The Great Mental Models, Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts
“Super read.”
Why it is worth your time
The Great Mental Models, Volume 1 is the first in a series from Shane Parrish, who worked for Canada's signals intelligence agency before starting the Farnam Street blog, written with Rhiannon Beaubien. It was first published in 2019 and reissued by Portfolio in 2024. The book covers 9 general-purpose models, including the map is not the territory, circle of competence, first-principles thinking, second-order thinking, probabilistic thinking, inversion and Occam's razor, with examples from history and business. Chamath named it on the 20VC podcast and posted about it in July 2020. Mental models are a recurring theme for him, and this is the book he points to as a starting point. It suits readers who want a short, organized reference rather than a narrative. The caveat is that the nine models in this 208-page volume are collected from existing thinkers, Charlie Munger among them, rather than new, and each gets only a short chapter.
