Books of 2025: Part 3

Professor Martijn Heck, Photonic Integration, Eindhoven University of Technology

Why do I read? When I was a kid, I loved history and read a lot of history books and biographies. Napoleon and William of Orange were my favourites. At the age of 11, I fell in love with fantasy after my father introduced me to The Lord of the Rings. Later, my interest expanded to literary historical mysteries, such as the works of Monaldi & Sorti, Charles Palliser, and Matthew Pearl. But at the same time, one of my greatest joys of returning to Eindhoven after working 11 years abroad was that I could visit Eppo Strips again, our excellent local comic book store, to enjoy the art of a comic book.

So, what did I read last year that I would recommend? Elon Musk mentioned that Foundation by Isaac Asimov was one of his primary inspirations. It’s a classic that I never read, but my fascination (not adoration) with Musk pulled the trigger. It’s about the decline of the Galactic Empire and how an outcast group preserves knowledge and technology, using them to build a power base. Quite a lot of parallels with the current state of our world, and the fact that this is one of Musk’s favourites, should, maybe, ring alarm bells.

This year, Jan Terlouw died, one of the Netherlands’ most erudite and well-loved former politicians. He also wrote children’s books.

Well, young adult fiction, as we call it nowadays. After reading too many literary, complex-character, development novels, I started missing a simple element: a story. How to Become a King (Koning van Katoren in Dutch) offers precisely that. A boy needs to solve seven impossible tasks to become king. Sounds like a Grimm fairy tale, but has a contemporary message, covering issues from religious conflicts to environmental pollution. I think the world needs to read more children’s books to make big problems unequivocally clear and solve them.

Talking of religions, Small Gods: A Discworld model by Terry Pratchett should also be mentioned. It is a satire on religion and philosophy, which offers a much-needed lightness in a world where people sometimes take themselves far too seriously. Like in academia. And, of course, the author who imagined a disk-shaped world, carried by four elephants who stand on a giant turtle swimming through space, is a welcome source of inspiration for creativity, which is also needed in my profession. I did not see octarine in my optical spectrum analyser yet, though.

Lastly, back to comic books, let me throw you an extra free recommendation: check out Suske en Wiske (I refuse to translate this, for nostalgia reasons), the Blue Series. Great for you and your children.

Brad Booth, CEO of NLM Photonics

It can be challenging when you’re in a start-up to find time to read a book, but I have been working to allocate more time to reading. Previously, many of my reads were in the science fiction genre, such as the Dune series, for entertainment. Lately, though, I’ve been reading a broader range of books to gain different insights and perspectives.

One is Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. As someone who grew up before the Internet and smartphones, and then worked in the industry during their development, it was an enlightening read. As a father of two boys who fit within the profile of Haidt’s analysis, it was interesting to see how some of my decisions about access to electronics impacted their lives. My wife worked in the gaming community, where gaming and social media companies discussed player retention and engagement. While that may seem harmless, the impact on the younger generation is obvious today.

As a father and a CEO, I can see how media, social media, the internet, electronic devices, etc., have had a profound impact on our society and, more importantly, on our youth.

As we head into the AI age, I highly recommend this book to any parent or technologist seeking insight.

Another book that I’ve almost finished reading is Elmer Kelton’s “The Time It Never Rained.” It is a fictional account based on a long Texas drought that occurred in the 1950s. The story focuses on a rancher in West Texas and covers topics such as government subsidies, government intervention, prejudice, illegal immigration, and weather impacts on farmers and ranchers. While the story is set in the 1950s, it is interesting how much of it remains relevant today. It also provides excellent insight into the challenges that face independent farmers and ranchers, sort of like being in a start-up and living from one round of financing to another.

Matt Crowley, CEO of Scintil Photonics

One author I read was Peter Zeihan a geopolitical strategist who has written a series of books starting with the Accidental Superpower: Ten Years On that focusses on how geopolitics has evolved in the post-cold war era and where it is likely to go next.

Focussing on demographic, geographic, and historical trends, his take is worth reading for executives in the semiconductor and AI industries with globe-spanning supply chains and markets.

The modern era requires that executives, investors and analysts to consider geopolitical impacts on their business much more than in the past.

The second book that I enjoyed was BlindSight, by Peter Watts which in a philosophical sci-fi space adventure that explores our ideas of consciousness and intelligence through the lens of a group of humans with augmented intelligence encountering a truly alien intelligence that challenges ideas about intelligence, cognition and consciousness that are highly relevant to today’s debates about LLMs, AGI and how LLM augmented human cognition will evolve in the coming years.

Neil McRae, Chief Network Strategist at Juniper Networks.

There’s Got to Be a Better Way: How to Deliver Results and Get Rid of the Stuff That Gets in the Way of Real Work, by Donald C. Kieffer & Nelson P. Repenning is one of those rare leadership books that made me think, “Of course!”

It’s practical and insightful. We’ve all been in organisations that work harder but not smarter, usually because we’re busy treating the side effects rather than addressing the underlying problems. We also tend to assume work is static, when in reality it’s massively dynamic. And who hasn’t sat through the meeting where all the metrics are green, yet the project is months behind?

The authors introduce Dynamic Work Design, anchored in five principles: Solve the right problem – Structure for discovery – Connect the human chain – Regulate for flow – Visualise the work.

They expand on this through ideas such as using effective problem-solving tools (like System Dynamics), ensuring day-to-day work reveals where the next issue will come from, connecting the people who are best positioned to solve those problems, avoiding system overload, and making sure work is visible as it moves. It sounds simple, but it’s remarkable how few organisations operate this way. Too many try to push more through the system than it can handle, and far too many rely on metrics that hide opportunities for improvement rather than reveal them.

Crucially, the authors argue—and I fully agree—that it starts with leaders getting out of their offices. Leaders need to get onto the shop floor, understand the real work, strip away the noise, and get close to the actual metrics. By rolling up their sleeves, they build trust, create alignment, and foster a culture where people talk openly and in real time about problems and how to solve them. When progress is made visible, people can feel that things are getting better.

I can’t help but feel the telco industry, in particular, could benefit enormously from this kind of approach.

Overall, *There’s Got to Be a Better Way* is an outstanding read for anyone trying to build healthier, more effective organisations. It’s thoughtful, grounded, and refreshingly honest. I’d recommend it to leaders, managers, and anyone who’s ever wondered why good intentions so often collide with organisational reality, and how to close the gap between leaders, employees, and the work itself.