Summer book club
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Summer book club 〰️
The book club You Didn't Know You Needed
Join our summer book club for early-stage founders!
Instead of reading "Zero to One" for the fifth time, we'll be focusing on Seneca and the philosophers who figured out how to think clearly under pressure - 2,000 years before "product-market fit" existed.
Why Philosophy?
Philosophy was written by people wrestling with the same problems founders face every day, just without the term sheets:
How do I make good decisions with incomplete information? (Stoicism was basically built for this.)
How do I stay steady when things I can't control go wrong? (Epictetus has thoughts.)
What actually matters here — and what am I just chasing because everyone else is? (Aristotle's whole deal. And Girard.)
What does power look like, and should one seek it? (Plato, Machiavelli, and a few thousand years of case studies.)
In the world of ChatGPT, founders don't need more how-to guidebooks. We need better thinking. Philosophy is the original operating system for that.
Need more convincing? Check out this recent article in The Times or this article in The New York Times, both of which describe how the AI juggernauts are turning to philosophers, not programmers, to answer hard questions.
What to expect
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We’re focused on the lessons that will build and shape you as a leader.
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No 900 page, slow reads. We’ll be choosing short texts that won’t take you away from work.
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Our Zoom sessions will probably be the only Hotbed workshops where we aren’t going to ask you to pitch or speak about your startup. Instead, join for a thoughtful discussion where we extract actionable lessons for founders.
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Didn’t have time to read the full book? Don’t worry - we’ll provide you with a “SparkNotes” version ahead of the session so you can join in the convo.
Who is this for?
Maybe you listen to all the startup podcasts and read the founder classics, or maybe your bookshelves collect dust, packed with literature you hope to get around to reading one day.
So long as you have a hunger for knowledge, this is for you. You won’t end this summer knowing what to think, but instead how to think.
We’ll cover texts where we’ll begin to question what is a good life, how to think about anxiety (by ancient philosophers who faced an unpredictable, violent and ever-changing world) and consider different forms of power and leadership.
You don’t need to be a current Hotbed community member to participate. All founders are welcome.
No philosophy background required. Skepticism is welcome.
Sessions
Session 1 - On The Shortness of Life
Date: 7 August, 4 - 5pm
Session 2
Date: 21 August, 4 - 5pm
Date: 18 September, 4 - 5pm
Session 3
Frequently Asked Questions
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No!
In regards to the books, most are less than £5 on Amazon or are available on Kindle Unlimited for free. You can usually find free PDF versions of the texts online too though reading it in that format can be tricky.
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Nope. Just come along to what you can.
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Ahead of each session, you’ll receive a short “Sparknotes” styled version to give you a 10-15 minute overview. Even if you don’t have time to give this a quick scan, you can still always join just to hear the conversation.
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Great question! We’ll send over an agenda with talking points ahead of each session, focused on the passages that are most relevant to the startup world and developing yourself as a leader. We’ll also be asking bigger questions around what it means to live a good life and much more.
Members will be encouraged to share their opinions, questions and we might even open the floor to debate. Each session will be moderated.
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Online via Zoom. Depending on our batch of readers, we may host one session live in London.
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All texts are intentionally brief. While we highly encourage you to read the book or the Sparknote version provided ahead of time, you’re welcome to just show up to the session and hear your peers share their reflections as well.
That said, your preparation will help enrich the conversation, so please do your best to cover the relevant material.
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Each book will be announced at the start of the month. Our first book will be announced this week!
Questions?
Email hi@hotbed.co.