38 Books and 953 Hours of Reading: Michael Saylor Unveils His Pro-Bitcoin Program

Encyclopedic vacation assignments. Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), published on July 25 on X a reading program titled "Upgrade the World": 38 books divided into eight themes, with an estimated volume of between 755 and 953 hours. This translates to 13 to 31 months of work depending on the daily pace, aimed at leaders facing significant decisions in business, politics, finance, or technology.

The journey begins with the history of civilizations and concludes with Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper. Bitcoin only appears at the very end, as a reward after a thousand hours of effort.

Key Points

• Michael Saylor has published on X a reading program titled "Upgrade the World": 38 books covering themes from the history of civilizations to Bitcoin.
• The complete curriculum requires between 755 and 953 hours of reading, or 13 to 31 months depending on the daily pace.
• Bitcoin occupies only 10 to 13 hours of the program, starting with The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous and concluding with Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper.
• Saylor mandates a critical reading of each book, including his own book The Mobile Wave and The Bitcoin Standard, to be compared with the code and monetary history.

The curriculum, unveiled on X, opens with the monumental Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant, followed by geography with Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel), war with John Keegan and Tacitus, uncertainty with Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Incerto series, and then freedom and political power through several works by Austrian economist Murray Rothbard.

Next comes capital, with biographies of John D. Rockefeller and the Morgan banking dynasty by Ron Chernow, energy with Daniel Yergin's history of oil, and technology with David Deutsch's work on scientific progress. A cheeky nod: Saylor includes his own 2012 book, The Mobile Wave, inviting readers to check if his predictions about mobile computing have held up.

Ten hours of Bitcoin out of 953: the tip of the pyramid.

The detailed hourly budget holds a surprise. The history of civilizations takes the largest share, between 294 and 359 hours. Human action, freedom, and political power require 189 to 239 hours. Bitcoin, however, comes in last with only 10 to 13 hours: The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous, followed by the original whitepaper. A deliberate imbalance.

In Saylor's mind, the asset is not a starting point but the culmination of several millennia of monetary, military, and institutional experience.

Another unexpected requirement from a maximalist: critical reading. Saylor asks to compare Keegan with Clausewitz, to question Taleb's skepticism, to study Chernow's capitalists without idolizing them, and even to scrutinize The Bitcoin Standard against the code, the real network, and monetary history. The ultimate ambition: to acquire "thousands of years of accumulated experience" before making decisions that affect millions of people.

The educator remains, above all, the largest corporate holder of bitcoins. Strategy holds 843,775 BTC, backed by a reserve of $3.225 billion in cash. After a symbolic first sale of 32 BTC at the end of May, the company sold 3,588 BTC for about $216 million in early July to fund dividends for its "Digital Credit" securities. A measured deviation from the house doctrine: these sales account for less than 0.5% of the total treasury, and the replenishment of reserves carried out in mid-July was done through stock issuance, without touching the BTC stock this time.

The day after publishing his reading list, Saylor reignited the speculation machine by sharing Strategy's accumulation chart, accompanied by a mischievous comment: "We're going to need another color." With $23.53 billion in shares still available in its issuance programs, the company has the means to add a few lines to the table. Between two chapters of Rothbard.

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