More and more I’m considering primary sources as the source of new ideas. Ideas are fingerprints, unique manifestations of a particular context. Nothing (outside of synchronously being in a context) is a deeper connection to an idea outside of a primary source, regardless of the medium.

As a result of this conclusion, I’m searching for more and more primary sources. I’m currently reading the Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen, which feels like a primary source for network effects. I’m hoping to read even more fundamental sources like Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species and Richard Dawkin’s Selfish Gene.

The challenge with these primary sources is they are hard to read. They are foreign because they belong to another context, another time. Yet therein lies their value. What primary sources are you reading? Which have given you the most value?