Hacker News Books

Not a new book; I’m reading The Checklist Manifesto [0]

I’m very impressed by how much is has clarified the importance of identifying repeatable steps for my team and ensuring they are accurately and successfully completed!

I’m looking forward to reading The Infinite Game [1]

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6667514-the-checklist-ma...
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38390751-the-infinite-ga...

Everything by Simon Sinek, but most important for me is "Leaders Eat Last" [0]. I haven't read the last one (The Infinite Game), but I've heard it's pretty good as well.

Also Extreme Ownership [1] and Dichotomy of Leadership [2] by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.

All of these books had tremendous impact on me as a leader and I highly recommend them.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/B...

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs-eboo...

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Dichotomy-Leadership-Balancing-Challe...

See also: The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. Great read (based on a previous work, Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse) on the need to play on a different playing field than the one that supposedly has a 'winner' and a 'loser.' Applies to companies, individuals, organizations, relationships...you get the idea.

To beat a dead analogy, if you're climbing to reach the top 'ledge' you started out looking for, you might not start...or you might climb with such a singular focus that you miss another path that would take you off to the side and up another, higher route.

Edited for formatting.

I am a US citizen but I try to keep up with tech and economics also for China and the EU.

I think all three regions are fragile, non-robust.

I am reading The Infinite Game which convinced me that the global winner will be the region that makes its citizens feel safe and adequately supported to individually reach their potential.

Lack of freedom in China and corrupt corporatism and federal government in the US almost makes me bet on the EU, but they have huge problems (Deutsch Bank, southern country's’ debt, etc.)

I'm currently reading The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek, and he talks about exactly that: is your game finite or infinite? If infinite (like any business), there is no "winning" in that kind of "game" because there are so many standards by which one could say he beats the competition (win): is it market share, cashflow, valuation, innovation?...

Symbian was probably right about how it was handling of security, but it "lost" by disappearing from the game.

So, as of this comment, all I know is that Simon Sinek has a book called The Infinite Game. This book has an interesting premise, about which I just read a short writeup and analysis. I have also been told that Sinek has excellent presentation skills.

Strangely, in the middle of these two comments, I was told that people should not take anything from Simon Sinek. Why?

"...a company is not cause driven because they sponsor walkathons, donate to charity or give employees paid time off to volunteer[...]Service is not an ornament. It is a touchstone. And no amount of corporate social responsibility is enough to offset or balance the finite focus that may consume the rest of the corporate culture"

- Simon Sinek, "The Infinite Game"

An excellent book that I'm recommending more and more.

I'm typically a Simon Sinek fan but (The Infinite Game) left a poor taste in my mouth.

I had just finished (Finite and Infinite Games) by James P. Carse. He normally does a great job distilling information from mulitple sources, but in this case it seemed like he added nothing, condensed nothing, and in my opinion came really close to just rewriting the first 1/2 of someone else's book and calling it a new thing.

I'm not calling it plagiarism, he's obviously too smart to cross that line. But if you read the books you will see what I mean.

From startups to stalwarts - this is the norm. Wall Street / Investors first. Infinite and ridiculous QoQ / YoY growth expectations and a lot of really dumb approaches to achieve this. And executive pay that's way out of line. I just read "The Infinite Game" [0] and while a lot of the book rehashes many oft heard stories amidst well known companies and people as examples it makes the clear point that given our hyper focus on short term profits we pay the price in the long run. I don't disagree and I've been in roughly eight different tech companies over the last 12 years. From startups to companies that do more than a billion annually. They're all doing the same thing. The executives can't even hear themselves admit it, which is the really interesting part.

Case in point I was on a call where an executive stated: "We're moving to a subscription model in our product because, to go public, that's what Wall Street is going to want to see". Not because that's where customer demand is, or because it makes sense for the business. But this short sighted rationale to meet a short term goal inorganically. Wall Street and VCs are very much no different than the influencer marketing crowd. They just happen to pretend and purport they're good at growing business, when the real MO is lining pockets.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38390751-the-infinite-ga...

I think the root problem is that both political parties portray the other party as an existential threat to our country. Personally I think this is absurd: our country (USA) is strong enough to survive either the republicans or democrats in control of both houses or Congress and the White House. No, the country will not crash and burn depending on which party the elites and corporate news media happens to put in power.

When the Cold War ended, we (the US) lost our Worthy Rival (in the sense discussed in the book The Infinite Game). During the Cold War, both political parties agreed to get along because of an external rival. We now have several Worthy Rivals but fail to realize that, so as a country we have nothing to rally around except for an inaccurate belief in American Exceptualism.

I am hopeful that all of the problems (political, COVID 19, economy, and racism) that we face might unite the country.

As for Facebook acting in our public interest: I will believe it if it ever actually happens.