Books still have power. Did you know that the Silicon Valley venture capital company Andreessen Horowitz has a carefully curated library of 800 books in its waiting room? A lot of people do now, because of this article by Cade Metz in Wired magazine.
Each of the books has been selected and placed there by Marc Andreessen, the firm’s co-founder (and one of the original Internet browser inventors through Netscape). The collection – focussing on Hollywood, Silicon Valley and computer programming – is so legendary that “as authors and publicists come through, many of them slot in their own books—sometimes in bulk”, Metz writes. “Andreessen is the room. And the room still has the desired effect: It makes you want to talk to the people inside.”
What is the one thing new visitors to your home usually look at first? Your books, especially if they are displayed in “public” areas. We at Community Colleges Australia also believe in the value of learning and the importance of reading.
For that reason – as part of this year’s CCA Annual Conference (Sydney, 18 to 20 October) – we have created a reading list for conference participants along the conference themes of innovation, creating futures and VET, which you can view here. Aside from online and paper reading, it will also include videos and audio podcasts. Sections currently include “The Future: Understanding It and Shaping It”, “Young People, Education and Work”, “The Future of Vocational Education and Training”, “Not-For-Profit Governance” and “Bookshelves and Book Lists”. We feature items from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable to the (US) Pew Research Center’s Digital Life in 2025: 15 theses about the future to the Foundation for Young Australians’ The New Work Order: Ensuring young Australians have skills and experience for the jobs of the future, not the past.
Speech communications consultant Michael Kelly tells the story that when he “approached Australian Indigenous leader, Noel Pearson and asked him what behaviour or attitude had paid off for him in his career”, Pearson paused for a long time and then answered, “reading”.
Look carefully in the upper-left corner of the photograph of Andreessen Horowitz bookshelf that accompanies this article. You can see a biography of Alan Turing, the American computer scientist whose quote we are using as our conference “tagline”: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
We at Community Colleges Australia believe in the power of the word. Our member community education organisations all strive hard to extend community-based education, particularly for vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians. We encourage you to check out our developing reading list on the themes of innovation, creating futures and VET, and to attend our Conference in Sydney from 18 to 20 October.
