Now that we are in the thick of the summer vacation season I thought it would be useful to outline some reading ideas for those lazy days at the beach. I will leave the fiction reviews to the New York Times and others, I am sticking with fintech here. So, here are five book ideas, all available on Amazon, from across fintech to keep you engaged this summer.
Blockchain Revolution by Don and Alex Tapscott
I just had Alex Tapscott on the podcast last week where we talked a bit about this book but I believe it is a seminal work so I am including it as my first selection here. I believe that blockchain is going to transform finance as much or more than the internet did and it is going to happen much more quickly. In Blockchain Revolution the Tapscotts share their vision of the future, what finance might look like in a world where distributed ledgers rule.
Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane by Brett King
This book focuses on the technology side of fintech and it is a fascinating read. Brett King paints a picture of the future where smart devices monitor our every move, help with our daily activities, transport us and yes, manage our finances. He argues that the next 20 years will bring more change than the previous 250 years as we enter the Augmented Age, where we will all have to adapt to live in a smart world.
The FINTECH Book: The Financial Technology Handbook for Investors, Entrepreneurs and Visionaries by Susanne Chishti and Janos Barberis
This is an interesting book in that it is actually a crowdsourced book. The authors solicited industry experts to write short chapters of the book so you have here a unique compilation of various perspectives. In all 86 authors contributed to the book covering topics such as banking disruption, crowdfunding, marketplace lending, venture capital, financial inclusion, payments innovation, big data and much, much more. All packed in to just 312 pages.
Platform Revolution by Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne and Sangeet Paul Choudary
Network effects never used to happen so quickly. It took decades for a company like Nike to dominate athletic apparel. Today, a company can launch and with have hundreds of millions of devotees seemingly overnight. What is different is that companies today are creating platforms. Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook – all of these companies disrupted their industries by creating platforms. The next great fintech company will be a platform and will utilize much of the advice in this book.
The Unbanking of America: How the New Middle Class Survives by Lisa Servon
This book is a bit different – it focuses on the often-overlooked part of fintech: serving the underbanked. Lisa Servon is a University of Pennsylvania professor who has spent time working behind the counter at a check cashing store and a payday lender. She provides profiles of the kinds of people who use these services and why they choose to access credit outside the traditional banking system. She also shares some of the work that innovative companies are doing to address the unique challenges of the underbanked.
