Inspiring reading for budding entrepreneurs.
A celebrated gay venture capitalist offers advice about "how diversity could be our greatest superpower."
In 2018, Hamilton became "the first “Black female noncelebrity to grace the front cover of Fast Company magazine." Before that, she was a live music production coordinator fascinated by the alien world of venture capitalism. In her debut, the author provides a guide for anyone not in "the straight white male population" to “do the thing they’re passionate about." Drawing on her experiences in both music and business, she emphasizes the need to gather information in all ways possible: not just by consuming print and online information, but also by connecting with people in one’s chosen area of interest. For “underestimated people," in particular, gathering together a diverse collective of individuals and not buying into the myth of the self-made person is key to success. “I am made up of my brother, my wife, my friends,” and every member of her company, Backstage Capital. Hamilton also highlights the need to “amplify the voices of those without a microphone," especially in cases where an individual has gained enough power and influence to be heard. One of very few African Americans who seek to create a funding pool for startups headed by other minorities, Hamilton at first received many rejections from the (white male) business establishment she courted. She tells readers to expect the same but to also cultivate both an extra measure of self-confidence as well as forgiveness, which she calls “the ultimate productivity hack." Resilience—part of a person’s “adaptability quotient"—fosters the ability to move forward. At the same time, Hamilton urges fighting against the business establishment’s proliferation of "hustle porn" by trading in “hustle for self-care." Refreshing in its inclusivity, Hamilton’s book offers wise and practical lessons from the margins to all “underestimated people” looking to make a difference in the world of business and beyond.
Inspiring reading for budding entrepreneurs.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13641-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Currency
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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