Ian Yanusko

Ian Yanusko

Ian Yanusko

Little bit about me

Little bit about me

  • 29

  • Co-founded Bracket, a YC company

  • Composed music, starting with a cappella, then piano, now working on a country album

  • Play a bunch of instruments but sitar is my favorite

  • Led around by a dog named Voodoo

Pics of good memories

Pics of good memories

Open questions I have

Open questions I have

Open questions I have

  • Why is it so hard (perhaps impossible) to recreate the ecstatic experience felt by those who practice charismatic religions?

    • SoulCycle tries but fails.

  • When was the absolute best time to be a child?

    • I have a strong hunch it was when I was a kid (early aughts)

    • It it was the aughts, what would it realistically take to get kids back to that golden age?

  • What world leaders are motivated mostly by self-interest? National interest? Ideas?

  • Are there emotions, ideas, abstractions that cannot be captured by words but can be captured by other media?

    • If so, why? What can't we express with language?

    • Yet I suspect this is the case.

  • Will we ever have another decade of musical innovation like the 60s?

  • What scientific beliefs will our great-great-great-great-grandkids laugh at us for?

  • What moral beliefs will our great-great-great-great-grandkids laugh at us for?

  • Is it possible for melting pot cultures to follow a set of high interpersonal standards like that of Japan?

Book list

Book list

Book list

Sci-fi & fantasy

  • The Three-Body Problem trilogy, Cixin Liu

  • Solaris, Stanisław Lem

  • The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin

  • Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke

  • Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion, Dan Simmons

  • Exhalation, Ted Chiang

  • Dune, Frank Herbert

  • His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman


Spooky\weird fiction

  • The City and the City, China Miéville

  • Embassytown, China Miéville

  • Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman


Classics

  • The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov

  • East of Eden, John Steinbeck

  • Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy

  • All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy

  • Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

  • Another Country, James Baldwin


General fiction

  • Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson

  • Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

  • Blindness, Jose Saramago

  • The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, Jose Saramago

  • The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk

  • My Struggle Book I, Karl Ove Knausgaard

  • Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

  • The Disappearance of Josef Mengele, Olivier Guez

  • Night Boat to Tangier, Kevin Barry


Philosophy

  • Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl

  • On the Genealogy of Morality, Friedrich Nietzsche

  • The Essence of Christianity, Ludwig Feuerbach

  • Awareness, Anthony de Mello


History

  • Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt

  • Dreaming the Beatles, Rob Sheffield

  • Zealot, Reza Aslan

  • Japan and the Shackles of the Past, R. Taggart Murphy


Biography\memoir

  • In Pharaoh's Army, Tobias Wolff

  • The River of Doubt, Candace Millard

  • Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell


General non-fiction

  • How to Win Friends & Influence People, Dale Carnegie

  • Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake

  • Very Important People, Ashley Mears

  • Range, David Epstein

Socials

Socials

Socials

Newsletter

Newsletter

Newsletter

© 2024 Ian Yanusko. All rights reserved.