I’ve always held the belief that if we want to emulate and be fruitfully inspired by the greats, we must find out where they gather their information from. Even more important is how they gather all the info they assimilate but for starters, we must start with what/where.
Books are not-so-surprisingly the primary staple for most of these folks. Gates is supposed to have said, when asked what superpower he wished for, that he’d prefer being able to speed-read. Buffet purportedly said that his daily routine was to come to the office, lock himself in his room and read (almost all through the day).
I don’t know why I never thought about finding out books that Aaron Swartz read but today I did. I stumbled on this.
I remember reading - in many places - that two things define innovators and creative folks.
- the breadth of their knowledge and
- the depth of their knowledge in any given field
Aaron’s recommendations, like others, reflect this vividly.