to imagine a nightmare scenario in which computers simply take over most of the tasks that people now get paid to do. The best-selling author of Talent Is Overrated explains how the skills the economy values are changing in historic ways. The abilities that will prove most essential to our success are no longer the technical, classroom-taught left-brain skills that economic advances have demanded from workers in the past.

In an era of seemingly instant change, it's easy to think that today's revolutions - in communications, business, and many areas of daily life - are unprecedented. Today's changes may be new and may be happening faster than ever before. But our ancestors at times were just as bewildered by rapid upheavals in what we now call “networks” - the physical links that bind any society together.

One of the most important reasons people today choose to stay—or leave—a job is the culture of the company. As people become more socially conscious; focus more on wellness, self-care, and work-life balance; and seek jobs where they feel a real connection, it’s more important than ever to think about the elements of a job between the work itself. But how do you create a culture that people enjoy while staying productive and successful? In Happy at Work, you’ll first learn a bit more about why a happy workplace is so important and how it can benefit both employees and the company as a whole.

This book is the first to examine the history of imaginative thinking about intelligent machines. As real Artificial Intelligence (AI) begins to touch on all aspects of our lives, this long narrative history shapes how the technology is developed, deployed, and regulated. It is therefore a crucial social and ethical issue. Part I of this book provides a historical overview from ancient Greece to the start of modernity. Part II focuses on the 20th and 21st centuries in which a greater density of narratives emerge alongside rapid developments in AI technology.

Social psychologist and Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business Brian Lowery argues for the radical idea that the “self” as we know it, does not exist. The self—that “voice in your head”—is a social construct, created in our relationships and social interactions. We are unique because our individual pattern of relationships is unique. We change because our relationships change. Your self isn’t just you, it’s all around you.

In A Story of Us, they present this rich narrative and explain how the evolution of our genes relates to the evolution of our cultures. Newson and Richerson take listeners through seven stages of human evolution, beginning seven million years ago with the apes that were the ancestors of humans and today's chimps and bonobos. The story ends in the present day and offers a glimpse into the future.

In The New Nexus, we move beyond the headlines to offer a groundbreaking systems thinking analysis of this epic battle. This analysis isn't just another report on AI; it's a map of the entire information ecosystem, revealing the hidden forces and feedback loops that will shape the next digital era. Don't just watch the future unfold—understand the forces that shape it. Whether you're a business leader navigating disruption, a tech professional building the future, or simply a curious mind who needs to understand what's next, The New Nexus is your essential guide.

Work isn’t broken. It’s just waiting to be better designed. What if the key to how we structure, organize, and lead work is already at our fingertips? Beneath the surface of our organizations lie hidden patterns: structures, rituals, and decisions that shape how work flows, who holds power, and what ultimately gets done. Drawing on insights from cutting-edge organizations, behavioral science, and real-world experimentation, Hidden Patterns uncovers the invisible systems that drive success and failure in modern workplaces.