Vardhan

Reading List (and Beyond)

I don’t read a lot, but that doesn’t mean I don’t learn. These days, most of what I consume is compressed, interactive, and sometimes, surprisingly, from GPT.

So this isn’t just a list of books. It’s a list of sources that have shaped how I think — from videos and podcasts to textbooks and rabbit holes I fell into at 3 a.m.

📚 Books worth your time

  • Poor Charlie’s Almanack — dense, rich, uncompressible. I’m reading it right now.
  • The Almanack of Naval Ravikant — a modern classic of clarity.
  • Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss — snackable wisdom.
  • Practical UI — great if you're building software people actually use.
  • Textbooks — seriously. If you want to understand something deeply, find a textbook.

🎙 Podcasts & Audio

  • Lex Fridman — thoughtful longform conversations.
  • Andrew Huberman — especially if you like biology, health, and habit science.
  • Tim Ferriss — ask GPT which episodes to start with, it's good at this.
  • Dr. K (HealthyGamerGG) — deep dives into mental health, motivation, and gaming culture.
  • Alain de Botton — gentle, philosophical clarity.

If you're looking for specific voices to follow, write to me. I’ll help if I can.

📺 YouTube & Visual Learning

  • Technoblade — for the chaos, wit, and heart. Blood for the blood God.
  • Casey Neistat — storytelling with motion and magic.
  • Ted / TEDx Talks — always solid. Pick a topic and dive in.
  • Steve Jobs talks — especially old keynotes and interviews.
  • Richard Feynman — YouTube has a surprising amount of gold here.

💡 People & Essays

  • Paul Graham — read his essays. Some are sticky for life.
  • Sam Altman, Patrick Collison, Derek Sivers — wise people who write well.
  • Cal Newport — if you’re a student (and we all are), read and listen to him.

🧠 A Few Ideas

  • Stoicism — start anywhere. Meditations. Seneca. Ryan Holiday. It’ll find you.
  • Use GPT — not just for answers, but for curated learning paths, explanations, summaries.
  • Smart people compress their learnings into books. Or talks. Or posts. Seek those out.

This list is a bit of a brain dump right now — I’ll keep updating it as I come across new things worth sharing. In the meantime, stay curious.