About
Derek Sivers is an author, entrepreneur, programmer, and philosopher known for his distinctively concise, insightful writings on life, business, and independence.
Originally a professional musician and circus ringmaster, he founded CD Baby in 1998, creating one of the earliest and most beloved independent online music distributors. After growing it into a massive success, he sold the company in 2008 for $22 million, donating the vast majority of the proceeds to a charitable trust dedicated to music education. He is the author of bestselling books including Anything You Want, Hell Yeah or No, Your Music and People, and How to Live.
On his minimalist website sive.rs, he shares highly distilled essays, detailed book notes, and meditations on personal autonomy, coding from first principles, creative freedom, and living deliberately.
You can also find Derek Sivers on:
- Website: https://sive.rs
- GitHub: sivers
Articles
- Building without predicting
- Writing for Emotional Impact - by Karl Iglesias
- Prepare your “no” and keep it handy
- My life was changed by four sentences in four books
- Geography is four-dimensional
- Netizen
- Cambridge Language Surveys: Chinese - by Jerry Norman
- You Can Just Do Things - by Cate Hall and Sasha Chapin
- Travelling While Black - by Nanjala Nyabola
- Tribal - by Michael Morris
- Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness - by Patrick House
- Elephant in the Brain - by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson
- China in Ten Words - by Yu Hua 余华
- I was inconsiderate but now I’m everywhere
- tweet
- About my book notes
- Offline 23 hours a day
- Maintenance of Everything, part one - by Stewart Brand
- You’re Not Listening - by Kate Murphy
- You Will Not Stampede Me - by Bryan Caplan
- What next?
- Reframing death
- You are what you pretend to be
- Keep tuning and adjusting
- Take the first step immediately
- Why your choice is wrong
- Talk with friends to solidify it
- Private journal to internalize it
- No new instructions for the computer
- From explorer to self-leader
- How to decide and make the best choice
- An awesome collection of great questions
- Five tiny tales of reframing
- Traits of useful perspectives
- Kingdom of Characters - by Jing Tsu
- Expand your repertoire
- Diamond in the trash
- Answer great questions
- Existentialism: A Beginner’s Guide - by Thomas Wartenberg
- At the Existentialist Café - by Sarah Bakewell
- Argumentative Indian - by Amartya Sen
- Factfulness - by Hans Rosling
- Art of Spending Money - by Morgan Housel
- Charisma Myth - by Olivia Fox Cabane
- Rule Makers, Rule Breakers - by Michele Gelfand
- How to Know a Person - by David Brooks
- In Praise of Commercial Culture - by Tyler Cowen
- Mathematica - by David Bessis, Kevin Frey
- Vagabonding - by Rolf Potts
- Create Your Own Economy - by Tyler Cowen
- Advice on Upskilling - by Justin Skycak
- Expert Author Community by Kelly Irving
- Community Collective by Paz Pisarski
- Victory Degree by Nik Atanackovic
- Learning Leader by Ryan Hawk
- Get Yourself Optimized by Stephan Spencer
- Less Clueless by Steve Sima
- Spaghetti to Bento by Alexandre Petit
- Abundant Thinking by Elan Gelfand
- Between Views by Alec Kosky
- WanderLearn by Francis Tapon
- Icons by Motiversity by Tyler Waye
- Going Solo by Matthew Mayer
- Polish Anything You Want by Krzysztof E. Socha-Zalewski
- Focused by David Sparks and Mike Schmitz
- Crazy Good Turns by Frank Blake
- Kyle Thiermann
- Community Collective by Paz Pisarski
- Blind Blaming by Kevin St. Clergy
- Drink and Think by Tate Hackert
- Reframeables by Rebecca and Natalie
- Less Clueless by Steve Sima
- Patterns of Success, Freedom, and Happiness by Oskar Woehr
- Ike Inspiration by Ike Okwerekwu
- Think Like a Game Designer by Justin Gary
- The Armen Show by Armen Shirvanian