Roxanne reviews Obvious in Hindsight
by Bradley Tusk
As a confessed life long learner, I’m all about discovering new information especially in my Achilles heel; business and finance. Accordingly, Tusk’s new novel Obvious in Hindsight was just what the venture capitalist ordered.
Top among the reasons to read this is Bradley Tusk’s work inside the political system before becoming an author and with that, his subsequent desire to spill the beans on how married business and politics really are.
The plot includes an office park size list of kooky yet plausible characters, including Susan, a high maintenance leader of a flying car startup, (an idea which seems ludicrous now, but so did Captain Kirk's ear buds in the original Star Trek) and Lisa, her naive, but quick learning mentee. In order to get the flying car business off the ground, Susan wrangles an engineer with a penchant for gambling to stop the test cars from crashing. Then there’s her PR team attempting to grease the palms of three cities’ worth of politico: Austin, LA and NYC in order to increase the project funding and get the public on board with this new and risky mode of transport. Add in two free wheeling FBI agents and ornithophilic vigilantes and Tusk’s caper is off to the races.
Obvious in Hindsight is that cleanse the pallet light read where the tension is intricate, tight and easily enjoyed. And as a bonus, I learned about hackathons and the typical pattern of politicians’ influence on business.