Flash Boys
Michael Lewis
Read January 2025
Flash Boys is the book that made me take market microstructure seriously. Lewis does what he does best — takes a deeply technical subject and makes it feel like a thriller.
What stuck with me
The core insight — that the stock market is rigged not by outright fraud but by information asymmetry measured in microseconds — fundamentally changed how I think about execution quality and latency in my own trading systems.
Relevance to building trading systems
If you're building any kind of trading infrastructure, this is required reading. Understanding why co-location matters, why order routing decisions affect fill quality, and why the exchange ecosystem is structured the way it is makes you a sharper systems designer.
Verdict
Essential reading for anyone building in this space. Even if you disagree with Lewis's framing, the underlying mechanics he describes are real and worth understanding deeply.