Paper Belt on Fire
How Renegade Investors Sparked a Revolt Against the University
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Narrated by:
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Alex Boyles
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By:
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Michael Gibson
About this listen
Paper Belt on Fire is the unlikely account of how two outsiders with no experience in finance—a charter school principal and defrocked philosopher—start a venture capital fund to short the higher education bubble. Against the contempt of the education establishment, they discover, mentor, and back the leading lights in the next generation of dropout innovators and in the end make their investors millions.
Can such a madcap strategy help renew American creativity? Who would do such a thing?
This story is the behind-the-scenes romp of one team that threw educational authorities into a panic. It fuses real-life personal drama with history, science, and philosophy to show how higher education and other institutions must evolve to meet the dire challenges of tomorrow.
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- Narrated by: James Foster
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Today, not only is everything digital getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, we also have the Internet. When these two revolutions - one in technology and the other in communications - joined, an explosive force was unleashed that changed the very nature of innovation. And with any change, we have seen many strategic blunders and extraordinary learning curves along the way.
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Just general advice on how to survive
- By A. Yoshida on 09-01-17
By: Joi Ito, and others
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Automate This
- How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World
- By: Christopher Steiner
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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It used to be that to diagnose an illness, interpret legal documents, analyze foreign policy, or write a newspaper article you needed a human being with specific skills - and maybe an advanced degree or two. These days, high-level tasks are increasingly being handled by algorithms that can do precise work not only with speed but also with nuance. These "bots" started with human programming and logic, but now their reach extends beyond what their creators ever expected.
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good start, book runs out of sustenace
- By RealTruth on 02-15-13
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The Friendly Orange Glow
- The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture
- By: Brian Dear
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 21 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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At a time when Steve Jobs was only a teenager and Mark Zuckerberg wasn't even born, a group of visionary engineers and designers - some of them only high school students - in the late 1960s and 1970s created a computer system called PLATO, which was not only years but light-years ahead in experimenting with how people would learn, engage, communicate, and play through connected computers.
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Memory lane for the cyberist.
- By Robert C. Hickcox on 08-08-18
By: Brian Dear
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Play Nice but Win
- A CEO's Journey from Founder to Leader
- By: Michael Dell, James Kaplan
- Narrated by: Michael Dell
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1984, soon-to-be college dropout Michael Dell hid signs of his fledgling PC business in the bathroom of his University of Texas dorm room. Almost 30 years later, at the pinnacle of his success as founder and leader of Dell Technologies, he found himself embroiled in a battle for his company’s survival. What he’d do next could ensure its legacy — or destroy it completely.
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Not perfect, but worth a listen
- By James S. on 11-09-21
By: Michael Dell, and others
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The New New Thing
- A Silicon Valley Story
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Bruce Reizen
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewis sets out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world's most important technology entrepreneur, the man who embodies the spirit of the coming age. He finds him in Jim Clark, who is about to create his third, separate, billion-dollar company: first Silicon Graphics, then Netscape - which launched the Information Age - and now Healtheon, a startup that may turn the $1 trillion healthcare industry on its head.
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A fun book about Jim Clark
- By Horace on 07-07-10
By: Michael Lewis
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You Only Have to Be Right Once
- The Unprecedented Rise of the Instant Tech Billionaires
- By: Randall Lane
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the last three years, Forbes has published in depth profiles of this new batch of billionaires, including the founders of Spotify, Dropbox, Tumblr, and Twitter. Now, in a compilation introduced and updated by Forbes editor Randall Lane, fans and critics alike will get a comprehensive look at who these super-entrepreneurs are and what they say about their own success and their plans for the future.
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Awesome book!
- By Jamal Love on 06-17-15
By: Randall Lane
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Broad Band
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
- By: Claire L. Evans
- Narrated by: Claire L. Evans
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize. Vice reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the Internet what it is today. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without.
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Inspiring
- By Jean on 03-29-18
By: Claire L. Evans
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The Invisible Heart
- An Economic Romance
- By: Russell D. Roberts
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The Invisible Heart takes a provocative look at business, economics, and regulation through the eyes of Sam Gordon and Laura Silver, teachers at the exclusive Edwards School in Washington, D.C. Sam lives and breathes capitalism. He thinks that most government regulation is unnecessary or even harmful. He believes that success in business is a virtue. He believes that our humanity flourishes under economic freedom. Laura prefers Wordsworth to the Wall Street Journal.
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One of Susie Bright's Misses
- By Anne in State College on 10-27-15
What listeners say about Paper Belt on Fire
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lucas Chu
- 11-29-22
Learning more from this book than from Harvard classes
This is the first book I’m reviewing before I finish, because I want people who are considering getting the book today to get the book (audible is free first month and if you try to cancel). In case you want more details:
This book is a history of the Thiel Fellowship, Thiel Capital and 1517 fund, and Silicon Valley contrarianism.
It’s an inside look into a group of one of the most profitable investors.
This book is also a commentary on the modern university, startup culture, and the American Dream as well as the narratives around them. It sheds light on what talent, innovation, and progress really is.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this book is a call to action to work on problems worth solving. It’s a call to shake off what we’ve learned. It’s a call for founders, students, and investors, for all of us, to work on important problems now.
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- Scott Elfstrom
- 12-16-22
Brilliant and inspiring!
In a world where courage and leadership are in short supply, the author Michael Gibson bravely textualizes how we can move beyond human development stagnation.
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- Jon
- 12-04-22
An inspiring entrepreneurial story wrapped in a futuristic mantra of societal change
A wild ride for any lover of TRUE disruption. Michael’s first hand account of the mid-2000s tech boom combined with his actual zag counter to others zigging makes for an incredible tale of sparking a movement. As a millennial saddled by debt and a useless college degree it’s extremely heartening to hear how we are reevaluating the US relationship with higher education. We are lucky to have Michael be a “former philosopher” as he could have toiled away in academia for decades opposed to actually building upon his thesis which has changed many lives and the trajectory of an industry.
Recommended for any future entrepreneur, banker, college student, and founder.
Bravo.
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1 person found this helpful
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- jdickey
- 12-02-22
A business book that is so much more than most
The Anti-Christ, marxists at Oxford, getting expelled from hackathons, the impact of clock towers, the nature of art - this is not your average book on business, entrepreneurship, and startups.
Paper Belt on Fire provides an inside seat to over a decade of truly contrarian efforts that have produced incredible results. The stories are inspiring and if we are fortunate, will inspire many to boldly go where we as a society need more people to venture.
Well worth the time for anyone who is curious about hedge funds, venture capital, Silicon Valley, being bold, and the biggest challenges facing us today - or who just enjoys interesting people and stories well told.
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- Tony Choueke
- 09-14-24
This is a most interesting book.
The title of the book doesn't do justice to the contents. Very informative and interesting ideas...
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- CottonTail
- 12-06-22
Better than any self help book.
Brilliant. Strangely this is a more inspiring self-help book than more than half I’ve read. It’s a call to arms. The future is ours if we realize the inevitable truth “the only thing I know, is I know nothing” trusting the process of open mindednesses- breaking away the chains of the debilitating elite establishment. And the author happen to be my brother- so, though I have a slight bias. This book is truly great and needs to be devoured by all with an inkling of giving way of the cocoon and becoming the butterfly.
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- dmca
- 02-13-23
Michael Gibson is our generation’s William Blake
We have been tricked. The world isn’t progressing as we have been led to believe. Outside the narrow realm of information processing, we are stuck in the 20th century. Gibson makes the compelling for a trajectory of human progress that inspires. A must read.
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- bobbyg603
- 02-16-23
Take that diploma and shove it
If you’ve ever thought that college is a scam, the education system is boring and antiquated, or climbing the corporate ladder is nonsense, this book is a terrifically enjoyable read/listen.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-02-24
Beautifully Written, Thought Provoking Content
Listened to the book in 2 days.
Very information dense—Michael’s writing style is wandering and thoughtful. It touched a lot of ground over a condensed span while preserving poetic flare.
Of course, the content and messaging is awesome as well… bombastic and thought provoking. How do you change the world without asking for permission? By doing simply doing it.
I’ve ordered a physical copy to re read at a slower pace.
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- Jamie Keeney
- 03-19-23
Awesome
Very eye opening, would highly recommend this book particularly if you are thinking about college.
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1 person found this helpful