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The Business Blockchain book club questions
Here are 11 book club questions for The Business Blockchain by William Mougayar, ordered to open easily and end somewhere worth arguing about. Copy them, print them, or bring them up one at a time.
William Mougayar's book was one of the first serious attempts to explain blockchain technology to a business audience rather than a technical one.
William Mougayar · 2016 · 3h 45m
Full summary and key takeaways →The 11 questions
- 1.
Mougayar describes blockchain as a trust technology. What other technologies in history have fundamentally changed how trust is established between strangers?
- 2.
Which industries or institutions in your experience are most burdened by the cost of intermediaries, and would blockchain actually help?
- 3.
The book argues that blockchain removes middlemen. What happens to the people whose jobs those are, and is that a straightforward win?
- 4.
Smart contracts execute automatically when conditions are met. What kinds of agreements would benefit from that rigidity, and which would be made worse by it?
- 5.
Mougayar wrote in 2016. Which of his predictions have come true, which have failed, and what does the gap tell you about technology forecasting?
- 6.
Decentralization is presented as an obvious good. What are the legitimate arguments against it, especially for critical infrastructure?
- 7.
Token economics tries to align participant incentives through financial stakes. Where have you seen this model work, and where has it been gamed or failed?
- 8.
The book focuses on business applications of blockchain. Does it adequately address the environmental and energy costs of proof-of-work consensus?
- 9.
Land registries and medical records are offered as compelling use cases. What would it actually take to migrate a national land registry to a blockchain?
- 10.
Governance is the hardest unsolved problem in blockchain. Who do you think should control the rules of a public blockchain, and how?
- 11.
How much of blockchain's appeal, in 2016 and now, is about genuine efficiency gains versus a libertarian preference for systems without institutional gatekeepers?
How to run the discussion
- Pick six to eight, not all of them. An hour of real discussion covers fewer questions than anyone expects, and racing the list is what makes a book club feel like homework.
- Open with what people noticed, not what they concluded. Asking for a verdict first hardens opinions before anyone has heard each other.
- Let the disagreement run. The questions below that split a room are the ones worth the time; the ones everyone answers the same way can be skipped.
- Ask the quiet person a specific question. A direct, narrow question is far easier to answer than an open invitation to contribute.
Themes worth steering toward
If the conversation stalls, these are the threads that usually restart it.
Common questions
What are good book club questions for The Business Blockchain?
Here are 11 book club questions for The Business Blockchain by William Mougayar, ordered to open easily and end somewhere worth arguing about. The strongest openers ask what each reader noticed rather than what they concluded, and the discussion usually turns on blockchain, decentralization, cryptocurrency.
How long should a book club discussion of The Business Blockchain last?
Most groups run 60 to 90 minutes of actual discussion. That is roughly six to eight questions, not all of them, so pick the ones that suit your group rather than working down the list in order.
What are the main themes in The Business Blockchain?
Blockchain, Decentralization, Cryptocurrency, Smart contracts, Technology strategy. Those are the threads most likely to divide a room, which makes them the useful places to steer a discussion that has gone quiet.
Picking the next one? See books like The Business Blockchain or questions for other book club picks.
