Charlie Becker

Charlie Becker was raised between the stacks of one of the largest independent used bookstores in America. Seeing what inventory came in and hearing people's stories when they bought their books and left, he learned that the pursuit of truth and productive cultural exchange requires both a sense of reverence and a small element of randomness.

Charlie has an eclectic background. He spent three years in China helping grow an education startup to sixty employees in twelve cities, before moving back to Houston for graduate studies in business and economics. Then he spent ten years as an entrepreneurship professor in the world-renowned SURE Program at the University of Houston, where he helped grow over 2,000 small businesses. He currently publishes a blog on Substack where he writes about books, philosophy, culture, and legacy. His essay "A Pilgrimage for Book People" was featured by On Substack while "Do the weirdest thing that feels right" reached over 50,000 readers and was shared by James Clear and Morning Brew, among others. In 2025, Charlie stepped back from full-time teaching to write more, take on a few consulting projects, and—most importantly—focus on the family bookstore.

Everything Charlie has learned from teaching, writing, and bookselling shapes his fellowship mission. He's building an AI-powered tool that helps independent bookstores identify and catalog rare and obscure books, while creating content that showcases the cultural value of preserving this knowledge. His two goals: demonstrate how AI can help used bookstores become even better at what they do best—preserving and sharing cultural knowledge, while encouraging serendipity and discovery—and build an audience that ensures not only beloved classics but also idiosyncratic and unpopular stories find their way to readers who need them.