What I Read, Watch, and Listen To
The books, podcasts, newsletters, and thinkers shaping how I build Nowah. Not a generic list — each one with context on how it influences real decisions.
What you consume shapes what you build. Not in a vague, inspirational sense. In a direct, practical sense. A specific book changes how you think about a specific product decision. A podcast episode reframes a problem you have been stuck on. A newsletter surfaces an idea that becomes a feature.
Here is what I consume and, more importantly, how it translates to real decisions at Nowah.
Books that changed my thinking
I read two to three books a month. Most are useful. A few are transformative.
The book on product design that influenced our decision to delete the search form was about the psychology of simplicity. The core argument: users do not want more options. They want confidence in fewer, better options. This directly informed our design philosophy of curated AI recommendations over exhaustive search results.
A book on the economics of AI platforms shaped our platform thesis. The key insight: the value of AI infrastructure compounds as more data flows through it. This is why we build consumer first, to generate the data that makes the platform valuable, rather than starting with APIs nobody has tested.
A book on organizational behavior influenced how we hire. The argument that small, generalist teams outperform large, specialist teams during periods of high uncertainty directly informed our hiring philosophy.
Podcasts and newsletters
I follow five to seven newsletters that cover AI, travel, and startup ecosystems. The daily digest takes about twenty minutes. The most valuable ones are the ones that surface non-obvious connections: an AI capability advance that implies a travel product opportunity, or a travel industry trend that suggests an AI application.
Weekly podcasts during commute and exercise fill the gaps. The best ones feature practitioners, not pundits, people who are building things rather than commenting on them.
People worth watching
The travel industry insiders who understand technology are rare and valuable. The AI researchers who understand product application are equally rare. The founders who are building AI-native products in adjacent verticals provide pattern-matching that is directly applicable.
I pay attention to people who have been wrong in interesting ways, not just people who have been right. Understanding why smart people made incorrect predictions about AI or travel teaches more than studying their correct ones.
The one recommendation
If I could recommend one thing to anyone building an AI product, it would be to read deeply about human decision-making psychology. The technology is the easier part. Understanding how people actually make decisions, how they build trust, how they handle uncertainty, and how they form preferences is the harder and more important part.
The best AI product builders are not the best engineers. They are the best students of human behavior who happen to also be good engineers.
What are you reading? I am always looking for recommendations that challenge my assumptions. The best inputs lead to the best outputs, in AI and in founders.
Nowah is an AI travel agent that searches and books real flights and hotels through conversation — no filters, no thirty open tabs. Plan your next trip.