Founder Books

by ashtavakra01 • 7 years ago

437 91 7 years ago

Wow thanks for posting this!

Some more context:

Over the past month, I must've reached out to at least 70 founders and asked them about some of the books that most shaped their professional careers. Obviously not a lot of them responded, so I started going through some book lists (Sivers' and James Clear's lists are great!), the 400+ indie hacker interviews, and personal blogs, and adding everything I can find.

I managed to get recommendations from a little over 100 founders and makers heavily involved in the tech scene — all suggestions here come from people who run or are involved in revenue-generating businesses.

Hope you find this useful! Still would love to get some suggestions from people like patio11, austenallred, etc so if you're reading this drop me a message!

phillc73• 7 years ago

I think some search/browse filters could be incredibly useful too. For example, I'd be interested in a split between recommendations by founders running on VC money versus those growing a more organic business, such as Basecamp perhaps. Or maybe those working on open source products, like Gitlab, compared to closed source cloud based offerings.

I imagine that there could be interesting things to learn through comparing the books recommended through such filtering.

Malfunction923• 7 years ago

Technically I'm using Algolia to sort/filter these so doing something like this should be easy. Something like a hidden attribute that when searched for sorts the list, for example by searching for a term like "bootstrapped" or "remote" you'd get books or founders tagged with these attributes.

chiefalchemist2• 7 years ago

Agreed. I feel it would also help to know why they recommended it. One sentence, no more than two. Sum it up, Twitter stylee.

That said, allow for down-votes would also help to add value. More or less, "read it, wouldn't recommend it." As it is, 5 recommends looks solid, but what if there were 10 don't recommend?

Malfunction923• 7 years ago

Re downvotes: the problem with that is sometimes book recommendations can be very personal or context-dependent. Sure 10 might not recommend, but what if the recommendations come from people whose background / experience / goals better align with yours? I included profiles for each founder under every book for exactly that reason — so you can learn more about them and about what might have driven these recommendations.

Ozzie_osman• 7 years ago

This is great. It would be awesome if (validated) people could submit summaries too!

vga8052• 7 years ago

I am surprised Jocko Willink's books aren't on here. His book on leadership, Extreme Ownership, is excellent. Intertwined are stories from his time as a Navy Seal leader and applications of what he learned there to the business world.

Datenstrom• 7 years ago

I really enjoyed Extreme Ownership especially the story about the BUDS team leader complaining about always losing because of his team, him being switched to lead the team that always won previously, and the team that kept losing making a comeback.

Great book about leadership and entertaining.

vga8052• 7 years ago

His follow-up, The Dichotomy of Leadership is almost as good, and his podcast is a constant source of motivation. I am a Marine so I feel like I am extremely biased, but, everyone I've shared his work with has felt it equally as rewarding.

mck-• 7 years ago

Ray Dalio's Principles is becoming my favorite book of the year; despite it being ~500 pages, there's so much super relevant content to company building and generally very applicable principles that help with day to day conduct.

While most books I've read are tactical or strategic, this book talks about the philosophical -- especially recommended for founders beyond the scrappy MVP stage, perhaps a team > 10

nlowell• 7 years ago

A great book, half very intelligent, half completely insane. Bridgewater must be a place all its own.

HNLurker2• 7 years ago

How do you balance reading about craft and practicing it? Also metathinking?

Findeton• 7 years ago

Go to a city or country where public transport systems are a thing. Read during your commute in the tube.

jypepin2• 7 years ago

I've read most of those books and they are all very nice and worth a read.

The fact that those recommendations are literally everything I've read in the past few years is probably another proof that we, in the tech industry, live in a big echo chamber and have no idea what the real world looks like. We all keep telling each other that every we do is great because, well, we don't know anything else.

It's a bit sad and I'd love to see some more diversity.

juskrey2• 7 years ago

People are what they don't read

jamieap• 7 years ago

what?

avip• 7 years ago

I have no idea what that means but had to upvote because it was so unexpected.

vram222• 7 years ago

People are both what they read and what they don't read - and in a broader sense, what they osmose [1] and don't osmose. As in, learning by osmosis.

[1] osmose: v: verb form of osmosis

If that isn't a word, it just became one, because I made it so - deal with it.

matco11• 7 years ago

Books influence us and shape us. We are what we are because we are formed by our experiences throughout our life. Reading a good book is like living someone else’s life.

povertyworld3• 7 years ago

To be fair, it says these are books that helped or influenced the careers of the founders not everything they read. If they like to read Thomas Mann in their downtime, that's nice, but maybe not related to being a founder.

jypepin2• 7 years ago

True, and that would be interesting to know how the other books influence them as a founder. The thing here is this list of books is what tells founders what to do as founders, so probably the biggest part of their influence.

Townley• 7 years ago

Acknowledging the risk of an echo chamber, maybe the ubiquity of these books means that they're tools of the trade. Knowing how to build a great software product/business is a useful skill set that these books teach well.

From there, the path to success comes from being well-rounded and exposed to new ideas/their accompanying opportunities. Read "The Power of Habit" because it's an incredible book, but then also read books specific to the domains to which you're applying those skills. Working for a healthcare company? Read "How Doctors Think". Jane Jacobs for urban planning, Foucalt for history...

It's wonderful that you (and likely half of the people on HN) have read many of these books, and I think having this list is useful for people outside the industry getting a mind for how tech thinks. At the same time, exploring the pantheon of great works in other fields is a virtue that, luckily is toted by many of the books mentioned above.

abhiyerra• 7 years ago

This is so true. Those books are basically the college course of a startup and you need to read past these to get diversity of ideas.

chubot• 7 years ago

Random: I read the "Autobiography of Gucci Mane" a couple months ago based on a recommendation from a HN comment (and based on liking a few of his songs). He's wildly popular in pop culture but so far nobody I've talked to in SF knows who he is. He's known as the rapper with the ice cream cone tattoo on his face, if that rings a bell.

It was a good book. The narrator is definitely "immoral", which can be disturbing, but he's basically a product of his environment. One lesson I took from it is that Alabama and Georgia (at least in the 80's and 90's) might as well be a different country.

It's also related to business since he says he always wanted to be the one pulling the strings and making the money, rather than the talent. He became both.

The economy of making and promoting niche rap -- which became mainstream pop, e.g. Migos has at least 1B views on YouTube -- is pretty interesting. Somehow the rappers know if a beat is worth $1K or $10K, or a co-appearance on a record is worth $1K or $10K. It's a very collaborative business. They obviously understand marketing.

And even though he was addicted to "lean" (cough syrup) for years and in and out of jail for various violent crimes, he (and his collaborators) still have significant practical knowledge of contracts, copyright law, and use QuickBooks!

-----

So there's some diverse content on HN if you look hard enough :) I'll also say that I didn't read "Sapiens" for a long time because I thought it was one of these "tech bubble/meme" books, e.g. the first place I heard of it was from Tim Ferris several years ago.

But I read it last year and it was great -- definitely worth reading, and I read Homo Deus too. I guess the whole point is that it's from someone whose background is not in tech saying a lot of things that are relevant to the industry.

povertyworld3• 7 years ago

If you're interested in the business aspects of the hip-hop industry, check out The Big Payback by Dan Charnas. If you grew up with hip-hop, it can be interesting to have the entrepreneurial backstory of this stuff unveiled. Can be both inspiring and disillusioning, but engaging either way.

jameane• 7 years ago

I think we really underestimate the entrepreneurship required to be an indie rapper and break-through. Marc Benioff freely admits he stole marketing ideas from MC Hammer and his street teams when launching Salesforce.

E-40 is a marketing super genius. He's been rapping and producing since 1990. And has had so many brand extensions since the mid-90s from energy drinks to wine to tequila.

You never know where you will find inspiration!

alexk• 7 years ago

Can I offer a complementary non-practical founders reading list then? :)

* Dostoevsky "Crime and punishment".

Discover how important is to take care of yourself and avoid entering the downward spiral of depression and anxiety.

* Jack London "Smoke Bellew".

Get a boost of the startup-like resourceful energy the heroes of the previous Golden-Rush at Klondike.

* Herman Hesse "Siddhartha".

Get a break from the startup grind by going on the spiritual journey of self-discovery and peaceful reflection.

* Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. "Far Rainbow".

Get to know the limits of human intelligence and capacity for overcoming the difficulties.

Hope you enjoy it!

eswat• 7 years ago

That was my thinking when I went through the first page of results. I pretty much read all the books listed except two and it didn’t dawn on me until I started reading more non-fiction books from Asian authors – From Third World to First by Lee Kuan Yew, many books from the Japan Library series, etc. – that I had a very narrow view of how business and personal productivity works in the grand scheme of things.

sanderjd• 7 years ago

It's easy to get more diversity, just read different stuff. There are plenty of recommendations all over the place. Hell, just go grab something from the staff picks at your book store or library if you're lost. Even if you want to read through everything on our echo chamber's lists, you can still do that, you just don't need to do it straight; just interleave some other stuff along with it.

joelx• 7 years ago

Sam Walton's autobiography was the single best business book I've ever read. A nugget of gold every couple of pages.

revlolz• 7 years ago

I would suggest "The Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius. It might be a tough one to read, but the audible I listened to (there are a few of them) made it easier to consume.

randomsearch• 7 years ago

Read a lot of these already, would recommend against the four hour work week. Plenty of criticism online, and I agree it’s fully justified. The only book on the list that left a bad taste.

tmaly2• 7 years ago

I have a few not on first page that I thought should be

Never Split the Difference is amazing for negotiation.

SPIN selling for understanding benefit selling verse feature selling

$100 Startup is a very good summary of techniques. It the next level of granular detail from 4 Hour Work Week

gist4• 7 years ago

Never Split the Difference is amazing for negotiation.

I have done thousands of negotiations (for vastly different things) and have been paid to do so. [1] I have never read a single book on negotiations. I can always tell when someone else has. (Read that again). [2] I could most likely write a book myself on negotiations and my experiences. The problem is it's a seat of the pants thing. It's nearly impossible to be able to say what to do unless you are in the exact situation and reading all the signals. Also it's creative at it's core so if you are a narrow type thinker you are most likely not going to be good at it no matter what (very generally). And of course what you are negotiating for and in particular who you are dealing with and their motivations are super important to the process. That said I am sure a book can help with an adversary that is not particular difficult and of course better than nothing. But like with most other things it is in no way even close to a substitute for actual experience over time and the right base attributes personally. Some people just aren't perceptive enough of others emotions and reactions to be good at it. No way around it. Also their own emotions and the ability to control them.

[1] The largest fee I made (recently) was close to $200k and I've been paid as little as $500 (or have done it for free in some cases).

[2] Because their delivery and actions appear canned and predictably fit another pattern that I have seen in the exact same way over time.

AJ007• 7 years ago

I’m not against reading at all — but, I think the reader needs to be aware of what they are reading, and the biases or potential lack of credibility involved.

One of the problems with human driven interactions and instructions is those sorts of guidelines can cause people to toss out their common sense. The very nature of some things mean step by step instructions, if followed by enough people, cease to work. This is especially true in marketplaces.

rargulati• 7 years ago

For the inexperienced, what are a few key principles that we can take away from your experiences?

chucksmash• 7 years ago

I have never read a single book on negotiations. I can always tell when someone else has.

My dad used to talk about negotiations from later in his career and I think he would have more or less agreed with the sentiment. I remember him talking about being tickled when someone would come in taking a particular tack, and you could more or less tell them "yeah, sure book x chapter y, how about we just talk?" and then everybody had a chuckle and got down to business. I'm sure it was more of a vibe he picked up than any particular incident. The idea reminds me of the Gervais Principle's[1] idea that different subgroups within an organization speak different languages to each other.

In support of reading books, I think there's a difference between being familiar with what everybody else has probably read vs working directly out of a playbook.

Edit:

The first link is the start of the blog series. The one about languages groups speak is [2].

[1] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

[2] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-...

pm90• 7 years ago

if you are a narrow type thinker

This is a completely personal opinion but I think this is key. Most people _are_ narrow type thinkers. They have certain perspectives of the world that they're convinced about and unwilling to see things differently.

If you're the kind of person who genuinely listens and tries to understand the situation of the other party, ironically, its much easier to get what you want. Most people seem to desire intensely a feeling of being understood, if your actions demonstrate to them that you do, they're willing to meet you halfway.

^ Also something that's probably in a book somewhere. The problem with book-based learning at its core is that if you're trying to do the "techniques" in the book, you're already not listening as much as you should be and missing out on a whole lot of cues which might be very very useful.

tmaly2• 7 years ago

I can say from experience, just reading this book is not enough. You actually have to practice. I went into a car dealership trying to negotiate. I was somewhat successful, but not as much as I thought I could be.

DoreenMichele2• 7 years ago

Never Split the Difference is amazing for negotiation.

I don't know that one, but here are a couple of research-based negotiating books:

Getting to yes

The mind and heart of the negotiator.

They were required texts for my college class on Negotiating and Conflict Management. I was already good at certain kinds of negotiating, but it helped put a finer point on my abilities.

jadbox• 7 years ago

Can anyone recommend a good book for small self-funded first time founders? I'd like a book that has substance with information about filing as an LLC, non-profit pro/cons, finding your first investor, pitch deck tips, etc. Many of these books are meant for VC backed founders with 10+ employees.

technics256• 7 years ago

I would look at the stripe atlas guides:

https://stripe.com/atlas/guides

idlewords• 7 years ago

I was going to say that Kiyosaki is a charlatan and people should steer clear, but that goes for most of these authors. Keep in mind that founder books are not written by people who are good at starting a business, but people who are good at telling stories to wannabes.

eropple• 7 years ago

Was going to say similar. "Don't dig for gold, get others to pay you to tell them that they'll be successful and cool and attractive for digging for gold."

reneherse• 7 years ago

Kiyosaki may be just a talented storyteller, but his book was highly recommended to me by an undeniably successful source: a friend's father who emigrated to the US with nothing and built a fortune in real estate while working as an ER surgeon and raising a family.

I advise people to ignore Kiyosaki's other products, but the message of the books Rich Dad Poor Dad and Cashflow is pretty sound.

pilingual2• 7 years ago

Kiyosaki is a charlatan

If you want to validate this claim, go to a local bookstore and review some of the charts. The charts are disingenuous and fit to his narrative.

povertyworld3• 7 years ago

I didn't see any sales books. Are there any good sales books? Especially on details like how to generate leads? Every sales book is like "go into the office during your key hours for selling and start making calls, then when you're talking to a prospect do x,y,z". Yeah, great, where do I get this list of prospects to call? Some books have said to look at publicly available personnel lists for places you want to sell to and then start cold calling, determine who the decision maker is for the organization from there, and then get to that person. Really? Maybe, I guess. Others wave this away by saying some other person will generate qualified leads through advertising or something. OK, what if I don't have some other guy to do that? How do I do that? Any books that make this a little less magical?

reubenswartz• 7 years ago

Check out Predictable Revenue.

https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practice...

ptrott20172• 7 years ago

Doesnt have to be magical. Assuming for enterprise or B2B sales:

Determine who your target customers are by industry/sector ie who is your product for.

Determine who are the top 1000 companies / orgs in that sector (Linked in/ NAIC codes, SIC codes).

If you have a budget you can buy lead lists from SIC, of you dont have, plan for about 2 man weeks to put together a good starter list of companies and prospective contacts.

Once you have your list of companies - id who your prospective user is by role. e.g. who will use your product? What is a likely job title / role? Use linkedin to find folks in that role or with that Job title? work out your value propositiion for your product. Boil it down to 2/ 3 lines.

With a short subset of your initial prospect list. Either cold call / email / linkedin message your targets with your value prop and work out from there: - which contact method works (e.g. email / phone / linkedin) - who the buyer is - does your user have purchase power - great you know who to sell to. - What is their pricing sensitivity? - IF they dont have purchase power who does -either ask (best) or assume next person in the chain - who do they report to. again identify role/ title and try them.

As you do this your looking to learn how to contact your prospect; who will use your product? Who will buy your product? What is the purchase process? What is the price point?

Based on your learning and each iteration of testing your sales hypothesis– refine your target prospect role/title, refine your value prop, your sales point, your sales process (to match their purchase process e.g. is it simply they buy with credit card from your website or does it go through an enterprise buyer… )

Now go back to your full company list and iterate through using linkedin and search engine to find folks who match your target role / prospect and enter these into your prospect list.

You now have a starting sales list. Contact them, qualify and try to make sales.

If you need further reading see any of the books on this list: https://blog.closeriq.com/2018/11/enterprise-sales-books/

and - Transparency sale by Todd Caponi. https://www.amazon.com/Transparency-Sale-Unexpected-Understa...

Good luck.

yread• 7 years ago

This is a bit like r/restofthefuckingowl.

If you need more concrete guide with what exactly to say during sales calls try

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57daf6098419c27febcd4...

leonroy• 7 years ago

This post is gold, thanks @ptrott2017.

I've figured out about 50% of the stuff in this post already (hard won), but if anyone's starting out this content pretty much sums up the majority of B2B and B2E sales steps.

I'd add that with some of the higher value sells send them content or news articles which might be useful to them as an ice breaker. Establishing a genuine rapport is always a nice plus, especially if it shows that you understand their pain points.

Also if you have a prospect in mind ping them about something they've posted then wait a week or two before you pitch them with your proposition. Helps make it feel less like a one way transaction.

pilingual2• 7 years ago

How I raised myself from failure to success by Frank Bettger. In my opinion this is a Great Book. It’s also recommended by Tyler Bosmney, founder of Clever.

thucydides• 7 years ago

For those subjects, Major Account Sales Strategy by Rackham is good.

Another Rackham book, SPIN Selling, is also a classic.

jkuria• 7 years ago

A great sales book is The Ultimate Sales Machine. Here's a summary:

https://capitalandgrowth.org/articles/893/book-summary-the-u...

mukashoo• 7 years ago

Read some of these on Blinkist. After reading several dozen Blinkist summaries, these self help / entrepreneurial books all start to sound mostly the same. I’d say each book seems to have just one or two key takeaways that differentiates it from other books in its field.

Thoughts on book summary services such as Blinkist?

kkaranth• 7 years ago

I find a lot of these books too abstract. I much prefer books about people and their methods and accomplishments, as opposed to books that try to distill what they perceive as common characteristics of "succesful" people/businesses. Currently I'm reading "The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation" and its quite wonderful.

"Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla" is a good read as well.

pushpendra7• 7 years ago

Just checked the postmake website, it's great for solo entrepreneur. Thanks for curating those lists.

ssamuli• 7 years ago

Looking at first 5 or so pages, I've read a lot of these. Good stuff but seems very unilateral view on the world and I think could be unhealthy for founders to focus too much on startups.

Not sure what is the right mix, but some of the most motivating reads for me were:

- Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture

- iWoz

- The Soul of a New Machine

- Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

- Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary

- The Mighty Micro: Impact of the Computer Revolution

- Accidental Empires

- The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity

- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

xenator3• 7 years ago

I know only two from your list:

- Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary

- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

These 2 is one of the best books about philosophy and the world of ideas I've ever read.

W-Stool• 7 years ago

Soul of a New Machine and Masters of Doom are both outstanding. They're at the top of my list.

xenator3• 7 years ago

I know this is not a popular point of view, but I'm also read a big pile of these books. And from my perspective (I'm living far from the US) there is a very big gap between nice theory and the real world. I'm trying to be positive about things but the real help in my business I've got from different sources. Maybe this is my own way, but after a few years of studying books like this from "business" shelf, I barely moved to the place where I'm now.

For example, a few months with a therapist gave me more resources than hundreds of hours I've spent on videos and "startup books". Best books I've read in the last 3-5 years was Martian by Andy Weir, and Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy by Liu Cixin. Very inspiring for me as engineer. Few videos about how to organize personal finances on Youtube gave me financial ground.

fabiandesimone• 7 years ago

Mind sharing the finance videos?

xenator3• 7 years ago

It was many months ago, so I did some research now and I think these share the same ideas. First is about the basic idea of long term financial management [1], and these two [2] close to me since we also have a big family. Probably this is a very basic level for many people, but since my parents never had positive money management habits (my parents family from ex-USSR) it was the real breakthrough for me.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJB90G-tsgo

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulr1HAaF_JU, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKU5bEf192A

davidivadavid• 7 years ago

Have people been reading the same 10 books over the last 10 years? Those are almost exclusively content-light business books with a couple insights here and there. I hope people who pride themselves on contrarianism every other day have other reading materials.

allie1• 7 years ago

Few suggestions that didn't make that list: The Innovator's Dilemma (and everything by) - Clayton M. Christensen Measure What Matters - John Doerr Obstacle is the Way - Ryan Holiday Factfulness - Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Hans Rosling, and Ola Rosling Grit - Angela Duckworth

099812477• 7 years ago

Even more recommendations, in addition to those already posted: https://www.productgems.io/library/

cowmix• 7 years ago

Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure from Jerry Kaplan is missing. 25 years old yet ripped from today's headlines.

ibudiallo• 7 years ago

One book is missing. I've read most of these books and the one that helped me most as a startup founder is Disrupted by Dan Lyons. Comedy aside it was a true eye opener.

In the startup silicon echo chamber, you hear the same things over and over until you start to believe it. In fact, when I read many of these books, nothing came as a surprise because that's all the startup world talks about anyway.

Disrupted made fun of the things that I thought were pretty normal. One example is the culture were building in our own startup. We focused so much on the right culture fit that we got some of the worst people to work with us. And we couldn't see that it was all our fault.

Get a book that has an opposing view of your world. From time to time, someone has to make fun of us or we start to take ourselves too seriously.

topherPedersen• 7 years ago

I like the ads actually. Nice piece of content marketing.

jyriand• 7 years ago

I have read or skinned most of the books on the first page. Not really sure how much I gained from them as it seems that this has become mainstream knowledge already and you hear about these ideas everywhere.

I'm currently using Joel Spolsky's reading list when I need a good book. Here's the link: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/11/22/reading-list-fog-c...

Lot of good books I didn't even know about.

xtracto• 7 years ago

Great list, thank you.

zengid• 7 years ago

This might be off topic or contrarian but I've been reading _Company_of_One_ by Paul Jarvis and I really enjoy his thesis that not all tech companies need to grow into large businesses. You can just have a small single operator business that focuses on making a better product and more efficient process instead of growth.

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