Hacker News Books

Creativity, Inc. is also one of the best books on management.

I say this with reverence for the work of Peter Drucker and W. Edwards Deming.

I recently read Creativity, Inc. By Ed Catmull. I enjoyed the book because of the stories behind Pixar's growth and importance of candor in their culture.

Creativity, Inc. - Ed Catmull.

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big - Scott Adams

Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed - Ben Rich

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey

I definitely agree with getting value from books about companies/people you admire. I think it's more memorable to read about real people's actions and lifestyles as opposed to reading "how-to" or "self-help" books, though I read those too and have received value from them as well.

Here are some books I'd recommend in the former vein:

1. Elon Musk - as mentioned, awesome, inspiring read

2. Creativity, Inc. - Ed Catmull's story of Pixar

3. Masters of Doom - Carmack is a boss

4. The Innovators - The people who created the computing world

5. Hackers - The people who created the computing world

6. Steve Jobs - obligatory, whether positive/negative

For anyone looking for a deeper dive into how Pixar iterates on their movies and how highly-functioning creative teams can work in general, Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull is a really interesting book.

It goes into the history of Pixar and some of the detail of how they work with actual stories from the movies they've made. One of my favorite anecdotes from the book is how they nearly almost lost all the work they did on Toy Story 2 and almost went under.

One caveat is that the book doesn't cover the news about John Lasseter's misconduct, so it's not all roses, of course.

Disappointed to hear this after I just finished reading Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull (Pixar's main founder and graphics pioneer) which attributes Pixar's continued success mostly to a culture of extreme candor and honesty... Considering how long this was an issue I guess some things are too good to be true.

I just finished Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull who was one of the founders of Pixar and current president. Highly recommend the book for anyone on HN.

In the book Ed Catmull wrote that Steve Jobs would say regularly "as brilliant as Apple products were, eventually they all ended up in landfills."

Gives you some pause to realize how quickly Apple's business could be relegated to the trashbin with no new products to pick up the baton.

Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
It's the story of Pixar and there's so many things I enjoyed about this book. It helped validate for me many of my instincts in running a creative business.

The Martian by Andy Weir
I very much enjoyed the story and how it was all approached.

Seven Eves by Neil Stephenson
Similar to his other books (Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon) I've gifted these a few times. I really enjoy his method of storytelling and his stories appeal to the geek in me as well.

The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg (highly recommended)

Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson (recommended)

Modern Romance - Aziz Ansari (audiobook recommended)

Boomerang - Michael Lewis (great if you have a light interest in macroeconomics)

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (recommended)

Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell (recommended)

Joyland - Stephen King (great, short read)

Creativity, Inc. - Ed Catmull (Parts on the history of Pixar were interesting)

- Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39088590-gene-machine) - by the Nobel Prize-winning discoverer of the ribosome, Venki Ramakrishnan, in the same vein as The Double Helix. Highly recommended.

- Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1842.Guns_Germs_and_Steel)

- Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18077903-creativity-inc) - about Pixar's internal culture

- An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18170143-an-astronaut-s-g...)

Here are a couple but just reading through them, I think they are lacking. I need to think more about why. I suspect it's about tactics vs. principles.

For example the one talks about pre and post mortems. I have seen those done badly first hand where they do NOT create psychological safety.

Anyways, check these out but do so with an inquisitive mind.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Psychological Safety from NOBL Academy
https://app.getpocket.com/read/2567268015

Tool: Foster psychological safety
https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/understanding-team-effe...

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Before Google came along with Project Aristotle there was W. Edwards Deming, who advocated "driving out fear" in reference to creating psychological safety.

Here's a blog post with some ideas from Deming's work. You'll see things at the tactics level but also much at the system level, like stack ranking is a bad idea for psychological safety.

Much of Deming's work had manufacturing as its context but an enterprising mind can see how it relates to knowledge work and other endeavors. Read Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull to see how he used ideas from Deming to build their systems and culture.

https://michelbaudin.com/2012/10/27/deming_8_of_14_drive_out...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18077903-creativity-inc